Healer Survey:

[Renathras]

I don't think that's a proper comparison because Verflare and Verholy both affect your resources differently and both have a place in your single target DPS rotation. Same thing with Storm's Path and Storm's Eye. Meanwhile, Afflatus Solace and Rapture do the same thing in regards to your DPS rotation, they both give 1 petal to the blood lily, which makes them interchangeable.

If you're serious about only counting one or the other, then you can only either count Glare or an Afflatus spell, because you use either one or the other. See how dumb that kind of argument is?

To an outsider, you look like you...

Well, never mind.

Afflatus Solace and Afflatus Rapture have different use cases, and they're distinct actions. That's why I counted them differently. If I count them as one ability, then I'd have to count Verholy/Verflare as one ability. There are, in theory, cases where you'd use Solace or cases where you'd use Rapture because of their secondary effect, just as there are cases where you'd use Engagement vs Displacement. They have different non-damage effects even though their damage is the same and they're used at the same point in a rotation, with the choice between them being situational based on the fight situation at the time. There's a similar case with Forked and Fleeting Raiju as well (which ARE GCDs)

Forked and Fleeting do the same damage, but aren't the same ability, and would PROBABLY be counted by people as two distinct ones. If that's the case, Solace and Rapture have the same thing going.

And your example was dumb...because it doesn't make any sense. If you use a Glare instead of Solace/Rapture, you don't generate a Lily. So Glare isn't interchangeable with them, but they're interchangeable with each other. That's like comparing Forked/Fleeting Raiju to Spinning Edge to make an argument that Forked and Fleeting Raiju can't count as separate buttons since you can choose to use Spinning Edge in that GCD instead... Or using another Raiton and saying Raiton must be the same ability. That might be a dumb kind of argument.

EDIT:

In any case, no, there was no disingenuous intent. If they were the same ability or if one was a straight upgrade of the other (for example, if Rapture was 800 potency so that you'd NEVER use Solace), then they wouldn't count as distinct, I suppose. But that's not the case.

Likewise, that one is rarely used doesn't change things; a RDM can arrange their general rotation and Acceleration uses to where they're always using the same one of Veryholy/flare if they wanted to. There'd be no benefit from doing so, mind you, but you could absolutely do it unless your procs were just stupidly one-sided to the "wrong" element. A NIN can never use Fleeting Raiju and toss the button from their bars (I'm sure some people do). But, there's really no standard on "what counts", and I tend to keep all abilities on my bars, so...that's the way I was counting them. /shrug