WHM rework concept: sketch of a pseudo-DPS healer.

[GaiusDrakon]

-------------------------------------------------
Here's an idea of a WHM rework which makes it half a DPS job while largely preserving its healing capabilities, with reduced potencies to make GCD healing necessary. GCD healing is also tweaked so that it interacts with damage abilities: Stone, Aero, Water, and Amdapori Judgment. Note that this assumes a context where all healers, tanks and DPS have less free healing than before, so while this reworked WHM has less free healing, it should be in line with other classes.



I know not everyone would want a WHM that feels like half a DPS job but anyways that's what I would prefer. I would honestly rather the devs just make healers into pseudo-DPS jobs (at the level where it's slightly simpler than EW SMN) while cutting around a quarter to half of the healing GCD/oGCD bloat that we have currently.
-------------------------------------------------

-------
Basic damage spells

The idea is to expand the basic two spells into three, while making it simple enough so that very casual players can still execute it without too many issues.
-------

STONE IV
Potency: 250
Single-target
MP: 200
Cast/Recast: 1.5s/2.5s
Additional Effect: 20% chance of granting caster Stoneskin Ready

AERO IV
Potency: 50
DoT Potency: 50/tick (Duration: 30s)
AoE
MP: 400
Cast/Recast: 0s/2.5s
Additional Effect: Grants caster Biting Wind Ready

WATER III
Potency: 180
Single-target
MP: 400
Cast/Recast: 1.5s/2.5s
Additional Effect: Increases the target's vulnerability to conjurer elemental spells by 5%. (Duration: 30s)
This effect has a maximum of 60s.
Additional Effect: Grants caster Aquaveil Ready

-------
Basic healing spells

The idea is to remove the bloat and streamline the GCD heals, while making it interact with the damage spells in a simple manner. Locking the regen effect to Water casts does two things. First, healers will have at least one Regen (either from Holy Cure III or Holy Medica II) available every 30s. In casual content, this is almost always more than enough, so that casual healers don't need to think too much about how to get Aquaveil Ready. In harder content, where multiple regen effects may be needed in a short span of time, shifting Water III in the rotation would be required, which because of the ability to stack its effect up to 60s, gives healers the ability to optimize to not use more Water III casts than necessary.
-------

CURE III
Heal Potency: 500
Single-target
MP: 700
Cast/Recast: 1.5s/2.5s

MEDICA II
Heal Potency: 300
AoE
MP: 800
Cast/Recast: 1.5s/2.5s

SANCTIFY (oGCD)
Cooldown: 1s
Changes Raise, Cure III and Medica II to Arise, Holy Cure III and Holy Medica II for the next healing cast. If not enough Amdapori Arts are available for Arise, the action will remain as Raise.

HOLY CURE III
Heal Potency: 500
Single-target
MP: 700
Cast/Recast: 1.5s/2.5s
Stoneskin Ready Effect: Additionally applies a 100 potency Stoneskin on the target.
Biting Wind Ready Effect: Damages all nearby enemies from the target for 100 potency.
Aquaveil Ready Effect: Applies Aquaveil on the target
Aquaveil Effect: Regenerates the target for 180 potency per tick. (Duration: 21s)

HOLY MEDICA II
Heal Potency: 300
AoE
MP: 800
Cast/Recast: 1.5s/2.5s
Stoneskin Ready Effect: Additionally applies a 70 potency Stoneskin on all nearby party members.
Biting Wind Ready Effect: Damages all nearby enemies from the caster for 100 potency.
Aquaveil Ready Effect: Applies Aquaveil on all nearby party members.
Aquaveil Effect: Regenerates the target for 100 potency per tick. (Duration: 18s)

-----------
oGCD healing spells and Lilies

oGCDs have been nerfed and tied to lilies instead. Assize is also reworked now to function as the movement ability for WHM. Lilies charge at the rate of 20s per lily. oGCDs and Assize exist outside the lily system so that emergency healing is available.
-----------

AFFLATUS SOLACE (oGCD)
Cooldown: 1s
Requires 1 Lily
Single-target
Heal Potency: 400
Additional Effect: Grants the caster 1 Blood Lily

AFFLATUS RAPTURE (oGCD)
Cooldown: 1s
Requires 1 Lily
AoE
Heal Potency: 250
Additional Effect: Grants the caster 1 Blood Lily

TETRAGRAMMATON (oGCD)
Cooldown: 90s
Single-target
Heal potency: 500

BENEDICTION (oGCD)
Cooldown: 180s
Single-target
Completely restores a target's HP.

ASSIZE (2 charges)
Charge cooldown: 40s (Assuming 2.5s GCD; with 2.3s this would be 36.8s)
Damage potency: 400
Healing potency: 200
AoE
MP: 0
Cast/Recast: 0s/2.5s
Additional Effect: Restores 5% of MP.

AFFLATUS MISERY
Can only be used with 3 Blood Lilies
Damage potency: 1000
AoE
MP: 0
Cast/Recast: 0s/2.5s

-------------
Elemental Prayer mechanic
To add a bit more room for optimization and to also add more conjurer elements into WHM, an Elemental Prayer mechanic is added. This also grants WHM access to Asylum, Presence of Mind, and Temperance in a unique way. All of these casts are long casts, which necessitates the caster to think of when it's safe to cast these spells or to use Swiftcast for them.
-------------

ELEMENTAL PRAYER
Cooldown: 120s
MP: 1500
Cast/Recast: 3s/3.5s
Grants the caster Heavenly Answer, Answer of Earth, Answer of Wind, and Answer of Water.
Upon cast, Elemental Prayer changes to the action Answer.
Heavenly Answer Effect: The next Holy spell casted is 100% stronger.

ANSWER (oGCD)
Cooldown: 20s
Upon cast, changes the Stone IV, Water III, and Aero IV to Answer of Earth, Answer of Water, and Answer of Wind respectively for the next GCD spell.
Action changes to Elemental Prayer once Answer of Earth, Answer of Wind, and Answer of Water have been depleted.

ANSWER OF EARTH
Causes a tremor on the ground, damaging all nearby enemies for 200 damage.
MP: 0
Cast/Recast: 3s/3.5s
Additional Effect: Grants all nearby allies Earth's Shield and Earth's Barrier.
Earth's Shield Effect: Applies a 200 potency shield on all nearby allies. Depletion of this shield causes a 50 potency counterattack on all nearby enemies. (Duration: 15s)
Earth's Barrier Effect: Reduces damage taken by 5%. (Duration: 15s)

ANSWER OF WIND
A tornado damages all nearby enemies for 500 damage.
MP: 0
Cast/Recast: 3s/3.5s
Additional Effect: Grants the caster Wind's Haste.
Additional Effect: 10% chance to drop any enemy that is not instant-KO resistant to single-digit HP.
Wind's Haste Effect: Reduces spell cast time and recast time by 20% for the next 7 spells.

ANSWER OF WATER
A flood damages all nearby enemies for 350 damage.
MP: 0
Cast/Recast: 3s/3.5s
Additional Effect: Grants caster Water's Breath (Duration: 15s)
Additional Effect: Creates a 20 yalms zone of Water's Asylum on the caster's position.
Water's Breath Effect: Next three spells cost no MP.
Water's Asylum Effect: Regenerates 70 potency of health each tick, and increases the potency of healing actions by 15%. (Duration: 24s)

----------
Holy spells
Tries to add some more white/holy magic flavor for the WHM, and adds the final layer of optimization for WHM.

The Amdapori Arts mechanic could be a bit too complicated for a healer job; you could optionally tweak it to make it less complex by deleting Dia (a 2nd DoT as well), and I don't think it would that big a deal, but I left Dia in because I wanted a bit more holy flavor than just Glare and Holy.

Amdapori Judgment is intended to be used at every 2 min burst, where the ability is such that you use heals to also damage the enemy while healing your party members. Because fight design now often coincides incoming damage and mechanics with 2-min burst windows, the Amdapori Judgment ability makes it so that there's a window where you can heal the party while doing part of your burst rotation, making it easier to handle for newer healer players.

Optimal usage of Dia, Glare, and Enhanced Holy would give the player 2 (from Dia) + 5 (from Glare) and 1 (from Enhanced Holy) = 8 Amdapor Arts per 2 minutes.

During prog, WHMs can choose to hold 4 Amdapor Arts at all times and use Dia/Glare to get a quick Arise off by sacrificing a lot of damage by holding Amdapor Arts and not using them (maybe on Banishes). This might be a bit too OP but I don't think it's that different from Swiftcast Raise + Benediction anyways, and it gives WHM a bit more traditional FF flavor. However if it's too OP it can be removed (I think it's actually not as good as it sounds on paper and therefore not OP, because you're sacrificing >1000 potency to use Arise; it's purely a prog tool). I think it's also nice for casual players to choose to hold 5 Amdapor Arts at all times and not engage with Banish or Amdapori Judgment, and use it for Arise whenever they need. This should be perfectly viable for casual content and is a great tool to have in alliance raids or even other content like deep dungeon.

Otherwise, if not using Arise, optimal burst would use 4~5 Amdapor Arts held from before the burst (depending on GCD, if 4 you would quickly enter with a Glare), use it on Banish + Amdapori Judgment within the burst window, and get Dia and Glare during the burst to use another Banish. Each burst window would optimally use 7 Amdapor Arts. This is one less than the 8 Amdapor Arts we get per 2 minutes, but there is no action to dump a single Amdapor Arts charge, which makes each burst window different, much like old GNB (which IMO is interesting and fun). However, if this is too much, deletion of the 1 you get from Enhanced Holy would remove this easily.
----------

BRAVERY (oGCD)
Cooldown: 180s
Increases the target's physical damage dealt by 10%. (Duration: 15s)
Additional Effect: Applies Tenacity to the target.
Tenacity Effect: Decreases damage taken by 5%.

FAITH (oGCD)
Cooldown: 180s
Increases the target's magical damage dealt by 10%. (Duration: 15s)
Additional Effect: Applies Serenity to the target.
Serenity Effect: Each action taken by the target also applies a 20 potency heal.

TRAIT: Amdapor Arts.
Certain actions give the caster stacks of Amdapor Arts, which can then be spent on actions that require Amdapor Arts. Up to a maximum of 5 Amdapor Arts can be held at any given time.

HOLY III
Potency: 140
AoE
MP: 400
Cast/Recast: 1.5s/2.5s
Additional Effect: 20% chance of granting the caster 1 Amdapor Arts.
Enhanced Holy Effect: Potency increases to 280. Moreover, 100% chance of granting the caster 1 Amdapor Arts.

GLARE III (2 Charges)
Charge Cooldown: 25s (assuming 2.5s GCD; with 2.3s GCD this would be 23s)
Potency: 350
Single-target
MP: 400
Cast/Recast: 1.5/2.5s
Additional Effect: Grants the caster 1 Amdapor Arts.

DIA
Potency: 60/tick (Duration: 60s)
Single-target
MP: 400
Cast/Recast: 1.5/2.5s
Additional Effect: Grants the caster 1 Amdapor Arts.

PLENARY INDULGENCE
Cooldown: 90s
Grants the caster 3 stacks of Confession. (Duration: 20s)
Changes the action to Sacrament.
Confession Effect: Casting Afflatus Rapture, Assize, and Medica II/Holy Medica II grants the caster a stack of Sacrament Fulfilled. (Duration: 20s)

SACRAMENT
Cooldown: 1s
Uses all stacks of Sacrament Fulfilled, each healing nearby allies for 200 potency.
Upon usage, all remaining Confession stacks will be used to heal nearby allies for 50 potency and changes the action to Plenary Indulgence.
Moreover, once stacks of Sacrament Fulfilled expire, the action will be changed to Plenary Indulgence while healing nearby allies for 200 potency per stack.

BANISH (oGCD)
Cooldown: 1s
Requires 2 Amdapor Arts.
Damage potency: 500
AoE (50% less for all remaining targets).

RAISE
Resurrects a player to minimal health.
Cast/Recast: 8s/2.5s
MP: 2400

ARISE (oGCD)
Cooldown: 1s
Requires 5 Amdapor Arts
Resurrects a player to full health, though Weakness or Brink of Death remains.

AMDAPORI JUDGMENT (oGCD)
Cooldown: 115s
Requires 3 Amdapor Arts.
Damage potency: 300
AoE
Additional Effect: Calls for Amdapori holy magic judgment on the target, allowing the next two healing spells to be casted on the target for full damage while healing the target's target. If the target selected is an ally, the healing spell will heal the ally and damage the ally's target.
Amdapori Cure III/Amdapori Holy Cure III Damage: 500 single-target
Amdapori Medica II/Amdapori Holy Medica II Damage: 300 AoE

Note that the regen and stoneskin effect are not converted into judgment damage on the target.

--------------------------
Leveling Process
--------------------------

The first 50 levels introduce CNJ/WHM to the basics of healing and gives them their first oGCDs and the ability to Sanctify.

LV 1: STONE I. Potency: 150
LV 2: CURE I. Potency: 300
LV 4: AERO I. Potency: 40 + 30/tick
LV 10: MEDICA I. Potency: 200
LV 12: RAISE
LV 18: STONE II. Potency: 180
LV 22: WATER I. Potency: 120
LV 30: TRAIT: Enhanced Water. Grants caster Aquaveil ready when casting Water I, Water II, and Water III.
LV 30: SANCTIFY.
LV 30: HOLY CURE I.
LV 34: AERO II. Potency: 40 + 40/tick
LV 35: TETRAGRAMMATON.
LV 40: HOLY MEDICA I.
LV 40: TRAIT: Enhanced Sanctify. Sanctify now also modifies Medica I and Medica II.
LV 42: WATER II. Potency: 150
LV 45: CURE II. Potency: 450
LV 45: HOLY CURE II.
LV 46: HOLY. Potency: 120
LV 50: MEDICA II. Potency: 300
LV 50: HOLY MEDICA II.

Heavensward introduces the Stoneskin Sanctification and introduces the Lily mechanic.

LV 52: AFFLATUS SOLACE.
LV 52: TRAIT: Secret of the Lily. Allows Lilies to be charged every 20s.
LV 54: STONE III. Potency: 220
LV 54: TRAIT: Enhanced Stone. 20% chance to grant caster Stoneskin Ready when casting Stone III and Stone IV.
LV 54: AERO III. Potency: 45 + 45 per tick.
LV 56: ASSIZE.
LV 58: AFFLATUS RAPTURE.
LV 60: AFFLATUS MISERY.

Stormblood introduces the Prayer mechanic.

LV 62: ELEMENTAL PRAYER.
LV 62: ANSWER OF WIND.
LV 64: WATER III.
LV 66: ANSWER OF EARTH.
LV 68: STONE IV.
LV 70: ANSWER OF WATER.

Shadowbringers introduces the Holy magicks.

LV 72: GLARE. Potency: 300
LV 72: DIA.
LV 74: PLENARY INDULGENCE.
LV 76: AERO IV.
LV 76: TRAIT: Enhanced Wind. Grants caster Biting Wind ready when casting Aero IV.
LV 78: HOLY III.
LV 78: TRAIT: Heavenly Answer. Elemental Prayer now also gives caster Heavenly Answer.
LV 80: BRAVERY.
LV 80: FAITH.

Endwalker introduces Amdapori Arts.

LV 82: TRAIT: Amdapori Arts. Allows Dia, Glare, and Holy to give the caster Amdapori Arts.
LV 82: BANISH.
LV 84: TRAIT: Enhanced Glare. Now gives 2 charges to Glare III.
LV 84: GLARE III.
LV 86: ARISE.
LV 86: TRAIT: Enhanced Sanctify II. Now changes Raise to Arise.
LV 88: TRAIT: Enhanced Assize. Now gives 2 charges to Assize.
LV 90: AMDAPORI JUDGMENT.

-----------------------------
OPENER (SpS > Crit, as low GCD as possible):
-3s: [[[ ELEMENTAL PRAYER ]]]
0s: Sanctify
[[[ WATER III ]]]
[[[ DIA ]]]
[[[ GLARE III ]]] ---> GROUP BUFFS
[[[ ASSIZE ]]]
`` Bravery ``
`` Faith ``
[[[ AERO IV ]]]
`` Answer ``
[[[ ANSWER OF WIND ]]]
[[[ HOLY III ]]]
`` Amdapori Curse ``
[[[ HOLY CURE III ]]] (Amdapori)
[[[ CURE III ]]] (Amdapori)
[[[ ASSIZE ]]]
[[[ GLARE III ]]]
[[[ GLARE III ]]] <--- 20s GROUP BUFFS END
[[[ STONE IV ]]]
[[[ STONE IV ]]]
...

-------------------------
HOTBAR ACTIONS

[1] - Cure I/II/III, Holy Cure I/II/III
[2] - Medica I/II, Holy Medica I/II
[3] - Stone I/II/III/IV, Answer of Earth
[4] - Aero I/II/III/IV, Answer of Wind
[5] - Water I/II/III, Answer of Water
[6] - Glare I/III
[7] - Dia
[8] - Holy I/III
[9] - Assize
[10] - Tetragrammaton
[11] - Afflatus Solace
[12] - Afflatus Rapture

[13] - Afflatus Misery
[14] - Benediction
[15] - Sanctify
[16] - Elemental Prayer/Answer
[17] - Raise/Arise
[18] - Bravery
[19] - Faith
[20] - Banish
[21] - Amdapori Judgment
[22] - Plenary Indulgence/Sacrament

(One less than current 6.4 WHM). It's possible to condense this even further by merging Bravery and Faith, deleting even more healing actions (Tetragrammaton maybe), deleting the 2nd DoT (Dia), and/or merging Glare/Dia into Stone/Aero through an oGCD action (maybe Sanctify once again).