Giving Whm an identity

[Raikai]

WHM strongest personal/selfish DPS pure healer
AST strongest raid/support DPS pure healer
SGE strongest personal/selfish DPS shield healer
SCH strongest raid/support DPS shield healer.

There, space for everyone.

Basically, this.

But seriously, WHM needs something other than just 'immense powerful overhealing', because it's literally useless in any serious group... And equally useless in normal random queues. In the latter, if people are taking so much damage that this overhealing turns out to be actually useful, then it's more likely it is a failed run anyway.

[Semirhage]

WHM strongest personal/selfish DPS pure healer
AST strongest raid/support DPS pure healer
SGE strongest personal/selfish DPS shield healer
SCH strongest raid/support DPS shield healer.

There, space for everyone.

The thing that's always been the killer for attempts to make WHM's selfish DPS an actual niche is the design around it all. WHM just doesn't have the weaving or oGCD space that SCH or AST do, which exaggerates the hard stops in damage dealing that tank WHM's personal contribution. It's really weird, because you'd think that needing to hard stop your damage for healing is perfect for healers that, you know, contribute a lot to damage through their support abilities, because the targets of their buffs continue to deal damage while they've stopped their damage dealing to heal. But it's the opposite. The healer that loses the most from stopping their damage output is also the healer with the fewest tools to mitigate that. And it's pretty clear in the logs what this causes, expansion after expansion.

[GrimGale]

The thing that's always been the killer for attempts to make WHM's selfish DPS an actual niche is the design around it all. WHM just doesn't have the weaving or oGCD space that SCH or AST do, which exaggerates the hard stops in damage dealing that tank WHM's personal contribution. It's really weird, because you'd think that needing to hard stop your damage for healing is perfect for healers that, you know, contribute a lot to damage through their support abilities, because the targets of their buffs continue to deal damage while they've stopped their damage dealing to heal. But it's the opposite. The healer that loses the most from stopping their damage output is also the healer with the fewest tools to mitigate that. And it's pretty clear in the logs what this causes, expansion after expansion.

Honestly, considering how Scholar used to be in FFXI (unique access to strong regen spells Regen VI and Embrava), you'd think the Job with the slow damage over time would also be the one to use healing over time (And a fairy that also uses heal over time). WHM in FFXI was the "Protector" healer, with Stoneskin, Bar spells (Status prevention shields) and so on. Feels like WHM and SCH are flipped around when it comes to what they should do best.

[BaconBits]

I have Visine droppers installed on the underside of my brow bones. They get a good re-wetting every time my eyes roll up there.

Mind telling me where you got them installed? If I see one more "WHM needs to stay simple" post my eyes will actually turn into dust

[Roeshel]

I started dealing damage in Sastasha. Naturally. Because I've played a healer before. And I know that means keeping people at 100% HP all the time is a fool's game.

When you played your first mmo, did it come naturally to you to dps in dungeons as a healer? I really doubt that it did.

Mind telling me where you got them installed? If I see one more "WHM needs to stay simple" post my eyes will actually turn into dust

You guys are kinda hypocritical. You say that you don't like the homogenisation(I am jumping to a conclusion here because most ppl complaining about healer roles are against the homogenisation as well) of the healer classes yet you want whm to play the same way as the other two healer classes. It is easy to reduce glare's cast, and turn the lily spells into ogcds and have whm play exactly the same as ast or give whm an instant strike attack like the sch. But it is a whm at the end of the day not another copy of ast or sch. It's gameplay must feel different first and foremost and currently feels a lot different than the other two healers. And yes, it must stay different and hopefully it will, regardless of what you guys think.

[Jandor]

When you played your first mmo, did it come naturally to you to dps in dungeons as a healer? I really doubt that it did.

Why wouldn't it come naturally? Nearly every game in existence makes you deal damage with your character.

[Shurrikhan]

When you played your first mmo, did it come naturally to you to dps in dungeons as a healer?

Yes. Yes it did.

[Rilifane]

When you played your first mmo, did it come naturally to you to dps in dungeons as a healer? I really doubt that it did.

It did.
It took maybe 2-3 pulls for me to notice that I have enough time to dot everything, followed by as much Smite spam as my mana allowed when I healed my first dungeon in Vanilla WoW. And with tighter mana and far tighter aggro management and hit being a thing, it was the most risky and punishing time for healers to dps.

You guys are kinda hypocritical. You say that you don't like the homogenisation(I am jumping to a conclusion here because most ppl complaining about healer roles are against the homogenisation as well) of the healer classes yet you want whm to play the same way as the other two healer classes. It is easy to reduce glare's cast, and turn the lily spells into ogcds and have whm play exactly the same as ast or give whm an instant strike attack like the sch. But it is a whm at the end of the day not another copy of ast or sch. It's gameplay must feel different first and foremost and currently feels a lot different than the other two healers. And yes, it must stay different and hopefully it will, regardless of what you guys think.

Relying on oGCDs is. Not. An. Identity. Being braindead is not an identity either.
Nor is it homogenization by default when there are countless ways to design oGCDs. Delayed heal, decaying heal, triggered heal, regen, shields, ground target heal, oGCDs tied to resources and synergies open up a lot of ways to design oGCDs. If you think that every healer will play the same just because the use skills tagged as "Ability" over "Spell", that's on you.
SCH is "WHM plus something cool, but different from AST" and AST is "WHM plus something cool, but different from SCH", not the other way around.

[Roeshel]

Relying on oGCDs is. Not. An. Identity. Being braindead is not an identity either.

WHM currently has GCDs tied to resources. And if they didn't lose any potency they would have been just as good as an ogcd, even better since you would get the time needed to weave 2 additional oGCDs after using a lily. It is not like the current design is a complete failure, small adjustments need to be made to enable whms to play optimally.

What I mean by small adjustments is removing the dps loss from using a lily and maybe change benison so that it nourishes the gauge and gives one lily per cast. It is a water spell, after all, it's kinda thematic if you ask me. The same thing could be done for fluid Aura so that it stays relevant. Kinda like how Ninja's Mug Shot is relevant because it charges up the ninja Ninki Gauge despite it dealing almost no dps.

Revamp plenary. Make it a gcd spell that consumes a lily because most of my clipping comes from wanting to activate plenary before using afflatus rapture. It will be a gcd but it will have its own recast timer for balance purposes something like gnb's dot. Also, change what it does because to get the most value out of that spell right you will just end up overhealing. Maybe instead of having the 200/400/600/800 cure potency healed right now, they can be stored up for the second AoE. Or you know, it can just become a party-wide regen healing spell that comes with no dps loss kinda like Ast's Celestial Opposition.

Make Tetra a dps neutral water regen ogcd and make it charge up the lilies. You already have 700 neutral cure potency from Afflatus Solace.

Make Thin Air interact with your lily gauge. Instead of nullifying mp requirements for gcd heals make it so that it allows for the execution of lily spells without consuming a lily.

Last but not least, introduce the lily system at level 30, when you become a white mage. Ast and SCH both have their gauges before level 50. Also, remove the passive charging of the lily gauge. You already have 3 ogcds from which you get lilies. You need to start pressing your buttons to have access to your whole kit, just like sch and ast. At level 30 you get Presence of mind as well, so this would be a great way to make that ability interact with your lily gauge. It can be smth like a party-wide that is unlocked only if you have 3 lilies stored.

Now adjust all of the cure and damage potencies so that the class is balanced.

This is the kind of change I would like to see for whm. It still remains a gcd healer which is its identity. The changes I proposed are not that big in my opinion. They are only expanding on what is already there and making different abilities interact with one another so that the person playing the role gets the sense that the skills are not randomly put in the whm's kit.

[Shurrikhan]

WHM currently has GCDs tied to resources. And if they didn't lose any potency they would have been just as good as an ogcd, even better since you would get the time needed to weave 2 additional oGCDs after using a lily.

Okay, yes, objectively true, so long as there aren't additional dependent opportunities attached to the GCDs in necessary (uptime-)conflict with those (e.g. Lily) GCDs.

maybe change benison so that it nourishes the gauge and gives one lily per cast.

You're talking about literally doubling their Lily generation, allowing for a Misery every 30 or 60 seconds, cycling (or, at an average of 45s; split the cake as you like).

Make it a gcd spell that consumes a lily because most of my clipping comes from wanting to activate plenary before using afflatus rapture.

So long as it feeds the Blood Lily. Moreover, you could just have it go back to an earlier design, whereby it's automatically charged by the number of AoE spells cast in the last 10 seconds for follow-up potency, rather than frontloading added potency to each.

Make Tetra a dps neutral water regen ogcd and make it charge up the lilies.

And with that we're now 8 Lilies generated per 90 seconds, up from 3. Or, a Misery available per ~34 seconds...

Make Thin Air interact with your lily gauge. Instead of nullifying mp requirements for gcd heals make it so that it allows for the execution of lily spells without consuming a lily.

Not an outright horrible idea, but I don't see the need for Lightspeed(-but-better-except-in-that-it-can't-be-used-to-DPS-and-actually-forces-delay-in-Misery-casts). By the time you've that kind of resource, it just adds to WHM's historic problem: overhealing. What use is all that weave-space if the weave-space can only be spent on heals, and you're already trucking the meters?

Last but not least, introduce the lily system at level 30, when you become a white mage. Ast and SCH both have their gauges before level 50.

AST and SCH primary gauges (Cards and Aetherflow) also have -- or at least use to have -- useful, choiceful, and thematic utility attached, rather than just an extra-Swiftcast-but-limited-to-heals-and-eventually-made-to-refund-offensive-uptime-costs system that's clearly been tacked on in a non-integral fashion. Let's not call the deer, the deer, and the deer-bits-a-week-since-run-over equally venison here.

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While I agree with you that Lilies are not a terrible design, I agree with Rilifane that what you seem here to take as a sufficient center for a job's identity... isn't even close to sufficient.