The Problem with Healer Feedback, and requested changes

[Shurrikhan]

I think the relationship healers have between healing and damage is not a bad one, but just having a wealth of OGCD heals has not boded well for the experience of healing. While I do want wider DPS libraries, I like feeling like there's a decision I must make between my attacks and my heals. I liked playing as a SCH in ARR, HW, and SB, and feeling like Adlo and Succor were a regular part of my gameplay, not just a last ditch effort for survival. It's true, though, that there could've been a lot more interactivity between my actions that SCH could've received as time went on.

It's hard for me to say exactly where that relationship goes from merely watered down (or, suffering from an excess of bird droppings, etc.) to outright 'bad', but I agree that the excess of oGCD healing (not necessarily even the button count, but just their power relative to healing requirements) seems like the biggest thing disrupting the balance between attacks and heals necessary to make it feel like there's decisions to be made between the two.

Some people like the business of AST weaving, some people think it's gone too far. I don't know if GCD cards is the solution, but maybe half-GCD like DNC steps or NIN mudras would retain some of the business, while still being a bit more lenient (you don't have to doubleweave like a madman, and can just go like, card, malefic, card, malefic, card, to give breathing room to see who to throw the card on)

A NIN GCD would actually be just as busy as (and likely feel busier than) an oGCD in most situations.

You presently have only a 1.5s cast time on Malefic, which leaves 1s in which to weave the card and your next cast. If you replace the Card oGCD with a Card-ra, you have the 1.5s cast time, but then a .5s period where you can't usefully hit anything, and only then the .5s queuing period for the Card-ra GCD, which in turn gives only .5s to set your target again for Malefic.

So instead of just going smoothly from one action into the two at any time over the following second, you go... then stop, action A only, and then action B only at 0.5s each.

Gonna relink a potential more... 'universal design' solution concerning managing single-target healer buffs despite/around optimizing (especially, offensive) uptime.

<Ideas on improving the control scheme such that oGCD single-target buffing would be a non-issue anyways, even for controller players, while making the game smoother as a whole>