Adventurer in need: Originality

[Tahldon]

IMO SE is better off just embracing green dps, and just giving us things to do other than heal, because both the encounters and classes are better designed for it

This gave me the thought that if they don't want us to straight DPS, the could give us support based DPS abilities like Stygian Spikes to cast on teammates, or even Stoneskin back for WHMs and an amended 10s (or so) Protect for SCH. Stuff like that would be cool, I'd think.

Or even some debuff oriented skills.

[Billythepancake]

This gave me the thought that if they don't want us to straight DPS, the could give us support based DPS abilities like Stygian Spikes to cast on teammates, or even Stoneskin back for WHMs and an amended 10s (or so) Protect for SCH. Stuff like that would be cool, I'd think.

Or even some debuff oriented skills.

Either of those is fine. I just want something to do other than spam broil ad nauseam. IMO SB SCH was great for that, it wasnt even as complex as say, RDM, but it was complex and satisfying enough, and that's all I ask for. 3 dots, a fairy that casted completely independently of you, as well as having 2 unique fairies with their own abilities, and aetherflow choices between dps/healing. That's all I need and all I could ask for in terms of scholar. It wasnt perfect, but it was a great baseline to build upon.

IDC if my dps is direct or indirect, I just want more to do in my massive amounts of down time. I dont think theres a problem with having a lot of down time as a healer, there just needs to be something to do during it

[Seraphor]

This gave me the thought that if they don't want us to straight DPS, the could give us support based DPS abilities like Stygian Spikes to cast on teammates, or even Stoneskin back for WHMs and an amended 10s (or so) Protect for SCH. Stuff like that would be cool, I'd think.

Or even some debuff oriented skills.

I agree healers should get more party support, but if Protect goes anywhere but WHM...

[Deceptus]

I agree healers should get more party support, but if Protect goes anywhere but WHM...

Protect (physical) and Shell (magical) should be Defensive CD role actions. Relatively short CD ones (1 min, 5-10s duration).

Give healers the defensive support they're sorely lacking.

[Punslinger]

Here are my half-baked thoughts on how to differentiate the healers while making them more fun and engaging:

WHM: Nuke all direct-healing oGCDs except for Bene. Add an oGCD that is Wildfire, but for healing - when it goes off, the raid is healed for some percentage of the amount healed on the original target. Add a short-cooldown oGCD that converts all remaining regen ticks on the target into an immediate direct heal for the same amount. Make MP management part of the class. Gets a "Euphoria" mechanic proposed elsewhere, where overhealing a target to 125% HP will give the target a damage buff and place a DoT on them. This makes all of WHM's healing output useful, and is an engaging way of buffing rDPS. A good WHM will be able to keep Euphoria rolling on the DPSers while healing through the resulting DoT and the fight damage.

SCH: Eos's DPS pet. Aetherflow is now built by dealing damage with DoTs and a proper DPS rotation, instead of being given by an oGCD. Meltdown is a DoT that boosts damage of the SCH's spells against the target. Drain will heal the closest party member to the target for a percentage of its damage (shamelessly lifted from Atonement in WoW). Adlo/Succor become Aetherflow heals and get stronger (but can no longer crit). Instead of healing, Fey Union now burns fairy gauge to give a damage boost to the target, like a dance partner or DRG tether.This makes SCH's buffing more engaging than just smashing Chain Strategem every two minutes. A good SCH will keep their DPS up so they can generate Aetherflow stacks to deal with fight damage, fill the fairy gauge, and Fey Union during burst phases.

AST: Go all-in on the time magery. Instead of shields, Noct-AST turns Aspected spells into delayed heals. Aspected Benefic/Helios under Noct puts a buff on the target that heals for big potency when it expires. Di-AST regens no longer stack with WHM regens, because allowing four regens on one target is stupid. Aspected Malefic is a DoT (Di) or a delayed damage (Noct). ty_taurus's brilliant card system replaces that...thing that AST has now. Time Dilation returns as a GCD that is the bread and butter of AST's gameplay now. Aspected spells' potency will snowball, increasing with each tick up to some limit, as long as the effect remains on the target without interruption. This limit will NOT be reached naturally during the short duration of an Aspected spell. Time Dilation extends all AST-supplied effects on the target for two or three more ticks. This keeps Di-AST regens and DoTs ticking away at their max output, and Noct-AST delayed spells gain extra potency with each tick of the buff when they eventually expire. A good AST will be able to keep damage effects rolling on the boss, big heals rolling on the tank or party, and juggle buffs on a couple of players.

[KanameYuuki]

AST: Go all-in on the time magery.

A lot of us assume Time Mage is next, more with the removal of ShadowFlare with its slow, I would be even more disappointing if that is not the case for the loss of TD and CO.

[Archwizard]

So, I'm of two minds on this topic.

On the one-hand, I agree that a lot of healer kits feel very same-y in terms of offerings. You've got your DoT and single-target attack, your AoE attack, two ranks of single-target heal, two ranks of AoE heal, and an assortment of CDs (one of which is another attack).

On the other hand... I also understand why the kits are same-y like that. From a damage-dealing perspective, a healer's kit shouldn't necessarily be too complex in that regard, largely because their core focus isn't on dealing damage and they should avoid being distracted by a rotation when they may need to drop everything at a moment's notice to spam heals on the tank, especially when any level of complexity in their damage rotation wouldn't necessarily be rewarded with particularly high output. From a healing perspective, every healer position has basic requirements and breakpoints they need to meet/fulfill, and by allowing them to have similar basic kits, it's easier to balance them against one another and balance encounters around the assumption that each healer has the necessary tools for each curveball; meanwhile putting a "rotation" on healing also limits their ability to respond to damage output without "breaking" the rotation.

A lot of us assume Time Mage is next, more with the removal of ShadowFlare with its slow, I would be even more disappointing if that is not the case for the loss of TD and CO.

Considering AST has Lightspeed, Gravity and Regen, still casts damage buffs on the party, and only recently lost the ability to extend its buff timers or grant specifically attack speed (the latter because literally only BLM wants it anyway), I would be severely disappointed if they went and made Time Mage, much more so as another healer competing with AST that took tools away from it, especially while there are still untapped alternative options that don't step on existing healers' toes/themes/kits.
Bear in mind that "Time Mage" is a misnomer, since the job has always been about time and space magic (shown through access to Gravity, Float, Comet/Meteor, etc), which remains the domain of the AST.

[Lodi]

So, I'm of two minds on this topic.

On the one-hand, I agree that a lot of healer kits feel very same-y in terms of offerings. You've got your DoT and single-target attack, your AoE attack, two ranks of single-target heal, two ranks of AoE heal, and an assortment of CDs (one of which is another attack).

On the other hand... I also understand why the kits are same-y like that. From a damage-dealing perspective, a healer's kit shouldn't necessarily be too complex in that regard, largely because their core focus isn't on dealing damage and they should avoid being distracted by a rotation when they may need to drop everything at a moment's notice to spam heals on the tank, especially when any level of complexity in their damage rotation wouldn't necessarily be rewarded with particularly high output. From a healing perspective, every healer position has basic requirements and breakpoints they need to meet/fulfill, and by allowing them to have similar basic kits, it's easier to balance them against one another and balance encounters around the assumption that each healer has the necessary tools for each curveball; meanwhile putting a "rotation" on healing also limits their ability to respond to damage output without "breaking" the rotation.

I'd agree with that, if we actually had a lot of healing to do. But right now, it's nothing more complex than "stop spamming Glare, use a CD or maybe even a GCD if things are really dire, resume spamming Glare". It's terribly easy.

When even E4S can be solo healed, I think that healing as a whole should be reconsidered. Unless a tank decides to aggro an entire dungeon, you'll pretty much always spend more time dpsing than healing, and it only gets worse as our gear increases in level because there's even less healing to do.

We need to shake things up a bit, by giving us either more interesting tools or more things to use them on.