A proposal to a completely new build of the four healers.

[Dearche]

This post is something I've been working on these last few weeks.
A consolidation of various ideas on these boards along with a few of my own put together into a complete build for each of the existing three healers along with Sage.

Specific numbers are only stand-ins and are not perfectly balanced. Just representative of the ideas presented.

Enjoy.

White Mage Rebuild:

Aero: 2s cast GCD, 400MP. 300 potency attack. Generates Blessing of Wind buff.
Stone: 2s cast GCD, 400MP. 300 potency attack. Generates Blessing of Earth buff.
Aqua: 2s cast GCD, 400MP. 300 potency attack. Generates Blessing of Water buff.
Holy: 2.5s cast GCD, 600MP. 140 potency attack in AOE. Stun for 4s. 50% chance of generating 1 lily.

Cure: 2s cast GCD, 0MP. Heals 400 potency. Generates 1 lily.
Cure 2: 2s cast GCD, 1000MP. Heals 800 potency. Generates 1 lily.
Medica: 2s cast GCD, 1100MP. Heals 300 potency in AOE. Generates 1 lily.
Medica2: 2.5s cast GCD, 1800MP. Heals 600 potency in AOE. Generates 1 lily.
Raise: Just a raise.

Deliberate: Instant cast GCD, 0MP. Recovers 400MP. 75% chance of generating 1 lily.
Afflatus Misery: Instant cast GCD. 900 potency attack on target, 675 potency on enemies surrounding target. Consumes 3 lilies. Generates 1 blood lily.
Afflatus Passion: Instant cast GCD. 1200 potency attack on target, 900 potency on enemies surrounding target. Consumes 3 blood lilies.

Benediction: Instant ability, 180s CD. Restores all of target's HP.
Plenary Indolence: Instant ability, 60s CD. Gives Confession buff to all party members for 10s. Whenever a target with Confession is healed by you, a further 200 potency heal is applied to the target.
Thin Air: Instant ability, 60s CD. Reduce all MP costs to 0 for the next 12s.
Flash Benison: Instant ability, 30s CD. The next GCD spell has its cast time reduced to 0. (No character animation, just a spell effect that can be clipped with the next GCD)
Grace: Instant ability, 90s CD. For every GCD spell you cast for the next 20s, recover 300MP.
Commune: Instant ability, 60s CD. Increase range of AOE healing by 20 yalms for 10s.

Clover Seedling: Instant ability, 5s CD. Target party member receives [Rooted Clover] buff. Using [Clover Seedling] ability again transfers [Rooted Clover] to the new target. Every time the target deals an offensive GCD spell or skill, [Rooted Clover] generates a [Clover Leaf] buff. When 4 [Clover Leaf] buffs are attained, the WHM receives a stacking [Four Leaf Clover] buff.
Clover Wreath: Instant ability. Consume 5 [Four Leaf Clover] buffs to deal a 1500 potency attack on target.

Prayer: Instant ability, 60s CD. All party members gain [Blessing] buff for 30s. [Blessing] increases damage dealt by 5%.
Divine Intervention: Instant ability. Consume [Blessing] on all party members, and they gain [Divine Invocation] for 15s. [Divine Invocation] increases damage dealth by 25%.

Traits:
Lilies: Certain skills can generate a [Lily] or [Blood Lily]. Up to five [Lilies] and five [Blood Lilies] can be held at once.
Elemental Triad: When the WHM has all three [Blessing of Wind], [Blessing of Earth], and [Blessing of Water], consume all three buffs to generate one [Blood Lily].



Scholar Rebuild:

Broil: Instant cast GCD, 400MP. 300 potency attack.
Bio: 2s cast GCD, 400MP. Inflicts [Bio] debuff on target for 30s. Potency 100.
Miasma: 2s cast GCD, 400MP. Inflicts [Miasma] debuff on target for 24s. Potency 100.
Contagion: 2s cast GCD, 400MP. Inflicts [Contagion] debuff on target for 21s. Potency 100.
Bane: Instant cast GCD, 400MP. Debuffs [Bio] [Miasma] [Contagion] are spread from target to all surrounding targets at half potency.
Art of War: Instant cast GCD, 600MP. 160 potency AOE attack. (Level 46)

Physick: 1.5s cast GCD, 0MP. Heals 400 potency on target. (Level 4)
Adloquium: Instant cast GCD, 600MP. Grants [Galvanize] to target: Shields missing HP up to 900 potency. (Level 20)
Succor: 2s cast GCD, 1000MP. Grants [Galvanize] to all party members: Shields missing HP up to 300 potency. (Level 35)
Resurrection: Just a raise. (Level 12)

Energy Drain: Instant ability, 60s CD. Restores 1000 MP. For each of [Bio], [Miasma], [Contagion] on target, attacks for 100 potency on target and generates 1 Aetherflow stack. (Level 30)
Lustrate: Instant ability. Grants [Galvanize] to target: Shields all missing HP. Consumes 1 Aetherflow. (Level 30)
Indomitability: Instant ability. Grants [Galvanize] to all party members: Shields missing HP up to 500 potency. Consumes 1 Aetherflow (Level 60)
Sacred Soil: Instant ability. Places ground AOE. Reduces damage taken in AOE by 10% for 30s. Consumes 1 Aetherflow (Level 48)
Sanitize: Instant ability. Attacks for 100 potency on target. Consumes 1 Aetherflow.

Summon Fairy: 2.5s cast GCD. Summons Eos. (Level 30)
Summon Fairy 2: 2.5s cast GCD. Summons Selene.
Aetherpact: Instant ability. Follows and gradually heals target for 150 potency until cancelled. [Fairy Skill]. (Level 30)
Whispering Dawn: Instant ability, 60s CD. All party members gradually heals 150 potency for 21s. [Fairy Skill]. (Level 40)
Fey Illumination: Instant ability, 180s CD. Reduces magical damage taken by party members by 20% for 20s. [Fairy ability]. (Level 65)
Dissipation: Instant ability, 300s CD. Dismisses fairy for 30s. Fully heals target and grants [Galvanize]: 300 potency shield, and grants 3 [Aetherflow] stacks. [Fairy Skill]. (Level 70)
Summon Seraph: Instant ability, 180s CD. Summons a Seraph to replace fairy for 30s. Heals 400 potency to all party members. All party members gradually heals 200 potency. [Fairy Skill]. (Level 80)
Consolation: Instant ability, 60s CD. Gradually heals 200 potency on target for 18s. [Fairy Skill].

Deployment Tactics: Instant ability, 120s CD. Grants [Distribution] on target, and [Implementation] on all party members for 20s. Each member with [Implementation] redirects 10% of any damage recieved by the party member with [Distribution] to themselve. (Level 90)
Emergency Tactics: Instant ability, 120s CD. Consumes [Galvanize] on target to heal for double [Galvanize]'s original amount in HP. (Level 58)

Scan: Instant ability. Inflicts [Analyzing] debuff on target until Scan is used again. [Analyzing] gives a [Deep Analysis] stack on target every 3s, up to 10 stacks. (Level 50)
Deploy Stratagem: Instant ability. Consumes up to 5 stacks of [Deep Analysis] and replaces it with an equal number of [Strategic Maneuver] for 30s. [Strategic Maneuver] increases critical hit rate on target 2% per stack, up to 5 stacks. (Level 50)
Chain Stratagem: Instant ability. Consumes up to 5 stacks of [Deep Analysis] and replaces it with an equal number of [Strategic Exploit] for 30s. [Strategic Exploit] increases critical hit damage on target by 2% per stack, up to 5 stacks. (Level 58)

*Galvanize: Lasts 15s or until consumed.
*Fairy is mechanically a part of the player's model, hanging over their shoulder and moves around as a part of the character. When Aetherpact is used, the fairy is transferred to the new character model.
*Fairy Skill: All fairy skills use the fairy as a source when determining distance. These skills are otherwise considered sourced from the Scholar.



Astrologeon Rebuild:

Combust: Instant GCD, 400MP. Inflicts [Combustion] debuff on target for 30s. Potency 100.
Accelerate Cremation: 2.5s cast GCD, 400MP. Reduces Combust debuff on target by 9s, increase potency of Combust by 100 to a maximum of 600. (Applies any current damage buffs to total potency)
Extend Conflagration: Instant GCD, 400MP. Increase Combust debuff on target by 9s to a maximum of 60s.
Gravity: 2.5s cast GCD, 600MP. 300 potency attack in AOE on target. Removes [Combustion].

Benefic: 2s cast GCD, 600MP. Heals 600 potency.
Prophesized Benefic: Instant cast GCD, 300MP. Grants a [Destined Benefic] buff on target for 9s. When the buff expires, heal 900 potency.
Helios: 2.4s cast GCD, 1200MP. Heals 300 potency in AOE.
Prophesized Helios: Instant cast GCD, 400MP. Grants a [Destined Helios] buff on all party members for 9s. When the buff expires, heal 500 potency.
Ascend: Just a raise.

Celestial Reflection: Instant GCD. Restores 600MP.
Essential Dignity: Instant ability, 60s CD. Up to 3 charges. Heals 1200 potency.
Lightspeed: Instant ability, 30s CD. Reduce the remaining time on [Destined Benefic] on target by 15s to a minimum of 1s.
Collective Unconscious: Instant ability, 30s CD. Reduce the remaining time on [Destined Helios] on all party members by 15s to a minimum of 1s.
Synastry: Instant ability, 60s CD. If [Destined Benefic] or [Destined Helios] expires on target within the next 30s, all party members get healed for half its potency.
Celestial Opposition: Instant ability, 5s CD. Increase duration of [Destined Benefic] on target by 15s, and increase its potency by 300.
Earthly Star: Same as current, except no damage.
Celestial Intersection: Instant ability, 120s CD. Reduce duration of [Destined Benefic] and [Destined Helios] on all party members to 1s.

Draw: Instant ability, 15s CD. Draw a card. [Draw] becomes [Play]
Play: Instant ability. Play drawn card on target.
Redraw: Instant ability, 30s CD. Up to 3 charges. Change drawn card to a new random card (the same card cannot be drawn consecutively).
Royal Road: Instant ability, 45s CD. Extends card duration on all party members to 60s.
Horoscope: Instant ability, 30s CD. Reduce card duration on target by 30s to a minimum of 15s, but triple its effect. This card's duration cannot be extended.
Sleeve Draw: Instant ability, 300s CD. Generates 3 stacks of [New Divination] buff. When [Draw] is used, one stack of [New Divination] is consumed and the CD of [Draw] is reduced to 1s.
Minor Arcana: Instant ability. Converts drawn card into Lord of Crowns when Balance, Arrow, or Spear, or the Lady of Crowns when Bole, Ewer, or Spire.
Lord/Lady of Crowns: Instant ability. Target party member gains [Lord of Crowns]/[Lady of Crowns] buff.

Cards:
Bole: Increases Direct Hit rate by 15% for 30s.
Ewer: Increases Spell Speed by 10% for 30s.
Spire: Increases Critical Hit rate by 10% for 30s.
Spear: Increases Critical Hit damage by 10% for 30s.
Arrow: Increases Skill Speed by 10% for 30s.
Balance: Increases damage dealt by 10% for 30s.

*Cards: Only one card buff can be held on any party member at a time. In addition, card buffs can only be applied during combat.
*Lord of Crowns: Increases potency of GCD weapon skills by 200 for 30s.
*Lady of Crowns: Increases potency of GCD spells by 200 for 30s.



Sage Idea:

Gatling: Instant ability, 2.5s CD, 400MP. 200 potency attack. Gains [Heat] stack, up to four, for 15s. Shares CD with [Thermal Shunt], [Quick Fire], and [Bombardment Fire]. [Noulith Skill] (Level 1)
Thermal Shunt: Instant ability, 2.5s CD, 0MP. Consumes [Heat] stacks. Does 150 potency and restores 100MP per stack. Generate 1 stack of [Aether Battery]. Shares CD with [Gatling], [Quick Fire], and [Bombardment Fire]. [Noulith Skill] (Level 15)
Quick Fire: Instant ability, 2.5s CD, 400MP. 200 potency attack. Shares CD with [Gatling], [Thermal Shunt], and [Bombardment Fire]. [Noulith Skill] (Level 25)
Bombardment Fire: Instant ability, 3s CD, 600 MP. 300 potency attack in AOE. Shares CD with [Gatling], [Thermal Shunt], and [Quick Fire]. [Noulith Skill] (Level 46)
Aetheric Collection: 2.5s cast GCD. Recover 500MP. [Gatling], [Thermal Shunt], [Quick Fire], and [Bombardment Fire] are put on 2.5s CD. [Noulith Skill]

Material Restoration: 1.5s cast GCD, 300MP. Heals 400 potency on target.(Level 4)
Aetherlaminate: Instant cast GCD, 400MP. Grants [Aetherfield] on target: Shields missing HP for 700 potency. If [Aethercharge] is available, consume it. Shield for all missing HP instead.(Level 20)
Aetherweave: 2s cast GCD, 700MP. Grants [Aetherfield] to all party members: Shields missing HP for 300 potency. If [Aethercharge] is available, consume it. Shield potency increases to 600.(Level 35)
Resuscitate: Just a raise. (Level 12)

Aethercharge: Instant ability, 1000MP. Grants [Aethercharge]. If 3 stacks of [Aether Battery] is available, consume it. [Aethercharge] costs 0MP.
Particle Regenerator: Instant cast GCD, 0MP. Gradually heals 100 potency on target for 15s. If [Aethercharge] is available, consume it. Healing potency increases to 300.
Field Regenerator: Instant cast GCD, 0MP. Gradually heals 50 potency to all party members. If [Aethercharge] is available, consume it. Healing potency increases to 200.
Aethero-compensator: Instant cast GCD, 0MP. Grants [Aetherfield]: Shields missing HP up to 400 potency. If [Aethercharge] is available, consume it. Shields missing HP up to 50% of target's total HP.(Level 60)
Aethero-ram: Instant ability, 10s CD. Grants [Compressed Aether] buff, up to 5 stacks. Every time a spell or ability which recovers HP over time is used, increase its duration by 9s. One stack of [Compressed Aether] is consumed. (Level 65)
Emergency Reserves: Instant ability, 180s CD. Grants [Aetherfield] on target: Shields all missing HP. Gradually heal 600 potency for 9s.

Aether Generator: Instant ability, 60s CD. Creates emplaced AOE that increases potency of all healing own's spells and abilities cast 20% while standing within it for 30s. If [Aethercharge] is available, consume it. Reduce the CD to 30s. (Level 70)
Aether Precipitator: Instant ability, 60s CD. Creates emplaced AOE that reduces the MP cost of all own's spells and abilities by 20% while standing within it for 30s. If [Aethercharge] is available, consume it. Reduce the CD to 30s. (Level 70)
Dominion Territory: Instant ability, 60s CD. Reduce all magic damage on party by 5% for 20s. If [Aethercharge] is available, consume it. Magic damage is reduced by 20% instead.
Deflection Field: Instant ability, 30s CD. Places a ground AOE for 30s. All damage taken in the AOE is reduced by 5%. If [Aethercharge] is available, consume it. Damage is reduced by 15% instead.

Aetherochemical Booster: Instant ability, 60s CD. Increase target's damage by 25% for 20s. If [Aethercharge] is available, consume it. [Aetherchemical Booster]'s duration is increased to 60s.(Level 55)
Aether Turbopump: Instant ability, 60s CD. Increase target's critical hit rate by 25% for 20s. If [Aethercharge] is available, consume it. [Aether Turbopump]'s duration is increased to 60s.(Level 85)

*Noulith Skill: animate separately from character. Character may animate a different skill from the nouliths simultaneously.
*Aether Battery: up to 5 stacks can be held at once.

[Liam_Harper]

At a glance despite some nice ideas being there, there's all sorts of balancing issues. Holding 5 lilies and generating them on GCD heals means WHM is going to generate almost 2 free Misery during downtime. I'm not sure what the point of the instant GCD mana restorers are except for emergency, otherwise you'd avoid wasting GCD's on 0 damage. AST heal potencies are insane but it's not refunding damage on GCD's like WHM, so it would simply ignore them, which is made far worse when its oGCD's revolve around its GCD's so it ignored them too. You even nerfed Star damage and Lightspeed. It would create a situation where WHM heals while doing massive damage and AST lets WHM carry while buffing the party. Skill Speed and Spell Speed cards are a bad idea and tend to throw rotations out of sync on many classes. SCH's new Succor is just bad when mega-Indom and perma-Soil exist. I won't comment on Sage since a rework for a class seems out of place. And so on.

You obviously put some work into this and maybe there's some good ideas that can be pulled from it, so I don't mean to bash it. But this is one of the reasons I'd never post a Rework myself and why feedback on the forums is so mixed. We aren't game developers. We don't know every limitation of the game engine, we don't know how far old encounters can be tweaked to accommodate big reworks, we can't indepth test our ideas, we can't formulate based on extensive experience. What healers need isn't a theorycraft fan rework from forum posters who haven't really played healer to full potential. Nor are the current class designers enough since they don't actually main healers. What we need is a dedicated healer main(s) on the team, with both solid game developer experience and experience with Healers at all levels of gameplay and have that person(s) be given full freedom to rework healers. It's literally the only thing that would work out best.

[Tulzscha]

White Mage

Blessings: That's a lot of added complexity just to have a couple extra dps buttons. It's a neat idea though, I'd like to see this idea expanded more. The dps abilities could at least be a little different, one could be instant for weaving ogcds.

Lilies: No healing option for using them? Seems strictly worse. I like the idea of using abilities to generate them rather than passively over time.

Utility: Spammable mana regen doesn't sound like a healthy mechanic, even if the numbers work out. Same for having a Swiftcast every 30s. Guessing this is for ogcd weaving but one of the dps abilities could fill that role. Grace and Thin Air seems like overkill, should only need one. Commune looks good.

Buffs: Clovers are ok but you now have 3 separate mechanics that don't interact with each other at all and the spender isn't much different from Lilies other than being ogcd. Prayer and Divine Intervention are insane, just no. Not sure why DI needs to be taken from AST or why WHM needs to buff the dmg of others, the flavor doesn't fit with the elemental/nature abilities either.

Scholar

Dots: I'm all for more dots but this is very slow. 3 full gcds to open every fight is a lot and is bound to get irritating. Would rather be able to apply them all within 2 gcds or have something like Tri-Disaster. Bane can be ogcd as it is for SMN.

Aetherflow: Relying on dots to get Aetherflow is a bad idea for a healer, especially if they take this long to apply. Sanitize is extremely weak, could be SMN's Fester instead (if you're using this resource for dmg you shouldn't have any problem applying dots), it should be much stronger than Broil.

Shields: Only shielding missing hp defeats the purpose of shields, makes them strictly worse than heals except for one very niche situation, and has weird interactions with other jobs' heals. It's proactive healing that can only be used after damage goes out and before other healers heal. With Emergency Tactics becoming a 2 min cd (I assume because of the increased shield potency) and with no actual healing outside of single target and faerie cds how is SCH supposed to handle healing by itself? You'd have to wait for people to take dmg then either keep shields up constantly or have a very good understanding of every fight. Maybe it could work but it's weird. What if SCH had a window that shows what enemy abilities do after Scanning?

Faeries: Still no difference between Eos and Selene? The idea of the faerie doing most of the actual healing while the SCH shields is interesting but I don't think will work with this kit. With Dissipation your only actual heal becomes Physick + a 2 min cd for 30s and since shields only last 15s... seems bad.

Utility/Buffs: New Deployment Tactics is neat, reminds me of Shaman's Spirit Link Totem from WoW except only for one target. Straight up damage redirection could cause problems (killing people who are already at low hp). Scan/Stratagems are very convoluted, I like the flavor but not sure they'll work in practice. Just thinking of managing this + dots on packs of mobs (while also healing) gives me a headache, unless it's only allowed on one target which I guess is ok albeit broken - seriously that's 100% uptime on both 10% crit rate and damage (with a 30s delay) compared to current 12.5% uptime on 10% crit rate only.

Astrologian

Damage: Sooo it's one dot that you extend and reduce, which you can't use while doing aoe during which you can't weave cards with Gravity's 2.5s cast time, and no direct single target damage. Bleh, I'd rather just keep the current kit, the 1.5s cast times work really nicely with cards and movement and are unique to AST. I'm guessing the removal of damage from Earthly Star is to make timing and positioning more simple but in pugs you can't rely on it for healing or even damage sometimes. I'd rather it do both and leave it up to the player how they want to use it.

Destined Stuff: Not sure I like the idea of floating heals at all times, seems like a lot of work for simple heals, especially when it comes to juggling multiple effects at once. The timing aspect is interesting but again I think I'd prefer the current kit with limited timed abilities and more variety.

Cards: Can't agree with this one. In order to play these cards optimally you'd have to learn not only the stat priorities for every other job but also who benefits from each stat the most, which could change multiple times per expansion. While that might be appealing to a few high end players to most it's just too much and they'll either get frustrated or not bother playing optimally. Lord and Lady convert damaging effects to different damaging effects... again something that would have to be researched before knowing how to use correctly while appearing to not really do anything. Not good design imo.

On Play replacing Draw, if draw's cd ticks down while holding a card I guess it's fine, otherwise it's bad. The removal of symbols and Divination makes the job more bland. Old Royal Road was cool because it could transform an otherwise useless card into a useful effect in an interesting way, this version eventually gives 100% uptime on buffs for all players making more cards useless while Horoscope works directly against it. More bad design.

Sage

Difficult to evaluate. Looks interesting. Not sure what's going on with the dps abilities, can you only dps every other gcd? The mana management with Aethercharge could be good if balanced right but easily has the potential to be either broken or useless, it'd be difficult to find the sweet spot. Seems to have a good balance of shields and hots for solo play but the lack of direct heals is questionable when grouped with other healers, as with Scholar. The dps buffs are completely broken here as well.

Giving every healer such strong buffs just means every dps will have to be nerfed which will negatively impact their ability to play without a healer, plus it'd get very messy when you have groups with different numbers of healers. Dungeons and raids would have to be re-worked with this in mind, raids like DR probably couldn't exist, it'd be a mess.

[DPZ2]

Congratulations. Lots of thought put into the post.

However, your attempt to rework the current battle system may well be impossible.

There are several reasons I can think of for that 2 second+change cast time that are tied directly into how the game accounts for 'ticks' and 'procs' for casters.

The other problem is the distinct lack of information at this time about the current 6.0 rework for healers. Somehow, I don't see the AST toolkit retaining everything you've written up for them. SAGE (ok, how's this one going to be 3-lettered? SAG? ick) doesn't even have a list of buttons-to-press at this time. And there is no room for more button bloat--um, I mean job rework and additional abilities.

Kudos for thinking about it.

[Side-Eye]

If I might be allowed to humbly submit an opinion: while I appreciate the time and effort you took to explore all the numbers, any sort of broad re-imagining of jobs would be more easily digested if each proposed revision was introduced with a summary of proposed changes; and for each, a description of what overall impact you envision and your reasoning for the changes.