Quote Originally Posted by Shurrikhan View Post
I don't think it would be in practice. Keep in mind that 1-2-3 combo cancelled by any other spell attempt would itself be far worse than the old ARR-era 18-second Aero I and 12-second Aero II to juggle alongside Stone II spam, as those at least oblige particular timings but do not backload their punishment if you need to do something else.

A rigid 1-2-3 cycle would be no less dull, as soon as your fingers automate those movements (or one downloads an addon to, when off-stream, automate it for them), but would be tremendously more clunky -- a worst of both worlds.

Compare that, for instance, against a resource gauge whereby each elemental spell WHM casts charges an oGCD spender (all the more usable now that, as of Endwalker, each cast will gives about 1 oGCD of weave-space). You could have a dynamic action which causes successive casts to carry over some upgrading effect to one another until the gauge is depleted or an oGCD spender that grants a further effect (perhaps causing your Stone IV to detonate after formation or Aero II to draw enemies in or the like). While such might, like combos, give additional opportunities that might oblige sequential actions, it'd at least be bankable and choiceful, rather than merely causing you to waste a large part of every trio of casts' effect if you need to interrupt that sequence mid-way.

We have boundless possibilities to draw from to improve healer offensive gameplay, but if there's one direction we could happily skip over, it's rigid combos.
And I hope we do skip over it; unfortunately the first hurdle we need to overcome is the preposterous belief the designers have that more than one downtime button for healers requires a degree in aerospace engineering to possibly understand.

A rigid 3 button rotation is worse design than a 1 button rotation, but it at least has the distinction of being designed by someone who doesn't believe absurd fantasies about how dim healers are. *shrug*

After the live letter, I have no hope of the devs creating anything interesting for the role. One button spam is the most boring healers have ever been. In any RPG I have ever played.