Why is Blue Mage a more fun healer than WHM/SCH/SGE/AST

[Renathras]

Itll mostly solve the healers being bored issue, because theyd have more to do than spam 1 skill.

An obvious bandaid fix for sure tho

Only with those who like damage dealing. Which aren't all healer players.

For the others, it makes the situation worse.

And for those who do like damage dealing, it probably won't really solve things long-term. The underlying problem of low healing requirements in encounters and too much oGCD healing leading to GCDs used for damage will remain. And the damage rotations are unlikely to be more complicated than SMN or WAR's are today, meaning it wouldn't really fix the boredom long-term, at least not in any implementation SE would likely use (again, SMN/WAR level rotation), for the people who actually want a meaty damage rotation.

ARR WHM had 3 dots, 1 nuke, 1 AoE, 1 OGCD

Three DoTs?

It didn't get Aero 3 until HW, and it could only use Thunder for 2.0. It was removed in 2.1. In other words, not for most of the expansion, and not for the raid and extreme encounters. I didn't even know it ever had it until you mentioned it once, and I've been playing since 2.3. I looked up the history to see that it was just from 2.0 to 2.1, a period of...from 27 Aug 2013 to 17 Dec 2013, so a period of about 3.75 or so months.

EW WHM has 1 dot, 1 nuke, 1 AoE, Misery and 1 OGCD

Mhm. We traded 1 DoT for Misery. A pretty good trade, imo. Misery feels a lot better to use, and when fighting enemies with lower health, actually has a noticeable (that is, visually apparent just looking at their health bar) effect vs Aero 2.

But there were a lot more changes. We didn't have Tetra, Asylum, Assize, or Lilybell for healing. We didn't have Temperance to boost healing and mitigate damage (we had Pro-Shell, but that was baked in as baseline encounter tuning assumed everyone had it). We didn't have instant cast Solace/Rapture. Or instant oGCD Benison to shield, Aquaveil to mitigate, or Plenary to boost Ratpure, which again we didn't have. Nor did we have Thin Air.

We had Cure 1, Cure 2, Cure 3, Medica, Medica 2, Regen, and the long CD oGCD heal Benediction with its (to this day) janky delay, and also a GCD cast barrier in Stoneskin. Our HoTs lasted a full 30 seconds. We had Divine Seal to boost the power of our GCD heals, and we used Presence of Mind as a healing tool since all our heals being GCD meant it actually mattered sometimes. That was the healing kit.

When you needed a lot of healing, you didn't pop PI and Rapture. You had to cast Medica 2, then Medica, then Medica. You might find rare uses for Cure 3 (which had like half the radius it does now) when the party could stack. You didn't have tons of MP so you couldn't devote a ton of casts to Stone/Aero casts. You did a lot of healing with Medica 2 and Regen, and used Stoneskin (which had a 3 sec cast time originally, so had to lead attacks) to deal with things like tankbusters.

Encounter damage was in smaller amounts, but more constant (e.g. raidwide damage for 25% of players' health every 10 seconds instead of raidwides for 100% every 45; random crits on Tanks, etc), and oGCDs were in short supply, meaning heals were actual breaking into your GCDs as your go-to heals, not your "I or someone else screwed up and I'm out of oGCDs", considering WHM had only Benison as a oGCD heal and it was generally reserved for emergencies.

SOMEhow, we didn't need insane healing requirements back then. So clearly, the healing requirements don't need to be insane. The issue is our oGCDs are too powerful AND too numerous. You looked at ARR and WHM's damage spells. How about we look at oGCD heals instead?

EW WHM oGCD heals: Benediction (1/180 sec), Tetragrammaton (1/60 sec), Assize (1/40 sec), Asylum (1/90 sec), Divine Benison (1/30 sec), Plenary Indulgence (combined with Rapture, 1/60 sec), Lilybell (1/180 sec), with Aquaveil (1/60 sec) and Temperance (1/120 sec) boosting defense of the target, and not counting Thin Air. (Or Presence of Mind and Swiftcast, but they had that in ARR, too).

ARR WHM oGCD heals: Benediction (1/180 sec), with Divine Seal (1/90? which was Temperance without the mitigation) (and again, PoM and Swiftcast).

That's it. Benediction. Divine Seal buffed GCD heals (so wasn't oGCD in the sense of an oGCD heal), and PoM/Swiftcast also modify GCD heals, and only one of those was instant (Regen) vs now (Solace, Rapture, AND Regen).

The issue could just as easily be described as "we need to remove oGCD heals" as it can be "we need one more DoT".

EDIT:

Sorry for the length, I am trying for shorter posts:

The "I only play healers to heal" players already ignore their damage buttons, so nothing will change if they add additional buttons to press for those who want something to do.

This lie needs to die. It kills any constructive discussion.

People who only want to heal also don't want to be BAD. Meaning they do try to upkeep their DoT and fill empty GCDs with damage spells. As long as people keep parroting this line, it prevents any serious discussion. The idea "I don't like to DPS/I like to heal" means "I refuse to hit any DPS buttons" is an outright lie. I don't find DPS rotations engaging or fun. I find them boring at best and tedious at worst. But I do them. I'd rather those dead GCDs be filled with heals. Right now, the only healer that does this is WHM (since Solace/Ratpure are GCDs), and it's also my favorite healer and one generally liked by people that enjoy healing and not damage dealing. The damage kit is slim and it refunds (Lily) GCD healing with Misery so it's not a loss to use them.

"I only play healers to heal" players DON'T ignore their damage buttons.

This is why they oppose more being added; they don't like them, but they feel forced to engage with them, and do so all the time.