Cleric Stance Discussion - Is it needed?

[Elleia]

...ideally, Healers would simply be improved by giving them more support tools OTHER than healing.

I posted this somewhere else: Imagine if SCH had a vulnerability soil that boosts everyone else's damage, WHM Stone landed a vulnerability on the target and AST was able to give everyone a haste or damage buff, and all these would require their own meta-games to sustain.

More support tools would be nice, but I'd like them to do something more interesting than a "set and forget" kind of thing, like how AST's card are now. For example, stone putting up a vuln buff doesn't really change the playstyle or help with downtime at all - WHMs will just have to DPS as they do now to keep the debuff up. I can't remember where somebody mentioned it but I liked the idea of channeled buffs. Filling downtime with a channeled move that buffs the party's dps or speed would be interesting. Of course, with aoes and dodging, the cooldown would have to be fairly short (similar to the current cleric stance, even) so that you can channel your buffs whenever heals aren't needed.

[Ogulbuk]

More support tools would be nice, but I'd like them to do something more interesting than a "set and forget" kind of thing, like how AST's card are now.

I was giving quick examples that would require little redesign. SCH already have exclusive soil effects, that's why I mention a vulnerability soil for them. It could be also tied to Aetherflow, making you have to evaluate if it's use would be better at the time than use of Lustrate or Sacred Soil.

WHM could get Dia (in XI, that spell lowers defense and adds light dot) tweaked to work with this game's effect. It could have some synergy with healing, something that encourages a bit more thought than just tossing it at the foe.

I got to admit I am not familiar with AST at all. And these again are just examples, im sure there are tons other mechanics that could be used as support tools.