I'm bored when I heal because I need more complex DPS rotations

[Nizzi]

Embrava, Adloquium and Regen V say hi lol. Also wasn’t Scholar used either as a support healer or a skill chainer / magic burster with Immanence lol? So…it focused on buffs, debuffs and support lol. Helixes (Helices? Lol) were cool and valuable, but I don’t really think they were supposed to be the entire focus of the job. An important aspect, undeniably, but I don’t think they conceptualised Scholar as a ‘poison Mage’ in ff11 or ff14 lol.

Why mention Embrava but not it's dark magic counterpart Kaustra, which is a DoT? And iirc you could use Immanence to set up skill chains into MB Kaustra in soloing? So in both games, it is a job that uses DoTs in combat, which is a part of its historic identity. Do you think it was just a coincidence it turned out like that when ARR was being developed? Also, the "poison theme" of the DoTs has nothing to do with wanting them back, I couldn't care less if it were Bio and Miasma or they were named something else honestly, though I do like Bio and Miasma as they are thematically. I ask for those back because it's no work, no new animations or developer effort and can be done in a minor patch while helping the monotony that Scholar has had for two expansions. It's the gameplay, not the thematics.

To turn the question back at you, where are you getting that Scholar is a job that uses DoTs in combat lol? The fact it used to share spells with Summoner? And if that were truly part of the job’s core design, how could the devs still think it does that with a single, uninteractive DoT lol? If anything it’s ‘historic identity’ is that of a versatile caster that can change tactics depending on the situation, i.e Dark / Light Arts, which in turn means it’s buffing, debuffing and attacking the enemy equally. But I don’t see how it could be categorised as an ‘offensive DoT job’ in either game really - it seems a little reductionist

What? Helixes were Scholar specific DoTs in FFXI. So was Kaustra. SCH used Modas Veritas to reduce its Helix timer but double the DoT's damage. Dark Arts gave bonuses to SCH's Helix spells, and Tabula Rasa did as well. Up until Shadowbringers, SCH had 4 DoTs it used in combat (more than SMN did in SB, and it has 1 more than SMN has now lol). The new PvP version of Scholar is built around using your DoT offensively and defensively, along with Biolytic using Miasma's icon for its debuff which is amusing. I don't get how that's reductionist at all, honestly. Was it simply a coincidence that its offensive kit had such a heavy DoT focus until ShB? I'm not trying to be rude by asking that either, but there was clearly a design philosophy shift with healers in ShB, the developers even stated as much when they said they wanted healers to focus on having a more "heal oriented playstyle" that has yet to actually come to fruition. There's a reason every healer has the same amount of DPS actions, but I don't think that changes much of anything when that design philosophy is the reason for this thread's topic and the discontent with the current design direction.

Further, "buffing" and "debuffing" in FFXIV is incredibly boring and there's less of a chance of that changing than there is of healers getting more DPS buttons because of how they've set up the modern game. DPS and Tank players really do not like it when you mess up their rotations; things like Selene's haste buff or AST's cards were removed or changed for this reason. For anything they could've given as a way for healers to lean more "utility support" they've either removed or jobs have ways to manage that themselves, such as Lucid Dreaming on Casters. This is why "supportive buffs" are all just "does x% more damage" etc, another player mistiming or not buffing correctly isn't going to effect a person's rotation. Say Scholar got Virus back as a debuff next expansion. You just use it as an oGCD when there's a heavy raidwide coming out that needs to be mitigated, just like you do any other oGCD for that same purpose. It doesn't stop you spamming Broil and it doesn't change any considerations Scholar has to make. There's nothing tactical about that. Every bit of this game is timelined, and that matters a lot in terms of the design of jobs. It's not that I like the fact that buttons get shoved off to the side because "there's no point to use this" but if there really is no point to using it versus something else, why would I use it?

But I don’t want to see it reduced to a DoT Botter (lol) that just sits around pressing the same 3 buttons all day without actually having to do anything tactical or strategic. There should be a purpose to them beyond ‘hit every X seconds to deal damage’

What do you mean lol, it's been reduced to a Broil Botter that sits around pressing the same 1 button all day. Is that interesting to you now? There shouldn't have to be any purpose, justification or "strategy" to it other than the fact that spamming Broil 160+ times in an encounter for 90% of your GCDs is not fun, simple as that. Besides, the tactics and strategy of Scholar comes from using your shields effectively while minimizing their usage and maximizing your Energy Drains; knowing where you can get by not shielding and not using Aetherflow on Soil or other Aetherflow resources is that in the job. This game and its encounters are simply not built for strategy or tactics that do anything more than optimizing your damage at the current time. Things like 'Malady' and 'Heavy' on Miasma and 'Blind' on Ruin II, while flavorful, ultimately don't serve any purpose than added flavor. With a fight's timeline, you're always going to use your buttons at the same time, on every job.

The healers DO have varied healing kits and considerations, though small as they may be between SCH and SGE. That's why they should play differently DPS wise as they did in the past, considering you spend the overwhelming majority of your GCDs as a healer on DPSing.