Healers, then and now:

[Nizzi]

I mean...you aren't wrong. It seems to just be "The Scholar Curse", since FFXI also had some weirdness with SCH. It's somehow (almost) always powerful, yet at the same time, always just has weirdness with it. And yeah, for all the talk people have of WHM being the boring one, the data and feels seem to show that SCH actually is. When we don't count oGCDs (which we don't for WHM, so... ...but we do for AST..........so....... /shrug)

One SLIGHT correction, though: SCH also got Miasma 2 in...HW, I think? It doesn't have it NOW, mind you, but it DID receive at least that. I think it was because the direction for SCH early on was damage based, but its damage was shunted to oGCDs instead.

https://youtu.be/YSVK8LpHoi8
It did not, actually! Not to be pedantic, but Scholar had it back in ARR as seen in the linked Mr. Happy video from ARR. Scholar has literally never gotten a new DPS ability or anything to change its GCD gameplay, it's only ever had everything taken away from it.
SCH also has the least amount of GCD heals out of any healer (3) where every other healer has at least 4-5. So yeah, Broilbot away! You have the least amount of options out of any healer to alleviate that.

One other thing: Afflatus doesn't really do ED for the simple reason ED is a competition between using a resource for healing or damage - something the Devs haven't liked since they first tried to remove it in 5.0. Some players love it, some hate it. For those who hate it, WHM is a more perfect version of that system. For those that love it, SCH's version they prefer, but there's no AOE version since Bane was removed. Oh, and you do have breaks. Exactly two of them, like clockwork, per minute. Riveeting, I agree. <_<[/hb]

It really goes to show how you can have oGCD focused Healers, but they need to actually have their play centered around that - SCH did up until SB then got it wiffed - or alternatively, you can have a GCD centric focus, but you have to lean into that fully to make it work - ShB and really 6.1+ EW WHM for that example.

What I meant was that by making Lilies lossless, they mimicked what Scholar used to have with Miasma II/Ruin II + Energy Drain, which was a lossless movement tool or weaving tool, not that it serves the same function as Energy Drain. I like that Lilies are similar but distinct to Aetherflow, and I think after 6.1 they're in a very good spot for WHM. As sad as it is, WHM now just shows that if they listen to what the community says about healers, like with Lilies needing to be DPS neutral, it tends to work out fairly well. They absolutely, undeniably need someone on the team who focuses on healers specifically as the design across the board is fairly dismal. These jobs can be designed so much better, we just need people on the team that have a clear vision for what they want jobs to be and for them to stay true to that vision.