AST (and DRG) had their improvements pushed to 7.0 PLD are getting theirs in 6.3

[Semirhage]

I guess I do want to ask something here - on the topic of hyperbole - do you really press only one button?

I'm not talking GCDs. I'm talking buttons.

When I heal encounters, on WHM, the braindeadest of the braindead, the following are all buttons I hit frequently (and by "frequently" I mean "multiple times per minute" for buttons with no CD or "roughly on cooldown" for buttons with a cooldown):

Glare
Dia
Misery
Rapture
Solace

Presence of Mind
Divine Benison
Aquaveil
Assize
Asylum
Lucid Dreaming
Tetragrammaton

Do you seriously not hit those buttons? And note my definition of frequently. LESS frequently, but still used, also include Temperance, Liturgy of the Bell, Thin Air, Swiftcast, Raise, Plenary Indulgence, Medica 2, and occasionally Holy and rarely Cure 2, and really rarely, Cure 3. So I frequently hit 5 GCDs and 7 oGCDs, and less frequently hit 4 other GCDs much more situationally and 5 more oGCDs.

And this is on WHM.

On SCH and trying out AST, I seem to find myself hitting a lot more buttons because there are a lot more tools, oGCD weaves, and for AST, buffs.

I get you ARE spending "hundreds" of GCDs on Glare (and Dia), but you're also pressing a lot of other buttons in the interim, are you not? Or are you one of those bad healers that doesn't use oGCD healing tools? (That's sarcasm: I know you aren't one of those.)

So I see you read my post, and then immediately launched into an argument against what you wished I said: "All I do is press one single button". And then when you reached the end of that, you admitted that all I actually said was that I pressed it hundreds of times over and over and over and over again, which is boring. But hey, if you're so fixated on complaining about your opponents' hyperbole because you don't feel like actually engaging with their arguments, I'll bite. I cast Glare so many times in any given encounter that it feels like that's all I do. Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare until the word reaches semantic satiation and it doesn't feel like more than a meaningless grunted syllable.

You can argue they're "boring", but "boring" is a subjective term, not an objective one. I find DPS rotations either boring, annoying, or both. I can't say I've seen a DPS rotation I would describe as "exciting".

I do agree on the ability to rescue getting narrow in harder content, though.

You say more Glare is bad game design, but what would YOU say is "good" game design? More DPS button presses? On a HEALER? Many would say that, in fact, would be the bad game design.

I have made peace with the fact that I will never agree with Sylphies on this nonsense. This is Healers Should Heal Only in one of its various evening gowns. Oh no, anything but kit interactivity. The healer role would be rent asunder if poor healers had to do any thinking beyond pressing Glare a million times and farting out an oGCD heal once in a while. No engagement in MY role, that sounds like you're a dirty infiltrator DPS main trying to do DAMAGE on my precious kawaii princess healer role.

Healers are multitasker support classes in practically every RPG that's ever existed. Characters with healing abilities often use them sparingly and thoughtfully. They buff. They debuff. They spend most of their time doing damage. This is true of many, many, many RPGs. This dogged insistence that healers should clutch their ball gowns and faint in horror at the idea of doing anything beyond spamming Cure is....not the RPGs I'm familiar with.

That right there? ^ That was a little hyperbole. And I'm certain you're going to complain about any light exaggerations in it instead of actually addressing the point.

Pressing one button hundreds of times, back to back, over and over and over again in an encounter is, with the exception of a hypothetical situation where you just stand in place picking your nose, perhaps the closest thing to -objectively- boring as you can get. It's a total snore. I was tired of my main job being pushed and pushed and pushed in that direction. I argued against it. I'm now out of the healing role for anything but leveling to max this expansion, because the entire role was pushed into being this boring as of Shadowbringers. It's unengaging. The skill ceiling is unfun. I play healers in a large majority of games I've tried, and as of Endwalker FF14 has managed to present the least engaging, the least entertaining, and the most superfluous of the healers I have ever seen designed. It takes a REALLY badly designed healer to get me to toss my staff out. FF14 managed to do it.

I cannot imagine how anyone finds Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare to be good game design. Fill a board with other MMO names. Close your eyes and throw a dart. Chances are you'll hit one with healers designed like their players have more than two neurons firing at any given time.