Healer design is still terrible and I'm tired of apologizing for it.

[Selvokaz]

How many times do you have to chose between using a GCD for healing as opposed to dpsing?

That's the real issue people don't want to talk about though, it has nothing to do with Healer DPS, it has nothing to do with Healers being to boring when they aren't healing, it's the fact that people DON'T Want to actually have to make a choice between healing and contributing to the DPS. That's the real issue, the healers ARE FINE, it's the fact that in order for the healer to be peek performance they should be healing more because that's their role. Tanks are pretty much invincible, let's be honest, in solo content your tank barely gets scratched and several of them can self-sustain if not heal themselves outright. Back in 2.0 it was not like that, it could never get to the point it is now, healers were pretty much required for team play, and it wasn't that uncommon for a healer to stroll through the world and find players doing solo content KO'd on the ground, and im not going to say the game has gone soft, but rather non-healers have gotten way to self-reliant. The healer doesn't need to DPS, more the party should NEED to be healed more, so that there is a reason to keep thin air with a longer duration, to make fixing the mistakes of the party more worthwhile, ie healing them, to make lucid dream feel like it's something that has to be gone to when you just dps spammed Glare, and pulled a swiftcast Resurrection and are now low on mp, but still need to heal the tank back to full before living dead runs out.

That's what killed me about the community since 4.0. This idea that everyone is DPS instead of their respective roles needs to die. I hate that, yes we are all combatants, but we all have our roles within that archetype as well, no the Tank doesn't deal as much DPS as the DPS specialist, but he shouldn't have to worry about that if everything is going according to how combat was intended to run, "But my clear time needs to be optimized." that difference in clear time between the most optimal players and the least but still able to clear players isn't that huge, you can't run to the store to buy a pizza in that difference of time, and it bugs the hell out of me that people make it sound like thats the only way to enjoy the game or playing with others. Healers should be asking to HEAL MORE so they can have a reason to go through their entire kit instead of the AST just doing it for fun (which now the WHM feels is just showing off), SGE actually feels like a decent balance, as I've seen a few of them struggle with their balancing act of shielding and actually restoring health. Scholar, to me, still feels like the better healer in comparison to Sage, though he might not be as flashy or since he no longer has as many DoTs feel as offensively powerful, (if anyone needs an combat rework its scholar).

[Liam_Harper]

Healers should be asking to HEAL MORE so they can have a reason to go through their entire kit instead of the AST just doing it for fun

This has been gone over many times. Healers are asking for more to heal. We'd love it. But also due to the structure of the game and extremely rigid party composition of 25% of a group being healers, along with the impacts of BiS gear, mitigation and dodging avoidable mechanics as you learn a fight, there is always going to be downtime. It is impossible to create a situation where healers are healing 80% of the time regardless of skill level but the newer players can still keep up fine.

Healer downtime tools are not fine. So regardless of whether we get more to heal or not, dps engagement needs to be improved too.

[Selvokaz]

This has been gone over many times. Healers are asking for more to heal. We'd love it. But also due to the structure of the game and extremely rigid party composition of 25% of a group being healers, along with the impacts of BiS gear, mitigation and dodging avoidable mechanics as you learn a fight, there is always going to be downtime. It is impossible to create a situation where healers are healing 80% of the time regardless of skill level but the newer players can still keep up fine.

Healer downtime tools are not fine. So regardless of whether we get more to heal or not, dps engagement needs to be improved too.

I doesn't have to be 80% right now it's not even 50%, and that's where i believe the issue lies. More stacking markers, more roomwide AoEs, more mechanics that put pressure on the tanks to absorb hits as opposed to trying to avoid them, more situations like in Titania ex where the dps have to trade off near-instant death shots. As you said, BiS stuff will eventually make current content more easier and entire phases will then be skipped and the need for 50% healing up time will be unnecessary but i see that as when newer content is thus already on its way or has been implemented, or that's how it should be.

[Semirhage]

This has also been gone over many times. Two things:
1) An unfortunate amount of the healer community can barely manage heal checks as they are now. Increasing them would lead to said healers complaining that they're unable to clear content. This is the part where I personally say "who cares, there has to be a skill floor above bedrock", but Square disagrees there.
2) What's so darn interesting about the healing kits that deserves the fixation in the first place? So you can replace Dia Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare with Regen Cure Cure Cure Cure Cure? Holy Holy Holy Holy Holy with Medica Medica Medica Medica Medica? GCD healing kits aren't designed all that much better than the damage kits are.

[Mortex]

This has also been gone over many times. Two things:
1) An unfortunate amount of the healer community can barely manage heal checks as they are now. Increasing them would lead to said healers complaining that they're unable to clear content. This is the part where I personally say "who cares, there has to be a skill floor above bedrock", but Square disagrees there.
2) What's so darn interesting about the healing kits that deserves the fixation in the first place? So you can replace Dia Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare with Regen Cure Cure Cure Cure Cure? Holy Holy Holy Holy Holy with Medica Medica Medica Medica Medica? GCD healing kits aren't designed all that much better than the damage kits are.

Ironic that people want more thing’s too heal but with the encounter design it’s just a button swap from glare to medica. Healer need interesting mechanics or dmg/support tools.

[RinaShinomiya]

That's the real issue people don't want to talk about though, it has nothing to do with Healer DPS, it has nothing to do with Healers being to boring when they aren't healing, it's the fact that people DON'T Want to actually have to make a choice between healing and contributing to the DPS.

It's less about us not wanting to make a choice about healing and more about the Choice not even existing. Most content can be cleared with oGCD heals alone and that will not disrupt your nuke spam. There is no point to succor before an raidwide to sponge some damage when simply throwing an indom afterwards does the job well enough. I wish i had a reason to dip into my GCD healing kit, it exists for a reason afterall but with how things are designed rn most you'll see me do is Pneuma.

[Silver-Strider]

So, how exactly would we go about making the GCD toolkit of healers actually more involved than they currently are?

Buffing oncoming damage seems unlikely.
Nerfing oGCDs is less than desirable by most (I'm all for it myself but whatever)
People are so against homogenizing healers anymore that anything like giving SCH a Toxicon equivalent is immediately met with hostility.

You could rework our GCD toolkit a million different ways but as long as our oGCDs are as potent as they are and oncoming damage is so pitifully low, they'd still be inferior in the majority of cases as they currently are so making each Healer's GCD toolkit unique while also make them DPS neutral is a bit tricky to pull off.

[Nizzi]

So, how exactly would we go about making the GCD toolkit of healers actually more involved than they currently are?

Buffing oncoming damage seems unlikely.
Nerfing oGCDs is less than desirable by most (I'm all for it myself but whatever)
People are so against homogenizing healers anymore that anything like giving SCH a Toxicon equivalent is immediately met with hostility.

You could rework our GCD toolkit a million different ways but as long as our oGCDs are as potent as they are and oncoming damage is so pitifully low, they'd still be inferior in the majority of cases as they currently are so making each Healer's GCD toolkit unique while also make them DPS neutral is a bit tricky to pull off.

Honestly it feels like they've really worked themselves into a corner with healers and I'm not sure how they're going to get out of it without some reworks or redesigns. Nerfing oGCDs to a point where they're not as potent seems like it would end up in having one healer do all the GCD healing while the other healer focuses on DPS and spot healing/etc with oGCDs, which seems to be something they're extremely against given comments on Scholar from Yoshida in the past. It is one of those things that ends up being a huge problem with healers once you look behind the curtain, there's nothing clearly defined about what it is exactly that their kits are supposed to do other than "heal", especially in content that doesn't really require that.

For a "Toxicon" for Scholar though, just make Ruin II scale to the same potency as each Broil upgrade but cost way more MP so Scholars that spam it will quickly go OOM. Though I suppose the "always a DPS loss but always available" is how SE considers it a Toxicon equivalent now because Toxicon is a DPS loss too outside of prepull and downtime.

[Silver-Strider]

Honestly it feels like they've really worked themselves into a corner with healers and I'm not sure how they're going to get out of it without some reworks or redesigns. Nerfing oGCDs to a point where they're not as potent seems like it would end up in having one healer do all the GCD healing while the other healer focuses on DPS and spot healing/etc with oGCDs, which seems to be something they're extremely against given comments on Scholar from Yoshida in the past. It is one of those things that ends up being a huge problem with healers once you look behind the curtain, there's nothing clearly defined about what it is exactly that their kits are supposed to do other than "heal", especially in content that doesn't really require that.

For a "Toxicon" for Scholar though, just make Ruin II scale to the same potency as each Broil upgrade but cost way more MP so Scholars that spam it will quickly go OOM. Though I suppose the "always a DPS loss but always available" is how SE considers it a Toxicon equivalent now because Toxicon is a DPS loss too outside of prepull and downtime.

And we're never going to see that overhaul. We're going to get some new animations, some extra charges on our oGCDs and maybe 1/2 more Healing abilities that we don't need. That'll be the pattern for healers going into 7.0, 8.0, 9.0, etc.
We'll get a QoL update at best and remain unchanged until the servers go down and it sucks.

[Lieri]

It might be just me but using priority systems for dps skills than rotation is much more engaging. But for most classes they rely on a very specific combos that play out on repeat over time. Its not bad but less exciting.