My Take on Healers and what I would like done to them

[RegularEggs]

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A lot of great flaws to point out in my design. Though nothing I think tweaking numbers to can't fix. I do appreciate the effort of thinking in line of my design and throwing out optimal play. It really helps with pointing out some design flaws. Of course I wasn't suggesting these changes would fix the issue at hand of having nothing to do during downtime, but rather branch out the healers to have their own identity. And if SE is to continue their ideology of "healer's don't need to DPS," then at least provide some incentive or reward for actually healing. Is the inherent mechanic of damage refund that looked down upon? Because all of my proposed changes follow that similar guideline and if it's that bad for gameplay, why?

I know that I maybe in the minority of this, but I actually don't mind the idea of healers having to heal. I know that in the current state of the game, healer's having to dps is a widely debated topic, and losing DPS seems to be the main issue of the changes I proposed. I am not asking to completely overhaul the idea of DPSing, but rather reward us for healing or doing our job effectively.

WHM
I still stand by my opinion that casters should remain as a caster. But let's think about it from the other perspective. If more spells became streamlined to instant cast GCDs, then you simply become a bard with healing spells. You lose your identity as a caster. You're not supposed to be mobile.
I did note that Cure 1/Cure 2 would see no play in high-end content. Much like every other tier 1 basic healing spell (Physick and Benefic). It was more of a revamp while still accommodating for lower level content where MP management is much more demanding.
Much like how Medica 2 is in it's current state vs Medica? This change will give incentive to use Afflatus: Rapture over Medica 2 while still having warranting situational uses of Medica 2 for multiple incoming damage sources, e.g Tumult.
Of course this was a minor buff, but imo can definitely be beefed up some more. It just becomes a question of whether the situation at hand warrants it. But in nearly all savage raids, most groups stay nearly within breathing distance of each other and at that point Cure 3 has always outshined Medica. With the proposed changes, it becomes a question of do I need the beefier heal that comes with Cure 3, or can greed the incoming damage and slide by with a Rapture that will in turn give me resources. But then maybe with a beefier Cure 3, it would then in turn have healers play riskier to get the most usage of the healing potency. It's a slippery slope.
Your opinion on splitting Misery is right. If Bloom was buffed up to say 750 potency to give a nice finisher for dungeon pulls, it would probably warrant some use. But I'm not opposed to just scrapping the idea altogether and keeping it the way it is.
Honestly, I almost didn't even want to include the Divine Benison changes because I too thought it would result in a pointless change. But maybe we can make it more appealing by tacking the damage mitigation on it for 10s instead of the situation where the shield breaks. This would help in mitigating tank busters but at the same time serves as a useful filler tool to just throw on the tank for mobility, much like how Regen works now if you don't have a lily, misery, or need to refresh Dia. Though that will make Regen a tad useless which in it's current state already is outside of pulls.

Your optimal play is literally the exact same optimal play of the current WHM rotation. All my changes proposed was to reward the players for having to spend that time healing with those damage refunds. Yes, losing the mobility to fit the aesthetic of a caster is inherently clunky in the state of the game but I like the idea that WHM are the heavier casters of the group, and if BLM can do it, im sure WHM should be no different. I guess I wouldn't mind if all healers had a "Ruin II" to help with mobility but that only serves to homogenize all the healers even more. Not to mention, I don't think WHM needs to have a complex toolkit to handle every situation or have a high skill ceiling. As i stated before, WHM should be the gateway to into the role, opting out for simpler gameplay while teaching the fundamentals of managing offensive with defense.


SCH
Now i figured my proposed changes for SCH would probably cause the most uproar since it's a complete overhaul of the way current Scholars work. Yes, i get it. You scholars love your damage spells and don't want anything to do with changes unless it's more dps. Instead I wanted to allow Scholars to continue to DPS while giving incentive to shield as well and rewarding them for it when done properly, much like the damage refund system provided with lilies. The changes to shield strength WOULD change some encounter designs, which as i understand is why Catalyze was nerfed. But my iteration of the shield strength with the increase to MP cost was to account for that. In it's current state, a crit Adlo of 20k heal at 250% shield would effectively be worth around 50k in shield vs my proposal of 200% shield resulting in only 40k single target shield. The way shields operate (at 125% strength non-adlo crit) now would effectively be too weak for the proposal of "breaking shields to gain resource."

I also figured as much that Broil would be the main issue at hand. Comparing GCD usage and gain from other GCD would have to ultimately outweigh Broil, hence why I nerfed it to only 200.
I did not take into consideration the cost of gaining an Aether vs expending one so, yes that was a huge flaw design on my behalf. So instead, I would also apply the affect of generating an additional 500 MP from expending Aethers to accomodate the high MP costs.
I would then buff ED's damage to 300 to warrant it's usage over Broil and increase the MP return to 2000.
For Lustrate, the proposed changes would actually have Adlo do 300 + 600 Shield with the nerf to shield strength which is still stronger than the proposed changes to lustrate. I think the 2nd effect would just be too weak so we can make it a potent heal and instead have it heal and erect a shield at 100% of the damage dealt. Essentially 800 vs 900 adlo but you get the added affect of dealing 400 potency. This shield will NOT genereate AF stacks to avoid infinite farming.
Edit: And also, Deployment Tactic can revert to the 120s oGCD it currently is. Just with the iteration of the proposed changes, the Adlo crit shields would still be too pwoerful so I would suggest a slight shield reduction to not break the game.

Fey Blessing was intended to remain weak for more optimal uses in low-level content/4-man. While Succor on paper is better in potency with it's shield, the shield also does not last as long and in theory should be prepped before an aoe to get the most out of it. A shield that expires is as worthless as a regen overhealing. Did you just succor after an aoe and now there's so much downtime that the shield wore off that warrants another use of Succor to just regain HP? Thats why Fey Blessing serves as the filler heal only spell in Scholar's kit to help in those situations.

Notably, I did retract my statement on making Eos and Selene being manually controlled. I've since learned that the APM would just cause more headache and have been informed that it was an issue of the past. It can remain the auto-heal turret it currently is. I would still keep Aetherpact's new skill since it essentially functions the same way that it does right now serving as a regen effect but would cost way less resource. I would also reduce the duration to just around 12s.
As for having only two useful spells is rather to the eye of the beholder, but arguably I would say it's even worse in it's current state having no uses of the faerie gauge. Of course to the people who only care about DPS, the dmg mitgation that comes with illumination is not important. It's a defensive mitagation tool for a reason.
As for whispering dawn, I can agree that is a tad bit powerful for a cost that is essentially free, so we can keep it's 60s cooldown. With ways to generate AF that would in turn generate Faerie gauge, there's not a lot ways to expend your Faerie gauge. Of course I can come sit here and come up with new spells, but I'm not going to try to come up with unique new spells and focus on melding the kit we already have into it's own identity.
Since the Fey spells will continue to keep their cooldown, we can have Seraph refresh those abilities upon summoning but the affects will not stack but rather overwrite them. Much like higanabana and Kaeshi: Higanabana.

So here's the current optimal play for Scholar: Broil > Bioloysis > AF > ED > Broil > Broil > Ruin 2 > ED > Broil > Broil > Ruin 2 > ED > Broil spam > reset bioloysis at 30s > Repeat
See how that's worse gameplay then the gameplay you provided with my changes. Ofc that is with the removal of Embrace spam and not taking into account for healing. Instead your gameplan is changed from waiting from AF to come off cooldown to finding ways to generate AF stacks to then unleash more powerful attacks at your disposal whether thats ED for a slightly weaker potency but provides the MP management tool you need or Lustrate, the higher potency spell that will in turn grant you one free oGCD "Adlo" cast."


AST
Again, I've since rectrated from the idea of having both be GCDs. I would instead like Draw to be a GCD and keep Play as an oGCD. This balances things out and would mean you're only spending 1 GCD to boost mitigation and or healing potency.
Instead I am going to tweak the numbers to better benefit sub-par players as well.
The damage buff increase from DPS would then be buffed to 10% and mitagation/healing to 15%.
Minor arcana would increase the numbers to 15% and 20% respectively.
In addition, Divination would be a raid buff of vary strength from 3%, 5%, 10%, to put more emphasis of finding the 3 seals.
Of course, I'm no math genius but that would equate to about 75% dmg boost + 10% Divination (3 plays and 3 minor arcana) vs the current 26% dmg boost + 6% divination (3 play + 1 minor arcana). If that's correct that would be a 53% increase in dmg output. And again, these numbers can always be tweaked, the important thing is to grasp the general idea of having to deal damage by instead buffing others. A more support oriented role.
Edit: I can understand the argument that anything but DPS is irrelevant and worthless in the grand scheme of things, but if DPS is so sought out, why give cards to tanks and healers in the first place. At least in these situational scenarios it would warrant some utility.

You're right the changes to Essential Diginity will make it obsolete. We can keep it as an oGCD.
I didn't lower the damage of Earthly star, just the initial heal. It shouldn't act as a last second heal, it should be preemptive and well placed, however arbitrary that may sound, thus should be rewarding to use. A 700 potency heal is honestly fine, I personally would just like it to do more.

While much like WHM, the Malefic one button spam is unavoidable here. However, the main goal is to give AST the identity of playing around their cards and constantly buffing their allies. Step away from the DPS light and focus on a more support oriented role. And if that means lower the potency of Malefic to let the cards shine a bit, then that's probably a path worth looking at.

TL;DR
Overall, really good feedback. I can see a lot of frustration with most of my proposed changes since nearly none of it really alleviates the issue of too much downtime. Instead my issue with healers really stemmed from the lack of identity. Sure all the healers perform fine the way they are, but they're homogenized.

With the proposed changes, I am not ignoring the tools provided to them. Sure the numbers need some tinkering but the general idea is there of working around your main specialty whether that shielding or cards. If you just want more oGCDs to spam while you hit your 1 button, then you might as well go play Bard. I would like healers to maintain their identity and be given some incentive and reward for using the healing kit provided to them. Would it be that detrimental to the game to lose a couple Glare/Broil/Malefic casts to give a more intuitive way of playing?