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

[Renathras]

Optimizing damage and optimizing healing is the same thing.

No, it isn't. And never will be.

That's like saying mastering being a gunslinging police officer and mastering being a surgeon treating gunshot victims is "the same thing".

I think what you're trying to describe is moreso the group who wants a more engaging selection of GCD actions, largely in the form of DPS rotations on par with what tanks have vs those who don't want to have to DPS at all nor have to engage in anything resembling a rotation. Naturally there are people who fall in-between of course, but those are your left and right stances.

I'm not quite sure that's accurate, but it's probably an approximation of an understanding. There are some who want more DPS buttons, some who don't, and many who are probably more than content with things as they are today. The old adage is accurate that those who are upset complain but the vast majority who are content sit in contented silence and aren't taking part in these discussions. These "healers need more DPS buttons" discussions don't at all represent an majority position.

EDIT (for space):

The way encounters are fundamentally designed continues to blatantly and directly clash with their supposed stance of not wanting healers to feel obligated to DPS.

Somewhat agree. It's ironic that the trash packs (in wall to wall pulls) in dungeons are more deadly than the bosses. Though it should be noted that it's pretty clear they DIDN'T intend the DPS check to be so tight this raid teir. But yes, I agree overall that it seems like the encounter design and their desired objective kind of clash with each other. Though that's also somewhat the nature of Enrages in general. If DPSers are slacking off, Healers (and Tanks) have to pick up their slack, if they can, to get clears. Though right now, even post nerf, the Enrages are too tight to meet without Healer (and Tank) damage being fairly pronounced. Enrages are a sticky subject because I've hated them since way back when. I've never felt they're a good system for encounters, and it's lazy design that developers use because...well, it's lazy.

I would challenge that most of them would be content no matter what happens to the healing role.

I will contest that and say you're wrong. Now, here it really DOES depend on who we're talking about, but first we have to do a quick and dirty parsing of the community. At the top end (99%ers) you have the 1% of the community. Bleeding edge, theorycraft in their sleep, you know, the actual best of the best. Then we have the 9%ers, these are the 90-99% who AREN'T the elite, but want to be. These are also the people that most complain about things like balance and want to exclude people less skilled/dedicated/whatever than them from content. They see themselves as part of the 1%, but they aren't actually quite there. Then you have the Mid-core, which is the 50-90% types that still do hard content, still clear it, but do it more as a social thing with friends for fun and good times. They derive general joy from doing the stuff together, but they don't derive joy from min-maxing everything or making the game into a job. (I largely fit into this group, personally, and have since at least the middle of SB.) Then you have the "casuals(?)" which are the 0-50% that many times don't even step into hard content at all, and on the rare occasion they do, either do so with a group of friends or are doing old content for glamour or the like. These people generally don't know what weaving is, the difference between a GCD and an oGCD, etc. (I was one of these up until probably mid-SB when I started looking into SCH guide videos and happened across one from Momo or Wesk Alber or someone that explained the difference.)

The Mid-core would be destroyed by changes like that, and so they would, in fact, not be content if the roles were completely changed. The hyper-casuals wouldn't care IF it doesn't come to bother them - the issue with Cleric Stance type stuff is that it DID, in fact, come to bother them with people getting yelled at in Dungeon runs if they were never using Cleric or weren't DPSing, which resulted in Cleric being removed ("This is why we can't have nice things"). Whenever stuff like this has bled out into the common player/casual content, the result is always that it was removed/nerfed. If the Healer rotations were made harder and it WAS a significant part of clear times so that 9%ers running 4 man roulettes started complaining about them, it would run into the same problem Cleric did.

The 1% wouldn't care. The 9% would be gleefully smirking at the mid-core no longer being able to clear "their" content and relishing having more exclusivity.

So I contest that they wouldn't care. The 50-90 would care because they aren't able to clear content, and the 0-50 would care because the 9% would now be complaining about every dungeon run taking longer than they want.

It's what happened before ShB when the community was far happier with the state of healers.

Let's correct that: It happened in SB once HW era healing was arguably gutted with the Cleric removal BECAUSE that was going on. It forced Cleric's removal and a stricter hand with TOS for people to be "far happier". Not only that, you say "the community was far happier". What evidence do you have of this? I would wager the 9% was far happier, but was the community AS A WHOLE? As much as the 9% complain, I feel the community AS A WHOLE is far happier with ShB healing than SB and certainly than HW.

Healing also has a very high turnover rate. The vast majority of people who heal are not dedicated healer mains. They're players who have WHM leveled for free roulette bonuses, and/or who are comfortable flexing into healer as needed if needed.

Agreed, but in the opposite direction you likely mean.

The people that want more DPS buttons on healers likely fit that mold. They want more DPS buttons because they'd really rather be playing a DPS Job but are on a Healer either for ques or for a raid spot.

People that DO main healers - as in have only one Job at level 90 and it's a Healer - are likely more the casuals or "Sylphies" who don't want that.

I'd wager that's the case, anyway. Again, when I was 0-50 casual, I only had WHM and SCH leveled (ARR, HW, and half of SB). It was literally all I did. It was when I shifted more into the mid-core that I actually had other Jobs leveled.

.

Overall, I don't exactly disagree with you on some things in a general sense, but I disagree on the specifics and the why of them, I suppose?

.

Never played DRG, but I feel for them. Most I met in game seemed happy with the job as it was, and now they're all dreading the rework because none of them asked for it and they're wondering wtf square is even going to fix.

This is a position I do kind of agree with. Why change something when no one's asking for a change to it?

SB to ShB change to WHM made sense. SB WHM was pretty meh and people were asking for changes, and the Lily/Misery changes we got were pretty fantastic. ShB/EW WHM was and is an improvement over SB WHM with their glorified Freecure Lily system. Losing twirly-staff Aero 3 kind of sucks, but trading Aero 3 and Aero 2 for Solace, Rapture, and Misery is an absolute gain in my book and has been so significant it's arguably WHM's core identity at this point!

On the other hand, SB SCH's were largely satisfied with the Job. The only thing they really needed were Eos to be more responsive and ghosting to be less of an issue. Well, they got changes in ShB...but those weren't them. They DID finally get a more responsive Eos in EW, but ghosting still exists.

I don't know why the NEED to change a Job. I get the SMN argument of "we didn't know where to go with it", but the solution might have just been "a bit more of the same until people complain" as opposed to a complete top-down rework...