Quote Originally Posted by Teno View Post
Your mention of split-second decision doesn't exist or shows a lack of knowledge/skill. Or it's the first week of a newly released content and the people with you stand in every aoe, forcing you to use GCDs for healing.

As players optimize their gameplay GCDs are almost exclusively used for the same dps button, much less the "should not exist anymore" physick spell. Succor/Adlo might get uses when the boss disappears or for very specific occasions but other than that it's full on broil spam.

In fact, we have so many oGCD heals than unless a DPS teases you and stays in every aoe, you'll just broil/glare/malefic, while using your oGCD heal for when the big damage comes up.
I don't think it's fair to completely discount GCD heals just because they're not optimal for DPS. If you have a skilled party that does almost everything correctly, you're right, you can usually get away with minimal GCD heals. However, in most day-to-day content, party members will mess up and take damage that you'll need GCD heals to get through. The GCD heals are there for a reason after all. In fact, some of the most fun I've had playing healer wasn't doing extreme trials where everything went perfectly, it was times when the party messed up and I had to pull out some crazy moves to recover.

Either way though, I think my original point still stands, even if we look at just oGCD abilities. In my opinion, the issue isn't that there aren't any meaningful decisions in healer gameplay. The issue is that the decisions you need to make as a healer have been homogenized across all the jobs, leading to a lack of class identity. In other words, I think the unique, stand-out abilities of each healer job have been de-emphasized, which brings them more in line with each other, but also makes each individual job less interesting to play.