Fixing Every Healer Job

[SirShady]

I will never not be confused by these healer forum AST/SCH/SGE main screeds that spend paragraphs going on and on and on about how dreadfully boring mashing one button over and over again for an entire encounter is, what a wretched awful gameplay experience it is, how it's the worst design in the MMO genre.

And then conclude with "so that's why the 1 button rotation is perfect for WHM."

Quite simply, it's because I believe Square Enix is going to keep at least one healer class at that simple baseline rotation. There needs to be one entry level healer that anyone can pick up and play through the MSQ with. White Mage, as the first and most basic healer, is that job. A second and third damage button could be added just for the sake of having a damage combo, but I don't see them doing that (not that I see them doing any of these suggestions), so instead I suggest additional support options that could be used for a DPS increase instead. However, as Silver pointed out to me, my Afflatus Inspiratione has problems of its own with it basically invalidating lilies as a healing resource, so I'll have to think it through again. I'm a White Mage main too. I play all healers.

I'd also like to point out that the other jobs changes don't give them strict combos like other jobs either, otherwise you could just do that for every healer job and give them a 1-2-3 easy rotation. Scholar has DoTs, a mini-fester, and enhanced versions of broil/art of war, Astro has a machine gun mode that ramps up by rotating through two buttons and an OGCD that is supposed to be timed for when their DoT falls off, and Sage rotates through two different Dosis combos depending on if they need more damage or more heals and gets more toxicon use out of their kit. I find these are all more interesting and nuanced ways to get value out of their kits than a simple 1-2-3 combo, but honestly if White Mage is the "basic" healer, maybe it should get a sweet and simple combo with no strings attached... Huh. Honestly that might just work better.

Edit: Made some updates I think you'd like better! Gave them a basic 1-2-3 combo. The combo and Holy II now reduce Thorn's (renamed Bloom) cooldown. Still a good amount of optimizing to be done.