Healers need an overhaul

[HyperiusUltima]

No more new oGCD heal for a couple expansion would be a good start. But frankly, I think the currently healers is in such a state then I don't believe a good solution can be reached by simply "removing or adding" a few things. It needs a full rework ala SMN style.

And that rework need to be done with a different mind set and expectation. We can argue the up and down of the current situation, but I believe the root cause of its own is SE seems to have a really low expectation regarding healer players for some reason, almost like it's designed for babies, both in term of mentality and skill set.

Ohhhhh no. We are not going down that road with a SMN-like rework. You saw how it turned out: Had the most complex rotations for the longest period of time, and then got reworked this expansion because said complex rotation was extremely punishing to their DPS. Got turned into a very simplistic job, though with a lot to be desired as many in the DPS Sub-forum have mentioned. The idea of "removing or adding" isn't without reason though - if you bother to take a look at action hotbars, you get the following if you were going in a high-end Raid Setting:

WHM: 28 Actions
AST: 30 Actions
SCH: 31 Actions(this includes Selene/Eos Summon)
SGE: 30 Actions

We've still got room on Hotbars for an additional action or two - especially in WHM's case since this includes all Role Actions(except Repose). Sadly, here's the percentage of those actions which are purely for mitigation or healing:

WHM: 64.2%
AST: 56.6%
SCH: 54.8%
SGE: 56.6%

And the funny thing is, unless we're in Savage or Extreme or are making mistakes, we don't always use our full kit! Meaning some of it is just button bloat ready to be pruned.

I will not pretend each of the thing I mentioned by itself will solve the issue. But there is a saying "take care of the pennies and the dollar will take care of itself". As the developers kept stripping these "pennies" over the years (as from some of the reply here, some of the players seem to have equally dismissing attitude), and everyone wonder why healers can't make a dollar?

You also got to break down the dollar considering we've been getting short-changed for how long? 4 Years. As for where they started stripping your 'pennies' from, rollback to Stormblood. They stripped a lot from WHM and made it Role Actions. Then, they got rid of Largesse in Shadowbringers and instead redid Role Actions to properly reflect what tools one should have. The problem with Shadowbringers was that they stripped Astrologian and Scholar to an extreme by cutting down their DPS abilities that made them stand out. The reason for it? Overtly complex rotations. Ever since Shadowbringers, the devs have cut back on complexity to the extreme for Healers without anything to fill the void. Oh wait, that void's filled with oGCD healing actions...