Quote Originally Posted by linayar View Post
I said simple, not best. And do remember that I also don't think that's what they're trying to do in the first place.
It's a simple way of making even more healers quit because it doesn't reduce the downtime healers feel, even if one GCD on healing over 5min is objectively more time spent healing than over 10min. But it does make healer gameplay feel even more unsatisyfing and we're already at an all-time low.

I think another problem is the amount of healing buttons we have vs. those we strictly need and use.
Right now every healer as several buttons that do basically the same, +/- a bit of potency yet they all take up a different hotkey. Ironically, the bare-bone WhM is the most balanced one in that regard. But in general healer hotbars are bloated with a myriad of buttons on a 30/60/90/120s CD which heal for roughly the same and function roughly the same.
As long as we still have so many more or less identical buttons we don't have room for more interesting ways to fill downtime.
Healers need a solid GCD heal base kit so every healer can heal every regular content without restrictions from cooldowns to keep the skill floor low. This can take up as little as 4-5 buttons (ST burst, ST hot/ shield, aoe burst, aoe with hot/ shield) as it is now.
Reducing the amount of oGCD heals while adding more dps buttons that also offer some sort of synergy or return would definitely be a more complicated solution but one that wouldn't affect the skill floor SE is so worried about. Even things like having two dots with different and "odd" lengths (e.g. 25s and 18s) adds a layer of complexity because it's a constantly changing rhythm compared to the fixed 30s every healer has. Or things like adding charges to Assize to give it an additional use instead of "press on CD for deeps".