What Healer kit (not encounter) change would make GCD heals NOT bad gameplay?

[Darkmoonrise]

Didn't read everything here but I'll throw my thoughs into the pit. Remember, this is my opinion and my suggestion, not an absolute truth.

The main problem is that, except in very specific cases, ogcd heals are enough to keep the party alive. So why would you waste gcd to heal instead of DPSing? That's the core of the problem : gcd heals are not needed. That leads to the main problem of all the good healers : every encounter boils down to spaming 1 gcd DPS while weaving ogcd heals when needed. It is basically spamming a single button for 5 minutes straight. And it is boring. That's why I like AST, at least there is the card system to manage.

There are multiple reasons SE designs healers like this. The main one is because FFXIV needs to be appealing for casual players, they represent a big majority of the player base. And because the healer is one of the less forgiving role, you cannot design them without backup plane for player not understanding the optimal way to use their kit. Those players need gcd heals by lack of knowledge, or just out of laziness.

To make the gcd heals not a bad design, you should render them useful. Needed to survive the encounder. How to do that? Let's go back to the core problem : why are they useless now? Because ogcd heals are suffisant. So take out ogcd heals.

Make the healer a healer again. With heal gcd rotation and DPS ogcd. So we weave ogcd DPS into gcd heal. I'll see the healer kit something like this. With some variations of course, to make every class unique.

HEALS:

• a main single target heal gcd rotation (3 buttons rotation) to keep tank alive. If done correctly, could apply hot, shield, leeching, dot, etc.. effect depending on the healer.
• a main aoe heal rotation (3 buttons rotation) to keep the party alive. If done correctly, could apply hot, shield, leeching, dot, etc.. effect depending on the healer.
• 1-2 ogcd heals. Healer dependent (hot, shield, leech)

DPS:

• 1 single target DPS gcd rotation (3 buttons)
• 1 aoe DPS gcd rotation (2 buttons)
• 2-3 ogcd DPS

GIMMICK:

• a specific gimmick for each healer tide to ressources. Like the card for ast, to vary the pleasures. and weave stuff between gcd.

MISC:

• a usual : asuna, rescue, battle res, sprint, etc..

But this won't be enough, some encounter rework are needed:

Casual content (aka dungeons, trials and 24raid)

• Spamming a single gcd heals without rotation shall be enough to keep the party alive.
• Unexperimented players will do just that, spamming a single heal. The only thing they can or want to do anyway.
• Experimented players will heal the minimum (with ogcd) and then switch to DPS rotation and ogcd, which is always better than spamming a single button.

Introduction to hard content (aka extreme and unreal)

• Here heal gcd rotation is needed to keep the party alive. Frequent aoe damage should be introduce here as well.
• Unexperimented players will need to learn how to use their heal rotation, which is the goal of an introduction, learning the basic.
• Experimented players will heal the minimum (with ogcd and some gcd) and then switch to DPS rotation and ogcd, which is always better than spamming a single button.

Hard content (aka savage, ultimate)

• you barely don't have time to use gcd DPS. Aoe damage on the party is almost constant.
• Unexperimented players won't be able to clear this difficulty, which is the main idea of this difficulty.
• Experimented players will need to spam gcd heal rotation and use only ogcd DPS to contribute to damage, which is the actual role of a healer.

I think this will be a good solution