(10-27-2013, 11:45 AM)Naunet Wrote: I do that frequently and still think it's a fairly dull healing class. Less dull than dps though (which I've never enjoyed outside of random alting). I mean thing about it. You're trying to say WHM isn't boring as long as you spam Stone II and Aero in between heals - in other words, as long as party damage is low and you aren't healing much so that you can dps instead. That... doesn't actually say a lot of good things about the class's design.
Okay, I'll bite with this. I just can't resist anymore. I'm horrible at holding myself back. xD
Stoneskin needs a complete revamp. It either needs to become some form of party-wide buff to complement Protect (the less interesting option), or it needs to be made instant cast, given a CD, and transformed into a powerful defensive cooldown (the actually interesting option).
Vehemently disagree. Stoneskin is flat-out amazing just as it is. Â It doesn't need a party-wide buff, it doesn't need to be made instant cast (because we can do that with Swiftcast if we need to), and it doesn't need a CD or to be transformed into a powerful defensive CD. Â It's very powerful just as it is. Â And I wish that more healers would understand what Effective Health is and why it is so ridiculously powerful.
Quote:Freecure should work with Medica as well as Cure II. Let's ignore for the moment that RNG-dependent mana efficiency is horrible and needs to go die in a fire. But assume that Freecure is here to stay. The least they could do is make it so proccing it introduces a decision the player has to make rather than just twiddling one's thumbs until there's enough HP off the tank to justify casting Cure II. (Another rant: You would not believe how many Freecures I have wasted because it procs at completely useless times. RNG healing is not fun, guys!) Oh look, I got a Freecure proc! Okay, is the tank taking a lot of damage or do I want to spend it on an AoE heal to buffer the whole group? No, it's not a particularly interesting decision, but it's better than thumb twiddling and mindlessly hitting Cure II.
Why are you doing that? Â You realize that overhealing generates threat, right? Â And the more overhealing you're doing, the more threat you're generating. Â See, the thing is, the Devs want you to have to think about the healing you're doing. Â This is why Medica pulls an enormous amount of threat, and this is why casting Cure II willy nilly is likely to get you one or more mobs as new friends, with teeth, claws, and stabby knives.
The reason WHM are designed with high inefficiency is because we have so much healing power potential. Â It's a check on our abilities, to keep us from getting out of hand - so that when we need to be powerful, we can be, but we absolutely must think about what we are doing.
Quote:And then there's Cure III. This spell would be awesome - an AoE heal that doesn't require you to cross into deadly melee territory to be useful - except its miniscule range means that for it to be effective, the people your casting it on need to be practically humping each others' butts. Someone previously in the thread mentioned they think Cure III is just a spell for a fight that hasn't come along yet, but let me stop you right there. I am not a fan at all of spells designed to work at one particular moment during one particular fight when the stars align just so and then for a few seconds out of the years you play the game, you get to cast your spell. When a fight would have to be specifically designed with the spell in mind in order for it to be useful, that is a sign of a poorly designed spell. How to fix this? Just increase the range of Cure III by a few yards. It's really that simple. Not as large as Medica, but not a piddly 4y either.
I don't believe it's poorly designed, actually, and I already provided several instances where I do use it. Â Garuda, Hydra, Titan HM. Â When Crystal Tower comes out, I think we'll see what it was intended for. Â Wouldn't surprise me if there were uses for it in Coils now, but I haven't seen Coils yet.
Quote:Aero II is useless as it is now and a complete waste of an action slot. Okay, so what if when you applied it, the spell generated splash AoE healing with each DoT tick in a radius around the mob with it on? Suddenly it's interesting and useful to a WHM's toolkit!
I love Aero II. Â I use it all the time. Â It's awesome. Â Aero II and then Aero and then I go back to healing.Â
Quote:I have a similar complaint with Stone. Once you get Stone II, there's pretty much zero reason to cast Stone I ever again. Now, we could keep Stone II as a dps spell, because lord knows CNJ/WHM still deserves some soloing capacity, so what if it became an AoE centered around the target? Cast it and rubble bursts up from the ground around the monster, damaging all in range. Stone I's damage would be tuned up to adjust for the change in Stone II.
While I'd love to have AoE, I think you may have noticed at this point that AoE is fairly tightly restricted in this game. Â It's either extremely high level, not spammable, or both. Â The reason we have Stone, btw, after we get Stone II is for Fates and synced-down dungeons.
Quote:WHMs have two pretty straightforward ohshit cooldowns: a +healing CD (Divine Seal) and a +spell speed CD (Presence of Mind). Okay. Boring, but okay. Due to the very minimal effects of spell speed and the ability's short duration, PoM is of extremely limited use, but that could be fixed with some tuning.
There's speculation that the spell speed actually isn't being calculated correctly.
Quote:The next thing I'm going to say is probably going to annoy people, but Holy as a spell is just flat out illogical. It has a very short duration stun, but casting it takes so long and the mana cost is so obscenely high that there's quite literally no point in using it outside of maybe spamming it in a FATE (though I have better luck just spamming Aero all around because of the mana cost) or just to look pretty. Something's gotta change with Holy. Maybe just a mana cost reduction would be fine, but as is, it's pretty ridiculously useless. And no, this is not a spell that will shine in PvP as is, as some might think. The length of time it takes to cast is its killer there. Your targets will run out or interrupt you well before anything goes off. And with the DR on stuns, a 4s stun is effectively little more than an interrupt, yet the spell takes so long to cast that it can't actually be used as such.
What is Swiftcast, how does it work?
On a more serious note, I spam Holy all the time in dungeons, and even in Primal battles. Â Just because I have to plan ahead before casting it doesn't make the spell "bad." Â I really don't think that you should tune a spell around Fates. Â Seriously.
Quote:My beef with Benediction has more to do with the overall functionality of the game's spells and animations than anything, but I'll mention it anyway. Having an oshit instant heal all health button is great, but having to spam it several times before it actually goes off and then having to wait two seconds for the animation to finish before the heal actually triggers quite nearly ruins the spell. With its long CD, this is not something you want to just pop willy-nilly, so when you do use it, it's usually because you freaking need to heal that person right now ASAP no ifs, ands, or buts. *ahem*
I've...literally never had that happen. Â I've accidentally Benedictioned myself, but that was my fault. Â I wonder if you have been lagging when you tried to use the spell? Â Are you using Mouseover Macros? Â That's what I use, and it seems to work amazingly.
I do mash things several times, but I mash everything several times because I'm always like, 2 steps ahead of where my GCD will let me be. Â
Quote:So think of the problems with CNJ/WHM as this: The class's design reads off as a checklist of necessary spells. Single target, stronger single target, AoE, HoT, CD to increase healing. The only spells with any real synergy are Cure I and Cure II. The Overcure proc for Cure III is a little silly, as having a powerful single target heal proc an powerful AoE is a bit backwards (theoretically, you're casting single target heals because you only need to heal one person), but I'll give it credit anyway. So out of our entire toolkit, only three spells actually work together. The others are a hodge podge of completely independent abilities. There's no motivation to cast damage spells outside of times when you're just bored as fuck because casting damage spells does nothing except drain your mana, which means it's only something you want to do when you're confident that your mana pool is not going to be needed for other healing.
Why is that bad? Â No, seriously, why is that a bad thing? Â Not everyone wants to cast damage spells as a healer. Â If I wanted to be a DPS, I'd be a DPS class, not a healer. Â If I want to DPS while healing, I use SCH and go ham with the fairy covering me. Â But if I want to do straight up healing, I go with WHM, and that's okay. Â It's absolutely okay for a healing class to not DPS.
Quote:(So basically, when I'm loling it up in 4 mans or Ifrit HM. Definitely not dpsing on Garuda or Titan HM, though, and Coil? Nope.)
I DPS on Garuda and Titan, at certain points, but yeah, I save my mana. Â So does the SCH. Â Why is this bad?
Quote:Now, if casting a particular damage spell applied some sort of buff to yourself (or the mob's target, or everyone around it, or something) that complemented your healing? That would be spell synergy and that would make damaging things something more than just "I am trying very hard not to collapse from boredom".
Then, meaning no disrespect, perhaps healing is not for you?
I don't want to have to damage to heal. Â I want to heal. Â If you're bored in a 4 man, tell the tank to pull more. Â If you're bored in a primal fight, you probably outgear it. Â Don't campaign to ruin the class for other people just because you're outgearing content and getting bored.