What dps/utility buttons old or new would you add to your healer?

[Renathras]

Personally, I'd like something akin to SCH's Energy drain for SGE.

Honestly, Energy Drain is probably one of the worst abilities in the game. It's the crux of otimizing one Job, but the difference between optimal play and not is RELATIVELY minimal, and further, it actively encourages people to not use a resource for Healing if they can at all get away from it, even if that's unintuitive and requires using inferior abilities instead. It's why they probably won't do it again. Having a resource compete for both healing and damage is something the Devs clearly don't like, and the only reason SCH even has it now is because people complained about NOT having it, which was less due to people loving Energy Drain and more due to (a) people being used to it, (b) it having a legacy position as an MP management tool (which has been entirely replaced by Aetherflow just giving the MP outright), and (c) the actual problem: That SCH had nothing useful to do with AF stacks if AF was coming off CD, Excogitation was on CD, and they had any stacks left while the party was at full health (in theory, could throw down a Soil, but if there wasn't damage going out soon or you were saving it for damage a little further, this would be bad). That problem could just as well have been solved by giving SCH an AF spender that was either a barrier (think Divine Benison) or a Regen to toss on the Tank. Either of those would have solved the problem (provided they didn't ALSO come with CDs, which was the problem in the first place; if Excog and Soil didn't have CDs and could be used left and right, that also would have fixed the problem.)

It's a badly designed ability which has only gotten worse as the Devs have tried to make it as unattractive to use as possible without outright removing it.

Moreover, people already complain frequently that SGE and SCH are too similar. I'm not sure adding something that would make them even more similar is the way to go...

Like I said, if Yoshi is unable to think of new mechanics, just mimic existing ones.

I guess my point is that the combat system doesn't allow for this. Again, think of how many OFF-GCD abilities BLM has that allows it to play like it does. Also instants. People that think BLM is a pure turret are people that haven't looked at the Job since SB. It's changed quite a bit in regards to its mobility. WHM would have to be given tons of mobility tools - as I've pointed out before, BLM has something like 12 GCDs of free movement when using its GCD and oGCD abilities, BEFORE it has to resort to Scathe spam. WHM has no where near that mobility.

Also, no, WHM hasn't been merged with Geomancer. The lore (SB AST quests) say that Geomancy is a type of Astromancy, not Conjury, and definitely not White Magic. (Despite them using CNJ spells and wands, but whatever, the lore's the lore). And on top of that, the Devs and game have spent no less than 2 and probably closer to 3 expansions moving WHM away from Conjury in most every way that counts, not towards it. Lamitt was no where tied to Conjury or nature magic, and we haven't used any since we went to the First ourselves. They even removed our one Water spell from existence and removed the Aero spell we'd presumably still have at higher levels (Aero 3) to make sure we don't have any real connections to Conjury at this point, and certainly to Geomancy. Aquaveil is the only non-holy, nature themed spell we have, and...it is still pretty holy looking, like Divine Benison (which also makes a water-ish sound but is pretty clearly holy element)

So I'd say WHM has been the exact opposite of effectively merged with Geomancer. It's been more or less completely severed from it.

I feel like a lot of people want GEO, and I REALLY wish they'd add it to the game (it would be cool if it branched from CNJ since that would make some thematic sense and give WHM/GEO the SCH/SMN treatment, which is kind of a nice little perk), but they seem to not want to do it for some godforsaken reason. They could make any number of GEO Caster builds doing so easily. And if they didn't want it to be shared with WHM, they could just make it its own thing (though the former makes more sense considering all the GEO NPCs in the game are basically CNJs). Making a proper DPS Job out of it would be laughably easy at this point, either as a Caster or as a Melee.

...

So...about the SCH, SGE, and AST ideas?

Also, what did you think about having Water be low level (level 15) Holy you get after Trial of Water at level 15 that you can use so you actually have an AOE spell for dungeons and such from level 15-45 when you actually get Holy? Imagine the FF8/FF9 big water bubble forming and floating into the air then bursting and that's more or less what Holy does, so the animation and stuff would work great and give you that Water spell, and it'd be useful for all those leveling dungeons before level 45 we get in roulette where we'd LOVE to have an AOE spell but just don't have one...

from your fingertips to the devs ears... what about ast?

*cough*

Astrologian: Healer/Buffer With All The Cards

AST is honestly the hardest, because it is in uneviable position of having a kit that overall is the most powerful in the game and "just works"...while also being incredibly clunky in practice. Its buff system is random, likewise seals/Astrodyne. There are also issues with changing it, since any change is going to both disrupt current play and any serious change will also (unlike SCH) not appeal to past play. For example, making Draw and Play GCDs would reduce the APM issues, but AST has never used them as GCDs. A further complication is a desire to return Diurnal and Nocturnal to the mix while ALSO trying to reduce the Pure/Barrier dichotomy.

The first step would be to revert AST's healing kit to the ShB era. Dirunal and Nocturnal were both pretty well established and pretty good during that period, and both provided for effective healing. Both also included mitigation and party shields to meet party needs, making both well rounded while also allowing the player to adapt to best synergize with whichever co-healer they got. This would mainly affect Aspected abilities and some CDs, but those largely worked just fine in ShB. Benefic would be upgraded into Benefic 2. Even MORESO than WHM, there's no point in these being distinct. Where Cure 1 and Cure 2 at least have different cast times and a 500 MP cost difference, Benefic 2 has the same cast time as Benefic (so that "clutch 1.5 sec heal when a 2 sec cast wouldn't make it" argument doesn't even exist here, insomuch as it exists out in the wild anyway), and the MP cost is 200 more on the Healer that already has the best MP economy in the game. There's pretty much no reason for Benefic 1 once you get Benefic 2 at level 26 on a Job that starts at level 30 anyway. If it's really a concern, the MP cost can be reduced by 200 for Benefic 2 to make it a straight upgrade. Remove Undraw. Seriously.

Now, what do do about Cards? The big Hauchefaunt in the room is that the RNG is what kills interesting Arcana effects. "I drew the one that reduces damage by 10%! Man that'd be useful for a Tank buster! Right now...the next Tank buster isn't for another 45 seconds, but MAN would it be cool if I got this card for that, huh?!" While RNG is part of AST's aesthetic, it's also what prevents it from being a good buff Healer, since you have no guarantee of getting the buff you want when you actually need it. So the first objective for fixing Cards involves a way to remove RNG, or at least remove the significant RNG that makes buffs so suboptimal. Does this mean people might use the "meta" buffs a lot? Yes, but it means the other buffs might have room to shine as well, and can also cover for other parts of the kit. The second big change is making Draw and Play on the GCD. The reason for this is simple, it removes Lightspeed reservation being mandatory for burst windows (allowing its use more flexibly when the player needs/wants it) and it reduces the frankly bonkers APM required during the burst phase. However, it would need to now have something done to make it damage neutral vs Malific. Fortunately, that's pretty easy. Both Draw and Play would have the Additional Effect: Arcanum Malificum. The next Malific or Gravity spell cast has its potency increased by 100%, stacks up to 6 times, lasts 30 seconds. In short, you use Draw and Play (up to 3 of each), then lay down the Malific/Gravity hurt. Another option (but one a bit more complicated) would be to have Draw hit a hostile target with 1 Malific's worth of damage (presuming you're targeting the boss when you hit Draw) and only Play doing the +100% next Malific...but that's honestly more likely to cause problems than anything ("Oops! Forgot to turn off autotargeting and the 20 sec prepull Draw smacked the boss in the face with a Urianger card! Sorry everyone!"), like Ranged DPS rightclicking the boss before the pull.

A second change I'd make to reduce the RNG would be to have cards arrayed a bit more like Mudras. You have a Damage, Mitigation, and Healing/Restoration (MP refresh) Draw. They share a CD (like WAR's Upheaval and Orogeny or MCH's Bioblaster and Drill). To make it a bit more mistake/fat finger friendly, you'd have the Draw buttons and then a separate Play button, so if you drew the wrong one, you could draw a different one at the mere cost of sacrificing a GCD (e.g. if you drew the mitigation one too late and the Tank eats the Tank buster, now you don't need it, so you can draw the damage buff to put on someone else instead, or the healing one to use on the Tank if you don't have some other better option up). To keep the lore of 6 main constellations, they'd be paired, and using Arcanum shift would allow you to toggle between single target and AOE versions of each. For example, Balance might be a single target 6% damage increase for 15 seconds or you could use its counterpart, Bole, for an AOE 4% damage increase for 7.5 seconds instead. Likewise the mitigation and the healing ones. Spear/Arrow would likely make sense for damage, Bole/Tower for mitigation, and Balance/Ewer for healing, though I'm not married to any of those being necessary, just trying to keep them all relevant.

We could keep a little randomness from Minor Arcana, which is honestly MOSTLY flavor right now. Royal Road can also be added back, with the effects of increasing the damage buff's strength, the mitigation buff's duration, or the healing buff's potency and the HoT's duration, respectively (there'd be no need for the AOE since we already have that covered). We could also do some other stuff like allow the AST to stock a card for later using Sleeve Draw, to store and then play it, but given how we're removing the RNG from the buffs now AND that Draw/Play has charges reducing the need to stock cards for later AND that AST already has a lot of buttons, we probably don't need it. Likewise, we don't need Redraw since you can choose to draw the specific cards you want anyway. If we really want Redraw, we can add another Minor Arcanum (maybe the Jester of Crowns), and allow Redraw to work for those, but it's really not needed at this point.
So that's a LOT of discussion on Cards/buffs, but I feel that's really at the core of what AST is, a playstyle people want in FFXIV (a buffer/healer), and the crux of AST's problems (the "This is why we can't have nice things..." where "nice things" in this case is "more interesting buffs") as well as the APM problem. Collectively, this change reduces APM by making Draw and Play GCDs, prevents using them being perceived as somehow suboptimal by making them damage neutral, removing the RNG so you can get the buffs you need when you need them (which has the side-effect of allowing more interesting and even niche buffs to be added since the player can access them when they need them but not have RNG work against them when they don't), and allowing more player agency in the choice of buffs used and when to use them, freeing up Lightspeed for more overall flexible use in the encounter, and with the Minor Arcana still retaining a bit of the RNG flavor for the Job fantasy.

Now, AST still has some issue with a lot of button bloat, but we can clean a little of that up. First, we're having Benefic upgrade into Benefic 2 as I said above. Second, we can pull a Variant Cure and remove Helios as a separate ability. What would happen is that if the target had the secondary effect (Regen for dAST and barrier for nAST), the spell would, instead of applying the secondary effect, boost the healing potency from 250 to 400. Basically, double up that button's use. Astrodyne would be a MP management tool + Presence of Mind self buff on a 90 or 120 second CD (whichever). No more seal craziness. If we are DESPERATE to retain seals, we could work that into the Minor Arcana Lord/Lady/Jester of Crowns thing and have Minor Arcana have a 40 sec CD so you'd use it for your seal sidegame and Astrodyne would be up every 2 minutes. [NOTE: If 7.0 moves us away from the 2 min meta, then this can be 30 and 90 sec instead, or whatever; I'm just trying to consider the present systems in play as of right now.] We can also do a similar Helios thing with Aspected Benefic and Benefic 2...but I feel like that's a little more niche and we may want to keep those separate.

I suppose for Minor Arcana, Lord and Lady could work as they do now, and maybe Jester could do something like give you two stacks of Arcanum Malificum or something. That's distinct enough from the others while also having some flex on the new kit and stuff. I dunno, just a thought, but that would be kind of a fun effect if you wanted to get a bit more burst at the cost of needing GCDs and making sure you didn't overcap Draw/Play generated Arcanum Malificum stacks.

Another change I would probably make is to make Neutral Sect a bit shorter of a CD (probably 60 seconds) and cause all Aspect/Sect based abilities to take on the properties of both (which...I think is what it used to do) for 10 seconds or something. In short, it allows dAST to have some barriers while allowing nAST to have some HoTs. Celestial Opposition and Celestial Intersection would be oGCD versions of Aspected Helios and Aspected Benefic, similar to how Solace and Rapture are instant damage neutral versions of Cure 2 and Medica 1 in live WHM, each would take on either a barrier or HoT based on being in nAST or dAST stance (or both under Neutral Sect...unless we want Neutral Sect to not affect them, I guess?), and we MIGHT consider folding Essential Dignity into Exaltation...though that's a bit more tricky. Exaltation with a scaling heal would be nice, but one use of Dignity is as a quick spot heal, so...maybe not. Just a thought, though. I guess it would work better if Exaltation and Taurochole were the opposite of one another. Ideally, I'd like to see Synastry rolled into something, but I'm not sure what. Maybe make the duration 8-10 seconds and combine it with Exaltation? If Essential Dignity had a 60 sec CD (I know, I know, a nerf, but hear me out) but upgraded at level 50 to apply the Synastry effect for 10 seconds and, at 80-ish, the Exaltation damage mitigation, that might make it worth it. The heal would be upfront, but essentially this would make it a strong spot heal that also reduces damage the target takes and allows splash healing them while healing other party members with Benefic 2 or Aspected Benefic. Might make up for it? Could also have it trait at some point to add a HoT, but the Synastry effect might reduce the need of that.

Finally, Lightspeed, Earthly Star, Horoscope, and Macrocosmos are all being retained to keep AST's secondary Job identity as a pseudo-Time Mage in tact.

The core damage rotation would be unchanged, but your Combust upkeep + Malific spam would be interrupted by Draw Damage/Mitigation/Healing and Play, followed by even prettier Malifics (1-6 of them), and Lightspeed use would be far more flexible. Minor Arcana would be your RNG Seal game with Redraw attached to it (those could all be oGCDs still), Royal Road and Arcana Shift would be oGCDs to modify your Card effects, and Astrodyne would be connected to the Minor Arcana Seals from Lord(sun)/Lady(moon)/Jester(celestial) of Crowns.

Benefic 1 and Helios would be removed once upgrading to Benefic 2 and Aspected Helios, respectively.

New Buttons: 2 new Draws (three total, but we have 1 already; Draw Offense Arcana, Draw Defense Arcana, and Draw Restorative Arcana), Royal road, Arcana Shift, Diurnal Sect, Nocturnal Sect. [While Sect is set before the battle starts, this means we still need to remove at least 4 buttons for neutrality]

Removed Buttons: Benefic (on upgrade), Helios (on upgrade), Undraw, and Synastry and/or (both) Exaltation if there'd be a good way to roll those effects into other abilities (or if players collectively don't want them). Alternatively, we could remove Celestial Opposition and/or Intersection. We could also remove Redraw or just leave it for Minor Arcana. Collectively, there are 8 total abilities here we could remove 4-6 of (or all 8) to free up some bar space.

Note that AST is the Healer I play the least, but I do play it, and I've long liked components of it (the buffing gameplay, when it's interesting, paired with a simple damage rotation and flexible heals with interesting oGCDs). So this is my attempt to retain those traits of it while also retaining the RNG and Time Mage feel it has, and restoring it the flexibility that it used to have with Diurnal, Nocturnal, and Neutral Sects.

.

Okay, Attempt at Summary:

Super short version:

AST has dAST and nAST back, Cards are GCDs but you pick which card to use and play, Draw and Play generate a stack of boosted (+100%) Malific/Gravity to make using them damage neutral, Arcana Shift to access weaker but AOE versions of the main three buffs, Royal Road to boost the power or duration of said buffs, Minor Arcana is retained as your RNG and Seal mechanic, and some abilities are combined (Benefic -> Benefic 2, Helios -> Aspected Helios, Undraw -> Recycle Bin) to make room for the additional buttons.

That leaves out a lot of the nuance and discussion, but gets the main crux across.

[NOTE: As Ty pointed out, it would be Knave of Crowns, not Jester, but otherwise, all that.