Healer Suggestions Megathread

[ty_taurus]

So I had slight idea of "what if WHM healed in the same way that BLM does damage?"

The fact that you didn't go with Astral Earth and Umbral Water is a sin.

[TheDustyOne]

The fact that you didn't go with Astral Earth and Umbral Water is a sin.

See, I had thought of that, but while leveling, all the elemental spells would've been under Astral Earth, so there'd ironically be no water spells under Umbral Water. In my mind for this, Stone would Upgrade to Glare, Water to Banish (and Water III to Banish III), and Aero to Dia. I opted for Cleric and Healer because Cleric is historically used in game as the "I do DPS now" thing. The names are admittedly not very inspiring.

It's also worth noting for the flow is that, unlike BLM where you swap between Ice/Fire regularly, here you only swap between them when healing is necessary. You'll spend most of your time in Cleric Stance, and when you have party members at lower health (or soon to be low health), you just use a healing spell, ideally up to 3 different heals to top up people, then swap back and use Misery ASAP to refund that damage. The loss for not using Misery and "holding onto it for more blood stacks" is because each time you swap back to Cleric, you lose about 40 potency from Banish III compared to Glare. It's why Misery has that odd number of 540/1140.

Also if someone could double-check my math on that, that'd be great, I fully expect the potency values to be off entirely, but I think you guys get the idea of how this would flow.

Misery having a 60s cooldown was also to discourage constant topping up; you want to get as much use out of it as possible, so this WHM is much riskier in how it heals in that you want people to be low before doing any healing. Although I'd be fine with reducing it to about 40s instead if that made it a little more forgiving.

The native MP regen in Cleric is around 800 MP per tick, so 3 Cure IIs is about 8 ticks, or 24 seconds. The idea would be to let people get as low as you're willing to risk before patching them back up quickly, building up stacks for the damage phase similar to how a BLM would build up Umbral stacks.

[Shurrikhan]

I don't plan to expand on this idea, I just thought it was a fun experiment.

Feels like it'd need higher healing requirements to see the benefits, but if the potency for the 3s casts were actually increased to match its additional uptime cost, the massive cast speed increases to healing spells after damage spells and damage spells after healing spells could be decent.

Not wanting to cast multiple heals or attacks at a time, when avoidable, doesn't really shout "WHM" to me, but at the same time, I could imagine a sense in which it fits.

So far as quick experiments go, pretty neat!

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

[sexy rework]

Gimme all these. Please.

Also just wanna say: your theorycrafted damage kits for WHM in the past had quite some similarities with mine I’m almost ashamed to drop mine ;;

I know you said you weren’t going to expand it, but I’m looking forward to see more should you change your mind Fun read!

[TheDustyOne]

I may or may not be expanding on it already. I can't help it, BLM-but-healer sounds like fun.

I've already got some changes written down in my notes, one was to make Banish also swap to Cleric (I've renamed the stances in my notes) so even though it's a damage loss compared to Banish III, it's not as punishing as say, fat-fingering Fire while in Umbral Ice. I'm also going to do something sacrilegious and keep Freecure where Cure I remains, but costs no MP, has a 40% chance to make Cure II/III have no cast time or MP cost, and doesn't charge the blood lily (Cure II/III still charges it of course). It keeps a healing option available even when MP runs out, especially since my WHM is much more mana hungry.

I'm also unsure if I want to make Misery completely damage neutral. If I make the heals more MP intensive than even what I had listed earlier, then I think it's fine for it to remain damage neutral. If it's too easy to just consistently top up and spam Misery without much consequence, then I think it should be at least a small loss or have a cooldown attached. A higher MP cost to the heals but having Cure and Medica be free without blood lily I think is enough justification for removing the Misery cooldown.

The other thing I also have planned that wasn't in my earlier post is making Thin Air remove 3s off cast times and for Banish III to shave off 5s from Dias cooldown. It makes the proc from Banish a little more interesting I feel. I was also thinking of removing the Justification stacks from Banish III to make it more usable as a movement tool, but that may make it feel a little less interesting, so I'm willing to revert that change.

Apart from that, it's mostly just brainstorming oGCD abilities.

[ty_taurus]

I had an interesting set of ideas on White Mage that I can share. A huge aspect to these changes involves balancing MP costs and recovery, so take numbers with a grain of salt.

Lily Changes
- Afflatus Solace and Afflatus Rapture no longer have a lily cost; instead, they cost 1200 MP and 1800 MP respectively. While lilies are available, this MP cost is negated, and a lily is automatically consumed. Additionally, Raise now upgrades into Afflatus Arise, which remains 2400 MP cost, but also has that cost negated by lilies. All of these nourish the blood lily whether a regular lily is spent or not. Afflatus Harmony also is a new spell that has no MP cost, restores 800 MP, and nourishes the blood lily, but this spell does require a lily to be cast.
- Lilies now generate one per 40 seconds instead of 20, but you'll be able to generate more lilies through another means.

DPS Changes
- The main focal point of these changes is a rework to Holy, but for now, let me establish the basics.
- We'll be using a potency of 340 for Stone/Glare as a reference point. Stone/Glare spells return to having a 2 second cast time. Every 3 casts of Stone/Glare spells now generates a gold lily, to a maximum of 3. This would represented with a very simple addition to the healing gauge which could look something like this:

- Every cast lights up one petal on this flower, and when all three are lit up, the flower glows, and a gold lily blooms at the end of the healing gauge's cane. These lilies will do one of two things.
- Aero/Dia is reworked and is no longer a DoT. These spells have the same potency as Stone/Glare spells and deal 50% less damage to enemies adjacent to your target. They are still instant, and now have an 800 MP cost. Additionally, Thin Air no longer has a cooldown. Instead, each time you cast Aero/Dia spells with a gold lily present, the lily is consumed and 1 charge of Thin Air is automatically generated to a max of 3. Thin Air can only be generated through this method.
- Water spells are added and upgrade to the Tempest spell at level 72. These attacks deal AoE damage with a potency of 180 and are ranged. They also grant you 30 seconds of a personal MP refresh (100 MP per tick) that can be extended to as much as 60 seconds. Additionally, Water/Tempest spells can consume 1 gold lily to bloom 1 regular lily to use for healing. This MP regen will be important for the next main point.
- Holy is now 560 potency that deals 60% less damage to enemies after the first, costs 1000 MP, and has a 3 second cast time and retains its 4 second stun. Additionally, the Freecure trait is reworked to where casting any non-Afflatus healing spells makes your next Holy cost 0 MP.

Overall, this isn't a fully fleshed out concept, just some general ideas floating around in my head. I added numbers here, but the TL;DR of the idea in my mind is trying to make holy this really powerful, slow-cast nuke that you're revolving resources around to use as much as you can, where the engagement factors comes into play with a far more loose rotation that allows you to be more greedy or more frugal. It's still very simple, only adding 1 attack, but gives you a lot more freedom to use your MP the way you want. Stone/Glare spells are your neutral that help generate added effects on your Aero/Dia spells to grant more mobility and your Water/Tempest spells to grant more MP recovery and healing. Again, not a super developed concept, and the numbers are very placeholder, but if the idea sounds clever, perhaps it's something that could be expanded upon.

[TheDustyOne]

I'm still doing some tweaks, but I'm mostly happy with this.

Stances:

Glorification
----
Allows the acquisition of Justification, the use of Glare, and the use of Holy
Reduces Sanctification spell cast times by 75%
Increases MP regeneration by 2.25x (450 MP per tick)

Glorification is entered upon casting any Banish spell or using Cleric Stance inside Sanctification

Sanctification
----
Allows the acquisition of Blood Lilies
Reduces Glorification spell cast times by 75%

Sanctification is entered upon casting any Cure spell, Regen spell, or using Cleric Stance inside Glorification

Damage Spells:

Banish
--------
Spell -- 0 MP -- 2s Cast time
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 220
Grants Glorification and removes Sanctification
Grants 3 stacks of Justification while under the effect of Glorification
40% chance of gaining the effect of Exorcism, allowing the next Banish III to have no cast time while under the effect of Glorification
*Changes to Afflatus Misery while under the effect of Glorification and at least 1 charge of Blood Lily*

The stacks are only granted after swapping stances, not during the swap.

Afflatus Misery
------
Spell -- 1 Blood Lily -- 0s Cast time
Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 520 for the first enemy and 50% less for all remaining enemies.
Potency increases up to 1120 as Blood Lily exceeds minimum cost
Grants 3 stacks of Justification
40% chance of gaining the effect of Exorcism, allowing the next Banish III to have no cast time while under the effect of Glorification
Can only be used under the effect of Glorification
*Cannot be placed on the hotbar*

The max potency is roughly equal to 3 Glare casts + 1 Banish when adjusted for the cast time differences between the Cures and Glares. The lowest potency is just 1 Glare (adjusted) + 1 Banish

Dia
----
Spell -- 0 MP -- 0s Cast time -- 30s Recast time -- 2 charges
Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 450 for the first enemy, and 30% less for all remaining enemies.

Yes, this WHM doesn't have a DoT, instead it's a 30s cooldown acting as a movement tool and damage increase. Should hopefully function similarly to Foul.

Glare
-----
Spell -- 1 Justification -- 3s Cast time
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 360
Can only be used under the effect of Glorification

Banish III
----------
Spell -- 0 MP -- 3.5s Cast time
Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 320 for the first enemy, and 50% less for all remaining enemies.
Reduces recast timer of Dia by 5s
Grants Glorification and removes Sanctification

Banish II
----
Spell -- 0 MP -- 2s Cast time
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 120 to all nearby enemies
Grants Glorification and removes Sanctification
Grants 3 stacks of Justification while under the effect of Glorification
40% chance of gaining the effect of Exorcism, allowing the next Banish III to have no cast time while under the effect of Glorification
*Changes to Afflatus Misery while under the effect of Glorification and at least 1 charge of Blood Lily*

Holy
----
Spell -- 1 Justification -- 3s Cast time
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 180 to all nearby enemies
Inflicts Stun, 4s
Can only be used under the effect of Glorification

The overall damage flow is very simple: pre-pull Banish III > Dia > Banish > Glare x3 for the opener, and Banish > (Banish III) Glare x3 for the base rotation, with Dia being used before overcapping the cooldown or for movement. Banish is replaced with Misery when a Blood Lily is present.

I'm open for extra damage options, I kept it relatively simple with a proc, builder > spender, and a cooldown with reduction from the proc.

Healing Spells:

Cure
----
Spell -- 0 MP -- 1.5s Cast time
Restores target's HP with a potency of 500
Grants the effect of Sanctification and removes Glorification
40% chance of gaining the effect of Freecure, the next Cure II or Cure III will have no cast time and cost no MP

Freecure still exists here, sorry not sorry. It should hopefully make really bad healing situations more bearable and not a complete loss on average.

Cure II
----
Spell -- 3000 MP -- 2s Cast time
Restores target's HP with a potency of 800
Grants the effect of Sanctification and removes Glorification
Nourishes the Blood Lily while under the effect of Sanctification

Cure III
----
Spell -- 3800 MP -- 2s Cast time
Restores target's HP and HP of all nearby party members with a potency of 600
Grants the effect of Sanctification and removes Glorification
Nourishes the Blood Lily while under the effect of Sanctification

Medica
----
Spell -- 0 MP -- 1.5s Cast time
Restores HP of self and nearby party members with a potency of 400
Grants the effect of Sanctification and removes Glorification
40% chance of gaining the effect of Freecure, the next Cure II or Cure III will have no cast time and cost no MP

Medica will also proc Freecure

Regen
----
Spell -- 2800 MP -- 0s Cast time
Restores target's HP with a potency of 250
Grants healing over time to target with a potency of 250, 15s
Grants the effect of Sanctification and removes Glorification
Nourishes the Blood Lily while under the effect of Sanctification

I'm open to changes on Regen giving Blood Lily. The MP cost regenerated after swapping back to Glorification while the regen is ticking can allow for near-100% uptime, all without any real cost to damage.

Regen III
----
Spell -- 3200 MP -- 2s Cast time
Restores own HP and HP of all nearby party members with a potency of 100
Grants healing over time to self and nearby party members with a potency of 200, 15s
Grants the effect of Sanctification and removes Glorification
Nourishes the Blood Lily while under the effect of Sanctification

Esuna
----
Spell -- 1000 MP -- 0s Cast time
Removes a single detrimental effect from self or target party member
Grants the effect of Sanctification and removes Glorification
Nourishes the Blood Lily while under the effect of Sanctification after successful removal of a status

Esuna III
-----
Spell -- 2000 MP -- 3s Cast time
Removes a single detrimental effect from self and all nearby party members
Grants the effect of Sanctification and removes Glorification
Nourishes the Blood Lily while under the effect of Sanctification after successful removal of a status

Raise
----
Spell -- 4800 MP -- 8s Cast time
Resurrects target in a weakened state
Spell cast time is not affected by Glorification
Grants the effect of Sanctification and removes Glorification
Nourishes the Blood Lily while under the effect of Sanctification

Raise is an exception to the Glorification cast time bonus.

Cleric Stance
----
Spell -- 0 MP -- 0s Cast time
Swaps between Sanctification and Glorification

Downtime skill to swap from healing stance back to damage and regaining MP.

Abilities:

Presence of Mind
----
Ability -- 120s Recast
Reduces spell cast and recast time by 20%, 15s

Divine Providence
---
Ability -- 45s Recast -- 2 Charges
Ensures the next Banish, Banish II, Afflatus Misery, Cure, or Medica spell cast will trigger Exorcism or Freecure, 30s

Sharpcast equivalent.

Thin Air
----
Ability -- 60s Recast time -- 3 Charges
Removes the MP cost of the next spell and reduces the cast time of the next spell by 3s

Now also a movement tool, also extra charge.

Benediction
----
Ability -- 180s Recast
Restores all of a target's HP

Divine Benison
----
Ability -- 60s Recast time -- 2 Charges
Reduces the potency of the next healing spell by 60% and erects a barrier nullifying damage equaling 200% of the amount of HP restored.

Largely similar to my old rework, next heal becomes a shield.

Plenary Indulgence
----
Ability -- 60s Recast time
Grants Confession to self and all nearby party members, upon receiving HP recovery via Medica, Cure III, or Regen III, Confession triggers an additional healing effect of 300 potency, 10s
Confession reduces damage taken by 10%

Now with 10% mitigation

Temperance
----
Ability -- 120s Recast time
Increases healing ability potency by 20%, while reducing damage taken by self and all nearby party members in the same stratosphere by 10%, 20s

Also affects oGCD heals, albeit the only one here is Liturgy.

Aquaveil
----
Ability -- 60s Recast time -- 2 Charges
Reduces damage taken by a party member or self by 15%, 10s

Liturgy of the Bell
----
Ability -- 180s Recast time
Places a healing blossom at the designated location and grants 5 stacks of Liturgy to self, 20s
Casting a spell expends 1 stack of Liturgy to heal self and all party members with a potency of 400
Executing the action a second time expends all remaining stacks and heals all party members with a potency of 300 for each stack.

Changed from getting hit to casting a spell, makes it more useful in trash pulls.

[Shurrikhan]

I had an interesting set of ideas on White Mage that I can share. A huge aspect to these changes involves balancing MP costs and recovery, so take numbers with a grain of salt.

Trying to assume the best for the numbers and their implications, but the flow seems needlessly convoluted so far.

1.
Casting 3 fillers makes a NuLily. Can hold up to 3 NuLilies (9 fillers' worth).

2.
Casting NuAero/Dia with an NuLily ready autospends NuLily to make a Thin Air charge

3.
Casting Water spell with an NuLily ready autospends NuLily to make a RegularLily

4.
You can spend a RegularLily to negate the MP cost of a now-spammable-but-high-MP-cost Afflatus Solace/Rapture (doing the same thing as a Thin Air?)

What does Thin Air accomplish in that setup outside of being usable for rez or Cure III? You're generating a NuLily every 4 GCDs (10 seconds) in striking dummy combat anyways, allowing for potentially a Thin Air every 10 seconds, but your most expensive action outside of Raise is Rapture which you could just use a regular Lily (via a Water spell, which also generates MP atop the 1800 saved) anyways? The redundancy leaves this a bit confusing.

And, though, I said I'd avoid talking about numbers, but you seem to have clearly picked out your numbers intentionally when it comes to the filler baseline and Holy potency. Why give Holy 560 potency (~9% more dps than filler even with the increased cast time, ~30% more if cast instantly)? It doesn't seem high enough to be fulfilling rotational anchor even if you had built means of swiftcasting it. And since you can use it freely after using a heal (less than 40 potency refunded w/o instant cast, 130 with instant cast), it seems like it'd be difficult to really feel that cost unless the fight required both very high amounts of healing and movement.

The main changes I'm seeing are that:

• You now have an [Instant/Mobile Filler], but it costs twice the MP of your [Casted Filler]. This gives you near limitless offensive mobility so long as you're MP is doing okay, a la Ruin II vs. Ruin I.
• You now have a [Ranged AoE] that can be maintained at 30s at a time and to a max of 60, like old Dia but with less timing necessary, granting 1000 MP. Essentially, up to twice per minute in single-target combat you can sacrifice 160 potency to generate 1000 MP. In AoE, you effectively just generate an extra 2000 MP per minute now.
• If you cast your [Casted Filler] 3 times --as you may want to do when you can to save 400 MP per cast relative to your [Instant/Mobile Filler]-- your next [Instant/Mobile Filler] allows you to nullify 400-1800 MP on a future action at cost of an oGCD weave, meaning that you can actually save even more MP by using your [Instant/Mobile Filler] even when you don't need its mobility.
• If you cast your [Casted Filler] 3 times and then use your [New Ranged AoE], you essentially get back an extra 2600-2800 MP, but you sacrifice 160 ST potency for only 10 more AoE potency.
• [Long On-Self AoE] is a 9% dps increase over [Casted Filler] in ST and 24% dps increase over [Ranged AoE] but costs 600-1000 more MP.
• Casting a heal allows you to refund 1000 MP and make back ~34 potency, so long as you can be in melee range and get off a 3s cast per your [Long On-Self AoE].

Work in progress, I know, so I'm sorry if that seems harsh; I just mean this to be a sort of other-peoples'-brains filter test for your idea as it stands thus far.

For my part, unless we're specifically trying to remove any and all DoTs in favor of a WHM-Huton gauge, it feels like we could get most of that value far more intuitively, with a focus on:

• Unlimited offensive mobility.
• All heals provide some damage-refund.
• Your AoE doesn't require you to be in range.
• One of your attacks appears to support another of your attacks.
• You can now spammably use even direct heals instantly, though at cost.
• These added options makes use of MP as a more serious resource to draw its outer, more flexible limits.

_____________________

A quick mock-up to that effect:

• Most MP costs decreased. Glare and Dia to 200, Cure to 300, Cure II to 600, Cure III to 1200, Medica to 800.
• Most of your healing abilities now cost MP. Benison and Aquaveil now costs 400 MP, Tetra 600, Asylum 1000, and Assize 1200 and Liturgy of the Bell 1400.
• A new trait, Soulfount, has been added:

You are able to able to strain your aetheric heart to source your abilities beyond their natural means. Certain of your abilities may now be used even during their recast times, though at greater MP cost. Beware of causing calamities from forcibly overdrawing from the surrounding aether.

• Soulfount has been attached to each ability with MP cost as an Additional Effect, where it reads:

Soulfount - This action is still usable during its recast time, but using it increases its cost by 100%, stacking up to twice. This additional cost fades over the skill's normal recast time.

• As such, if I were to cast Tetra thrice in a row, the first would cost 600 MP, the second 1200, the third 1800, and it would fade back to 600 over 60 seconds (-20 MP cost per second). If I were to cast Tetra, wait 30s, and cast it again, the first would cost me 600 MP, the second 900, and if I cast yet another time 30s later, that would cost me 1050 (halfway between the original cost of 600 and 900+600). Etc., etc.
  
  
• Holy can now be cast at range, including on an ally, to deal damage to all enemies around the target. Potency increased to [200% of ST Filler] to first enemy struck, and 40% that to all enemies nearby. However, it now costs 2000 MP, has a 20s CD, and has Soufount. As such, once used, its cost is increased by 100%, stacking up to twice, with the increase fading over 20 seconds.
  Additional Effect: Coalescence - While in combat, your healing spells reduce the MP cost of Holy by 50%, stacking up to 2 times. (This effect stacks indefinitely, but all stacks are consumed with each completed cast.)
  Since Holy deals twice your filler damage, reducing its cost in this manner means each GCD heal is half refunded. 50% refunds for all! Not sure how I feel about that, but there you go.
• Dia now erupts when its victim dies, dealing 40% its remaining damage to all enemies nearby. Direct damage increased to 120 and potency per tick decreased to 60.
• Healing Gauge replaced with Wind Light Gauge, which holds up to 10 While in combat, your spells now all grant Gathering Wind Light. For each stack, your next Aero Dia will instead deal 3 seconds' worth of its periodic potency instantly to the target, instead of inflicting that amount over time, and 50% of that amount to all enemies nearby.
  
  This gives a Dia a fair bit more oomph, similar to the direct damage of a Thundercloud proc, but without also giving that full duration (so, no 1320p Dia), and tends to allow for back-to-back DoT casts (the first doing its damage all in 1 blow and the next being a real DoT), increasing mobility, while also offering a bit more skill expression surrounding forethought.
  
• New trait, Transcendence, replaces Presence of Mind - While in combat, casting spells increases your Attack Speed by a portion equal to your %MP spent, fading over 8 seconds. Multiple applications may occur simultaneously and fade separately. Big spenders makes you go zoom.
• Assize would be reworked to deal more healing the more you damage, and more damage the more you heal, or something similar.
• Temperance revised to not be dull af.

Results:

• You can use your oGCDs even while on they're on CD, though such will come at DPS cost (because of the new, quite powerful Holy). As such, ability to heal while healing becomes little of an issue.
• Healing spells refund half a GCD of filler offensive ppgcd, again via Holy. Technically a bit more than that, via the effect on Dia, too.
• Dia, too, can truck, if set up, its cast frequency has about doubled, and it offers more skill expression.
• You can set up burst windows whenever you like, mostly via Holy or high-MP-cost healing spells/GCDs. Big spenders = big zooms. 1% Attack Speed per 1%MP spent. (Abilities/oGCDs do not contribute to this.)

Overall loop, roughly speaking:

• Maintain DoT (which requires now some degree of foresight, as your spells each reduce the duration required for your next DoT to deal its full damage),
  ready Motes before burst windows,
• spend MP on Holy where possible (especially before big GCD incoming damage events that aren't quite so big as to need all your MP, for the extreme increase to Attack Speed)...
• ...while saving enough MP to pound boss during raid window.
• You therefore have conservations phases (Holy per 20s), deep conservation phases (less Holy), and burst phases built around raid buffs and high healing requirements.

Shortcomings:

• No Huton-like maintenance mechanic for MP, if that was something you were particular about. To regen MP, you just... don't overspend.
• Reused the DoT instead of adding an actual new Alt-Attack.

[ty_taurus]

My bad, I forgot to mention that Thin Air in this case was changed from no MP cost to no cast time. It’s about generating swift cases, but idk it was an incomplete idea.

I think there’s some cool potential in something like that which is why I sharper it but it was more like sharing a proof of concept rather than a full outline. Just something to toss in there as a discussion point.

[Aravell]

Given that Astrodyne is almost universally hated and there are people who want Gravity to have a use in regular gameplay, I randomly had an idea, so I'll share it so you guys can pick it apart.

Seals are now changed:
New action "Celestial Reading": Removes currently held seal and changes Gravity
Solar Seal: Turns Gravity into Nova
Lunar Seal: Turns Gravity into Eclipse
Celestial Seal: Turns Gravity into Comet

Nova: Deals AoE damage, grants you 5 stacks, Malefic is morphed into another button that deals extra damage as long as you have stacks remaining
Eclipse: Deals AoE damage, causes your next Malefic to apply a long but potent DoT
Comet: Deals AoE damage, causes your next Malefic to mark a target for 12 seconds, every 3 seconds a comet will hit the target, the last comet will do extra damage

Thoughts?