Quote Originally Posted by vetch View Post
Crucially, I also do not want to spam the same heals over and over. I would like a healing and buffing kit with some level of interplay involved where I have to use my judgement and experience.
Good luck with that one. FF14's GCD kits have never seen an impressive level of interactivity, but they at least didn't overstay their welcome to a boring degree when oGCDs were less plentiful and incoming damage was more frequent.

I still don't get this fantasy of healer-as-pacifist-heal-spammer comes from. It's the same as the DPS fantasy, but inverted and focused on healing, a capability with sharply diminishing returns. I don't play healers to constantly heal as much as I can. I play support roles because they often engage my brain with multitasking. Healing is on the list, as are buffs and debuffs and damage and so on. I like the juggle. And that juggling act is the core of support classes in many an RPG, single and multiplayer.

"I play a HEALer to HEAL!" is the phrase that makes me think, if you want such straightforward focused gameplay, try a DPS. FF14 doesn't really have that juggle anymore; hell, RDM plays more like an actual support than a healer does. At least I have a wide (if not exhaustive) bag of tricks and I can't perform the rotation with my eyes closed.

I come from a largely D&D and cRPG background. Healers heal....as a mostly last resort because buffing and crowd control etc al is much more interesting than Push Healthbars Rightward Spell Number Six.