QoL suggestions for WHM.

[inhaledcorn]

What about a compromise of letting Thin Air be unlocked at 50 with 1 charge and we unlock the 2nd charge at the current level we learn it at? Not a perfect solution but it maintains Assize while still addressing low level MP issues somewhat.

Allow me to offer a counter proposal for Assize. If we want to keep Assize the way it is, I would like to see it more useful as a healing tool.

Assize

Type: Ability

Recast: 60s

Effect: Deals unaspected damage to all nearby enemies with a potency of 400 as well as restoring 8% of MP to self.

Additional effect: Places "Confession" on self and all near-by party members. Changes "Assize" to "Plenary Indulgence".

Confession duration: 30s

Confession effect: For each 10s that pass while "Confession" is active on a player, gain one "Confession" stack (max 3). When "Plenary Indulgence" is activated, or when the duration of "Confession" ends, a heal is triggered equaling 200 potency for each Confession stack.

Honestly, I don't think Rein_eon_Osborne had a bad idea. I just think it was executed poorly. This should hopefully let Plenary and Assize be better utilized as they're intended. I got the idea since I was looking at what made Earthly Star and Horoscope so effective as healing tools and why Assize and Plenary aren't. The main difference is control. Earthly Star could be placed early, but it's mainly used at the 11s-20s mark. Horoscope can either be a small heal, or a big heal later when used in conjunction with AST's Asp./Helios. This follows a similar idea while still keeping Assize's identity of being a damage and healing tool but putting more control back in the player's hands. You're still pressing it on cooldown, but now you can really take advantage of the healing aspect it brings.

[Silver-Strider]

Putting Assize on a longer CD would further hamper WHM's MP economy.
Also, WHM needs more oGCDs, not less, so merging Assize and PI just takes away from WHM's toolkit as a whole instead of expanding on them.
Finally, this version of Assize/PI would be a nerf because you would have to wait a minimum of 10 seconds just to match Assize's current Healing potency while also removing the AoE buffer that PI currently is, just for a 200 potency gain after 20 seconds.

I understand the desire to make Assize more useful as a Healing tool, however, this is not how you do it. Personally, I honestly don't think there is a good way to make current Assize into a Healing Tool because it has MP restore attached to it and that alone makes it much more important than the actual heal, while the damage component just compounds that issue even further. That isn't to say it can't be made into a useful tool for WHM but I don't think making it heal is the way to go about it. If it offered a Shield effect or reduced the damage enemies did, it would still be a useful tool for WHM to utilize but there are times when the heal on Assize is actually useful so even that idea isn't without its flaws.. The buff suggestion could work also, so that you could manually trigger the heal as needed but building stacks in order for it to heal just as much as it currently does isn't the greatest suggestions cause there will be instances when you need the heal immediately and you'd get less out of it as a result. It would need to heal for a flat amount that is equal to, or more than, what Assize currently heals for while the buff is active for it to see usage as a healing tool but since the MP restore and Damage components are still there, it's not guaranteed that you'll need the heal during that time either so even that idea, while probably the best compromise, has its limits too.

Either the Damage/MP restore on Assize need to be placed on an alternative skill or the healing component needs to be changed because Assize just has too much going on with it to be effective as a healing skill.

[Liam_Harper]

Assize needs charges and the Thin Air nerf needs to be reverted.

I'm baffled that they took on the idea of dps neutral heal GCD's and adding charges to things and somehow ignored the ability that needed it the most. WHM has another 2 years of Assize being entirely unreliable as a heal because you blow it on cooldown for dps.

The Thin Air nerf disturbs me and gives me the impression that the devs have the same opinion as some of the inexperienced sylphies that we have here, that WHM is the "best healer", that it's a "healing powerhouse because, omg Plenary + Thin Air + Cure III spam = healing god!". There was no reason to nerf WHM and buff AST even further except misunderstanding and lack of knowledge on how healers work.

[inhaledcorn]

Putting Assize on a longer CD would further hamper WHM's MP economy.

I tried to make up for that with a greater increase on the MP gain (8% instead of 5%, but I admit I might be a bit conservative in my adjustment). I just think a 45s timer is a bit awkward to work with in the current iteration of the skill since it doesn't sit cleanly in the 60s buff timer window, which is generally when you want to use it for the damage aspect (since it will line up with major and minor buff windows). And the 45s timer makes it weird for the healing aspect since this is a skill that wants to be used generally on cooldown because of the damage and MP restore.

Either the Damage/MP restore on Assize need to be placed on an alternative skill or the healing component needs to be changed because Assize just has too much going on with it to be effective as a healing skill.

This I agree with. I only suggested Confession stacks because I just remember how Confession used to work in Stormblood. I also feel like, if you're getting a person to confess for longer, they're going to confess more and more sins. Just my two cents on the matter. If we bump up the base heal to 400, it would match the current Assize heal at 1 stack, but I think it would get kinda absurd the more stacks you get. I avoided the shield aspect since WHM isn't really a barrier healer, at least it isn't supposed to be. Or, we just don't bother with the stacks and just have it be a delayed 400 pot heal.

[inhaledcorn]

Assize needs charges and the Thin Air nerf needs to be reverted.

I'm baffled that they took on the idea of dps neutral heal GCD's and adding charges to things and somehow ignored the ability that needed it the most. WHM has another 2 years of Assize being entirely unreliable as a heal because you blow it on cooldown for dps.

The Thin Air nerf disturbs me and gives me the impression that the devs have the same opinion as some of the inexperienced sylphies that we have here, that WHM is the "best healer", that it's a "healing powerhouse because, omg Plenary + Thin Air + Cure III spam = healing god!". There was no reason to nerf WHM and buff AST even further except misunderstanding and lack of knowledge on how healers work.

I think the Thin Air change could work, but only if it costs Lilies, and WHM gets more tools to restore MP (like my Fluid Aura suggestion, and maybe even slapping some MP restore on Misery).

Like, I think if Thin Air was like this:

Thin Air

Type: Ability

Recast: 1s

Duration: 10s

Effect: Your next healing spell or Raise will cost 0 MP.

Additional Effect: If the effect of Thin Air is consumed, it will nourish the Blood Lily

Personally, I was kinda surprised there wasn't an Afflatus version of Medica II. This change essentially puts all of WHM's healing on the Lily System. Afflatus Solace/Rapture still have their benefits of being instant-cast, but this makes WHM's GCD heals less painful to use. Of course, this change only really works if Misery is adjusted to being true DPS neutral, and, again, WHM has enough ways to regenerate MP. The way things are looking as we head into EW, it does not.

Side note: Presence of Mind should also reduce the cost of spells while active, kinda like how Lightspeed and Blood Weapon used to do the same for MP/TP.

[Silver-Strider]

Putting it on Charges wouldn't really solve anything. Unless heal checks became increasingly more difficult to warrant holding Assize for purely healing purposes, then maybe people would hold 1 charge but since that's as likely to happen as SE giving Healers a DPS rotation, it would only exacerbate the issue of Assize being used for DPS purposes, rather than solve it.

Assize is a mess of a skill as is because it was designed with Cleric Stance in mind. It was an active choice in whether the skill healed or did damage but now with that choice gone, it's left as just a free DPS option that restores MP with a side of healing attached. It's the same as E.Drain in that, you are purposefully forgoing extra heals in place of damage because DPS is king in this game and Assize feeds into that mentality so there's really nothing that can be done for Assize.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

snippity snip

After re-reading the chat history w/ my friend, I have to add that one of the reason we thought about turning Assize into GCD was a mere hypothetical situation where we won’t get the ‘lazy’ QoL that is healers’ 1.5s cast times, so we were trying to find other ways to give WHM some mobility. Two charged Assize on GCD was our answer. (We then moved on to talk about giving other healers unique means of movement but we’re just speaking of WHM specifically in this thread)

It was also touched about the potential waste of confession stacks in favor for dps gain, hence in our discussion we even thought about giving the stack confession as long as 60s duration to make sure it will get a use at some point within that lengthy duration. I didn’t add 60s specifically cause I’d like to know if perhaps the board has something better to add. To counter the possibility of stacking 3 confessions during pre-pull (lol 135s WHM prepull xD), we made it strictly for within combat.

Potency wise we’d still like to see it as a dps gain just like the current Clipsize so it retains the 400p. Cure potency was nerf’ed to counter the sheer flexibility of that 60s duration and being stackable. But perhaps even 350p is still too potent, now that I think about it.

Giving them charges is to ensure it offers more flexibility that is akin to AST’s Essential Dignity usage: 1 for spot healing, another reserved for whatever.

Freeing up the lv70 capstone for something else is to ensure WHM can learn something useful in its place other than their bruteforce healing capability—to bring them closer in performance w/ other healers.

Plenary Indulgence
Place 3 Confession stacks to self and nearby allies
Upon receiving HP recovery via Medica, Medica II, Cure III, or Afflatus Rapture cast by self, uses a Confession to trigger an additional healing effect. Upon the duration finishing, Heal for 200 Potency per remaining Confession Stacks.
Cure Potency: 200
Duration: 15 seconds

Is it just me or that looks like a mini Lilybell?

[Silver-Strider]

In essence, Lilybell and PI are the same, both in my own suggestion and in SE's current form of them, Lilybell is just more potent and isn't reliant on the WHM using AoE heals to work. It's honestly one of the reasons I hate Lilybell because it's just a more potent PI in the best case scenario and a worse Earthly Star in the worst case scenario.

I mean, if I was to cast Medica 1 during the duration of PI and Lilybell, the only difference is that Lilybell would heal for an extra 1k potency over PI before both ran out. They literally added a 2nd charge to PI and called it a different skill and people didn't catch it because "Pretty Flower".

[Silver-Strider]

This I agree with. I only suggested Confession stacks because I just remember how Confession used to work in Stormblood. I also feel like, if you're getting a person to confess for longer, they're going to confess more and more sins. Just my two cents on the matter. If we bump up the base heal to 400, it would match the current Assize heal at 1 stack, but I think it would get kinda absurd the more stacks you get. I avoided the shield aspect since WHM isn't really a barrier healer, at least it isn't supposed to be. Or, we just don't bother with the stacks and just have it be a delayed 400 pot heal.

Ok, so this is how we're going to fix Assize, give low level WHM an MP restore that will follow it throughout the game and still follows the current philosophy of keeping Button Bloat to a minimum via trait upgrades.

Protect - Reduces damage taken by a party member or self by 8% for 8 seconds.
Additional Effect: Gradually restores own MP
Potency:40
Duration: 18 seconds
CD: 60 Seconds
Unlock at level 16. Turns into Aqua Veil at 86. oGCD

Fluid Aura - Deals Water Damage with a potency of 200 to target
CD: 45 seconds.
Unlock at level 15. Turns to Assize at level 56. oGCD

Assize - Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 400 to all nearby enemies and grants Shell to self and neaby party members
Shell Additional Effect: Upon activation or duration's end, restore HP
Cure potency: 400
Duration: 15 seconds
CD: 45 Seconds.

Aqua Veil - Reduces damage taken by a party member or self by 15% for 8 seconds.
Additional Effect: Gradually restores own MP
Potency: 40
Duration: 18 seconds
CD: 60 seconds.

If my Math is correct ( I doubt it but someone will correct me I'm sure) this would mean that Protect/Aqua Veil would restore 480 MP per tic of their refresh, so 2,880 MP per duration. I don't know the exact math on that in terms if it would be more or less powerful than 5% on 45 seconds that current Assize grants so if someone could enlighten me, that would be great. Anyways, the idea is to move the MP restore from Assize to another ability while also giving Assize a minor healing adjustment so that it can be used as a healing tool without sacrificing its damage component.

I'm trying so hard to make this as balanced as possible and it's killing me but I hope that would at least make low level WHM less of a chore to play.

[inhaledcorn]

<snip>

I mentioned it before that the 45s timer is awkward to work with since you're going to miss raid buff windows. That's why I moved the cooldown timer back but increased the MP restore. Additionally, while I'm not against Protect returning, putting an MP refresh there seems very strange since it feels like that's something that should be a part of the buff. I'm not saying it's bad, but I will say it feels weird. I just don't think Assize can stay as a Heal/DPS tool anymore, and it needs to be split into its components. This way, we can put both things on a 2 charge, 45s timer and get the most out of both the healing aspects and the damage aspects of Assize.