Healers, then and now:

[Renathras]

I just try and find old videos of those days. Plenty still floating around on Youtube (mostly Mr. Happy but better than nothing).
Aero 1/2/3 all did exist together back in Heavensward. However, Aero 1 only dealt a total of 200 potency in comparison to Stone 3's 210 potency, meaning it wasn't worth keeping up in terms of rotation as Stone 3 outdid it in terms of damage. However, Aero 1 was still valuable as it granted movement and weaving windows as it was still an instant cast ability, which is something that WHM lacked outside of Regen and while good Regen uptime was important back then, if a Regen was already on the tank, Aero 1 was still a viable option.

See THAT, I would consider a choice.

Not because it's a DoT, mind you - Ruin 2 works this exact same way and is not a DoT - but because it was a trade-off. A bit less damage for a bit more mobility, each one being valuable in specific situations. Ruin 2 works this way. Enchanted Reprise (RDM) works this way. In theory, Scathe works this way but the damage loss is so great it...doesn't. Dia, when overwriting itself but used for movement, actually does this NOW, too, and is the only Healer DoT thatdoes due to the up front damage and that "some damage is better than no damage", though that's only necessary if you need movement and all Lilies and Swiftcast are on CD.

But yes, that would be a good example of choice.

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.

Huh.

When was it added? Was it with 2.0 or was it like Stoneskin II (which WHM got in...2.5, I think?)

Huh.

That's...actually sad. XD Maybe they thought SCH was just perfect the way it was. (Though, that may unironically have been somewhat true...)

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.

Oh yeah. That makes sense. I also agree that they SOMEtimes need to listen to players. As I quoted before: "Players are very good at spotting problems, though often not very good at coming up with workable solutions." SOMEtimes, they are good at coming up with solutions, but basically ALL times, they're good at correctly identifying problems. It pays to listen.

And I agree that they really need some Healer focused Devs. A pair of them, one of the offensive minded and one for the support minded.

When alliance raids are new, they tend to be a mess and require a lot of healing, which is totally fine.

That is when they're the most fun, yeah. I didn't say they were HARD. I more mean that they HIT HARD ENOUGH to wipe or to KO people. I think too often people hand-wave away non-Savage (or at best, non-Extreme) content as mere tickles that you don't even need a single heal to get through. That's untrue. It's just that the healing is low enough to be extremely easily covered by 1/3rd of your oGCD kit (or in WHM's case, Lilies)

If every heal is special, then no heal is special.

It's not about being special, it's about being viable. Casting Cure 2 is always the wrong decision outside of VERY niche cases like the 4 man one I mentioned above. Casting Cure 1 is never the right decision unless you're synced below level 30. We don't use GCD heals that aren't damage neutral in this game, because the damage >>> all mentality rules the day.

If it didn't, then exceptions make sense.

Now, there IS one alternative - and only one I can think of offhand - which is SPECIFICALLY Cure 3. It's extremely powerful when used well - though the times for that and executing it and situations that call for it are exceptionally rare, but they do exist. That's the only non-damage neutral GCD heal I can think off that actually has an argument to not be damage neutral because it can be used to save a lot of healing resources (which can then be turned into more damage later or earlier in the fight...so I suppose it's damage neutral in a way just not directly), but it's the only exception I can think of. Indeed, most of our other GCD heals are mimicked by oGCDs (or oGCD adjacent Lilies). Medica and Cure 2 are by Rapture (and Assize) and Solace/Tetra. Holos is by Celestial Opposition (and probably more, I don't know AST that well), etc.

[ty_taurus]

That is when they're the most fun, yeah. I didn't say they were HARD. I more mean that they HIT HARD ENOUGH to wipe or to KO people. I think too often people hand-wave away non-Savage (or at best, non-Extreme) content as mere tickles that you don't even need a single heal to get through. That's untrue. It's just that the healing is low enough to be extremely easily covered by 1/3rd of your oGCD kit (or in WHM's case, Lilies)

I agree, I love a shitshow roulette. My favorite dungeon is probably Pharos Sirius because everyone kills the Zu eggs in the second boss which causes her to enrage and start body checking people for nearly their full HP and stunning them. On the topic of light or heavy damage, it really just comes down to semantics. Whether or not we're describing the damage as high or low, the point is that each healer has a surplus of healing power in contrast to the general amount of damage we take, even if that damage is taking the party down to around 40% HP. And to a point, this isn't a bad thing. It makes storyline content, dungeons, alliance raids, and normal raids, very accessible to novice and intermediate healers, as well as other light content like treasure map dungeons and Bozja. But it also means it's very easy for expert and master level healers can accomplish healing requirements with a fraction of their healing kit.

Which leads me to the point of viable healing tools. Because you're right, you do want more healing tools to feel viable all the time. Healing on an expert or master level renders the majority of our healing tools as "unviable" or "unnecessary" currently, which amounts to the majority of actions each healer can access. On tanks and DPS jobs, you have buttons like Bloodbath that aren't always necessary, but that's not a bad thing either, because most of DRG's kit it always viable and always necessary, you just also have a pocket full of situational tools that can help you in a pinch. Meanwhile, it feels like the opposite for healers. The majority of your hotbar actions are situational, and only a handful are consistently viable: your DPS tools, your buffs (if you have them), and your primary healing buttons, i.e. Kardia, Kerachole, and Ixochole on SGE, or Afflatus Rapture, Afflatus Solace, and Asylum for WHM (I may be slightly off on that one, but those are the main go-tos I see of WHM when I play DNC).

This is why the main argument I and several others continue to bring up is having things that are always useful regardless of whether or not healing is needed, because it should feel more like the tank and DPS jobs where you're engaging with most of your tools consistently with a handful of utility or niche tools. So when it comes to whether or not all GCD heals should be DPS neutral, I still don't think it should be that free. You should have a selection of tools that make your GCD healing viable and necessary for when damage is taken, but not every tool should be free like that. Like the example with Cure III that you mentioned... it's something that we could improve on, absolutely, but having some really powerful safety net heals that aren't optimal but are exceptional at getting the player out of a stick scenario, they can still have a lot of value even if they're not regularly engaged with. Something you could do to better balance this with WHM's GCD library could look something like this:

Cure 1 - Make it instant cast, and attach Esuna to it. It's niche, but it merges two already very infrequently needed tools into one action and makes it easier to use when needed.
Cure II - Make it instant cast, and have the potency scale with the target's missing HP. It's not DPS neutral, but a much more effective tool at rescuing a single party member.
Medica - Replace it with an upgraded new spell that's instant cast, restores HP in an AoE with light potency, and also deals neutral damage to nearby enemies, like a GCD Assize with a high MP cost. Lily heals are more efficient for viable, DPS neutral healing tools, especially because Misery can be used to gain DPS, but this makes it a potentially viable tool for when lilies have run out, and gives you another tool to use with Thin Air.
Cure III - Make it instant cast with an even larger radius, and also scales with the target's missing HP. Still a DPS loss, but an even better emergency tool.
Regen and Medica II - Replace both of these with one OGCD ability that makes your next GCD heal apply a regen that's stronger on single target spells. It makes it so that you can add regen effects to your afflatus heals, or this upgraded Medica button. You could even do something fun like make Aero/Dia tics have a chance to shorten the cooldown by a few seconds, making your DoT feel more connected to your gameplay rather than just being a DoT for DoT's sake.
- Afflatus Solace and Rapture - Give them a cast time. This makes the instant cast nature of your Cure spells more valuable in certain scenarios. Your optimal heals are no longer the easiest ones to use, but not hard to use either.

Something like that gives each heal a more clearly defined purpose, and makes clutch healing with Cure II and Cure III overall more worth the loss in uptime and especially useful for prog scenarios.