Quote Originally Posted by Supersnow845 View Post
If every damage ability just applied falloff so your single target and AOE rotations were the same then it would be even more boring.
Tangent, but... would it, though?

If every AoE ability had bonus damage on the first target struck and a place in ST rotation and every ST ability had additional (reduced) damage dealt also to other enemies across an area of effect, you'd just have n many more abilities for each situation; rather than solely some 1-3 GCDs for AoE and some 2-7 GCDs for ST, you'd have all 3-10 GCDs for both situations.

Note that such also wouldn't have to prevent some skills from being advantaged at especially high or low mob counts in those AoE situations or when focus fire is more or less required (if it were ever required in XIV, that is).

I’m genuinely interested in how anyone could argue WHM of all classes has button bloat though
It's mostly the Lilies spells, honestly. For instance, if you just had it so that canceling any healing spell via movement would complete its cast automatically if you have a Lily available, that offers the same degree of mobility control while taking zero Lily Heal buttons. The two buttons exist to only make it more obvious that you got a fancy new capacity and to slow the rate at which you're allowed to tap into that capacity; in terms of functionality, they're utterly unneeded. They're fine, I guess, and I don't think they're an issue, but they are technically bloat.

And then there's the usual: Lucid Dreaming, Cure, Repose, and arguably Esuna (duller than just healing the DoT, since said healing has far more options than just "undo mechanic"), Surecast (if we axed the other "nah, I'm too lazy/late for this mechanic, bruh" buttons, too) or even Raise/Resurrection/etc. (instead allowing K.O.'ed people to be healed at some 20% of healing received and revive once reaching 20% HP, which would therefore have taken as much resource as healing 100% of their HP).

:: Honestly, Lucid Dreaming is dumb af but at least doesn't make processes less interesting than they otherwise would be for its existing, unlike Surecast, Esuna, and potentially the rez button. They actually make Cure and Repose look... the better, among those 6 keys.