Healers, then and now:

[Sparkthor]

In HW the standard BLM rotation was more 4 Fire IV than 6, due to Enochian being link with Blizzard IV, and because at this time, both Fire IV and Blizzard IV were 3s cast time (opposed to 2.8 and 2.5s now).

So SB change a lot of things for the BLM in use, as the standard rotation moved a lot.

I would say it's normal jobs got rework as the game go on as it gains in maturity. But i think the biggest changes is "Healers need to gcd to heal" to "Good healer make few uses of healing gcd", and i'm not sure people would love to go back as using gcd for it. Personnaly I would dislike to.

[ty_taurus]

In HW the standard BLM rotation was more 4 Fire IV than 6, due to Enochian being link with Blizzard IV, and because at this time, both Fire IV and Blizzard IV were 3s cast time (opposed to 2.8 and 2.5s now).

So SB change a lot of things for the BLM in use, as the standard rotation moved a lot.

I would say it's normal jobs got rework as the game go on as it gains in maturity. But i think the biggest changes is "Healers need to gcd to heal" to "Good healer make few uses of healing gcd", and i'm not sure people would love to go back as using gcd for it. Personnaly I would dislike to.

That's why I think the key is changing "good healers make few uses of GCD healing" into "good healers use GCD healing in specific ways to avoid losing DPS" a la things like the lily system. The fact of the matter currently is that healers flat out just don't use GCD healing in most situations unless you're WHM. SGE and SCH have aboslutely no reason to touch a single GCD heal in a dungeon or a smooth alliance raid run at all given how gentle and infrequent damage taken happens, and AST might only really need GCD heals for trash pulls, maybe. So I think redesigning healers to make GCD healing something that you can do in a specific way that differs between healers to allow your GCD heals to refund or reward DPS gives you a reason to juggle these resources effectively, and you can still have OGCD tools that contribute to this. It should feel different for each healer too. Even SGE who is supposed to be a DPS healer should also have reasons to occasionally take advantage of their barrier spells. And it makes the healing side of things feel rewarded for everyone.