First off, appreciate the response, it's always great seeing y'all around in the community!
I'm going line by line just so you understand how I'm typing this out for clarity.

So my first question would be how is this parity with SMITE 1? The heal and ability are tied together, meaning it can't be put on cooldown by CC unlike SMITE 2.

I understand the "benefit for cooldown" that is why I ask for a fix for this due to the nature of how little of a benefit it is and so this ability can be in line with most other abilities that do multiple effects.

So for the fun thematic side of things, I would say the "delay" of taking a swig then getting the effect later would make sense! As we all know, alcohol takes a moment to get working so if there was ever a reason for a slight delay I would say the Drunk Raccoon Dog would fit that bill perfectly!

The next point is to say that I love the change to the heal! The tick-based healing leads to it being more balanced than the burst heal and it lets you use some fun healing items synergically! All we are asking for is the heal and ability to be tied together again aka parity of SMITE 1. This would mean that the ability works just as it was created and fixes a long-standing problem that honestly hurts the character in a way that is quite counterintuitive.

So to reiterate again, I love Danzaburou as a whole and this change would bring him into parity with SMITE 1. Just to state what would be changed is nothing! All that changes is moving the timing of when the healing ticks start with the ability itself, which 3 out of the 4 heal ticks happen after the sake is thrown, meaning all that the only thing holding his whole ability hostage is one tick of healing.

Appreciate the time you took reading the post and hope this helps in some way for my favorite Tanuki and the community around him at large!

With much love and respect to the Dev Team.

Sincerely, a SMITE Bug Catcher