What dps/utility buttons old or new would you add to your healer?

I've noticed since making the megathread summary of healer issues, its unanimous that everyone wants more to do during the 70-90% of our time when not healing.
However the nature of the changes are a little more varied.

What form would you have your downtime take on which job(s)?

Note: these are none healing actions, but buffs to healing would still count eg shroud of saints returned would be valid as its a self buff.

Green DPS needs more than 2 DPS buttons. Give us more DoTs to manage at least.

Lately, my thought train has been going in this direction for SGE...

Dosis
- Remains as the standard single target filler spell. Eukrasia still makes this a DoT. The potency will drop to make room for other offensive tools, as will other Dosis-potency actions.

Polydipsia
- A new DPS GCD spell that has the same potency as Dosis and has a higher MP cost and a line AoE with falloff. When used, instead of normal Kardia healing, it applies 4 stacks of Soteria to your Kardia target, doubling the HP restored to them through Kardia. Under the effects of Eukrasia, changes this to 2 stacks of Expanded Soteria, which causes Kardia healing to additionally heal all party members within 20 yalms of your Kardia target. This gives you a way to more directly interact with Kardia healing and augment it. It's interchangeable with Dosis per GCD, but must be managed for its MP costs

Paroxysm
- Renamed Dyskrasia (to avoid the awkward sounding 'Eukrasian Dyskrasia'). It changes to a ranged spell that deals Dosis-potency damage with falloff. It has a higher MP cost and refunds little bits of MP for each enemy hit, making it affordable for AoE but a mobility tool/double weaving tool in single target at a higher MP cost. Eukrasia makes this an AoE DoT that does not stack with Eukrasian Dosis'.

Phlegma
- Stays largely the same, but is slightly weaker in exchange for making enemies hit take 5% more damage from only you for 5 seconds. Gives you a reason to time certain other actions.

Pneuma and Proto-Pneuma
- Proto-Pneuma replaces Pneuma as the action you set to your hotbar. It is a high-potency DPS laser on a 2 minute cooldown used for damage. After it's used, you get 1 use of Pneuma while Proto-Pneuma is on cooldown, which replaces Proto-Pneuma on the hotbar and functions as Pneuma currently does--DPS neutral damage with burst healing.

Toxikon
- Remains the same potency as Dosis while costing an Addersting but with a few subtle changes. It gains a 15 second cooldown while staying on the GCD, and also interacts with a new action...

Toxikosis
- An OGCD ability that deals damage equal to your Dosis as a circle AoE with falloff. It has a 15 second cooldown and 3 charges. When Toxikon is used, decreases the cooldown of Toxikosis by 15 seconds, similarly to BRD's Bloodletter procs essentially. This would use Toxikon I's animation and would function closer to how Alphinaud uses it as well as PVP SGE.

Toxikomania
- A GCD spell that only does a small amount of damage in a circle AoE, but generates 1 Addersting, effectively comboing into Toxikon and Toxikosis. It has a cooldown of 20 seconds with 2 charges.

Additionally to these, I've been thinking that maybe Addersgall needs adjustments to make it less like SCH. Instead of fueling your -chole abilities, Druochole, Kerachole, and Ixochole are just cooldown actions, and Addersgall instead causes your GCD healing to generate 1 Addersting, making it a little more like lilies, but makes SGE want to actually apply barriers regularly throughout battle. This also replaces the barrier-breaking aspect, but when your barriers break, you get MP back.

In this example, Rhizomata instead of generating Addersgall, gives you 1 free use of Druochole, Kerachole, or Ixochole.

I want the old Aero, Aero II and Aero III back.

DoTs with differnt timers to actually manage, AoE DoT and of course the nice animation when you cast Aero III. And the base Aero, while being a dps loss over casting your Stone (now Glare), it was a nice movement tool since it was instant. But because of the nature of DoTs you could not spam it while moving, it was a good design.

I also miss Divine Seal, the cooldown of Temperance is too long. White Mage could get more defensive utility anyway, but it would be nice if I had not to decide between healing or mitigation when the skill has such a long cooldown.

Bravery, Faith, Protect, Shell, Virus, Eye for an Eye. Stick them all in role skills for precious balance.

As a Scholar I want Biolysis and Adloquium to have additional effects like in PvP too (obviously not the literal same values don’t @ me). Damage up on Adloquium, Damage down on Biolysis.
Maybe give Succor a support effect too, something crappy like reduce damage taken or reduce weaponskill recast for balance. Make Deployment 2 charges with 60s cool-down, make it affect Biolysis and the damage increase from Adloquium. Give it a way to interact with its buffs and debuffs, like Recitation increasing additional effect potency or Dissipation sacrificing the fairy healing for stronger buffs/debuffs. They could have procs for abilities that are triggered by having buffs / debuffs on the enemy. Like a Bard style ‘when an enemy takes damage from a damage over time skill, X% chance to proc Big Brain Ruin IV’, or ‘when using a buff on a target affected by a fairy buff skill, increase the potency by X%’ to encourage synergising with the fairy and not making her a solo healer lol

Also make Selene have her own unique skills again. Fey Wind for haste (would probably have to be damage increase because haste is trolling), change her version Embrace to give a buff that increases healing by like 3% with a lower potency, give Silent Dusk a DoT effect (same cool-down). Make Fey Caress work like Celestial Opposition and add to the buff/debuff duration. Then they could have Seraph’s abilities give the effects of both, like a regen + dot pulse from Whispering Dawn / Silent Dusk, or Fey Blessing and Caress restoring HP whilst also increasing buff durations.

Making Scholar so it has Bio, Bio II, Miasma, Miasma II, Biolysis, Biolysis II and Shadow Flare sound boring as all hell lol. You just press the button once every 30 or so seconds and that’s it. Or you do Miasma/Bio first then Bio/Miasma on reapplication because timers. It’s not that deep and it wasn’t the pinnacle of fun lol. I mean realistically we’d be doing the exact same as what we do now but with a few different buttons instead of just one. Still seems pretty mindless to me.

Frankly all the jobs are pretty mindless, it's about disguising that fact.

Ast I'd give celestial opposition and time dilation back, as well as a delayed dot - something similar to exaltation where it sits around a bit before going off.

Scholar gets bane and at least miasma back. I'd also give it fey caress back because people simply can't learn to interrupt those wretched robots. Quickened aetherflow is also returned, as is rouse.

White mage gets stoneskin (can be a long duration low% mit rather than shield if need be) and temperance gets split up into diving seal and temperance, one with healing potency improvements and the other party mitigation. Also aero 3 and glare becomes stone flavour again.

Sage can have abyssal drain as a targeted aoe, and eukrasian abyssal drain with a hp leeching component I guess.

All healers lose cure1 analogues which now directly upgrade.

I don't want more abilities i want more interactions between existing abilities something like: Change durochole into a shield, if shield is broken by dmg in x seconds you get a phlegma stack refunded.

Just gonna rewrite what I wrote in the past with some added tidbits. Trying not to flood too much.

WHM

Aero II
Give back their 18s duration and replaces our current Dia

Aero III
Give back in 21s or 24s duration.

Assize
Made into GCD and given 2 charges.

Tornado
Something that proc after using Assize, with cooldown to prevent ultra dumping

Seraph Strike
An oGCD. Gapclose & shields party around the WHM.

Afflatus Purgation
A GCD. Costs 2 lilies. Damage neutral line AoE with Temperance and AoE regen baked into the action. Replacing Temperance.

And maybe additional lily spender. Maybe a lily themed bravery/faith?

SCH

Miasma I | Miasma III
Given 21s duration and dps increase vs Broil spams.

Miasma II | Miasma IV
Given 15s duration, high MP cost, hardcasted AoE, and 'Virus' effect that reduce target damage dealt the lower target's HP is. Ranging from 3% to 10%.

Bio I to Bio IV
Given 12s duration but made dps neutral vs Broil spams.

Biolysis (separate from Bio line!)
Given 30s duration and dps increase vs Broil spams.

Kaustra/Meltdown
Ruin IV + Iron Jaw with short cooldown, proccing from Energy Siphon.

Shadowflare
Maybe!?

Energy Siphon
Replaces Energy Drain AND Aetherflow to be an AoE damage with damage fall off. Generates fae gauge which will be used to execute other fae abilities.

Eos & Selene
Actually different, please. Also a good time to reintroduce other removed actions like Covenant, Wind, & Silent Dusk but probably with different effect.

Dissipation
Swaps Eos with Selene and vice versa without incurring loss with hefty fae gauge consumption. Gives stacks of aetherflow that can be used to summon seraph later when it reaches 3. Also enhances healing abilities potencies & recovers one stack of Lustrate, Indom, and Excog.

Emergency Tactic
Moved down to lv30 to compensate the loss of Physuck when the SCH learns Adlo (lol not really). At later level gains a trait to reverses the effect of Indomitability and Lustrate into shield effect with slightly lower potencies.

Deployment Tactic
Gains 2 charges and cooldown reduced to 60s. Can be used at enemies to spread miasma (only single target counts), bio, biolysis, and chain stratagem to nearby enemies with damage fall off.

Recitation
Cooldown extended to 120s but each use now also recovers 1 charge of Deployment.

Chain Stratagem
Gains a trait at later level that interacts with SCH's own damage over time, raising the critical chance by 1% for each existing DoT upon application & allows more execution of Kaustra.

I'll stop cause it's now too much >.>

AST

Diurnal & Nocturnal Sects
Gibe them back ty. Neutral can go though. Swapping in battle will incur penalty for short period of time. I'm also hoping these will also affect how Fall Malefic, Combust, and Gravity behaves somehow. But fingers crossed.

Celestial Opposition
Same but with added additional AoE stun, and swaps current sect with the one on reserve without incurring penalty.

Time Dilation
People keep telling this was a nice utility to have & honestly after reading the old tooltip, it sounds promising. Maybe it requires some adjustment to be added back.

And other fun, awesome AST $h!ts that people keep clamoring for.

Can't think anything else for now I'll add more into my rambling doc zzzz idk I'm dumb

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SenzorialBoundries

I don't want more abilities i want more interactions between existing abilities something like: Change durochole into a shield, if shield is broken by dmg in x seconds you get a phlegma stack refunded.

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This. Let us spread Biolysis with Deployment Tactics!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

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Preamble: Objectives and Such

Unanimous is..._A_ word. Not quite accurate here, though. Would probably be most accurate to say "A significant portion of the playerbase would like..."

That said, my position on this has consistently been the following: There are many types of Healer player, and we have four Healer Jobs, so the best solution might be to bend each one into different playstyles so that players can pick the one that closest matches their ideal play.

There are a lot of objectives at play, but my big three are:

1) Ensure there is some Healer Job(s) that play like today to appeal to people that like current healing.

2) Ensure Healers have proper healing and mitigation toolkits and diminish the Pure/Barrier paradigm which...has frankly been a failure.

3) Provide for some Healers to have more complexity and skill expression while not demanding that of Healer players uninterested in that kind of gameplay. In other words, not leave some people out in the cold or advance some people's interests at the total expense of someone else's. There is a way, however, that allows us to go ham on complexity on one hand while also not requiring it of everyone on the other such that it meets this requirement.

To me, this would mean doing the following:

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White Mage: Powerful Heals Refunded With Strong Personal Damage In A Straightforward Kit

WHM: No really big changes. Start by making GCD heals generate a 1/3rd Blood Lily. If they do that, they could honestly remove Solace and Rapture, but leaving them in is fine, too. This way, WHM players could engage with the buttons in their kit they presently do not, such as - Cure 1, Cure 2, Cure 3 (mostly), Medica, Medica 2 (mostly), and Regen (mostly), all buttons that are rarely used, and the ones that are used are only in very specific situations. It would also mean Cure 1 is DPS neutral with Glare, so both players that like casting Cure 1 and those that like casting Glare end up damage neutral, and likewise players that like rolling HoTs (Regen, to a lesser extent Medica 2), and could generate some interesting optimization options for those so inclined. I'd also revert Thin Air to the ShB version!! Finally, I would add a 10% damage reduction for 10 second effect to Plenary Indulgence, mirroring how dAST (Diurnal is back, I'll get to that) has access to a damage reduction twice per minute. Otherwise, WHM would play (and could be played) identically to today.

This is the Healer I'd touch the least (mainly for the players that enjoy healing as it currently exists in the game), but just making all of its GCD heals damage neutral would actually be a pretty significant change and really cement it as the GCD Healer with lots of throughput and raw healing at its fingertips. I'd probably tweak Glare's damage a SMIDGE, but not much. Make it 5-10 more potency or something so it's a SLIGHT DPS gain over using regular GCD heals, but the difference can't be much otherwise we'll have 6.0 all over again if Misery is too much weaker than it. But if we don't do this, then there'd literally never be a reason to cast Glare if you could just cast a Cure 1 on literally anyone and gain the same amount of damage. Which...I dunno, that's probably a bad thing? Additionally, have Blood Lily stack to 2 or something. That is, if you have a full bloom, you can use 2 more casts to build up 1/3rd, 2/3rd without them being wasted, allowing a little more flexibility in Misery use, like in a high healing required period of a fight.

The goal here is to make WHM play like a somewhat traditional MMO raw throughput Healer, while still giving it some optimization options. Allow it to use the 1/3rd of its toolkit that often isn't touched while still supplying the overall damage it has today, and give it a damage reduction ability on a 60 sec CD, which would be 3x what it has today (right now it only has Temperance on a 2 min CD, and of all the Healers, feels to be "missing something"). Lilies can either be removed (since GCD heals go straight into Misery casts every 3x of them) or left in as movement tools and for the Glarespammer of today who wants to not at all change their playstyle. But basically, not to punish WHM for using their traditional heals, open the playstyle to more healing focused players while leaving the existing playstyle for existing Glarespammers in tact, and give them a bit more mitigation bump to bring them better in line with the other Healers. Moreover, this creates a baseline that allows us to get creative with some of the Healer Jobs while ensuring there's an "appeal to simplicity" still on the table for players more into straightforward gameplay.

Summary: All GCD Heals generate Blood Lily (1/3rd) making them approximately damage neutral, Plenary Indulgence/Confession buff acts as a more on-demand mitigation tool as well as healing from that damage, return Thin Air to its ShB incarnation to improve overall WHM MP management, allow Misery to somewhat stack (either 2 full stacks or get up to 2/3rd of the next stack before overcapping), [optional] remove or leave Lilies, removing frees up some spots but leaving allows people who like the current gameplay as it is to keep engaging with it as such, [optional] have Glare be a 5 or 10 potency increase (per GCD) over Misery (in short, Misery doing 20-40 potency less than 4x Glares would do) to allow a SLIGHT damage increase for players able to use Glare more (otherwise, optimal play would always be to cast Cure 1 or Regen since they do additional healing and then Misery rather than Glare unless the boss is going to go untargetable or die within 3 GCDs), though this isn't really required at all.

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Scholar: Plate Spinning Master Leveraging Faerie Companion To Heal Allies

SCH I would dig into the past and bring back some older abilities. My short list is probably a second DoT (for naming convention sake, have Biolysis be a separate spell line so we'd have the Bio line, Miasma line, and Biolysis line). Bio with a 15 second duration that's instant cast, Miasma with a 1.5 sec cast and 21 second duration, and Biolysis with a 30 second duration, 1.5 sec cast time, that stacks to 3. E.g. the goal is to maintain Biolysis with 3 stacks by casting it three times and then refreshing the stack before it falls off. Bane would be back. Fester would be back with a modification that it now does 50 potency of damage per DoT on the target (max 300; it counts each Biolysis stack as one additional DoT) and it refreshes the duration of any of your DoTs on the target (like Iron Jaws for BRD). Miasma 2 would be back as an instant cast GCD with a 10 sec duration and a 30 second GCD (optimal use is to use it on CD and make sure to use it BEFORE Fester, ideally 8-9 seconds before Fester so that you get both the full 300 damage as 50 each from Bio, Miasma, Biolysis x3, and Miasma 2 and get a refreshed duration for that use). DoTs have a chance to proc Ruin 4, which is the SB version of SMN's Ruin 4 (though make it AOE for funzies like EW's version). This will take the spot of Ruin 2 on your bar until used or until the buff expires if not used within 30 seconds or whatever. Maybe allow it to stack to 2 to ease the pressure on overcapping slightly.

Rework Aetherflow/Faerie Gauge as follows: Aetherflow is now for your damaging abilities, Energy Drain, Fester, and Bane. Using AF generates Faerie Gauge, 5 units per use. Using your Aetherflow ability generates 3 stacks of Aetehrflow (for attacks) and 15-20 Gauge. Using some other abilities will probably also generate gauge, like using Ruin 4 or when your Succor/Adlo shields are consumed could generate 5 Gauge or something. Lustrate's Potency reduced to 500, but it now erects a magicked barrier equal to 75% of the healing done (375 potency; for reference, Succor shields are 320, so this shouldn't be too overpowered and would give SCH a Gauge dump). Fey Blessing would have its CD removed and have a Gauge cost ~1/2 of Indoms (it would be your "first line emergency AOE spam" after Indom but before Succor). Shadow Flare is back as well. Abilities removed would probably include Aetherpact (now we have better uses of Faerie Gauge and Lustrate can be the cheap dump for spot healing when Excog is on CD), Dissipation, probably fold Fey Illumination into Seraph or Expedient (as in, it would upgrade into them, so they would get the additional effect that it has right now just on one button), and maybe fold Protraction's effect into Excogitation/make them one button. Also: Eos would automatically summon for you (or at least be instant cast like SMN, but ideally auto-summon when you swap to SCH and are raised), and you use egi-glamour to set her appearance.

The overall goal here is to allow a steady amount of Gauge generation for healing abilities, remove the "war" between healing and (minimal) damage (Energy Drain) allowing one resource to be spent exclusively on damage with the player deciding the priority for best use and the other exclusively on healing, encourage AF consumption on damage abilities as a gateway to more healing, while having backup healing tools and baseline generation sufficient that not doing so doesn't hamper you too much, and to supply more damage buttons, but ones with meaningful and interesting interactions (instead of just "more DoTs" for the sake of having a few more busywork plates to spin). As I've said many times, I personally hate DoTs, but what I really hate are DoTs that are just...there. That don't do anything except exist as another button to press. But DoTs that do things like proc other things or stack where you want to maintain stacks or interact with some other ability to spread or amplify? That I find much more interesting. As much as some people love Energy Drain optimization, minimal as it is, it's kind of a trap for new players and it also feels bad to have to give up an ED to cast needed heals, and there's a LOT more here to optimize anyway, so I feel like even the Energy Drain optimization lovers would be content with these changes. Moreover, this would actually make Faerie Gauge have a POINT.

Buttons removed (either ability removed or effect combined with something else): Aetherpact, Fey Illumination, Dissipation, Protraction, Summon.

Buttons added: Biolysis (as separate from Bio), Bane (possibly as a charge of Deployment Tactics if we really don't want to add buttons...though I don't think that'd work well), Fester, Miasma 2, Shadowflare [Note that I'm removing 5 and adding 5, making this SCH have no more hotbar spots needed than current SCH]

Buttons changed: Lustrate has a barrier and is a spot heal and Gauge dump, Fey Illumination's healing boost and damage reduction would be folded into either Seraph or Expedient, Protraction's HP and healing boost would be folded into Excogitation, Ruin 2 would become Ruin 4 when proced, Summon would be automatic when equipping the SCH Job stone or when being Raised as a SCH, AF abilities would now have a Faerie Gauge cost based on their power with the smallest one (probably Lustrate) costing 5 and other ones costing either 10, 15, or 20, with maybe some big ultimate ability in the future costing 50 or all or whatever.

Summary: Add an additional DoT that stacks to 3, add Miasma 2, add Shadow Flare, add Bane, add Fester that interacts with DoTs, have each DoT with a different duration. Roll some CDs together. Change Aetherflow to a pure damage resource and Faerie Gauge to a pure healing resource, have gauge generate at a consistent rate such that suboptimal damage use doesn't severely curtail healing options, ensure ample oGCD weaving room and remove or shorten most oGCD CDs (Gauge spenders, mainly) to allow them to be used for the bulk of healing as weaves between damage spells.

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Sage: Heals By Doing Damage. No, Really!

I skipped AST because SGE is honestly easier and quicker to say here.

Since SGE didn't exist before (like SCH) for me to draw some abilities back from the aether of history, I'm not going to use names or make up new names (someone else can do that) and instead outline the changes. (That is, on SCH, I can say "bring Bane back" and you know what I mean, but if on SGE I say "add <insert Greek something or other>", that holds no meaning to you.) Note that, because of that, this isn't as hammered out and precise on specifics as SCH above. Consider this a pair of "what if..." options.

For SGE, I would add one of two types of rotation. Either something like what SMN has, or something like what RDM has, or possibly something akin to BRD; albeit as simplified versions. I also reference two things often, a second short duration Kardia on a second target and an AOE/Party Kardia, both on CDs. The idea hear is that SGE gameplay is to Kardia your Tank and go into DPS mode, with Kardia healing your Tank. If a party member takes damage, you can slap a temporary additional Kardia on them (or move it from the Tank and back), or if the party, an AOE/Party Kardia. These can be augmented by the use of oGCD heals. Now, these could either be new buttons, or we could apply them to existing ones. For example, Kerachole and Taurochole could apply the AOE/Single Target versions, respectively. The AOE version could also only heal for 50% or something. Additionally, GCD heals can be made to proc Kardia, so you aren't losing Kardia healing when you're forced to GCD heal, but that's not really necessary. Some versions (namely the RDM one described below) repurpose Adderstgall/Addersting, and changing those WOULD make SGE feel less like a SCH clone, but that's also not really that necessary considering the Aetherflow/Faerie Gauge changes for SCH outlined above.

SGE's oGCD healing kit would be more or less what it is today (though we can remove some things if this is seen as too powerful, such as you might not need Physis if you have AOE Kardia or Krasis if you have Second Kardia; but we honestly don't need to make any outright changes other than possibly making the Addersgall abilities CD based instead of resource based if we change Addersgall and would also tweak SGE's MP regeneration a bit to keep it neutral vs today), with the main changes being to the damage kit. However, due to the way these each work, they don't REALLY require additional damage buttons to be added (the SMN version could actually reduce a few), so each one should come out roughly hotbar space neutral in the end.

As to the three options I can think of for SGE's damage kit.

For the SMN example, those who play New SMN, imagine if Energy Drain/Siphon, Fester/Painflare, Searing Light, and Enkindle were all removed. SGE at all stages has access to Dosis, Diagnosis, Prognosis, and the Eukrasian versions of each. SGE also has Kardia as it exists now, but has two additional Kardia interactions. A second Kardia on a short duration that can be placed on a second target and an AOE Kardia that can be used on the whole party/AOE. These can be used to really flex its damage into healing the party so that it needs to use relatively few direct heals on the party. Like SMN, it can have 3-4 phases of its rotation. DWT/FBT phase would see Dosis become instant cast (and maybe Diagnosis and Prognosis, not that you use those much anyway) with your Astral Flow being some big flashy attack like Pneuma's line laser, just...where it actually hits hard and maybe you get two oGCD weaves of it per use of this phase. Your "Titan" phase would be the 1-2 hit of Toxicon and (ranged) Plegma. Your "Garuda" phase would be four quick cast something-like-Ruin 4s (not sure I'd include a long cast secondary just because you still want the SGE to be able to oGCD weave). And your "Ifrit" phase would consist of some powered up ranged attacks with a 2 sec cast time, and maybe some kind of 1-2 Icarus + Dyskrasia thing going. For simplicity, just make everything AOE so we don't need a second set of all these with AOE versions (the only thing here that isn't AOE anyway is Dosis and Eukrasia Dosis, I guess...) I'm not saying 1-to-1 copy SMN, but a somewhat similar rotation that's a SMIDGE slimmed down so the SGE can still weave oGCDs to heal as needed would probably work. People often say New SMN feels like it's "incomplete" or "missing something", but if that "something" is filled in with oGCD healing, it probably would feel pretty complete. Further, doing it this way doesn't really add a ton of buttons to SGE's bar (one big thing new SMN has going for it is an amazing hotbar economy due to the way Astral Impulse/Fountain of Fire share a spot with Ruin 3 and the way Gemshine and Astral Impulse work) [Aside: In a way, I'd rather it be SCH that does this, just so SCH/SMN players could easily share their muscle memory and swap between playing the two easily, but I think it would much more fit SGE as a newly added Healer that doesn't have SCH's history or historic abilities and already has Kardia to leverage this way for healing while churning through its DPS rotation.]

Another option I'd present here is RDM, specifically RDM's casting phase. Broken down into simple terms and removing the fluff, RDM's caster phase works by swapping between two sets of abilities (Fire/Thunder, Stone/Aero), with a nonelemental "filler" when none proc (Jolt), and with a big finishing combo of Holy/Flare + Scorch + Resolution. If you remove all the oGCDs (Fleche, Contre Sixte, Acceleration, Manafication, Embolden, Magick Barrier) and the melee phase (SGE isn't exactly know for being a master of melee - Citan Uzuki fans, I feel you...but it's not, even if Plegma looks like it SHOULD be), that's RDM in a nutshell. It would be possible to give SGE a similar system, even if on a simpler level, to use just casts (no melee) to build up and then to use the resources on your big spending finisher combo. And we can change things up a tad to make it a bit more distinct from RDM. Just a REALLY simple outline of a rotation could be if Dosis and Dyskrasia (just the names, ignore the current in-game effects) could be your "Verstone" and "Verfire", and using each one makes you "-2 Ready" where the -2 in this case would be Plegma for Dosis (Veraero) and Toxicon for Dyskrasia (Verthunder). Each time you use the second ability, it generates one of two resources, Addersgall for the "White Mana" ones and "Addersting" for the "Black Mana" ones. So your rotation would consist of using three full cycles each of Dosis-Plegma and Dyskrasia-Toxicon. Once you've done so, you have 3 of each big resources, you use "big attack 1, big attack 2, big attack 3" (each use 1 of each resource and act as a 1-2-3 combo finisher). You wouldn't want to build only 1 or 2 of a resource since you'd be robing yourself of the big hit on the end. So the gameplay would be 1-2-1-2-1-2-3-4-3-4-3-4 (you could mix up which you use when, so 1-2-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-3-4 and so on would also be allowed), then 5-6-7 on the end. You might have some button (Rhizo) that gives you one of each you could use if you need to boost the process along or have 2/2 and need 3/3 before the boss becomes untargetable, etc. As this is SGE, again, you'd be procing Kardia on each of these, and again, I'd add the short duration second Kardia and AOE Kardia effects so you could use those for basic healing. You would still have your GCD heals and Eukrasia (you could also add the Eukrasia Dosis DoT to this mix, though it's not really necessary), and the gameplay would be designed where casting GCD heals (either normal or Eukrasia versions) would not break combos, allowing for emergency healing needs to be able to take priority over the rotation. This is, again, a simple rotation, but one that would be augmented by oGCD use. Since I'm reworking Addersgall/sting in this model (though again, we can use any names so wouldn't have to), SGE would probably no longer have those mechanics and instead those abilities would be on short CDs, but since this would already make SGE not feel a similar to SCH...is that a bad thing?

Option three is the BRD option. So we're clear, this is BRD without oGCDs/with minimal oGCDs (since, again, we're saving our oGCD space on SGE for healing needs) and without songs (SGEs aren't exactly known for their singing voices), and BRD without oGCDs is actually a pretty slim kit. Two DoTs to maintain, Stormbite and Caustic Bite, Straight Shot/Refulgent Arrow when it procs, Apex Arrow as a gauge spender (Blast Arrow when it procs via using Apex Arrow at above 80 gauge), and Heavy Shot/Burst Shot as filler when your DoTs are both up, you don't have gauge to spend and when Straight/Refulgent hasn't proced. It'd be pretty simple to make SGE work like this, using Dosis as Heavy Shot, Eukrasia Dosis as Stormbite, Plegma as Apex Arrow, Eukrasia Plegma as Caustic Bite, and Toxicon as Straight Shot. It would, again, be a relatively simple rotation, but one with oGCD weave room for healing, several different button presses in the standard rotation, a gauge spender and a proc button, Kardia and oGCDs again present for the bulk of your healing (and, of course, your GCD fallback heals), and this one would actually not require any new buttons be added. The only AOE change might be having Dyskrasia spread and refresh your two DoTs (so you'd apply your two DoTs then Dyskrasia away for AOE) and to have a chance to proc Toxicon and build gauge for Plegma use. I'm not sure how popular this would be, since part of the fun/craziness of BRD is adapting to the constant procs and having the songs to buff your party as you go through your rotation, but at least it would be a lot less boring than SGE's current rotation, and the proc and gauge would already make your abilities have interactions a bit more engaging than present.

The point of all of these is the same, and these are just three ways of doing it: Give SGE a somewhat basic DPS rotation, leverage Kardia (including the second short duration Kardia and the short duration AOE party Kardia) to provide the bulk of the healing, and leave oGCD weave room for mitigation and supplemental healing needs. And, of course, leave the GCD heals as fallbacks that don't disrupt your rotation so you can always "pause" your damage rotation if healing needs are great and then roll back into it once the healing requirement has died down.

Summary: Give SGE one of three (or something else, but these are fairly simple) damage rotations that have ample weave space for oGCD healing, give SGE an additional single target Kardia (short duration on a CD) and AOE party Kardia (same) to leverage the damage rotation into healing, while having additional backup healing options, and ensure casting GCD heals does not break the damage combos, allow them to be put on pause during periods where GCD healing is needed and for the player to be more engaged when healing is not needed.

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Astrologian: Healer/Buffer With All The Cards

AST is honestly the hardest, because it is in uneviable position of having a kit that overall is the most powerful in the game and "just works"...while also being incredibly clunky in practice. Its buff system is random, likewise seals/Astrodyne. There are also issues with changing it, since any change is going to both disrupt current play and any serious change will also (unlike SCH) not appeal to past play. For example, making Draw and Play GCDs would reduce the APM issues, but AST has never used them as GCDs. A further complication is a desire to return Diurnal and Nocturnal to the mix while ALSO trying to reduce the Pure/Barrier dichotomy.

The first step would be to revert AST's healing kit to the ShB era. Dirunal and Nocturnal were both pretty well established and pretty good during that period, and both provided for effective healing. Both also included mitigation and party shields to meet party needs, making both well rounded while also allowing the player to adapt to best synergize with whichever co-healer they got. This would mainly affect Aspected abilities and some CDs, but those largely worked just fine in ShB. Benefic would be upgraded into Benefic 2. Even MORESO than WHM, there's no point in these being distinct. Where Cure 1 and Cure 2 at least have different cast times and a 500 MP cost difference, Benefic 2 has the same cast time as Benefic (so that "clutch 1.5 sec heal when a 2 sec cast wouldn't make it" argument doesn't even exist here, insomuch as it exists out in the wild anyway), and the MP cost is 200 more on the Healer that already has the best MP economy in the game. There's pretty much no reason for Benefic 1 once you get Benefic 2 at level 26 on a Job that starts at level 30 anyway. If it's really a concern, the MP cost can be reduced by 200 for Benefic 2 to make it a straight upgrade. Remove Undraw. Seriously.

Now, what do do about Cards? The big Hauchefaunt in the room is that the RNG is what kills interesting Arcana effects. "I drew the one that reduces damage by 10%! Man that'd be useful for a Tank buster! Right now...the next Tank buster isn't for another 45 seconds, but MAN would it be cool if I got this card for that, huh?!" While RNG is part of AST's aesthetic, it's also what prevents it from being a good buff Healer, since you have no guarantee of getting the buff you want when you actually need it. So the first objective for fixing Cards involves a way to remove RNG, or at least remove the significant RNG that makes buffs so suboptimal. Does this mean people might use the "meta" buffs a lot? Yes, but it means the other buffs might have room to shine as well, and can also cover for other parts of the kit. The second big change is making Draw and Play on the GCD. The reason for this is simple, it removes Lightspeed reservation being mandatory for burst windows (allowing its use more flexibly when the player needs/wants it) and it reduces the frankly bonkers APM required during the burst phase. However, it would need to now have something done to make it damage neutral vs Malific. Fortunately, that's pretty easy. Both Draw and Play would have the Additional Effect: Arcanum Malificum. The next Malific or Gravity spell cast has its potency increased by 100%, stacks up to 6 times, lasts 30 seconds. In short, you use Draw and Play (up to 3 of each), then lay down the Malific/Gravity hurt. Another option (but one a bit more complicated) would be to have Draw hit a hostile target with 1 Malific's worth of damage (presuming you're targeting the boss when you hit Draw) and only Play doing the +100% next Malific...but that's honestly more likely to cause problems than anything ("Oops! Forgot to turn off autotargeting and the 20 sec prepull Draw smacked the boss in the face with a Urianger card! Sorry everyone!"), like Ranged DPS rightclicking the boss before the pull.

A second change I'd make to reduce the RNG would be to have cards arrayed a bit more like Mudras. You have a Damage, Mitigation, and Healing/Restoration (MP refresh) Draw. They share a CD (like WAR's Upheaval and Orogeny or MCH's Bioblaster and Drill). To make it a bit more mistake/fat finger friendly, you'd have the Draw buttons and then a separate Play button, so if you drew the wrong one, you could draw a different one at the mere cost of sacrificing a GCD (e.g. if you drew the mitigation one too late and the Tank eats the Tank buster, now you don't need it, so you can draw the damage buff to put on someone else instead, or the healing one to use on the Tank if you don't have some other better option up). To keep the lore of 6 main constellations, they'd be paired, and using Arcanum shift would allow you to toggle between single target and AOE versions of each. For example, Balance might be a single target 6% damage increase for 15 seconds or you could use its counterpart, Bole, for an AOE 4% damage increase for 7.5 seconds instead. Likewise the mitigation and the healing ones. Spear/Arrow would likely make sense for damage, Bole/Tower for mitigation, and Balance/Ewer for healing, though I'm not married to any of those being necessary, just trying to keep them all relevant.

We could keep a little randomness from Minor Arcana, which is honestly MOSTLY flavor right now. Royal Road can also be added back, with the effects of increasing the damage buff's strength, the mitigation buff's duration, or the healing buff's potency and the HoT's duration, respectively (there'd be no need for the AOE since we already have that covered). We could also do some other stuff like allow the AST to stock a card for later using Sleeve Draw, to store and then play it, but given how we're removing the RNG from the buffs now AND that Draw/Play has charges reducing the need to stock cards for later AND that AST already has a lot of buttons, we probably don't need it. Likewise, we don't need Redraw since you can choose to draw the specific cards you want anyway. If we really want Redraw, we can add another Minor Arcanum (maybe the Jester of Crowns), and allow Redraw to work for those, but it's really not needed at this point.
So that's a LOT of discussion on Cards/buffs, but I feel that's really at the core of what AST is, a playstyle people want in FFXIV (a buffer/healer), and the crux of AST's problems (the "This is why we can't have nice things..." where "nice things" in this case is "more interesting buffs") as well as the APM problem. Collectively, this change reduces APM by making Draw and Play GCDs, prevents using them being perceived as somehow suboptimal by making them damage neutral, removing the RNG so you can get the buffs you need when you need them (which has the side-effect of allowing more interesting and even niche buffs to be added since the player can access them when they need them but not have RNG work against them when they don't), and allowing more player agency in the choice of buffs used and when to use them, freeing up Lightspeed for more overall flexible use in the encounter, and with the Minor Arcana still retaining a bit of the RNG flavor for the Job fantasy.

Now, AST still has some issue with a lot of button bloat, but we can clean a little of that up. First, we're having Benefic upgrade into Benefic 2 as I said above. Second, we can pull a Variant Cure and remove Helios as a separate ability. What would happen is that if the target had the secondary effect (Regen for dAST and barrier for nAST), the spell would, instead of applying the secondary effect, boost the healing potency from 250 to 400. Basically, double up that button's use. Astrodyne would be a MP management tool + Presence of Mind self buff on a 90 or 120 second CD (whichever). No more seal craziness. If we are DESPERATE to retain seals, we could work that into the Minor Arcana Lord/Lady/Jester of Crowns thing and have Minor Arcana have a 40 sec CD so you'd use it for your seal sidegame and Astrodyne would be up every 2 minutes. [NOTE: If 7.0 moves us away from the 2 min meta, then this can be 30 and 90 sec instead, or whatever; I'm just trying to consider the present systems in play as of right now.] We can also do a similar Helios thing with Aspected Benefic and Benefic 2...but I feel like that's a little more niche and we may want to keep those separate.

I suppose for Minor Arcana, Lord and Lady could work as they do now, and maybe Jester could do something like give you two stacks of Arcanum Malificum or something. That's distinct enough from the others while also having some flex on the new kit and stuff. I dunno, just a thought, but that would be kind of a fun effect if you wanted to get a bit more burst at the cost of needing GCDs and making sure you didn't overcap Draw/Play generated Arcanum Malificum stacks.

Another change I would probably make is to make Neutral Sect a bit shorter of a CD (probably 60 seconds) and cause all Aspect/Sect based abilities to take on the properties of both (which...I think is what it used to do) for 10 seconds or something. In short, it allows dAST to have some barriers while allowing nAST to have some HoTs. Celestial Opposition and Celestial Intersection would be oGCD versions of Aspected Helios and Aspected Benefic, similar to how Solace and Rapture are instant damage neutral versions of Cure 2 and Medica 1 in live WHM, each would take on either a barrier or HoT based on being in nAST or dAST stance (or both under Neutral Sect...unless we want Neutral Sect to not affect them, I guess?), and we MIGHT consider folding Essential Dignity into Exaltation...though that's a bit more tricky. Exaltation with a scaling heal would be nice, but one use of Dignity is as a quick spot heal, so...maybe not. Just a thought, though. I guess it would work better if Exaltation and Taurochole were the opposite of one another. Ideally, I'd like to see Synastry rolled into something, but I'm not sure what. Maybe make the duration 8-10 seconds and combine it with Exaltation? If Essential Dignity had a 60 sec CD (I know, I know, a nerf, but hear me out) but upgraded at level 50 to apply the Synastry effect for 10 seconds and, at 80-ish, the Exaltation damage mitigation, that might make it worth it. The heal would be upfront, but essentially this would make it a strong spot heal that also reduces damage the target takes and allows splash healing them while healing other party members with Benefic 2 or Aspected Benefic. Might make up for it? Could also have it trait at some point to add a HoT, but the Synastry effect might reduce the need of that.

Finally, Lightspeed, Earthly Star, Horoscope, and Macrocosmos are all being retained to keep AST's secondary Job identity as a pseudo-Time Mage in tact.

The core damage rotation would be unchanged, but your Combust upkeep + Malific spam would be interrupted by Draw Damage/Mitigation/Healing and Play, followed by even prettier Malifics (1-6 of them), and Lightspeed use would be far more flexible. Minor Arcana would be your RNG Seal game with Redraw attached to it (those could all be oGCDs still), Royal Road and Arcana Shift would be oGCDs to modify your Card effects, and Astrodyne would be connected to the Minor Arcana Seals from Lord(sun)/Lady(moon)/Jester(celestial) of Crowns.

Benefic 1 and Helios would be removed once upgrading to Benefic 2 and Aspected Helios, respectively.

New Buttons: 2 new Draws (three total, but we have 1 already; Draw Offense Arcana, Draw Defense Arcana, and Draw Restorative Arcana), Royal road, Arcana Shift, Diurnal Sect, Nocturnal Sect. [While Sect is set before the battle starts, this means we still need to remove at least 4 buttons for neutrality]

Removed Buttons: Benefic (on upgrade), Helios (on upgrade), Undraw, and Synastry and/or (both) Exaltation if there'd be a good way to roll those effects into other abilities (or if players collectively don't want them). Alternatively, we could remove Celestial Opposition and/or Intersection. We could also remove Redraw or just leave it for Minor Arcana. Collectively, there are 8 total abilities here we could remove 4-6 of (or all 8) to free up some bar space.

Note that AST is the Healer I play the least, but I do play it, and I've long liked components of it (the buffing gameplay, when it's interesting, paired with a simple damage rotation and flexible heals with interesting oGCDs). So this is my attempt to retain those traits of it while also retaining the RNG and Time Mage feel it has, and restoring it the flexibility that it used to have with Diurnal, Nocturnal, and Neutral Sects.

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Closing Remarks: Not a tl;dr, not sure how to do that with this level of detail, sorry

So...that's a long read. But this is probably the most detailed I've ever put down my overall feelings on the matter.

All you guys that think I hate the idea of complexity on Healers...this is what I've been suggesting all this time. There's a little bit of complexity in there, isn't there? Maybe some of you might even like to play some of those...? (Technically speaking, even this WHM is more complex than live, but built in such a way it could be played identically to live with no real difference.)

[NOTE: I don't mean that as a dig. I think some people genuinely think I'm opposed to all complexity and that's actually not at all true; I'm only opposed to making ALL Healer Jobs complex, which is a very different position to opposing all complexity.]

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EDIT: Yeah, this is kind of written as a mess since I was typing it out as I was thinking it, but I could clean it up a bit in any actual write up.

Okay, Attempt at Summary:

Super short version:

WHM GCDs generate Blood Lily, ShB Thin Air back, Plenary Indulgence/Confession is also a party mitigation, Glare is a SLIGHT DPS gain over Misery (optional); strong heals, straightforward kit, heals reward you with damage neutral gameplay.

SCH has more DoTs (Bio, Miasma, Biolysis that stacks to 3, Miasma 3 for AOE), Aetherflow is for damage (Bane, Fester, Energy Drain), Faerie Gauge is for heals (and is generated by AF and AF spenders and maybe some other stuff), DoTs proc Ruin 2, most CDs have no CD and instead have Gauge cost (Fey Blessing, Whispering Dawn, all current AF spenders aside from Energy Drain), and some abilities are folded together to make room for the new stuff (e.g. Fey Illumination upgrades to Summon Seraph, which does what it does now + Illumination's magic damage reduction and healing spell potency buffs); spins lots of plates with damage GCDs and uses oGCDs mainly for healing weaves.

SGE has a slimmed down healing rotation that's something like the GCD damage Weaponskills of BRD or the caster rotation of RDM (if it was set up in 1-2 combos instead of procs and Dualcast) or SMN without long (over 2 sec) cast times and with its oGCDs removed to make way for SGE's, and have additional "short duration" Kardia and party/AOE Kardia options to leverage Kardia in to your main source of healing, augmented by your oGCD heals.

AST has dAST and nAST back, Cards are GCDs but you pick which card to use and play, Draw and Play generate a stack of boosted (+100%) Malific/Gravity to make using them damage neutral, Arcana Shift to access weaker but AOE versions of the main three buffs, Royal Road to boost the power or duration of said buffs, Minor Arcana is retained as your RNG and Seal mechanic, and some abilities are combined (Benefic -> Benefic 2, Helios -> Aspected Helios, Undraw -> Recycle Bin) to make room for the additional buttons.

That leaves out a lot of the nuance and discussion, but gets the main crux across.