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

[Allegor]

This part is actually a big concern to me after EW launch. The moment the anticipated new healer was revealed to be a Nocturnal AST framework with SCH cooldowns slapped on it along with an Aetherflow gauge that charges over time instead of pressing a button to trigger it, I now fear that the dev team no longer have any ideas on how to move the healer role forwards.

It's not even solely about the damage kit, the healing kit is also showing signs of becoming stale and no longer creative. We get gold here and there like Macrocosmos, Panhaima and Expedience, but everything else is just so similar.

Like how at 82 everyone gets their dps upgrade, at 85 everyone gets gcd upgrades, and at 86 a brand new ogcd that's a thinly disguised copy paste of the same ability.

I can predict at 92 we'll get a dot upgrade (if they're not removed, that is), at 94 we'll get an upgrade to an aoe heal, and our capstone will be an ability they'll either remove by 7.0 or have already removed in the past and pretend it's brand new.

[Raikai]

How would you make using GCD heals NOT bad gameplay, if not them being damage neutral?

How would you change WHM's mechanics such that using Medica instead of Rapture or Cure 2 instead of Tetra is actually good gameplay?

To me is as simple as the single target heals/shields boost up resources to be spent on DPS actions, with the math making those actually a DPS gain.

Basically how SGE functions with Addersting, but making Toxicon at least DPS neutral.

A bonus to complement that could be dps oriented procs coming from those GCD heals. I.E. Cure II can proc your next glare to crit.

Imagine something like the GCD shields from SCH being one of the actions that fills up a <repurposed> faerie gauge, and you can use that at any given time for the faerie to channel it like an over time damage effect on your enemy.

[GoatOfWar]

Downtime.
If you can't deal damage anyways, it's not a damage loss.

I just don't think healers were meant to be healbots.

[fulminating]

Massively shifting damage from nuke to dot. If the dot is 90-100% responsible for damage then missing a GCD attack or two wouldn’t have as much impact.

[Supersnow845]

To this day, l still can't get the why healer needs to contribute to dps check.

Because 14’s GCD and tick system is too slow to allow for old WOW style ping pong healing that stopped healers from doing damage

[Renathras]

Massively shifting damage from nuke to dot. If the dot is 90-100% responsible for damage then missing a GCD attack or two wouldn’t have as much impact.

The problem I have with this is the thing I see most in casual content is people dropping DoTs or not using them. Like my DoTs drop here and there sometimes for 3-7 seconds (usually less since I tend to keep on them and track about where they are by seeing Lucid/Aetherflow/Chain Strategem/Presence of Mind in 30 sec increments being a "About time to refresh the DoT" que), but I've run content with a second Healer (or as a Tank/DPS where someone else was the healer) where the Healer DoT debuff just never appeared. I did a P9N two days ago and my co-healer didn't use her DoT. Ever. Like...not once. Not even when the fight started.

Had pretty solid ABC going, Glare seemed to be being cast all the time during the fight, she used Lilies and Misery, and occasionally Medica 2 or Cure 2 spot healing. Even using oGCDs like Asylum. So she wasn't someone who just Glares and nothing else. But she either didn't know here DoT existed or just forgot it.

Ran a P11N where the other healer's DoT was probably up for around 25% of the boss fight.

So how does moving damage from the nuke to the dot help such players out or make all those GCD heals used not a punishment?

[Aravell]

So how does moving damage from the nuke to the dot help such players out or make all those GCD heals used not a punishment?

The original question you asked was how to make GCD heals less bad to use, that's one of the ways to make it less bad to use. DoTs being a higher percentage of your damage means you don't lose as much damage if you opt to GCD heal instead of using your GCD nuke because the DoT is still ticking in the background while you spend that GCD on a heal. You didn't mention in your original post that any suggestions have to take into account people who don't use DoTs at all so I don't know why you made that a condition now.

[elioaiko]

GCD healing will never feel good because everything is predictable.

The devs are too scared to raise the damage roof higher as to make healer seem accessible to even the worst player.

The combat system simply doesn't allow constant healing. It's too slow to consistently make constant healing viable–you will likely running out of MP or the server ticks will kill the tank before your next cast.

[Supersnow845]

Is renrathras now at the point of wanting us to come up with diverse solutions to problems with jobs accounting for people who can’t read their tooltips

Honestly I give up at this point

[Aravell]

Is renrathras now at the point of wanting us to come up with diverse solutions to problems with jobs accounting for people who can’t read their tooltips

Honestly I give up at this point

The main problem is that a lot of potential solutions is instantly locked out if the answer has to take into account people who don't properly engage with their full kit.