I'm bored when I heal because I need more complex DPS rotations

[ty_taurus]

Here’s the thing, making utility come at the cost of DPS will never fly with this community at this point. Sure, it is ultimately a choice, but it’s not a choice that offers some kind of meaningful decision-making, because no matter how you spin it, the DPS buff will always be better in every conceivable way unless the utility effects are obscenely powerful—I’m talking a Benediction card, an invuln, an instant OGCD raise, a weakness debuff removal… that is what you’d need to make the opportunity not be collectively received as a bad after thought by most players. A 10% mitigation buff would be a joke.

At its worst, it runs the risk of teaching new players bad habits—that utility is something worth choosing over damage—but more importantly, inspiring some players to harass new AST players for using utility buffs instead of DPS buffs. No it wouldn’t be a rampant issue, but my point is there’s nothing healthy that would realistically come from a system like that. And again, it’s all because of how unnecessary that utility is. There is no situation where an extra 10% mitigation buff or a sprinkling of an MP regen is going to save the day, so if it’s not going to do anything the rest of your kit can’t accomplish 10x more efficiently, why should it even exist?

The truth is, there is not a perfect way to integrate offense and utility together in this game. As you mentioned, once you attach a DPS cooldown to utility, you are now on a time limit to use it at the best possible moment. Normally, I’d say that a single mitigation buff and healing buff could easily be spent in any given 2 minute window, but we also have content like Smileton, so that’s not always true. But, regardless of personal preference, which honestly sounds like the healthier choice in the game?

Unnecessary utility that seems helpful in paper, but can only use by sacrificing offensive momentum, thus universally invalidating any benefits gained? Or unnecessary utility that you can fully reap the benefits of without having an opportunity cost and thus actually offers its face-value effects?

My suggestion differs from the SGE comparison you brought up because it’s significantly easier to use 1 defensive cooldown in a 2 minute window than it is to need to heal at least one person in a 20 second window. But as I said, Smileton exists, and other content like it. So there will end up being situations where utility would get unnecessarily burned.