Fixing Every Healer Job

[Conchoidal]

Thanks for going over my post, these ideas were mostly just things which would spice up healer gameplay and not be too difficult to implement (creating new visual assets/animations/etc).

How could we, when limited to low healing requirements relative to our kits, better feel as if healing is decently urgent and that our heals are worth doing?

In regards to healing urgency, in AOE situations this could be solved by either simply nerfing all relevant DPS heals (e.g. Everlasting Flight, Curing Waltz/Improvisation, Arcane Crest), changing them to be single target heals only, or changing them to operate like Mantra in that they only provide a boost to healing.

For tanks there's a few other things they could do, like having more bleeding tank busters which require healers to be aware of both the main and off-tank's health for a time, or have some boss auto-attacks do damage to both tanks simultaneously, or bring back the ability for bosses to crit their auto-attacks. I'd personally think it might be more engaging for tanks if had to swap more often rather than simply using Shirk/Provoke during or after a tank buster.

[AnotherPerson]

In regards to healing urgency, in AOE situations this could be solved by either simply nerfing all relevant DPS heals (e.g. Everlasting Flight, Curing Waltz/Improvisation, Arcane Crest), changing them to be single target heals only, or changing them to operate like Mantra in that they only provide a boost to healing.

But at that point, what's the point of even having relevant DPS heals when they become so weak that they serve literally 0 purpose? It's not going to save you in a pinch in solo fights, nor will they be any more useful if they're nerfed outside of high-end party coordination. At that point, the skills are just there to take up hotbar space. Individual DPS jobs would just lose their own identities and self-survivability in the process, benefitting no one.

The problem isn't the healing from other jobs. Their healing is already weak enough and spaced apart as is, but jobs have been able to do content without healers. That implies it's a problem with how much total unavoidable damage there is. What needs to change is either raising the unavoidable damage players take more frequently or making the healer GCD more interesting instead of the same button over and over again.

If they won't raise damage requirements (as they said they won't do), then all that can really change is giving healers a decent GCD rotation.

That means both reducing the number of healing abilities to encourage more GCD healing and increasing the number of GCD DPS spells to change up the GCD playstyle. That way, healers aren't forced to spam only Glare or Cure II.

[Conchoidal]

But at that point, what's the point of even having relevant DPS heals when they become so weak that they serve literally 0 purpose? It's not going to save you in a pinch in solo fights, nor will they be any more useful if they're nerfed outside of high-end party coordination. At that point, the skills are just there to take up hotbar space. Individual DPS jobs would just lose their own identities and self-survivability in the process, benefitting no one.

The problem isn't the healing from other jobs. Their healing is already weak enough and spaced apart as is, but jobs have been able to do content without healers. That implies it's a problem with how much total unavoidable damage there is. What needs to change is either raising the unavoidable damage players take more frequently or making the healer GCD more interesting instead of the same button over and over again.

If they won't raise damage requirements (as they said they won't do), then all that can really change is giving healers a decent GCD rotation.

That means both reducing the number of healing abilities to encourage more GCD healing and increasing the number of GCD DPS spells to change up the GCD playstyle. That way, healers aren't forced to spam only Glare or Cure II.

I don't really think the developers really understand how healing can work considering they continue to completely simplify every mechanic that requires consideration (i.e. enmity, MP). The only solution is as you say, to expand healer DPS kits through GCDs, and if they had a skill-floor/ceiling between WHM and DRK there would be far fewer complaints from casuals and high-end raiders alike.

[Katoar]

That means both reducing the number of healing abilities to encourage more GCD healing and increasing the number of GCD DPS spells to change up the GCD playstyle. That way, healers aren't forced to spam only Glare or Cure II.

Anything nerf related to healing oGCDs and spells will be counter-productive.