How would you address Button Bloat on healers?

[Silver-Strider]

Since a lot of people seem to believe Button Bloat on Healers (namely SCH and AST) is an issue, I was curious on how everyone would actually limit or even reduce button bloat on healers?

While I personally enjoyed having 3 hotbars for SCH back in HW (No that is not sarcasm), if I HAD to suggest something that would limit button bloat, I would go for a controversial take and say remove Aetherflow and all Aetherflow abilities from SCH and just have the central focus be the Fairy. Obviously for this to even be remotely possible, you'd need to massively rework how the fairy worked, from CDs, potency adjustments, etc. as well as adjust how some abilities work but with enough tinkering, it could theoretically work but I digress.

How would you address Button Bloat?

[Saffron2357]

First point of order is to reduce space allotted for GCDs. Turn Physick into 300 potency heal, 100 potency shield, and have it upgrade straight into Adloquium at 30. Have Benefic I and Cure I upgrade into their second tier counterparts at level 30. (I would also compress Medica 1 and 2, giving it the potency of 1 but with a smaller regen attached, even as Rapture.) Fold Esuna into other abilities, adding them to both the GCD single-target heal and specific oGCDs for each healer, such as Divine Benison and Whispering Dawn. That alone gives us an extra 2-7ish buttons, depending on the class.

For AST, merge Draw and Play, and then Minor Draw and Minor Play. Honestly, Synastry can probably just go entirely. The whole "forked healing" thing is cool, but doesn't really work with the way the game works. I don't know much about AST so this is all I have.

For SCH, hoo boy. I would honestly merge Aetherflow and Energy Drain, making it work like on Summoner (and refunding some MP and applying a self-shield if you use it with stacks of Aetherflow left), though I think that may be an unpopular move. I'd also let Dissipation go, so we can have a button that... Is more meaningful. Does Emergency Tactics... matter? I feel like SCH is such a weird class that you could rip out half of all the skills and the class would still work, though I understand the toolbox-y appeal of it. But then you have things like Fey Blessing that just feels like a second charge for Indomitability that doesn't use Aetherflow...

For SGE... there's a LOT of buttons here. Some of them, like Krasis, Soteria and Holos have a lower impact, but I'm still hesitant to let anything go. It's also a very recent class, so it's hard to see where the holes are just yet. If anything, I'd want to turn Toxikon into something that means something. Otherwise, I have no idea.


For WHM, ahem... The "compress GCDs" method cuts out a LOT of cruft. Because for some reason it has three buttons for a single target GCD heal, and the same for AoE. And that's not even taking Regen into account, which would bring the former up to *three*. I'd actually wanna fold Afflatus Solace and Afflatus Rapture into Cure 2 and Medica 2, having the button change like buttons like Tillana whenever you have a lily available, and maybe even adding a lily-based Regen variant. There's also the weird case of Cure 3, where it's... It's *cruft*, it's *excess*, it's *an act of whimsy*, and yet it still finds use from some people, but that use appears to be mostly due to White Mage lagging behind when it comes to total number of big heal buttons. I would toss it out, have Tetragrammaton be learned at its original level, then give Tetra a second charge and its splash healing at the level it was originally learned at. All in all, this frees up a *lot* of buttons, without touching any oGCDs... Which is good, because that's the area where WHM is kind of lacking. If we manage to make Misery DPS-neutral then I honestly think filling all the freed up buttons with extra attack buttons, like Aero 3 and Banish, would work, though maybe additional power wouldn't go amiss even with being able to GCD heal at no loss to DPS.

Also, while I'm not against removing Repose, I'd rather it stay. Obviously it's pointless in raids, but raids aren't what it's for. I get really glad it's there when I have to talk to an NPC but they put them next to an overworld enemy that I REALLY don't wanna bother with, and other such niche overworld uses. (Actually, I wonder if I can use it to pseudo-stun things like the maidservant AoEs in Haukke... Something to try.)

[ASkellington]

WHM and AST can have Cure and Benefic trait upgrade to their secondaries.

If Synastry isn't going to interact with AST's other single target healing abilities (CI, ED, Exalt, A. Benefic) remove it. Personally, I'd like to keep it, but it being restricted to Benefic 1 and 2 (and see the above on Benefic 1) makes it too niche.

Undraw shouldn't get a mention because it shouldn't be on an AST's bars at all, but its here because the skill frankly has 0 reason to exist.

Draw/Play and Minor Arcana/Crown Play can and should be 1 button each.

[Azurarok]

WHM has a ton of issues to address but I don't think merging CureI and II should be one of those fixes. The shorter cast time and low MP cost has its niche uses as it is too, but at any rate it still has a fair bit of room with one XHB+WXHB set, unlike AST and SCH.

BeneficII should replace BeneficI since MP isn't a problem at all with AST and their cast times are the same, Draw should turn into Play, and Minor Arcana into Crown Play. I guess they should then move Draw charges to be on the job's UI then, and have Minor Arcana also do the same or activate automatically after 60s. Perhaps they could also get rid of Lightspeed by replacing the spell speed boost on Astrodyne with its cast time reduction.

Then for SCH, they should merge Fey Blessing with Indomitability since the former no longer even uses the Faerie Gauge, and remove Dissipation since it's even less worth using now that Energy Drain doesn't recover MP anymore, then probably just add a trait that adds a 4th Aetherflow charge to make up for that. I may be in the minority but I'm not a fan of losing Emergency Tactics or Physick since I use Emergency Tactics fairly often for when there's a need for extra healing and shields are already applied, and I use Physick every now and then to do minor heals between pulls or boss downtime, or when not even Emergency Tactics is enough and I'm out of aetherflow charges.

Then I said this before but I still think they should merge Summon Seraph with Aetherpact and have her use whatever Faerie gauge you have to focus healing on her target outside using Whispering Dawn/Fey Illumination/Consolation. Consolation's charge time and effect makes no sense with the current Summon Seraph's recast time and being able to have her out more often should help with that.

[EaMett]

Honestly? BLU had a handful of heals and was so much more fun to play. Just remove/merge a ton of healing spells, replace with dps skills. Problem solved.
Is this how my ideal healer looks? No. But I'll take that over the current implementation any day of the week.

[P0W3RK1D]

Honestly? BLU had a handful of heals and was so much more fun to play. Just remove/merge a ton of healing spells, replace with dps skills. Problem solved.
Is this how my ideal healer looks? No. But I'll take that over the current implementation any day of the week.

I agree. Right now i feel like Blue Mage is the Funnest healer in the game, and the sad thing is it cant even do any current content or MSQ because its 20 lvs under the cap.
but compared to the other healers it only 5-7 healing abilities, and yet it has so much freedom of build and so many support options (something that all the other healers dont have) that it could legit be a healer job and i would probly pick it every time over the other healers.

[Tharnor]

Scholar:

Merge Whispering Dawn and Fey Illumination into other skills.

Replace summon Eos/Selene with Summon Fairy and have that auto change to summon seraph in the proper situations.

Starter heal needs to just go. It was smart design back when it was introduced but goes completely contrary to how the majority of healing is done. Just trait upgrade it to adlo. If the low skill/effort scholars have problems, remove the cooldown on emergency tactics.

Remove the Aetherflow skill and make our stacks generate over time. Maybe gain mana every time one aetherflow is generated.

That is six buttons right that would be an easy ask.

While they are looking at the problem make Fey Illumination and Dissipation work with abilities. I cannot think of the last time I used either for the extra healing outside of niche circumstances. I understand Dissipation is suppose to be an emergency skill. But this means nothing when the skills you want to be using in the emergency are not buffed.

[Mimilu]

Overall
-Have the Cure and Benefic upgrade to Cure II and Benefic II. I also like Saffron's idea of Physick being a mini shield that upgrades to Addlo.
-Make a Eukrasia-like buttons for WHM and AST that turns Cure/Benefic and Medica/Helios into HoTs.
-Remove Repose, it's only useful in Eureka/Bozja, where it could be turned into a skill for those areas. (Most people don't even have this on their hotbars anyway.)

AST
-Make Draw and Play one button
-Remove Undraw
-If they're not going to interact with the cards, I would get rid of Minor Arcana/Crown Play. They're too random to be reliable but not random enough to be fun or charming. If they go back to ShB's version of Minor Arcana, they should make it one button.
-Celestial Interjection and Exaltation could probably be fused together where once Interjection's barrier is broken or times out, the target is healed (200 shield + 500 heal). Keep it at 2 charges.
-Fuse Neutral Sect and Synastry (and make it so the user can be targeted by Synastry for solo play).
-Fuse Astrodyne and Lightspeed. You automatically get the MP-Refresh and 2.5 second cast reduction but your DPS and Healing increase based on how many different seals you have (1%, 3%, 5%). The only issue I see is that it still wouldn't align with Divination, which neither button did anyway unless you held on to them.
-Remove Celestial Opposition and increase Collective HoT potency. Maybe give it a second charge?

Buttons saved: 10

WHM
-Instead of having two separated Lily buttons, have one ability that turns your next Cure/Medica into their Afflatus counterparts.
-Fuse Divine Benison and Aquaveil, providing both a shield and a damage reduction. Maybe add a third charge?
-Fuse Temperance and Asylum. Have it be an HoT, reduce damage, and increase healing ACTIONs potency. Also, reduce its cooldown and increase its AoE. >:v

Buttons Saved: 6

SGE
-Maybe fuse Krasis and Zoe? Target gets Krasis and you get Zoe.
-Maybe Soteria could go.
(this one was hard for me because I use to main SGE, so I know how everything interacts at a basic level)

Saved buttons: 3

SCH
-While it's useful, I think Dissipation could be replace with something that goes with the kit better. (Or have it affect your healing actions and not just spells)
-Get rid of the Summon Eos/Selene spells, make it so you automatically have a faerie out via a trait, and make a Pet Glamour Menu for SCH and SMN (and maybe MCH and RPR)

Buttons Saved: 5

[ThorneDynasty]

SCH
-While it's useful, I think Dissipation could be replace with something that goes with the kit better. (Or have it affect your healing actions and not just spells)
-Get rid of the Summon Eos/Selene spells, make it so you automatically have a faerie out via a trait, and make a Pet Glamour Menu for SCH and SMN (and maybe MCH and RPR)

Buttons Saved: 5

A thought I had for SCH is that Dissipation should be used to consume the fairy gauge, changing the fairy ability buttons that are currently just dead for the duration. Remove the current gauge skills completely as their own buttons. Reduce the cooldown of Dissipation, but rather than directly recharging aetherstacks have the gauge consumers do it. Or let you freely drop out of Dissipation returning stacks according to how much gauge you have left, etc.

[ThorneDynasty]

The main issue is that high HPS doesn't require 10 different yet redundant healing buttons. You could easily build a healer that only has 4 pure healing abilities: 1 oGCD, 1 GCD and the AOE equivalents and still have the same performance. Especially in a game where unavoidable damage is so, so sparse.