Quote Originally Posted by linayar View Post
The devs apparently disagree or they wouldn't have changed it.

And when you think about it, why would having more buttons break the monotony if they're all independent buttons with no combo relationship? In the end, it'll still be spamming the same buttons, even if there are more of what you spam. So I think the reason why you feel less buttons to spam is suddenly monotonous is what makes it not so simple for others to have more buttons, and why the devs decide to simplify it. Maybe they've gone too far, so we'll see next expansion if they think so as well or if they do want this.

Yeah, but a reduction in downtime is still a reduction in downtime. And I don't think they plan on reducing heals or increasing need for healing as that would qualitatively be worse for parties unless everyone is on top of their game.
But it's still the worst way of "reducing" downtime.
The fights are shorter, so we only press one button over and over for, say, 8min instead of 10min. Doesn't adress the core problem at all.
I think at this point everyone knows that SE won't increase the required healing in fights because they want to keep the skill floor low to make healing accessible. Kinda agreed. While higher healing requirement does work in other games, they have introduced it early on and everyone learned to handle it from the start.
For FFXIV, it's definitely too late. healing has never been an (almost) full-time job and you spent less and less time healing with each expansion and patch.

But making dps more "optional" by increasing tank/ dps output will not change the fact that healers have an insane amount of downtime and want to fill said downtime. SCHs Dissipation is a de facto 30 potency gain over not using it. They're still using it. Because it gives something to do and it's more useful than not using it.
At this point, the only real way to make healer gameplay more interesting is finding more interesting ways to fill the downtime, not gut healer dps even more by not only keeping it as boring as it is now but making it incredibly insatisfying by making it less impactful aswell.
Keep the skill floor low while raising the skill ceiling.