A summary of healer issues

[ForsakenRoe]

Also, as for tanks...
-> War filler is 2 combo + fell cleave
-> Drk filler is 1 combo + Bloodspiller + shadow edge
-> Gun filler is 1 combo + Burst strike + hypervelocity
PLD is a bit out here because is much more a full loop than a mix filler + burst option.

WAR is two combos which have to be decided between depending on whether you need to refresh the buff or not, Fellcleave which can be pooled for raidbuff windows, Onslaught charges which can be pooled vs used for mobility, Upheaval which is kinda just there admittedly, Infuriate charges which get refreshed by Fellcleaving, and can be pooled to change GCDs inside raidbuffs into Inner Chaos, Inner Release for an impactful raidbuff window rather than WHM's 'Glare but faster', Primal Rend which has to be thought about when to use it, because you want to put it in raidbuffs but you need to be cautious about it's forced gapclose effect

DRK has a filler combo, Bloodspiller which can be pooled, MP management in general (as shallow as it is now compared to old days) with making sure you have enough for a TBN if needed, purposely banking a Dark Arts charge for raidbuffs to get 5 Edge of Shadows inside buffs, changing priorities on when to use what based on targets (unleash>stalwart soul, spend on bloodspiller is a gain on 2, U>SS, spend on quietus is a gain on 3, used to be that Abyssal Drain was only a gain on 4). Shadowbringer, Living Shadow are kinda just 'press em in raidbuffs', but everything added together means DRK's raidbuff window is very busy, and means mitigating during a 2min window means having to potentially shift things around. Heck, there's been times I've gone into Delerium/Blood Weapon at high Blood, and not remembered until too late that Delerium's Bloodspillers don't cost blood, meaning the +10 per Blood Weapon hit overcapped me. My mistake to be sure, but it's still another small thing to consider, and a lot of small things to consider add up to make 'complexity'.

GNB is very on-rails, but it still has more than just burst strike. Keeping enough ammo for your next Gnashing Fang is not hard but it's still more than healers have. Pooling ammo to afford both GF and Double Down each 60s, keeping Blasting Zone on CD every 30s, putting Bow Shock and Sonic Break in No Mercy, even the existence of Continuation after each GF combo hit means you have to think more about your mitigation, as you cant double weave mitigations there (since one weave is the continuation hit). GF is also a gain on 2 targets over Fated Circle from what I hear, so there's some DRK-esque 'rotation changes depending on 1vs2vs3 target fights'.

Since these class's role is to tank, mitigating the boss's damage and positioning it is the 'primary job', 'doing damage' is as secondary to a tank as it is to a healer. Despite this, even with the 'simplest' of the options here, WAR, there are 10 buttons that are an important part of it's 'downtime rotation'. Heavy Swing, Maim, Storm's Path, Storm's Eye, Infuriate, Fell Cleave, Inner Release, Primal Rend, Upheaval, Onslaught. Even if we remove Heavy Swing and Maim, so there are no combo actions, that's still 8 buttons. WHM has Glare, Dia, Misery, Presence of Mind, Assize. Only 5. SCH is Broil, Biolysis, Aetherflow, Energy Drain, Ruin 2 (lol), again 5 buttons. You could argue that 'oh but what about Dissipation for more stacks in opener, or Chain Stratagem for raidbuffs' but I'd argue the difference here is that you press those very rarely, 180s and 120s respectively. All of the WAR skills are, at maximum, 60s, so they're a lot more often. SGE is the worst offender, Dosis, Eukrasia, Phlegma, Toxicon. Wow, just four buttons!

This is part of the problem with trying to build a case for 'why healer downtime is boring', it's very easy to just jump to conclusions on things, like 'oh people want more buttons to press? clearly they want 123 and that's boring too'. As others have said, it's plenty easy to make a more engaging filler rotation without using 123 combos. For example Taurus has made ideas of their own. I've made a WHM idea that does nothing more than adding a new GCD to press once per 15 seconds, and rescaled the duration of the DOT from 30s down to 12s. I even attempted to demonstrate it here, using Bozja Actions. I made an idea for SGE that would add a single new button, and instead shift what spends your MP from the filler Dosis spam and GCD heals, to the augment spells like Soteria, Krasis, Zoe, meaning MP management would be the identity for SGE. Misrepresenting how simple/intricate tank rotations are doesn't help anyone. It's actually surprisingly fun to come up with ideas for new identities/skills/rotations for classes, and defaulting to 'well clearly the solution is to give healers a 123' is probably the first idea every one of us threw out the window because as everyone points out, there's no real difference between 123 and 111.