How to easily have healers dps engaged ( yet another thread)

[ty_taurus]

Healing needs an overhaul, but this is more like throwing some new paint on a house with crumbling walls.

WHM is not in a good place balance wise nor gameplay wise. The lily system is a nice change of pace, but the job needs to bring the lilies down to early levels and expand on the system to make your GCD usage more evenly balanced between a slightly more developed rotation and utilizing lilies that reward you with bursty DPS refunds. The job also needs to have an answer to mitigation. If we want the pure vs barrier healer dynamic to survive, then sure its mitigation can be limited or come at an opportunity cost, but it simply doesn't have an answer to how damage is foundationally being handled in higher levels of content.

SCH needs a rework. It's confusing for new players to go from ACN to SCH, and the kit is bloated and at war with itself. It also should return to having a DoT focused DPS rotation like it once did, restoring tools like Miasma and Shadowflare, and its resources need to be reworked. The Fey Gauge is a disgrace to gauge mechanics and why does a job need 2 different resources for healing? Why not make the Fey Gauge your healing gauge and turn Aetherflow into your offensive gauge?

SGE is not a DPS healer and it should have a massive expansion of offensive tools or merging supportive tools with new offensive ones. It should feel like the GNB of the healers otherwise what was the point of advertising it as the DPS healer if it's going to play identically to every other healer?

AST is already known to be receiving an overhaul, to whatever extent the devs have planned. I've said it before, but I'd like to see its cards become GCD, its casting focus transition to support, and have the cards additionally generate passive, Malefic-potency damage through a new gauge mechanic. This gives thou-shall-not-DPS healers a job that may still need to maintain Combust and throw a few DPS buttons out once in a while, but can redirect a lot of their focus to spreading buffs.

[Renathras]

This gives thou-shall-not-DPS healers a job that may still need to maintain Combust and throw a few DPS buttons out once in a while, but can redirect a lot of their focus to spreading buffs.

In other words, it gives them nothing, because "thou-shall-not-DPS" healers hate DoTs/maintaining them? Though I do think buffing instead of DPS would be fun, good god, I hate DoTs. DoTs are the worst invention in any videogame ever. I don't mind DoTs if a Job is built entirely around their use (e.g. Warlock in WoW or something), but as just a tacked on "upkeep thing", they are the most obnoxious and uninspired mechanic ever, and I abjectly hate them. No, I don't want to have to squint at the boss health bar to see when that tiny little number is less than 3 and remember to press it again.

I'd rather have buffs with a single direct damage spell like Glare, Malific, or Ruin 2. No DoTs, please. Hell, one of my issues with healers right now is THEY ALL HAVE DOTS. It's THE EXACT SAME (in terms of DPS gain and duration) DoT, too!

I'd be perfectly happy if WHM got rid of Aero/Dia entirely and had a Ruin 2 movement/weave tool instead. That, a second party mitigation (I always feel like WHM needs a 60 sec or so partywide mitigation; make Asylum 60 sec and give it a damage reduction - blahblah stepping on Sacred Soil's toes, whatever, it would be true to the name Asylum and it needs SOMETHING for when Temperance is on CD), and I'd be happy with the Job. Maybe rework FreeCure into a 25% chance proc when you use Cure 1, Cure 2, or Glare to proc a free, boosted damage thing (like how old SMN had Ruin 2 proc Ruin 4 randomly, before they tied that to Egi Assaults) to kind of mix things up some so when you're casting Cure 1 or Cure 2 you have a chance to be refunded with a boosted instant cast damage spell, and every 3-6 Glare casts, the proc would give you a reason to hit that second dps button instead.

I'd MUCH rather have that than Dia as a DoT.

But yeah, a second party mitigation (either an existing spell or a new one), and removing the DoT but trading it in for an instant cast movement tool that can also be proc'd into a more powerful version for a dps gain over Glare/a partial damage refund for having to cast Cures would basically fix WHM entirely for me.

[ty_taurus]

In other words, it gives them nothing, because "thou-shall-not-DPS" healers hate DoTs/maintaining them? Though I do think buffing instead of DPS would be fun, good god, I hate DoTs. DoTs are the worst invention in any videogame ever. I don't mind DoTs if a Job is built entirely around their use (e.g. Warlock in WoW or something), but as just a tacked on "upkeep thing", they are the most obnoxious and uninspired mechanic ever, and I abjectly hate them. No, I don't want to have to squint at the boss health bar to see when that tiny little number is less than 3 and remember to press it again.

I'd rather have buffs with a single direct damage spell like Glare, Malific, or Ruin 2. No DoTs, please. Hell, one of my issues with healers right now is THEY ALL HAVE DOTS. It's THE EXACT SAME (in terms of DPS gain and duration) DoT, too!

I'd be perfectly happy if WHM got rid of Aero/Dia entirely and had a Ruin 2 movement/weave tool instead. That, a second party mitigation (I always feel like WHM needs a 60 sec or so partywide mitigation; make Asylum 60 sec and give it a damage reduction - blahblah stepping on Sacred Soil's toes, whatever, it would be true to the name Asylum and it needs SOMETHING for when Temperance is on CD), and I'd be happy with the Job. Maybe rework FreeCure into a 25% chance proc when you use Cure 1, Cure 2, or Glare to proc a free, boosted damage thing (like how old SMN had Ruin 2 proc Ruin 4 randomly, before they tied that to Egi Assaults) to kind of mix things up some so when you're casting Cure 1 or Cure 2 you have a chance to be refunded with a boosted instant cast damage spell, and every 3-6 Glare casts, the proc would give you a reason to hit that second dps button instead.

I'd MUCH rather have that than Dia as a DoT.

But yeah, a second party mitigation (either an existing spell or a new one), and removing the DoT but trading it in for an instant cast movement tool that can also be proc'd into a more powerful version for a dps gain over Glare/a partial damage refund for having to cast Cures would basically fix WHM entirely for me.

I mean you just won't be able to eliminate direct DPS entirely. The combat system just doesn't allow it. I've expressed my specific take on what I'd do with AST before. Basically you'd have two Draw actions, one for offensive buffs and the other for defensive. Both the Draw and the Play would be separate GCD actions with 30 second cooldowns and 2 charges.That's 4 GCDs per 30 seconds. Additionally, I'd make it so that the buff effects don't immediately occur, but rather, the card is sitting on your target until activated. You activate all offensive cards with one AoE heal GCD spell, and you have another that activates all defensive cards. All of these actions would yield the DPS refund that you can pass on to someone else to trigger for you with an OGCD action.

That said, I'd be fine exchanging the DoT with something like a delayed attack--a premonition of sorts where all the damage occurs as the effect expires, though that could get tricky since the spell gets entirely wasted if it expires while a target goes through a phase change which could be annoying, and overwriting the effect could completely invalidate a previous cast which seems punishing. It would be more thematic though.

Although AST needs some tweaks, this would be far more painful that the current state. AST is interesting since it can buff , heal, and DPS with some mobility. Not be a buff-bot that is there solely to support others, and maybe once or twice, throw out a DPS skill.

How I'd handle it is you'd still be doing DPS, it's just that the DPS would generate as you place buffs on allies and is a resource you'd need to manage. You could either pass off stacks of that damage for someone else to use, though that damage would still technically come from you and be treated as your own selfish DPS, or you could grant yourself the effect that detonates those stacks and manually trigger them with Malefic.

However you spin it, we have multiple different jobs under one role. Why aren't they taking different approaches to achieving the same thing? If someone wants to play a direct DPS healer, we can have a direct DPS healer, but not everyone wants that. So why don't we create an indirect DPS healer? We do ultimately need to have every healer contribute to DPS because if one just doesn't, then that healer's going to be thrown out of the meta entirely. But if you can generate DPS indirectly, you can have a healer who focuses on support while still having contribution.

One thing we have to accept is that things need to change if we want the healing role to not be the disaster it currently is. Jobs need to change. Excessive healing buttons should be cut even if they feel good to use and are great tools because we have way too much free healing and its sapping all the value out of our GCD heals. If we want the healing role to change and get fixed, but don't want anything to change or get removed, then it's no wonder healers are in the state they are.

[Renathras]

Honestly, at this point, I'd just like to see a healer that has something other than "Nuke + 30 sec DoT + once a min or so third DPS button". And I say this as a healer that doesn't find DPS enjoyable and is thus perfectly content to have 1 button DPS. Even I find the "111111111112111111111123; repeat" to be stupid. We have 4 healers, why do they all have essentially an identical heal kit? If one is 11111111111111111 while another is 123123123 and another is 1112111311121114, this would be better to me than them all being essentially identical. Glare, Dia, Misery. Dosis, Eukrasia Dosis, Plegma. Malific, Combust, Earthly Star (I guess? Don't ever play AST because I don't care much for it). SCH is the only one that's at all different because it has Ruin 2 for a spamable (but you don't WANT to spam it) movement tool (useful for things like Wraith donuts in Delubrium) and that Energy Drain isn't a 45/60 sec GCD but rather a semi-spamable (limited by resource) oGCD. But even that is, for most purposes, 11111111111211111111112 between Broil and Byolysis, just with "3" weaves for Energy Drain (if not using the AF for healing; 6 under Dissipation) and Ruin 2 as an option.

As much as I'd be happy for WHM to just lose Dia and ONLY have Glare (and Misery), I'd also love to see some other design space across the healers. One having a simple 1-2-3 rotation like MCH does (which is just 1-2-3 with oGCD weaves and the 1-2-3 doesn't break when they use their other GCDs, so the hypothetical healer's wouldn't either, allowing them to freely cast cure GCDs if needed without gimping themselves) and one having something more proc or context based would not go amiss, imo.

That we have 4 healers but they all have MORE OR LESS identical rotations is just stupid. We have 4 tanks and they aren't TERRIBLY complicated, but each of them still feels like I'm playing a different thing when I swap between them because they all have different rotations, even their core rotations. WAR has an occasional upkeep buff finisher, PLD swaps between two finishers, a 3 hit stinger on Royal, and then the caster phase, GNB has a 1-2-3 like WAR but without the upkeep buff, instead playing with its GCD continuation abilities to prevent overcap, and DRK...well, I don't play DRK, but I'm guessing it's a bit different as well. There's no reason for healers to not be AT LEAST a bit more diverse given that.

[ty_taurus]

Honestly, at this point, I'd just like to see a healer that has something other than "Nuke + 30 sec DoT + once a min or so third DPS button". And I say this as a healer that doesn't find DPS enjoyable and is thus perfectly content to have 1 button DPS. Even I find the "111111111112111111111123; repeat" to be stupid. We have 4 healers, why do they all have essentially an identical heal kit? If one is 11111111111111111 while another is 123123123 and another is 1112111311121114, this would be better to me than them all being essentially identical. Glare, Dia, Misery. Dosis, Eukrasia Dosis, Plegma. Malific, Combust, Earthly Star (I guess? Don't ever play AST because I don't care much for it). SCH is the only one that's at all different because it has Ruin 2 for a spamable (but you don't WANT to spam it) movement tool (useful for things like Wraith donuts in Delubrium) and that Energy Drain isn't a 45/60 sec GCD but rather a semi-spamable (limited by resource) oGCD. But even that is, for most purposes, 11111111111211111111112 between Broil and Byolysis, just with "3" weaves for Energy Drain (if not using the AF for healing; 6 under Dissipation) and Ruin 2 as an option.

As much as I'd be happy for WHM to just lose Dia and ONLY have Glare (and Misery), I'd also love to see some other design space across the healers. One having a simple 1-2-3 rotation like MCH does (which is just 1-2-3 with oGCD weaves and the 1-2-3 doesn't break when they use their other GCDs, so the hypothetical healer's wouldn't either, allowing them to freely cast cure GCDs if needed without gimping themselves) and one having something more proc or context based would not go amiss, imo.

That we have 4 healers but they all have MORE OR LESS identical rotations is just stupid. We have 4 tanks and they aren't TERRIBLY complicated, but each of them still feels like I'm playing a different thing when I swap between them because they all have different rotations, even their core rotations. WAR has an occasional upkeep buff finisher, PLD swaps between two finishers, a 3 hit stinger on Royal, and then the caster phase, GNB has a 1-2-3 like WAR but without the upkeep buff, instead playing with its GCD continuation abilities to prevent overcap, and DRK...well, I don't play DRK, but I'm guessing it's a bit different as well. There's no reason for healers to not be AT LEAST a bit more diverse given that.

I mean if you don't really want to engage with a healer's rotation, if all the healers get a more developed rotation, why not just ignore the rotation and spam whatever button you want? It's not like it matters at all outside of savage anyway. You can always just not use Dia if you hate it that much.

[Renathras]

I mean if you don't really want to engage with a healer's rotation, if all the healers get a more developed rotation, why not just ignore the rotation and spam whatever button you want? It's not like it matters at all outside of savage anyway. You can always just not use Dia if you hate it that much.

This is something people like you will never understand.

People not wanting something to have a high skill feeling aren't necessarily people who don't try to do their best anyway. There's this weird thing with folks who think like you that goes something like this: "If a person doesn't want an involved 15 button full on DPSer rotation on a Healer...it obviously means they don't care about optimizing, doing well in the Job, must not do Savage, and clearly only press 1 button now and will press 1 button only in the future, so them doing low damage and getting kicked from groups won't change their game experience at all (somehow)"

It's an inane "counter".

Especially to someone like me, who is genuinely advocating FOR SOMETHING YOU WANT, just with you 75% of the way instead of 100%. Do you always attack and belittle people trying to help you?

I engage with the full rotations on the three healers I play on, thank you very much. And I actually do Savage (now) and have done Extremes for three expansions. Good god, no wonder you don't get what you want with that attitude. I'm literally saying "we have 4 Healers, the Devs could increase the dps kits on 2-3 of them and mix things up without it harming the game", and your response was to attack me instead? Really dude?

.

EDIT:

While I'm no fan of homogenization in general, and Twelve know healers are the ones that need it the least, I think it'd make sense if Toxicon becomes Sage's version of Misery - get adderstings as a reward for shielding, get 3 stacks and you get a big boom spell.

One problem with this is it would likely be too powerful. Keep in mind Misery can't be generated by spamable heals (e.g. Cure 2s), only from spending a GCD consuming a resource you only get one of every 20 seconds. If SGE could just cast 3x Eukrasia Diagnosis and then get a DPS neutral/gain nuke, that would be pretty unbalanced.

Sacred Soil stepped on asylums toes first with getting a regen on it
It's too late for Asylum to step on Sacred's toes if Sacred is stomping all over it already

Honestly, I'd be fine with it coming with Confession/Plenary Indulgence. A 10 sec Protect/Shell would give me a reason to actually hit PI, and Expedience and Fey Illumination are precedent for "two in one" abilities like that. It has a 60 sec CD already and is rarely used because it's seldom needed. Normally using PI means one or MAYBE two AOE heals, probably Rapture, and you really don't use the full 10 sec duration and effect because you simply don't need to heal people for more than 100% health that often. Having a mitigation tacked on would actually make it more useful for its intended purpose, which is large incoming damage in several waves. The mitigation could be used to reduce it while the boosted healing would be used for restoring that damage. And when a fight doesn't require that, it would serve just fine as an additional party mitigation for when Temperance is on CD or when a smaller mitigation would do, and give WHM 3 total mitigations per 3 minute time period.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who doesn't find Dots engaging. I Liked Aero 3s animation but that was it.

Glad to see I'm not alone either! People have this weird idea that DoTs are somehow the pentacle of amazing game design when, in practice, they're "thing you press once every 30 seconds" boring and obnoxious. I wouldn't even mind them if it wasn't for the fact EVERY SINGLE HEALER has one as part of its carbon-copy "damage rotation". I've even said many times, I can actually like DoTs IF the class using them is built around using them and they have interactions. For example, a DoT that stacks to 3 and all three refresh when you refresh it, but if you let it fall off, you have to stack to 3 again (I haven't played it in years, but I remember Druids in WoW having a HoT that worked this way that you'd maintain on the main tank), or things like Bane and Fester (the old ones) that interacted with DoTs. The ones in FFXIV simply do not. WHM has never had any kit interaction with DoTs and they have always been "apply, don't let fall off...and that's it" for the Job.

Though I, too, miss twirly staff tornado storm Aero 3.

I will counter one thing, though: SCH's Miasma 2 was kind of nice for some fights like Brayflox Hard's final boss since the initial tick of damage counted for knocking bombs away in all those old fights where you had to do that. They just needed to make it where it was a DPS loss on single target but a DPS gain for AOE (like Art of War is) to allow spamming it for AOE situations but not force people to use an AOE ability for single target fights. Aero 3 should have been the same. They managed to do this with the regular single target vs AOE nuke spells, so they should be able to manage it for AOE DoTs in some way, too. Or just make them 1-2 AOE combos somehow.

I also agree with buffing. I never understand HEALERS that want to DAMAGE. Healing is a support role. The point is to aid and boost allies, and that's the player most attracted to the role. I don't even mind having damage focused healers AS ONE OF THE OPTIONS, but having them all be that is just silly. Other MMOs managed to figure this out, I'm not sure why FFXIV - and not even FFXIV, more FFXIV's hardcore/elitist players - can't.

SCH isn’t a pretty job, it’s a tactician/field medic

What part of "field medic" screams "I poison people to death", though?

This trend towards “fey mage” has no basis in SCH’s lore and makes it feel too much like a WHM

WHM's have no connection to Fey Magic, so it doesn't make SCH feel like WHM's at all. And it's not some new trend with no basis. SCH's ENTIRE lore is based on them working with their partner/pet. That IS their lore. The tactician part of their lore is expressed through it. SCH's being able to place Eos into the center of the arena or send her to the opposite side if the raid team has to split completely apart, being able to have her use abilities while the SCH is free to either deal damage or use their own heals, etc, is the tactician part of SCH. Issuing commands to their subordinate and leveraging both your character and your support minion to heal your party. I'm not sure what part about that DOESN'T feel like a tactician to you.

And that has been their lore from the start. It's not some new thing they've picked up. Whispering Dawn and Fey Illumination have been in the game since ARR.

The idea of DOT’s on healers is you can’t have rigid rotations on classes that may have to triage at any moment

This was a valid complaint in 2013, it isn't in 2022. If you weren't aware, the Devs have updated most Jobs to where combos don't break. On GNB, hit 1-2 then hit Gnashing Fang and watch something magical happen: You can go through your entire Gnashing Fang combo and that 3 button is still lit up and ready to go. PLD spells don't break their combos anymore, either. And I think RDM may not. Hop on MCH. Hit 1 then Drill then 2 then Chainsaw then 3. MAGIC!!!

Something amazing happened on the way to 2022: The Devs learned how to make it where combos don't break!

So a healer could have a "rigid combo" of 1-2-3 and be coded to where their healing spells don't break the combo. BAM! Problem solved!

DoTs on every healer are a relic from 2013/2.0 when healers only had one or two damage buttons to press. When WHM only had Stone 1 and Stone 2, which was better than Stone 1 in every way, and no oGCD heals to speak of, it made sense for them to have two DoTs since they might not have anything to do otherwise. That makes much less sense now with fights that have a lot more movement and higher APMs with oGCD weaves and instant cast movement heals and the like, as well as even WHM having more damage buttons now than they did in ARR.

[Cheremia]

I also agree with buffing. I never understand HEALERS that want to DAMAGE. Healing is a support role. The point is to aid and boost allies, and that's the player most attracted to the role. I don't even mind having damage focused healers AS ONE OF THE OPTIONS, but having them all be that is just silly. Other MMOs managed to figure this out, I'm not sure why FFXIV - and not even FFXIV, more FFXIV's hardcore/elitist players - can't.

Yes, altough a niche game, I LOVED Geomancer in FF Explorers. You could customize your fields to heal and buff and or to do damage. Or both at the same time. Multiple of them, it was super fun to put down fields to support my allies and all that shizzle. And the outfit was super cute, we need more massive round hats in XIV.
I want healers to heal more, but since the game design doesn't allow it, I want to buff my allies instead of dotting my enemies. I don't play healers to do damage. Don't be mistaken, i glare and dia and assize and lilly and misery and everything until i become more blind from my own light, but that is because the game does not support healing-healers... it is fine, if there was anything else to do.

I'm one of the few whms that use wings for big aoes, that uses benison and aquaveil etc. Many people don't even use their cooldown, it's especially noticeable on schs with no soils and no seraph etc. I know it's not ultra needed in most normal content, but it adds a little more engagement that just "aw man i have to spam 1 button". Yes, we do, but you also could use the rest of your kit more, even if its redundant in MOST normal content...

But I don't need brds and dancers to be support. I don't mind that they are, I like support classes a lot, I want healers to also count more to it.
Shields is nice and damage buffs are nice, but something... it's hard to explain what i would want, but something else i have to juggle.
What if i have to combo my attacks/heals with some oGCDs? They won't interrupt each other and you'd have enough time on each juggle for heals to not break it.
Breaking whatever you're juggling won't be the end of the world either, you just have to build it up again or something.

Timers aren't a bad thing, putting dots on a mob you only have to refresh and nothing more, is.
Bufftimers are more fun to juggle than that, in my opinion. It's hard to explain. I just want to do more for my TEAM instead of just.... set it and forget it dot.

It's just that i don't see where more dots would help me be more engaged if it's less engagement because I only have to press the button every 30 seconds or more or less... doesn't really matter which way. It does ALL the work by itself when I press it, even if i die after it.

[Supersnow845]

What part of "field medic" screams "I poison people to death", though?



WHM's have no connection to Fey Magic.



This was a valid complaint in 2013, it isn't in 2022. If you weren't aware, the Devs have updated most Jobs to where combos don't break. On GNB, hit 1-2 then hit Gnashing Fang and watch something magical happen: You can go through your entire Gnashing Fang combo and that 3 button is still lit up and ready to go. PLD spells don't break their combos anymore, either. And I think RDM may not. Hop on MCH. Hit 1 then Drill then 2 then Chainsaw then 3. MAGIC!!!

Something amazing happened on the way to 2022: The Devs learned how to make it where combos don't break!

So a healer could have a "rigid combo" of 1-2-3 and be coded to where their healing spells don't break the combo. BAM! Problem solved!

DoTs on every healer are a relic from 2013/2.0 when healers only had one or two damage buttons to press. When WHM only had Stone 1 and Stone 2, which was better than Stone 1 in every way, and no oGCD heals to speak of, it made sense for them to have two DoTs since they might not have anything to do otherwise. That makes much less sense now with fights that have a lot more movement and higher APMs with oGCD weaves and instant cast movement heals and the like, as well as even WHM having more damage buttons now than they did in ARR.

1) the part that is basically “a field medic will do whatever it has to to be victorious in a fight and it learned poison magic as an ACN so it’s going to use it, what do you want a field mage to use, a knife, should we bring back book slap meta
2) WHM may not actually be a fey mage but the animations for the two are starting to look far to similar and nor did I ever say the fairy shouldn’t be a support tool you should use to gain an advantage, you know buffing and debuffing, not “replace the SCH as the healer“, the fairy is a support tool (remember fey covenant, fey wind etc) not a healer proxy
3) yeah so DOT juggling is boring but enforced 1-2-3’s are interesting just because succor won’t break my combo, pls explain that logic, and you used to have to weave as much as you do now, especially on SCH, let’s not pretend that the healers have to be insanely simple on DPS because heal weaving is gigabrain because we have 8000 oGCD’s now

DOT’s don’t have to be everyone’s shtick (I’m actually totally in favour of other healers losing DOT’s for something different) but why are people suddenly so opposed to that being what makes SCH more interesting because that is literally their lore, it’s like completely deleting cards off AST then going “yeah but like AST is star magic, a star mage doesn’t play yugioh”, it’s established lore within the game

[Rilifane]

One problem with this is it would likely be too powerful. Keep in mind Misery can't be generated by spamable heals (e.g. Cure 2s), only from spending a GCD consuming a resource you only get one of every 20 seconds. If SGE could just cast 3x Eukrasia Diagnosis and then get a DPS neutral/gain nuke, that would be pretty unbalanced.

There's a fairly easy way to fix it: add MP cost to Toxikon.

The strongest healer sets have very dangerous MP economy to the point where a rezz can make you chug a Super-Ether to offset the loss and avoid doing punchy things. If they added a 400 MP cost to Toxikon, a SGE would lose 1500 MP for every 2min burst they do the full 3x Toxikon fish. That's not something you can do with a min-Piety set (not even with a mid-Piety set in uncoordinated settings) and you'd lose more dps by doing this than sticking with your higher dps set.
It would make Toxikon into a movement and, closer to the end of the fight when you know how much MP you can sacrifice, dps optimization tool that is limited by MP. It would also give an option to optimize MP usage a bit if a boss had downtimes that brought your MP higher than necessary and could even lead to overcapping with LD or delaying it and losing a usage.

Overall I'd prefer a more active approach to Addersting as ty_taurus suggested though.

Edit:

And on the topic of dots: one advantage of them is, that if you have multiple dots on different timers, you have a constantly shifting rotation which I find far more engaging than a basic, generic 123 combo. And unlike cooldowns, there is also the option to refresh them earlier to take a lower dps loss than losing a full GCD.
Ideally they also offer something like Thundercloud proc or any form of interaction with the kit but even without that, 3 dots on different timers offer more engagement for me than a 123 combo where I can only ever press 2 after 1 and 3 after 2.
If we're talking about multiple branching combos like MNK had, then I'm down for it. It would need more buttons but constantly switching between branching combos would offer more variety for downtime as well.
It all boils down to breaking up monotony for me, anything that isn't easily predictable and rigid.

[ty_taurus]

I engage with the full rotations on the three healers I play on, thank you very much. And I actually do Savage (now) and have done Extremes for three expansions. Good god, no wonder you don't get what you want with that attitude. I'm literally saying "we have 4 Healers, the Devs could increase the dps kits on 2-3 of them and mix things up without it harming the game", and your response was to attack me instead? Really dude?

The thing is though is that the healers as they stand are very badly designed for the combat system of XIV and no job should be subjected to 1 button being roughly 80% of their casting focus. It's just not healthy design. Every healer should be reworked to have a healthy library of GCD actions they rely on, and the undeniable truth of FFXIV's foundational design is that it does not require much healing even in some of the hardest fights in the game. So while not every healer needs to have a DPS focus, all of them need to be designed within respects to DPS contributions, hense the AST example I've vomited more than enough times on the forum rewarding buff usage with passive Malefic-potency damage. There still has to be restrictions on that system though, whether that be MP, cooldowns, or external resources like lilies, there can't just be free, unlimited healing that also deals as much damage as filler spells. Every healer will need to eventually return to some filler spell usage. There is a lot we can do to reduce that from 80% down to something far more manageable, but the healers can't just stay as they are if we ever want to see healthier design.