WHM Desperately Needs An Overhaul

[HyperiusUltima]

Low APM is fine as far as I'm concerned, but existing spells aren't utilized well even if Misery potency gets increased. I don't really see why a role with the least damage spells should also have one of the highest "cooldowns" on one of those damage spells. Using misery every 90 seconds at most doesn't add that much to WHM rotation over Glare spam. I'd much prefer Misery every 30 seconds even if that means lowering its potency a bit. And the long Dia duration seems nice at first, but in effect that just means using Glare even more compared to the old Aero/Stone.

Generally it might be better to get other DoTs like Aero III back as Tornado or smth since WHM doesn’t have much otherwise; they could even decide to prune some unneeded skills from WHM’s kit that aren’t even used anymore for better buttons. Staying low APM however means we need to have it fully focused on decision making, “what are you doing with your GCDs, are you healing? Is there downtime? Do you need mitigation?” The questions we should be asking. Downtime being high means there needs to be more divergence at the offensive side.

[HyperiusUltima]

Agreed there. Is having a proc at all better than 11111111111? Sure, it's a start, but almost anything is less boring than 11111111. The important part comes with what the proc does and what it implies for the rest of the kit. If the proc pops up and skillful play dictates "just press it immediately whenever it lights up for a damage gain", then it's a scant improvement over just having no proc in the first place. If, for example, it's only a gain when you use it at say 9 seconds or fewer remaining on the dot, that's a bit better. Makes you think just a little. If it has greater implications and/or feeds another system like RDM's black and white mana do, which gives you even more pause to determine what among a set of 2-4 choices would be the best course of action in the next half second or so, that's excellent; much better than "press the button when it glows".

That generally is what SMN’s DoTs were before it got wiped to a whole new job. It doesn’t really present any helpful function than just being another button to push, and would increase WHM’s APM if it were oGCD at that. You then have chances of proc overwrites which becomes a tick issue. Instead, why don’t we take something out of RDM’s book and have skills combo into stronger variations of itself that grant self-boons based on what is done since we’re focusing on low APM?

[Shurrikhan]

A quick question for you all: Is it worth having shared skills of any sort?

Lucid Dreaming is obvious bloat, and Cure/Physic/Benefic/Diagnosis aren't worth using in themselves, but let's take that one step further: Even if there were a "just heal" skill worth using, would it be worth including in the kit as such? Is it worth a button to specifically choose not to engage with our job-unique mechanics -- to 'generic heal' as opposed to 'job heal'?

Consider this alternative, by way of example -- What if there was no separate Regen and Cure II, but simply, say a combined skill and/or a job-wide trait:

Waters' Wake
Trait

Your healing in excess of your target's maximum HP is converted into Waters' Wake, which heals the affected ally over 3 to 15 seconds. This duration is based on the portion of healing in excess of the target's maximum HP.

Multiple applications of Water's Wake may exist simultaneously, but the effectiveness of Waters' Wake decreases based on its total healing to be dealt relative to the target's maximum HP.
Healing per tick cannot exceed the equivalent of 500 potency and total healing to be dealt cannot exceed half the target's maximum HP.

* Essentially, the more healing-to-be-done already applied, the less further healing may be applied at that time. It's kept within reasonable limit as to prevent a Benediction from overhealing a tank before Infirmity in order to snapshot its healing, as a HoT, over 15 seconds for its full value, etc., etc. Obviously, this couldn't be used as is, for mechanical reasons; this is just an example of overheal -> HoT (of duration based on excess) as an integral mechanic. It will likely be trimmed to just those two hard limits, as that will probably already do what I need without having to apply anything like a logarithmic curve to be rechecked per value change (on tick or new application).

Flourish
Spell
Charged
600 MP

Instantly grants target 18 seconds of Regen.

Regen: Grants healing over time effect to target. New applications of Regen add to, rather than replace, existing durations, to a maximum of 18 seconds.
Cure Potency: 200

Thereafter, charges for up to 2.5 seconds, causing 3 seconds of Regen to be consumed instantly per [.5 seconds] spent charging, granting their healing immediately upon charge's end.

This would allow you to get off an instant Regen (1200 cp) or hold for a nukish pre-cast heal (1200 within 3 seconds, 1000 on the heal itself). It therefore offers same functionality and capacities as Regen and Cure II, both, but rather than a separate button each by which to "generic heal" or "WHM heal", you can choose via cast-length while also further optimizing heal-timing.

Extension: Do the same for Cure III, baking the smaller focus-AoE a bonus to Medica. Voila, by saving buttons you actually increase the "WHM-ness" of WHM.

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Similarly, what if Aetherpool and/or Galvanize were an actual integral mechanic for SCH, rather than Galvanize being just a bland extension of Succor and Adlo (basically a generic AoE and ST heal+barrier, respectively)?
What if AST could make use of an integral Singularity or Theoretical Sun (a la old Combust flavor-text) or Slingshot mechanic, or if the old Diurnal/Nocturnal distinction could instead be managed through spell-timing and a related Time Magic trait?
What if Sage could actually purpose its nouliths into different formations, with good reason and tactical mixing, rather than all that just being visual fluff on otherwise template skills?

Would it be so awful if they actually did their healing differently and had some degree of different playflows because of involved and permeating job-unique mechanics?

[NightHour]

Yoshi-P hinted in the last live letter that some changes were coming to a lot of jobs - White Mage, Dark Knight and Machinist were the main 3 he pointed out.



There is another Live Letter on the 4th March at 03:00 PST / 11:00 GMT / 22:00 AEDT which should discuss 6.1 in a bit more detail.

[Semirhage]

I don't see SE adding any additional setup to Dia in the foreseeable future. Hell, I'd say the likelihood of them removing it before adding any additional setup is more likely given SE's history with healers, so I'd rather build it up now than await some other hypothetical situation that might never come.

Ah see I take the opposite position. Squeenix tells WHM mains to pound sand whether they ask for gruel or steak so I may as well demand they make the job actually well-designed, fun to play, and competitive because they're going to take a steaming dump all over it, delete skills, and make it weakest in role no matter what you ask for. Six years bay-bee!

[Silver-Strider]

Ah see I take the opposite position. Squeenix tells WHM mains to pound sand whether they ask for gruel or steak so I may as well demand they make the job actually well-designed, fun to play, and competitive because they're going to take a steaming dump all over it, delete skills, and make it weakest in role no matter what you ask for. Six years bay-bee!

And I agree with you on that. I'd much rather have Aero 3 back, add a Water/Banish attack to combo with Stone/Glare, have the Diacloud Proc and have a Single Target version of Misery all at once if I could, as well as make the entire leveling experience not feel like I'm trying to storm the beaches of Normandy. However, that's not going to happen overnight. We need to make revisions in a more controlled approach than just throwing the entire kitchen sink at SE because chances are that they'll see the Kitchen Sink and say, "if you want that, play WAR".

I don't want to give SE any reason to misconstrue what I'm asking for because "Go play Ultimates" comments got old quickly.

[HisShadowX]

I personally love the White Mage, but I think all classes should simplify the abilities and make them upgradeable instead of having all these different abilities. Some abilities like Cure III become utterly useless.