Quote Originally Posted by Silver-Strider View Post
Believe me, I know that Button bloat is a crock of an argument, especially on WHM but that won't stop people from complaining about it all the same. I remember trying to add Afflatus versions of Cure 3 and Medica 2 and people just complained nonstop about button bloat. If we can't even suggest it without being scrutinized by other players, what makes us believe SE will ever implement it?
Button bloat isn't just about button-count, though. It's about efficiency -- about a particular capacity taking considerably more button-space than needed.

The Lily system is merely a means of potency-recovery on up to X potency or healing GCDs per minute. At present, it is constrained by (A) only being available to a selection of healing types/procedures, and (B) by requiring a trio of lilies to actually recover that potency. But that's a matter of implementation, not the core of the idea. Technically, the core needs no additional buttons, down from the current 3, to produce the desired capacity, and with neither of those constraints. Almost doubling that extra button count required to only slightly better deal with one of the constraints... is not efficient.

Again, cloning each heal into an Afflatus version thereof is just the absolute least efficient way provide the Lily system's capacity / make use of its core feature. Even if we remained dead-set on the capacity being generated through GCD skills the potency of which cannot be recovered except in sets, adding iconic skills like Cure III to that system could as easily be handled by hybrid or 'smart' heals. An <Afflatus Cure III>, for instance, could as easily just... do simultaneously both the effects of Medica and Cure III -- healing for a Medica's worth of healing at Medica's range and then further healing those within a Cure III's range of the target for the difference between Cure III and Medica's potencies. What little loss possible in "meaningful choice" would be far exceeded by the more iconic element of optimizing Cure III's bonus.