The point i'm trying to make here is that between half or third of each healers toolkit isn't used in current content because of being a DPS penalty, costing mana & simply not being needed to heal through most content in this game thanks to our OP oGCD taking care of the current healing requirements.
This is exactly why I personally found WHM to be the most fun healer in SHB, because it rewarded healing with DPS. Even if it was a DPS loss, that didn't matter to me, it felt satisfying. If it wasn't a DPS loss i'd feel even better about it. Meanwhile the overly focus on oGCD healing is what forced the Healer design into a corner and caused our button bloat in the first place. Many oGCD heals are just GCD heals on a cooldown. Does WHM really need a oGCD Cure II when they already have Afflatus Solace? Why can't Tetra just be a button that generates 1 lily. Why does Afflatus Solace & Cure II, Afflatus Rapture & Medica need to be separate buttons when they could just upgrade whenever a lily is available or not. Why does Thin Air exist at this point when most of our Heals are free anyway, it ends up being a "free Glare" button. WHM would play so much better if SE designed it around the lily system from the ground up.
Why does SCH have so many GCD healing buffs when it only has 3 GCD heals, well only 2 really since Physick is... Tataru's favorite button i guess. And again a system that rewards DPS for healing would go so far here. SCH has 2 Job gauges but only really uses 1. Why can't GCD healing reward Aetherflow (in combat) and Aetherflow abilities be all Damage dedicated. Using them then feeds into Fey gauge which unlocks powerful oGCD heals which you could use for pure healing, this way the player and the fairy have distinct roles. Barriers on the player and Pure heals on fairy.
As for AST, why is the class with the strongest oGCD heals also the busiest class from a oGCD standpoint? Wouldn't it make more sense to make its GCD healing kit more desirable so Card gameplay and healing don't clash?
SGE is arguably the most mobile healer even without Toxicon so I'd argue it should be changed to a DPS mechanic rather than mobility mechanic.

Then there are class-wide issues like Repose being useless outside 1 Role quest in SHB. Esuna being a rarely used button, Cure I, Benefic I, Physick & Diagnosis existing, Swiftcast only really being used in conjunction with Rez. Which is also something that's more punishing to the healer rather than rewarding, we lose a quarter of our mana for other people screwing up. Lucid dreaming being a boring way of restoring our Mana when a gameplay orientated version would be far more beneficial. For example why cant lilies apply a MP regen buff for 12s that restores MP like Lucid? I feel like Healer would have much more room to grow if our GCD healing kits wouldn't be so punishing to use. And if square wants us to only oGCD heal and press one button for the rest of our life then reduce the GCD bloat already.
(3/3)