Fixing Every Healer Job

[Shurrikhan]

New White Mage Abilities
Bud of the Blood Lily - Level 52 version of Blood Lily. Less potency. Replaced with Afflatus Misery at 74.
Shine - Combos off Glare. Deals 310 potency and reduces the cooldown of Bloom by 1 seconds. Combos into...
Smite - Combos off Shine. Deals 330 potency and reduces the cooldown of Bloom by 1 seconds.

Let's... not. I know we get "even tank 123 combos would be better" memes every once in a while, but that is only because they're only the tiniest of steps more engaging than 111. They take 3 times the buttons for about 5% more gameplay.

That is, unless these combos would be broken by any intervening GCDs, which then opens up a further bag of worms with that constraint, as needing to heal, DoT, or Misery within 2 GCDs of hitting 1 means you waste that combo's potential.

If you're going to devote an added 4 buttons to WHM's offensive kit, why constrain half of them to a mere pretense of depth (or, if you make this combo break from intervening GCDs, this fetter)?

Additionally, you'd be making your new 30s nuke (Bloom) awkward to align. Each combo, itself 7.5 seconds, would only reduce the 30s CD by 2 seconds, meaning that you'd have a 24-30s CD. It would align only when untouched (30x4) or in 100% uptime scenarios (24x5), which would in turn require that one not use Lilies, which means there'd be no way to exploit Misery during raid buffs. And that's before even getting into DoT conflict. A 30s DoT is already effectively just a superior 30s CD; able to deal with desync and to sacrifice a bit of potency per minute for further mobility if an instant cast.

[SirShady]

If you're going to devote an added 4 buttons to WHM's offensive kit, why constrain half of them to a mere pretense of depth (or, if you make this combo break from intervening GCDs, this fetter)?

Additionally, you'd be making your new 30s nuke (Bloom) awkward to align. Each combo, itself 7.5 seconds, would only reduce the 30s CD by 2 seconds, meaning that you'd have a 24-30s CD. It would align only when untouched (30x4) or in 100% uptime scenarios (24x5), which would in turn require that one not use Lilies, which means there'd be no way to exploit Misery during raid buffs. And that's before even getting into DoT conflict. A 30s DoT is already effectively just a superior 30s CD; able to deal with desync and to sacrifice a bit of potency per minute for further mobility if an instant cast.

Quite frankly, it's because I wasn't sure what else to add without having White Mage's juggling a bunch of additional mechanics outside of Lilies and OGCD's and without adding too much button bloat. There isn't much that can be done with a White Mage damage rotation outside of what it currently has besides adding basic combos because of the linear design of their class mechanic, the Lilies. If you want more depth, sure, you can get experimental and do that, but your best bet is to add another unique mechanic/gauge, and I don't want to overcomplicate the job too much when its identity has always been straightforward: "big heals, big damage". Th changes were meant to add depth in the way of rewarding good OGCD heals and avoiding overhealing with even more damage, but in a more interesting way since it directly influenced the power of your strongest GCDs Bloom and Blood Lily.

I totally understand where you're coming from though. It doesn't feel as satisfying as it should. I took another pass at it anyway and split the two abilities so that it's two different two part combos. One buffs the White Mage, the other provides stacks that empower your next Bloom up to a cap. If you reach that cap, Bloom powers up your next Blood Lily. That way, you're not dealing with any raid buff weirdness (as much as I dislike the restrictions of the 2 minute system) and it adds some more tangible depth to the combo system. Let me know what you think!

Also, just weighing in here on an unrelated note... Holy's stun is definitely closer to 7 seconds of mitigation! It's the best mitigation in the game as far as normal pulls go imo.