How would you address Button Bloat on healers?

[AnotherPerson]

The most obvious fixes are:

AST:
Remove Undraw.
Merge minor Arcana into Draw. This can be done in multiple ways, assuming the card system doesn't get a huge overhaul:

1. Give draw an additional effect that grants 1 stack of "Minor Arcana" buff when activated. On 2 stacks of "Minor Arcana", the buff is removed and 1 card is auto-drawn onto the gauge. Reduces 1 button.

2. Alternatively, the effects of Minor Arcana is merged with each individual [Draw] & [Play] skill. Every other [Draw] will become [Minor Arcana] instead, which is essentially a regular Drawn card (Random card of Balance/Spear/Arrow/Bole/Ewer/Spire with seal) + the drawn card of the Minor Arcana (Lord/Lady of Crowns). The [Play] ability temporarily changes to [Crown Play]. [Crown Play] no longer activates around you, but is centered based on whoever gets the effect of the regular card effect. Reduces 2 buttons.

Depending on if the seal gauge changes, Astrodyne can be merged with Divination as one ability as a powerful buildup skill if Astrodyne doesn't get any new interactivity with the skill.

Synastry is a pretty unique ability IMO. It would be nice if it gets some additional interactivity in the skill's effect to justify keeping it around. Alternatively, I would not be against it if Synastry is merged into our abilities instead as a trait. Ideally Synastry would just be an additional effect tied to all our single target abilities with varying degrees of efficiency. EX: Targeting an ally with Essential Dignity gives a "Synastry" buff for 5 seconds, which can be extended to a maximum of 20 seconds. Targeting an ally with celestial intersection or Exultation can also apply "Synastry" with an additional 5 to 10 seconds, which can be extended to a maximum of 20 seconds.

SCH:
Merge Fey Blessing with Whispering Dawn or Fey Illumination since Fey Blessing is just a fairy AoE healing skill.

WHM:
Merge Divine Bension with Aquaveil by giving Divine Benison the additional effects of Aquaveil at lv 86. Honestly, WHM lacks skills in general and needs a proper re-examination.


SGE seems very streamlined already as it is. Eukrasia pretty much removes any GCD button bloat and can introduce 2 new skills with 1 button. Zoe, Krasis, and Soteria are all unique in their purpose and gives some dynamic healing optimization. All SGE needs is to make Kardia / Soteria more important and unique - which can be done with support-oriented DPS skills or through Eukrasia. That, and some more interaction with addersting and DPS tools when no additional support is needed.

[deadman1204]

take away their dot, thats 1 less button!

\s

[Liam_Harper]

take away their dot, thats 1 less button!

\s

Nah, you remove all other damage buttons and make the DoT 400 potency with a 30 minute duration.

[deadman1204]

Nah, you remove all other damage buttons and make the DoT 400 potency with a 30 minute duration.

ohhh.. thats cold man

[Kalinas]

I can't speak to WHM/AST, but SCH sure. For the most part I can keep all of my spells/skills on 32 buttons / 2 crossbars.

SGE seems fairly condensed already. My only really thought would be to make Rhizomata appear on/over any addersgall ability when you don't have any charges...since otherwise those buttons are just greyed out anyway when you don't have addersgall.

With SCH make the Summon "insert fairy" button turn into Dissipation once the fairy is out. Also while we're at it...no point in two fairy buttons on bars anyway since they do the same things now. Pretty much just pick your favorite flavor fairy and place it on the bar anyway. Be kinda fun if the fairy swapped randomly between Eos and Selene when summoned/Dissipated/Seraph summon ends (or even based on Eorzea time). Heel and Place should be one button. Aetherflow and Energy Drain should also be combined.

Repose is pretty much never used and just filler, so that can go for all healers. Only have it on my whm bar to fill button space.

[Allegor]

take away their dot, thats 1 less button!

\s

In all fairness, dot damage is kinda laughable, are no longer needed for weaving, and the devs have been slowly removing them from even dps jobs too, so it's scarily not a stretch to think they'd actually remove healer dots by 7.0

Now, just because I'd think it'd be funny, imagine if they merge Glare/Broil/Malefic with their respective dots, in an attempt to make healers "less stressed" but it only ends up with people constantly overwriting the dots instead

[SpiralMask]

my personal take for SCH would be something like:
-rolling physic into adlo (you hardly use physic most times)
-condense some fairy actions into existing OGCDs (indom+fey blessing etc, maybe give'em a second charge to make up for losing a separate button?) maybe have them interact with the fairy guage since that's neglected atm (this is similar to sarixis' rework ideas).
-perhaps add some functionality back into the two fairies again by having the core effect (healing shields etc) of fairy spells/abilities always on, but which fairy is out decides the sub-effect (stuff like eos having the additional regens and such, selene bringing back the old party buff and aoe esuna as alternatives, etc)--what do you mean AST sects were removed i have no idea what you're talking about
-rework dissipation and have it eventually meld into/be replaced by seraph (maybe for dissipation you dissipate YOUR aether to power up your fairy, rather than the other way around? this eventually just making it evolve for a time once you unlock seraph idk)

should clear up ~6? buttons so would have room to fill those with other stuff to amp up class uniqueness (like some sort of downtime activity for when healing isn't needed come the fuck on SE it's so goddamn boring right now)


honestly sage can keep it's current number of buttons and still ahve stuff added in the future by making use of eukrasia toggles

[Mortex]

take away their dot, thats 1 less button!

\s

Don’t give square any ideas you mad man. They gonna do that

[RinaShinomiya]

To continue off what is said in the general chat thread

I think Healers could benefit a lot from a new Skill system that fuses cooldown skills with non-cooldown skills.
For example since you brought up Druochole, fuse it together with Taurochole. Every 45s you'll get Taurochole when pressing the button but when it's on cooldown it becomes Druochole. That way you reduce button bloat without "hurting" the toolkit.
It's possible to do this right now with Macros but it's obv. not optimal because the macro system is what it is.

Unfortunately I couldn't follow up on this sooner *grumble*Bootedoutfromtheforumfornotlogginginoneeverytwoweeks*grumble* but I did experiment a little with that Idea further by using what we have available already (the only thing i did to Asylum, Earthly Star & Sacred soil is <t>).



Lets get the Easiest out of the way
Cure I + Cure II + Afflatus Solace
Medica + Afflatus Rapture
Physick + Adloquim
Benefic I + Benefic II



These are rather self explanatory. Cure 1 is just not a competitive button for the GCD slot so much so that most people remove it from their hotbar entirely. For level synched content I'd still prefer to have it though so i just end up macro'ing it. Afllatus Skills are effectively on a 30s cooldown so it fits that theme of tying Cooldown Skills and non Cooldown skills together.

Draw + Play
Minor Arcana + Play



These honestly should've never been separated. The only thing it adds to the game is me Drawing a second card by accident. Thx for the clunk Square.

Aetherflow + Energy Drain



While Aetherflow stacks are available this button casts ED. If they're not available it casts Aetherflow. Simple and clean.

Summon Fairy + Summon Seraph



When Fairy isn't out or Seraph is on cooldown, summons Fairy, if Fairy is summoned already, summons Seraph instead, Icon swaps to Consolation too so it's 3 buttons in 1 thanks to the ENW changes to Seraph.

Now for more "controversial" Macros I made

Celestial Opposition + Aspected Helios



These are functionally identical buttons. Yes, CO is slightly weaker but at that point we're splitting hairs.

Counterargument: Neutral Sect + Aspected Helios is used during pre-pull to start out with a small shield. Using CO beforehand would be a waste. In that case i'd swap Aspected Helios for regular Helios.

Taurochole + Druochole
Excog + Lustrate



When Taurochole/Excog is available, casts those Abilities, if not the always available 600 potency dump is available.

Counterargument: For SGE specifically it's possible to be in need for a Druochole heal while Kerachole is still active and using Taurochole would clip the 10% mitigation buff. This is a real concern and probably my least favorite macro of the bunch.

Swiftcast + Rez

Probably babies first macro at this point. There are arguments to be made about fusing these together but you lose it as a movement tool when doing it. Though from my own experience, every time i do use it for movement someone dies within the next 5 seconds due to not doing a mechanic correctly so for me personally I'm fine fusing them together.

Holy + Afflatus Misery

I'm not super keen on this one myself but Technically these two shouldn't bite each other too much. If you wanna use Holy while Misery is up just target a ally or nobody at all.

The Results:





Very clean hotbars with a lot of room to expand for future expansions.

[WaxSw]

For Whm I dont think they have button bloat, they could have more and nothing would change, if anything remove cure 1 and lower the mp cost and cast time of cure 2

Ast has a lot of useless/low impact actions that could be removed, especially related to cards and some of its heals could be removed while giving more charges/lower cooldown to the remaining ones

For Sch I did a thread time ago with a rework, I think different fairies with different skills could go a long way while removing stuff like physick, expedient could be deleted and added into one of the fairy skills and protraction is a warrior skill, it has no purpose in Sch kit, Dissipation could be replaced by other skill as long as they rework aetherflow too

Sge is an interesting one because with its identity of changing skills it could have more actions without really increasing its buttons much, for example a cd like eukrasia that changes its gcd into a combo that is different if you use dyskrasia or dosis first (dosis->dyskrasia could be a ranged attack that gives a damage buff while dyskrasia->dosis could be melee deal more damage and give addersting), eukrasian dyskrasia as an aoe dot while being a st dps gain could work too or even a eukrasia toxicon. If anything I'd say krasis could be merged with soteria to free a space and rhizomata could be deleted for a trait that accelerates addesgall generation (if we are gonna copy sch at least copy the things it had when it was fun)