Healer Mechanics You Want to See Become Common

[Shurrikhan]

1. Shields as a stackable but self-compressive mechanic:

   Background Change: Shield HP generated now has its own (blue) combat text and may vary from (a multiplier of) the initial heal.
   
   One can now spam shields on the same target without having further applications only ever replace the previous or be ignored, but the higher the target's existing shield HP, the less further shield HP can be generated. Effectively, a crit from the highest effective potency shield in the game would be the "limit", while anything short of that would still allow you to stack it, albeit at diminishing returns.
   
   For instance, if a 9k HP CritAdlo shield were the limit (with a regular Adlo thereby doing 3k), I could instead stack a regular Adlo 4 times for 3k, 5k (+2k), 6.3k (+1.3k), and 7.2k (+0.9k) total shielding respectively. Each time, the shield effect is reduced by %progress towards that shield cap, but it is nonetheless stackable.
   
   This is primarily meant as a flexibility buff to dual shield-healers, as it'd still be rather difficult to cheese most mechanics off this alone, and non-shielders would gain their own means to contribute to such "cheese" themselves (such as below).

2. Maximum HP increases.

   Pretty self-explanatory, but could come via a plethora of means/mechanics, from a lingering self-compressive mechanic on WHM healing taken that doesn't have reverse synergy with Doom or the like (i.e. would be considered 112% HP rather than exceeding normal HP yet being called 89%) to a standard raid-wide Thrill of Battle sort of effect.

3. Life-sharing.

   It allows you to turn previously single-target mechanics into "stacking" or "split" mechanics, albeit typically with certain penalties. Think Spirit-link totem, but ideally with far more directed (e.g. specific target) options. For instance, imagine if Bole were given this feature in place of its former Tank-only usefulness (or its current minute damage bonus...). That'd be pretty worth holding in Spread.

4. Damage compression.

   The lower that damage would have reduced the target ally's health to, the more that damage is mitigated -- particularly good for Holmgang and Living Dead cheese.

5. (Directional) movement assistance.

   Let's say this were attached to WHM's Wind (or later White Wind) spells. One could use a Wind spell in a given direction, on an ally, or strike an enemy through an ally to provide them with a directional or omni-directional movement buff. Regardless, movement across the area and in the direction the spell travelled is accelerated, while any allies it passes in the course of the initial cast have movement in any direction augmented for a brief duration descending with each ally thus affected (with your primary allied target, if any, always receiving the full effect).

6. Further effects based on target ally's (would-be) damage taken.

   This could be an Power buff based on damage taken or that would have been taken if not for mitigation. This could be damage reflection. You could generate MP based on the target's damage taken. Whatever. Any and all contenders may come forth.

7. Supportive actions that are manually triggerable by one's allies.

   This might use the Duty Action key (especially if caused to detect events in which one might need to use a regular Duty Action and to replace that only when the original action is not viable, though that would add a cheesy fight-learning aid), a new Team Action key, or (if controller support to that effect were improved) just clicking off a buff. In any case, that would allow an ally to choose when they want a given effect, especially ones that might otherwise allow for griefing (imagine all the Rescue horror stories, but via a slew of other effects that could be really fun if not for [or really, even despite] the occasional griefer).

8. No Role Actions; everything job-specific

   A bit more controversial, I'm sure, but I prefer the idea of each job having their own means of generating bankable cast-time reduction and, say, Leeches allowing you to store a debuff in your Aetherpool to then give to an enemy with your next Energy Drain (then "Energy Spike") and Exalted Detriment reversing the effect of debuffs (albeit each within reason, rather than reversing a 30-second 50% slow verbatim or inflicting the same to a mini-boss, for instance), with WHM having its own oGCD cleansing interactions via Fluid Aura (literally a watery second self that can be launched through allies and enemies alike for damage, healing, cleansing, and/or purging, albeit at gauge cost each).

I'm sure I'll think of more, but those are what come to mind for now.