Healers need an overhaul

[Aravell]

Uh...I think we aren't considering the concept of "choice" to be the same thing.

RIGHT NOW:

Need an AOE heal and have 1 Lily up. Here are your choices:

1) Cast Glare (someone will die): Wrong
2) Cast Medica 1 (no one will die, but you do less damage): Wrong
3) Cast Rapture (no one will die, you will not do less damage): Right

There is only one right answer here. Your other "choices" are both wrong.

That's exactly what I said. You said it yourself, out of all 3 options, only 1 does your job and also gives you damage. So the only choice available to you right now is the right choice (gives you damage) or the wrong choice (doesn't give you damage).

Now, suppose all GCD heals were damage neutral. NOW you have some serious choices:

Do you have a lot of MP and no need for movement? Medica might be the right choice.
Do you have a lot of MP and no immediate need for movement, but an upcoming movement where you will need an AOE heal? Medica is now really attractive since you may want to save the Rapture.
...but you could ALSO choose Medica 2 here and have the HoT carry over for that future damage.
Do you need to move right now? Rapture is a good choice in this case.
Are you low on MP? Now Medica is a lesser choice and Rapture might be the better one.
Do you need to move in the near future but NOT have to AOE heal at that time? Rapture could work now since you can use Regen on the Tank then for your movement tool..

My point is that you can already do all these things right now, you have the freedom to make any of these choices right now. Why don't people make most of these choices? Because it loses them damage. That's log mentality and it's damaging the healer role, if you need to heal, you heal, it shouldn't matter if it loses you damage as damage shouldn't be your main focus in the first place. Making more and more heals damage neutral only feeds into this log mentality and hurts the role further, even now you'd sometimes see healers that do literally no healing if they have no free healing available, they'd rather let the party die than cast anything that loses them damage.

Making everything as damage neutral as possible also removes the need for choice. You say you'd have more choices available, yes, you would, but all the reasons for making those choices will be completely removed. Why consider your next move when they all do the same thing? If you cast a damage neutral Cure III here to top up the party, what's the difference between that and using an Afflatus Solace under Plenary?

Maybe you can clarify, as that seemed to me you saying "The point of mastering a healer is maximizing your damage". The mechanism is "by choosing the most optimum heal for the situation to thus free you up for dealing more damage", but that still makes the purpose of your optimization to optimize/increase damage, not healing.

This may seem a semantics argument, but I think it's significant. Is your focus to most efficiently and effectively heal your party, or to maximize your damage contribution in the fight? As those are not exactly the same thing, even if they share a road.

I mentioned helping the party do damage because that's literally the only thing you can do if you free up space where you don't need to heal. We have no support spells to keep up, we have no upkeep spells, we have no debilitating spells to use according to the situation. Free space = damage, that's how this game is designed. I didn't say I like it this way, it's just what it is. I have a lot more fun planning out healing and being as efficient as possible, which is why I only play healer for progression as there's nothing else to strive for after healing is efficient. This is also why I advocate for changing job design in addition to encounter design.