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

[ty_taurus]

Agreed. Indeed, I've proposed this before. And been told we can't do it.

No, that's not entirely true. What has been said before by myself, Roe, and several others is that we cannot do that to the point at which healing would substantiate the majority of even a skilled healer's gameplay instead of Glare spam. I've said multiple times that we can and should increase healing requirements to some degree, but that alone will not resolve the issues that are constantly brought up here on the healer forums. It cannot be the only action taken.

What's that thing you and others always say not to do? Tell people they're in the minority?

What are you referring to? Do you believe most people who play video games dislike doing damage and would rather support another player or NPC to defeat enemies for them? Because it's a fairly well-known metric that most gamers like doing damage. There are literal studies that show doing big damage and seeing big numbers releases dopamine in the brain. There is a limit to this of course. There's a point at which numbers become so big that they no longer mean anything to people. My point was that general answer to rewarding optimal healing is by providing a more interesting offensive gameplay loop, because there's not much of a point in rewarding good healing with more healing, because the damage as already been healed at that point.

Sure. And per the idea that we can't have things on only one Job, it would need to be an option on every Healer Job. I'm fine with that.

Hell, I'd be fine with it being AST if they completely revamped it to get rid of its carpel tunnel burst and got rid of the occultist and tarot aesthetic. Problem is, both of those are things that current AST players like, and I don't want to steal their Job out from under them, do you?

Actually, yes. I would steal Astrologian from them. It sucks, but as a designer, the healthiest way I can foresee I full healer rework appealing to the most amount of players is creating a healer designed to have its gameplay loop revolve around indirect damage while still creating a way for it to function and feel good while soloing, and that means making an engine building healing who sets up and detonates utility and healing effects while passively generate damage in order for it to stay competitive with the other 3 healers doing direct damage. Option A is to change an existing healer to provide that while making changes to the other 3 to offer different styles of direct damage gameplay, and of the 4 we have, Astrologian is undoubtedly the one that makes the most sense since it's already a support-oriented healer. Option B is we preserve Astrologian for its dedicated player base, and we instead wait 8 more years to introduce the 5th healer in 9.0 starting at level 100. Now, I'm not the lead job designer of this game, so it's not my call. But sometimes there's not a perfect answer, and as the designer, you have to decide who's taking the bullet.

Now, I will say the ideas I've proposed already on this forum are not exactly what I'd implement if I were the lead designer, because those are concepts done exclusively as one person on paper and without a prototyping build to test them in. I have no idea how those would actually feel and they include very experimental ideas that would absolutely need to go through testing to see how they feel and if they even work in a balanced manner. If I was the lead designer, I would also want to be transparent about those changes (if SE would let me) and try to communicate with Astrologian players to find a healthy compromise.