Quote Originally Posted by Eorzean_username View Post
Even this doesn't seem to be accurate, because it didn't make healers any more appealing, accessible, or "playable", since almost all content could already be cleared even when Healer DPS was in the "optional fad" era of community perception.

Like... long before the gradual Stormblood → Shadowbringers mutilation of Healer action kits, you still had people who never used Cleric Stance, or Alliance Raids where healers were using nothing but healing GCDs... etc... Effectively, it was "their choice" how much to engage with the DPS aspects of the rotation.

So all that the later changes really did was begin excluding people that liked using the full DPS kit, which is... bizarre.
If the frothing irrational hatred for ACT (not harassment, but the existence of silent stat gathering somewhere in the game that doesn't involve them) on the forums lately is anything to go by, it's because the overwhelmingly catered-to toxic casual portion of the community can't just exist alongside a high skill ceiling. They *require* it pancaked to the floor; job mastery must NOT embarrass them even by implication, even in their own minds, even if nobody is accusing them of anything.