If healers had a 3 Button GCD Combo like Tanks?

[Silhart]

Apkallu and Lilimo, I hear what you're saying, but the points you've raised aren't things I see as flaws but rather.. the entire point of the combo system. It would be left up to the healer to judge the capabilities of their team and decide whether it's safe to start a combo for the upcoming mechanic. Though, as much as I disagree with you both, I understand you're both ultimately in the right: a system like this would also cause headaches for everyone since it would attract a bunch of healers who are addicted to squeezing every last bit of potency to the detriment of everyone else.

My feelings around those players and the jobs being designed around them is a topic for another day.

I'm not super married to this idea so I don't feel the need to argue - I just saw OP's idea and decided to approach it from a different angle to everyone else.

[Carighan]

I would of course enjoy a 1-2-3 nuke rotation if purely visual, akin to the Pictomancer main filler combo.

On Astrologian in particular because our spells are all pretty, so I can easily see just using 3 existing effects in a cycle. Bonus points if Combust 1 and 2 autocombo, too!

However, if it's a 3 button combo, then hell no. I have way too little hotbar space as it is, the very last thing I'd want is wasting 2 more for something that needs exactly 0 brain input to perform and would just be a rote task aimed to wear the switches on my keyboard out in a slightly more uniform way.

But brainstorming more complex damage setups for a moment:

Astrologian
Place an Earthly Star. By itself it now does nothing. This unlocks two new GCD abilities: One deals damage (+minor AoE) and places stars and constellations on the earthly star dome. One does targetted healing (+minor AoE) and also places things on the dome. Depending on how many of each got used, the other effect gets stronger when you dissolve the Earthly Star (manual only, caps at a certain amount). Placing costs a ton of mana, so be sure you can use it while it's up! This would essentially be a much much much stronger thing than our current Star, but also takes time and active effort to build.

Sage
Already more damage skills than other healers, I'd mostly do visual passes on this. The main nuke should be a 0,8s cast on a 1,5s GCD, firing two random lasers for two individual (small) damage numbers. In other words, while spamming this, it's not hits of 4 lasers, but as near-constant barrage of lasers for tons and tons of tiny hits.

Scholar
This is tricky, because first I want a proper pet again. A real pet. Not what it is now. Then once that is done, add damage-centric fairies! Swiftcast hence mostly becomes a sort-of stance swapping tool.

White Mage
I'd add a cyclical element to this that is stronger than the current lily stuff. Basically a button cycles something like instant damage, casted damage, big slow damage, casted heal, instant HoT. And you have to always use it in that order, no skipping. Make it about the rotational nature of your movement/casting.

[Zolvolt]

I would be down to give it a try absolutely.

[Claire_Pendragon]

id keep them mostly minor, so its not a huge deal if followed or not. (rushed ideas. no real thought put into them)
HEALER#1 2nd DoT. This is a shorter CD and breaks up the 1111 spam, its max potency would be like10-20 more than their basic 1 spam.
HEALER#2 2nd combo that does 10 more potency, with a chance to proc a 3rd hit in the combo for 10 additional potency~
HEALER#3 after pressing their basic nuke 3 times the DOT they have transforms into an attack with 20 more potency. (Can be assigned to a different button, in case you need to reapply the DoT)
HEALER#4 a simple 1 2 combo for the busiest of healer jobs. I'd assume thats AST, but havent played it so many years, I have no idea how busy it actually is or isnt now. (5-10 more potency on the 2nd hit)

general idea is that if things get dicey, or a healer rly doesnt want a DPS rotation, that the low potency increase means that spamming 1 wont be TOO detrimental outside of hard DPS checks

[Sindal]

I'd give

White mage:
A 1 2 spell combo (stone into water maybe) that sometimes gives us glare 4 (or a leveled down version of it)

Scholar
They get a version of thundercloud (so they occassioanny have to press 2 during their broil spam)

Astro
A time bomb.

Press a button to apply to target. Does damshe to target after some time. Ticks faster when maleficing the target

[Carighan]

Second pass over my ideas from above:

Astrologian
- Cards are now targettable at enemies and friendlies (the single target Play abilities, that is)
- If aimed at a friendly target, work just as now.
- If aimed at an enemy target, they cause some damage, plus try to "autoselect" their target, by proximity with some restrictions.
- If possible, Play 1 will will try to target a DPS player of the correct "type".
- Play 2 will try to target a tank player.
- Play 3 will try to target the lowest health player in range.
So we can eshew fine-tuned target control in favor of doing some extra damage.

White Mage
- New ability, "Ebb and Flow".
- This replaces Tetragrammaton. No CD, medium mana cost that stays the same for all of below.
- It's an oGCD (yes, with a mana cost!) heal that heals for a small-ish amount.
- Afterwards, the ability becomes an instant cast but GCD medium-ish heal.
- Afterwards, it becomes a 2,5s casting GCD very large heal with a medium healing splash effect in a quite small radius.
- Afterwards, it becomes an instant casting GCD nuke that hits roughly like Glare.
- Afterwards, it becomes an oGCD nuke for a small amount of damage + 9s of a low-potency DoT.
Basically, it goes oGCD -> instant -> slow -> instant -> oGCD, and you have to adhere to that cycle.

Sage
Dosis now has two modes of operation. If pressed, it casts as now. But if you hold it down, then once the cast finishes and the lasers fire, it starts shooting a continuous stream of lasers as all 4 fire alternatingly. This is ~25% higher DPS than the normal cast spam, and hence 25% higher Kardia output (every laser Kardia's for 25% of the normal amount of course, and also costs 25% as much mana as a normal Dosis cast), and you can hold however long you want/can. Pew pew pew!

Scholar
A new fairy joins the race. Oh I don't know, let's call her "Selene". Now Selene is mostly the same as Eos, only she's had enough of the jokes about fairies all being the same. She thinks Embrace is lame. Instead, she casts continuous nukes on whatever target the Scholar designates by being the last target they put Bio on. However, she's still a bit inexperienced: Her nukes get weaker over time as she exhausts herself. To get around this you have to give her a rest, the longer Selene was with you, the longer you need to keep Eos out for the debuff about Selene's exhaustion to disappear.
So in other words, active pet-swapping between a damage and a healing pet.

[Allegor]

I'd very much prefer a proc system like RDM, BRD and DNC, or at the absolute least something like Firestarter from BLM. I'd even go as far as saying that the dps and healing kits should connect somehow. Imagine if Freecure also applied to Glare or Dia, or a spell crit grant a blood lily stack, idk.

Sadly, I doubt that'd ever happen because then the Sylphies would complain they're "forced" to dps.

[Zakuyia]

Man there was a time healers had more attacks but eh the player base cried about it here we are :clowns:

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

It's tempting to latch onto the idea of playerbase being a hivemind, eh? I guess people were actively kicking out healers who didn't use cleric stance in dungeons too

/s

[wildvenonat]

My ideal to give healers more attacks is more "you did it, you used your healing tools!" rewards like Afflatus Misery and Toxikon. I don't want a complicated damage rotation; I would far prefer "sometimes when you heal you get to do more damage".