Inconsistency in Regen Healer Toolkits, Proactivity, and 1 Minute Burst

[bigbooch]

When observing regen healer kits, it is evident that WHM provides far less party mitigation utility than AST.

WHM feels the most trapped by its role, as AST has so many mitigation tools even with that regen healer tag. But this disparity in tools is also compounded by AST having both the highest healing and raid contributing damage ceiling of any healer. The difference in tool kit begins to be apparent in high end content such as savage and ultimate where mitigation (albeit not completely a healer responsibility) is often the bar in which bosses test a group's ability to impact the full party's effective HP stat beyond HP restoration, which WHM is sorely lacking relative to all other healers regardless of Regen/Shield tag.

WHM's playstyle and kit features less proactive usage of its skills outside of temperance, lily bell, and asylum. Often limited to reactively Afflatus/GCD healing the party after damage occurs as opposed to reducing the damage before it is incurred. Every other healer, including AST, makes many proactive choices regarding the SEVERAL shields and party mitigation tools available to them (most of which are tied to 1-2 min OGCDs).

Dawntrail's latest addition, Divine Caress, feels okay to use, but "okay" for a lvl 100 ability tied to an existing 2 min CD is underwhelming for a job already deprived of mitigation tools. The regen feels like an after thought given how much HP restoration throughput you already have access to (consider the uptime of regens provided by a sacred soil/kerachole + whispering dawn/physis). I believe a stronger shield and separate CD would be preferred by most WHM players than a regen that would be sufficiently compensated for with the surplus of restoration tools already available.

I would be interested in a 1 minute CD presence of mind, akin to light speed, synching with Afflatus Misery and a burst style akin to tanks. If you feel like WHMs would be conflicted with healing and doing damage during 1 minute bursts, then perhaps consider making healing GCDs used during presence of mind extend the duration by a GCD so it's a net neutral in that case. Or don't and make WHMs juggle the choice of damage or healing (i.e. optimization/choice, which is a good thing for players to have even on easy jobs).

Likewise, not starting with a blood lily to spend in the opener seems to put WHM a bit behind compared to other healers. This design seems dated, especially in consideration of the recent DRG life window changes. I would be in favor of starting with a free Afflatus Misery at the start of combat to put into the 1st set of raid buffs.

In summary, WHM is lacking in party mitigation, proactive gameplay, and opener burst. I believe any of those changes would help bring it more in line with the current designs of other healer jobs this expansion.

[Galvuu]

The pure/shield healer split is becoming meaningless. They keep adding mitigation to "pure" healers and raw healing to "shield" healers.
This was a half-measure from the start, because they don't enforce pure+shield comps, and want to be flexible so any pair of the four healers ends up in a party for the DF.
It was a failed experiment, at this point I'd prefer if they scraped this concept and had a look at healers as a whole.
But well... *points at healerstrike thread*

[Connor]

‘Regen healers?’
*Laughs in Seraphism*

The pure/barrier split is just a hilarious joke at this point lol

[Chiru_Kai]

WHM is the easy-access class for pure healing. If you want complexity, you go AST and have a blAST.
It's like complaining that SMN doesn't get enough to do more damage compared to BLM. Like... yeah it doesn't get the same level of complexity where you need a 5 page google doc to play it effectively, because it's meant to be the easy access class that is extremely hard to screw up.

Comparing WHM to other healers is silly. Much like comparing SGE to SCH, and then it turns out that SCH has a WAY higher skill expression and powerful abilities to use IF used well. SGE is like the entry-level job for barrier healing. And it's good, but once stuff goes to heck... SGE is not gonne be the healer to save the day because it doesn't get nearly enough flexibility compared to other healers.

It's okay to have this difference in damage/healing output. Of course the "easy" jobs should still be able to keep up for savage/ultimate content, but it's fine if they are slightly 'worse' for the sake of comfortableness.

maybe WHM gets less party mitigation BECAUSE they get more 'reactive heals' that just work fine. Mitigation be damned, as long as people don't die, WHM will be outputting massive, MASSIVE healing power if played well, and that's ok.

[Bakkagami]

WHM is the easy-access class for pure healing. If you want complexity, you go AST and have a blAST.
It's like complaining that SMN doesn't get enough to do more damage compared to BLM. Like... yeah it doesn't get the same level of complexity where you need a 5 page google doc to play it effectively, because it's meant to be the easy access class that is extremely hard to screw up.

Comparing WHM to other healers is silly. Much like comparing SGE to SCH, and then it turns out that SCH has a WAY higher skill expression and powerful abilities to use IF used well. SGE is like the entry-level job for barrier healing. And it's good, but once stuff goes to heck... SGE is not gonne be the healer to save the day because it doesn't get nearly enough flexibility compared to other healers.

It's okay to have this difference in damage/healing output. Of course the "easy" jobs should still be able to keep up for savage/ultimate content, but it's fine if they are slightly 'worse' for the sake of comfortableness.

maybe WHM gets less party mitigation BECAUSE they get more 'reactive heals' that just work fine. Mitigation be damned, as long as people don't die, WHM will be outputting massive, MASSIVE healing power if played well, and that's ok.

Agree with most of this... except having a blast on astro.. at least not in 7.0. Used to be engaging to play but now, while its kit is strong and it has a ton of tools, theres no job mechanic to play for. The job gauge could've been removed completely too and it would've made no difference since there's no decision making surrounding it.
- a disappointed astro

[Willemdarke]

Healer issues aside, there's nothing wrong with the concept of a purely reactive healer. In fact it's arguably what most people would be comfortable with, especially coming from other games where shields/mitigation are a lot less common.

[Silver-Strider]

WHM is the easy-access class for pure healing. If you want complexity, you go AST and have a blAST.
It's like complaining that SMN doesn't get enough to do more damage compared to BLM. Like... yeah it doesn't get the same level of complexity where you need a 5 page google doc to play it effectively, because it's meant to be the easy access class that is extremely hard to screw up.

Comparing WHM to other healers is silly. Much like comparing SGE to SCH, and then it turns out that SCH has a WAY higher skill expression and powerful abilities to use IF used well. SGE is like the entry-level job for barrier healing. And it's good, but once stuff goes to heck... SGE is not gonne be the healer to save the day because it doesn't get nearly enough flexibility compared to other healers.

It's okay to have this difference in damage/healing output. Of course the "easy" jobs should still be able to keep up for savage/ultimate content, but it's fine if they are slightly 'worse' for the sake of comfortableness.

maybe WHM gets less party mitigation BECAUSE they get more 'reactive heals' that just work fine. Mitigation be damned, as long as people don't die, WHM will be outputting massive, MASSIVE healing power if played well, and that's ok.

The only skill that WHM has over AST is Cure 3 and that's it. Calling that Massive Healing power is a gross over exaggeration that has gimped WHM for years now and will continue to do so for years to come.

[bigbooch]

The pure/shield healer split is becoming meaningless. They keep adding mitigation to "pure" healers and raw healing to "shield" healers.
This was a half-measure from the start, because they don't enforce pure+shield comps, and want to be flexible so any pair of the four healers ends up in a party for the DF.
It was a failed experiment, at this point I'd prefer if they scraped this concept and had a look at healers as a whole.
But well... *points at healerstrike thread*

An issue is that most duty finder content can be done with a single healer or even no healer. The presence of 2 healers in tandem with most of the content not hurting enough to warrant that many healers (or tanks even). Structurally, it's to reduce the amount of stress on those 2 support roles by having an extra body to do the other's job which makes sense. Redundancy is good so there's less spiraling wipes, but the tradeoff is feeling like a participant when fights are designed to have instances of damage quite far from each other that most of your kit feels under-utilized. Don't want to dive into the strike, but I think in general the game would benefit from more role responsibility and constant damage, which current fights in DT aside from EX2 are doing really well.

The split is fine IMO. 2x shield in PUGS is a bit anti-synergistic due to how their GCD shields overwrite/don't stack with each other, but feel great in organized settings or with a bit of communication pre-pull. 2x shield is mostly gated by mana if they're required to constantly heal, which low piety BIS sets are often the norm. 2x regen gets pretty dicey/rough in older content like UWU/TEA/DSR/P8S/TOP where mechanics require all shielding/available mitigation where the HP margins you live by are very slim and could result in a wipe if a single CD is missed (standard heavy, mitigation checks which I'm sure you're familiar with but others who haven't done those fights ITT may not be). The split makes more sense there and in general tests how good your shield healer/non-WHM party members are for those checks, while HPS checks are infrequent and should be in more content IMO so the regen healer can shine a bit more. I was simply raising the disparity in WHMs limited role in contributing to the party mit as a regen healer being tied to a single 2 min CD.

[BunnyQueen]

The pure/shield healer split is becoming meaningless. They keep adding mitigation to "pure" healers and raw healing to "shield" healers.
This was a half-measure from the start, because they don't enforce pure+shield comps, and want to be flexible so any pair of the four healers ends up in a party for the DF.
It was a failed experiment, at this point I'd prefer if they scraped this concept and had a look at healers as a whole.
But well... *points at healerstrike thread*

Hi, ya there is a lot to complain about. Lack of healing needed in normal content and lack of damage buttons. Both are points we want addressed.

An issue is that most duty finder content can be done with a single healer or even no healer. The presence of 2 healers in tandem with most of the content not hurting enough to warrant that many healers (or tanks even). Structurally, it's to reduce the amount of stress on those 2 support roles by having an extra body to do the other's job which makes sense. Redundancy is good so there's less spiraling wipes, but the tradeoff is feeling like a participant when fights are designed to have instances of damage quite far from each other that most of your kit feels under-utilized. Don't want to dive into the strike, but I think in general the game would benefit from more role responsibility and constant damage, which current fights in DT aside from EX2 are doing really well.

The split is fine IMO. 2x shield in PUGS is a bit anti-synergistic due to how their GCD shields overwrite/don't stack with each other, but feel great in organized settings or with a bit of communication pre-pull. 2x shield is mostly gated by mana if they're required to constantly heal, which low piety BIS sets are often the norm. 2x regen gets pretty dicey/rough in older content like UWU/TEA/DSR/P8S/TOP where mechanics require all shielding/available mitigation where the HP margins you live by are very slim and could result in a wipe if a single CD is missed (standard heavy, mitigation checks which I'm sure you're familiar with but others who haven't done those fights ITT may not be). The split makes more sense there and in general tests how good your shield healer/non-WHM party members are for those checks, while HPS checks are infrequent and should be in more content IMO so the regen healer can shine a bit more. I was simply raising the disparity in WHMs limited role in contributing to the party mit as a regen healer being tied to a single 2 min CD.

As a tank main, I did a lot of content without a healer to prove a point. People still say that isn't a problem when it is.

[bigbooch]

WHM is the easy-access class for pure healing. If you want complexity, you go AST and have a blAST.
It's like complaining that SMN doesn't get enough to do more damage compared to BLM. Like... yeah it doesn't get the same level of complexity where you need a 5 page google doc to play it effectively, because it's meant to be the easy access class that is extremely hard to screw up.

Comparing WHM to other healers is silly. Much like comparing SGE to SCH, and then it turns out that SCH has a WAY higher skill expression and powerful abilities to use IF used well. SGE is like the entry-level job for barrier healing. And it's good, but once stuff goes to heck... SGE is not gonne be the healer to save the day because it doesn't get nearly enough flexibility compared to other healers.

It's okay to have this difference in damage/healing output. Of course the "easy" jobs should still be able to keep up for savage/ultimate content, but it's fine if they are slightly 'worse' for the sake of comfortableness.

maybe WHM gets less party mitigation BECAUSE they get more 'reactive heals' that just work fine. Mitigation be damned, as long as people don't die, WHM will be outputting massive, MASSIVE healing power if played well, and that's ok.

Difficulty is not what I am discussing, I understand that it is a straight forward job and in theory SE balances jobs partly on difficulty (which is often overstated by SMNs given the higher average and maximum performance of simple jobs like RPR and DNC compared to DRG and BRD; I digress).

Comparing a job to the other jobs within its own role will never be "silly" lol. You're also in the minority if you think SCH is better than SGE in recovery situations. When your co-healer is down and the party needs to have its HP bar topped + shields/mit to live, SGE's Zoe + Pneuma is a pseudo-raidwide benediction and you have several OGCD tools that can heal the party and/or provide shields that dissipate into heals if not maximized while not sacrificing damage or starving for mana like SCH. SCH is better for planned mitigation of big hits and party utility with expedience + chain stratagem.

Maybe you should consider this: with 2 light speed charges every 2min and assuming you have a standard AST 2.34 GCD, you have 12 instant GCDs with 24 weaving windows to use whatever OGCDs to top the party's HP, mitigate, shield and regenerate HP. Most of that is achievable over the span of 1-2 GCDs in even the most chaotic scenarios.

for WHM: with 6 lillies, 2 blood lillies, and 3 glare IVs every 2min, you have 11 instant GCDS to weave...single target heals/shields or plenary indulgence unless you have temperance which I stated earlier in my OP is too infrequent and limiting compared to what's available to AST. Yes it is easy to press plenary + cure 3 or afflatus rapture. It's also easy to double weave and move when you have light speed to fix situations with the plethora of OGCDs you have.