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

[ForsakenRoe]

If this were true then why didn't this happen over the course of ARR/HW? The answer is that DPSing as a healer wasn't boring, quite the opposite in fact.

As for No healer clears, that's an entirely different problem and as such, needs a differently solution if it's to be tackled at all. My personal opinion is that if healers weren't already up in arms, I honestly suspect it wouldn't be nearly as big a deal.

When I first started this game, I picked CNJ>WHM to start because my friend group were all playing DPS and I figured we'd need a healer (and at the time, tanking seemed scary to me). That was 2.55. One of the things I learned about the game that made me think 'that's cool' was that in downtime when there's nothing to heal, FFXIV healers can throw out damage spells, and they actually deal a fairly hefty amount of damage for a non-DPS role. This was by contrast to my other MMO experience at the time, having freshly fallen off of Snore-lords of Draenor (now THAT's an expansion with a lack of content), which had implemented some changes to damage profiles such that 'deal damage in downtime' was more 'possible', but as with MMO playerbases when changes occur, the players had not adapted to it yet. So there, my experience of healing was 'heal, and if no healing is needed, stand around and wait for some'.

When I started this game again on a new account in 3.2, I decided to grow a metaphorical pair, started as GLD to kill the 'tanxiety', then picked up NIN and SCH because I had heard 'they're hard to master'. And again, one of the things that made me enjoy SCH was the idea that in downtime, I'd use damage to help kill enemies faster. That the fairy wasn't just 'a conduit for some of the healing skills to come from', but a powerful ally whose healing abilities opened up time windows to deal damage safely. I enjoyed healer so much in those days, that by the time I had reached HW, I was 58 on SCH (lots of levelling/MSQ roulettes), and as soon as I reached HW I swapped to AST and mained it for the HW story. By the time I had caught up to the current end of the story (3.3 released by then), I had both SCH and AST at 60. When I decided to make an alt to help a friend's static (and not grief them on loot), I just bought a skip. I'm normally someone who'd rather level a class manually than spend money on a skip, because I detest the idea of paying for a game, and then paying a second time 'to not play it'. But I don't think I'd be able to push myself to get through the story a second time, not with healer gameplay being how it currently is

But enough about me, and more about no-healer runs. I don't remember so much complaining about how 'healers aren't needed' when that one gamer solo healed TEA as a Noct AST (and mouseclicked every button, including Malefic), it was mainly 'amazing that you could handle the HPS checks with only one healer, and in shield mode too, grats! (also please keybind your abilities)' iirc. Part of the reason the TOP run was so egregious was because healers were already feeling 'forgotten by the devs', we'd just come off of the tier which mangled the role population (Abyssos), but also, there is a mechanic in TOP that literally mandates two healers participate in the fight: Magic Number. And despite that 'hard requirement', the fight was cleared because it turns out the 'hard requirement' enforced by that mechanic was not quite as 'hard' as it should have been. As people have said elsewhere, if the shoe were on the other foot, and the fight were cleared with any number of tanks and healers, and zero DPS (because someone found a way to ignore the enrage's DPS requirement), there'd have been an absolute meltdown on reddit and such

[TheDustyOne]

When I first started this game, I picked CNJ>WHM to start because my friend group were all playing DPS and I figured we'd need a healer (and at the time, tanking seemed scary to me). That was 2.55. One of the things I learned about the game that made me think 'that's cool' was that in downtime when there's nothing to heal, FFXIV healers can throw out damage spells, and they actually deal a fairly hefty amount of damage for a non-DPS role. This was by contrast to my other MMO experience at the time, having freshly fallen off of Snore-lords of Draenor (now THAT's an expansion with a lack of content), which had implemented some changes to damage profiles such that 'deal damage in downtime' was more 'possible', but as with MMO playerbases when changes occur, the players had not adapted to it yet. So there, my experience of healing was 'heal, and if no healing is needed, stand around and wait for some'.

I remember back when I started in SB, even though my primary job was PLD, when I made my current character, I wanted her to be a healer, so I started her with CNJ and picked up ACN along the way for SCH. Even early on, I was expecting to have to be constantly healing because I "only had 3 or so attacks". I got proven wrong fairly quickly, but liked that I had that downtime to throw stones and suffocate the mobs with Aero in between topping up the tank. I remember a tank back in a lvl 50 dungeon being surprised that I was actually using Holy on large mobs, getting that long cast off in the middle of a large pack felt good. I had a decent enough time upkeeping Aero and Aero III between Stone casts, but it did feel a little lackluster once I got to higher levels.

SCH however was a different story, I had 2 extra DoTs to use, and I loved making the most out of my Aetherflow between Lustrate/Indom uses and Energy Drain or Bane. It was very fun to keep those DoTs rolling, and incredibly rewarding when I took that risk on Energy Drain usages, especially when I got unlocked Quickened Aetherflow. WHM felt anemic after that, WHM had to rely on basic heals that didn't feed back into its main gameplay loop, and only had 2 DoTs and a nuke, it was no wonder I thought that people complained about it back then, that it had no identity apart from "make green number bigger". How much cooler would it have been if it followed in BLM shoes and had a focus on long cast times, managing instant casts for that needed movement, and a healing loop that fed back into that damage loop? If SCH could do it with its oGCD heals, why not a healer that wants to use its GCD heals? ShB, for all its faults in healer design, at least did that right in my opinion.

WHM I think only needs like 2 more DPS spells before I'd say it's at a stage where I'd be happy with it. I memed a bit on the healer forums with a WHM rework that copied BLM's homework, turning Astral Fire and Umbral Ice into a healing stance and dps stance respectively, but I liked the idea that Banish gives 3 buff stacks that lets you use Glare and sometimes procs Banish III, so the base filler becomes Banish > Glare x 3 > Banish / III > Glare x 3, etc. I then had Dia change from a DoT to a cooldown with charges to make it a movement tool and I'd honestly be happy with that kind of rotation, simple, but still engaging.