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

[Shurrikhan]

And coding a new skill (or bringing back an old one) that says 'deals 350p' is going to be easier than adding stuff to make a 150p skill be 350p when a certain condition is met.

Not if the effect is a means we already have, to be fair.

Stone II/III/IV; Glare I/III - Grants Fragility, causing the victim to take 40 additional potency of damage from Holy / Holy III. Stacks up to 7 times. All stacks are consumed when the target is struck by Holy.

Etc., etc.

But yeah, if it's altogether new procedure, then that's new tech. (Though probably tech that's pretty damn much worthwhile.)

A combination of the two could be done, where upon meeting the condition to 'empower Holy', it just... changes the button on the bar to the 'new skill', such that it is a new skill/new animation/etc, but it doesn't take an extra hotbar slot. Like Inner Chaos did for WAR. But doing so would introduce issues of it's own, like being forced to spend the proc even if you want to hold it.

That was the reason for the only constraint I gave -- that the buffed action should still be capable of the things the unbuffed action was.

But, think about it this way: Sure, we could make, say, Thundercloud proc a separate action and thereby remove any risk of wasting a proc when holding it for movement (or not getting a new proc by the time we need it for movement), but... is that really worth the button cost? If you don't mind a little lost decision-making or the added (arguable) bloat, then maybe it's worth the extra button; if not, probably not. I just, personally, happen to side slightly with the latter.

In this case, though, it would require that a single-target situation suddenly become an AoE situation for it to even have a conflict of interest (which I'm not sure is a bad thing anyways, just like I don't mind Spineshatter Dive having damage attached to it, etc.). When's the last time you used Holy in a single-target fight? If you'd otherwise have no use for the base action, the base action isn't going to get in the way of your improved action.

Moreover, you could just, say, use conditionality. If you have a target for BuffedHoly, it consumes stacks to use BuffedHoly and thereby deal additional damage to the target. If you don't, it doesn't, and you can just continue accumulating stacks. Granted, that one really would be new tech. (Though I do think the game needs to be constantly upping their tech, if only to avoid being content to play within those constraints forever.)