How would you solve the boring "damage rotation" of the healers?

[ForsakenRoe]

How would you feel if Mias-malady was instant cast and an upgrade of Ruin 2? That is, "Ruin 2 with a DoT"? Could make the base damage 200 and 15 potency per tick (same 340 total), which would make it still useful as a movement tool, but under ideal situations, used on refresh. I think I proposed something very similar once and people seemed to like the idea.

Likewise, have Shadowflare replace Energy Drain? It does the same potency as ED does now, so this would just make ED more useful in AOE and a more methodical part of the rotation - instead of burning 3x (or 6x) in burst windows, you'd want to space them out more, though you could blow them in burst if you...wanted to. It would make optimizing ED actually have more value, which might get us into trouble, but...meh.

Alternatively, make Shadowflare a GCD with a 2.5 sec cast, replacing Dissipation, which we can finally dump for all time as the horribad ability it is. (But...I kind of like it replacing ED better...)


[Also, your idea doesn't leave any of the healer Jobs for people that like current healer gameplay - I don't think, will have to look at the SGE one to be sure - so it doesn't QUITE meet the requirement. Though the SCH changes wouldn't be a big diversion and might be "close enough for government work", as it were...especially if it did the things I ask about here.]

The problem is, people are complaining that there is not enough to fill the healer downtime with. Your suggestion would just reallocate the current buttons to have a different use, and in some cases that can work, but I think for SCH specifically, the interaction of Quickened Aetherflow and Energy Drain is an important design element for a fair amount of people. I don't really want to mess with ED considering how much of a point of contention it is, that's above my pay grade so I'd leave it unchanged and let someone else try and deal with it. Effectively, all I have here is SB SCH, with HW SCH's Shadow Flare (made less 'clunky' because it's not ground targeted). Additionally, things can just be held for mobility if needed. You see Shadowflare is 350 and so you might assume you 'need' to refresh it as soon as it falls off, but you could actually hold it to use for mobility pretty easily. The actual loss is not 350, but 'the difference between it's full power of 350, and the Broil filler it replaces' which is just 50p. Over 6 GCDs, that works out to an average of just 8.something potency, absolutely miniscule, and a smaller DPS loss than the Ruin 2/Broil difference

As for SGE, the main damage GCDs were untouched. Only Toxikon got changed, from a damage GCD to a selfbuff, which you could theoretically just smack whenever it hits 100 gauge without any care about raidbuff timings. IDK if that counts as 'too different' but I'd call it 'only as much difference as SE adds to the healers each expansion when we get a new CD we don't need'. Unlike those though, this would actually have some interplay with the kit, unlike some of the stuff they lump us with (cough Aquaveil)