gimme dots

[HyoMinPark]

It's only a problem because their dps toolkit is so extremely lackluster and to a lesser extent the oGCD healing options being bloated, and it certainly isn't 'unfixable'. Cleric stance (as clunky as it was) theoretically solved the macro of healing and mitigation optimization, and multiple DPS skills that weren't spammable (DoTs most serviceable) solved the moment to moment gameplay of healing optimization. Things like Phlegma are a very small step in the right direction, though has problems of its own related to being a CD stacking nuke. Just making healers the shitty DPS with bandaids to hand out is a stupid solution and unnecessarily undermines the player fantasy of picking a healer job.

To be honest, I really miss old Cleric Stance. It required you to really consider “Is it safe to deal damage now”, “Will I need to execute a heal within the next few seconds”. It felt purposeful to optimize Cleric usage, and I really wish that we could have kept that design. With the scripted nature of encounters, yeah it wouldn’t have an unpredictable usage timeline—but it would require healers to do a bit more thinking in terms of what needs to be done versus “nuke nuke nuke nuke—oh, tank took a hit > oGCD heal—nuke nuke nuke nuke”.

Crit autos helped a little bit with sort of forcing healers to actually pay attention to tank health, and I really wish they hadn’t been removed in ShB onwards content. But ultimately, I would also prefer more instances where I need to be healing. However, this won’t happen. The developers have outright expressed their hesitancy in upping the amount of damage a party takes…so we are just relegated to gimped damage dealer. There is nothing else for us to really be at this point. We’re healers in name only.

I think the requests for damage rotations come from the developers basically walling us on asking to be more of a healer.

[Anvaire]

It's only a problem because their dps toolkit is so extremely lackluster and to a lesser extent the oGCD healing options being bloated, and it certainly isn't 'unfixable'. Cleric stance (as clunky as it was) theoretically solved the macro of healing and mitigation optimization, and multiple DPS skills that weren't spammable (DoTs most serviceable) solved the moment to moment gameplay of healing optimization. Things like Phlegma are a very small step in the right direction, though has problems of its own related to being a CD stacking nuke. Just making healers the shitty DPS with bandaids to hand out is a stupid solution and unnecessarily undermines the player fantasy of picking a healer job.

The unfixable part is that healing checks will only get easier from patch launch week by week as ilevel rises. The dps side can be fixed, but ultimately, the role is always going to have the "boring" side / forced to dps aspect because healing will always become easier over time, at a far more impactful rate than DPS or Tank roles.
If you want to be challenged as a healer in the long term. It simply won't happen due to gear and mitigation creep.

[HyoMinPark]

The unfixable part is that healing checks will only get easier from patch launch week by week as ilevel rises. The dps side can be fixed, but ultimately, the role is always going to have the "boring" side / forced to dps aspect because healing will always become easier over time, at a far more impactful rate than DPS or Tank roles.
If you want to be challenged as a healer in the long term. It simply won't happen due to gear and mitigation creep.

An issue I personally have is that, even at minimum item level, I don’t feel that challenged as a healer outside of very few instances (E8S week one was super challenging as a healer, in my opinion; one reason it was one of my favorite ShB fights; TEA is also healer heavy during LL and BJ/CC J-waves). Or if shite just starts hitting the fan and I have to go solo-heal super safety gamer mode. To be honest, it really shouldn’t be that way—but I’ve given up on them actually making things challenging at this point.

[tearagion]

The unfixable part is that healing checks will only get easier from patch launch week by week as ilevel rises. The dps side can be fixed, but ultimately, the role is always going to have the "boring" side / forced to dps aspect because healing will always become easier over time, at a far more impactful rate than DPS or Tank roles.
If you want to be challenged as a healer in the long term. It simply won't happen due to gear and mitigation creep.

Everything gets easier as gear level rises. It's not a problem anyone is looking to fix; it's a feature of the themepark mmo.

The problem is the state of healer optimization being endlessly broil/glare/dosis/malefic and press oGCDs as needed even in the current tier of Savage. From this we can postulate two problems: one being that offensive optimization is extremely underdeveloped for how much time it occupies, and two being that oGCDs are perhaps too powerful and plentiful compared to GCD healing options meaning outside of Ultimate you really don't need to press them ever (this I infer from current tier Savage, which I have been barrier healing, necessitating only oGCD abilities). The only GCD healing option I ever use in combat on SGE is Pneuma...because it also has damage (SCH is better off thanks to the strength of spreadlo, recitation, and chain stratagem). Tanks having so much recovery for free doesn't help healer boredom either. All that being said, a more robust and/or nuanced offensive suite would solve the oGCD problem from a purely player-experience perspective anyway. I think everyone serious about healer optimization would prefer the offensive kit be bolstered a bit with some abilities in the same concept as Cleric Stance, high commitment and high skill ceiling without moving the skill floor almost at all.