If Healers had Tank rotations, what would they be?

[Renathras]

Suppose for the sake of argument that we wanted to make each Healer Job have a level of DPS (ignoring healing/tanking for the time being) comparable to each of the Tanks, and again for the sake of argument, using these pairings, what would they be?

WHM = WAR
SCH = PLD
AST = DRK
SGE = GNB

WAR and WHM have comparable abilities for the most part with mild exceptions:

Heavy Swing-Maim-Storm's Path: Glare
-Storm's Eye: Dia
Overpower/Mithril Tempest: Holy
Upheval/Orogeny: Assize
Inner Release: Presence of Mind
Infuriate: Thin Air (or Swiftcast)
Fell Cleave/Decimate: Solace/Rapture
Primal Rend: Misery

The only one of those that's at all a "stretch" is Fell cleave vs Solace/Rapture, but WHM is a healer while WAR is not (WAR doesn't have any tanking GCDs), and the only thing missing there is WHM doesn't have a three charge oGCD to burn where WAR has Onslaught, and WHM doesn't have a ranged instant that generates healing like WAR has Tomahawk as an instant ranged GCD attack that generates threat. Overall, that's pretty comparable considering WAR has overall less buttons than WHM does, despite splitting "Assize" into two parts (Onslaught and Orogeny share a CD) and that WAR has a 1-2- single target and a 1-2 AOE.

To make them more direct copies, the following changes would be done. Note changes marked with an * are ones I don't think are necessary since they don't actually increase complexity much or at all.

1) * Adding a 1-2-3 combo for Glare. Though it's not entirely certain what spells you'd use since you'd need both low and high levels for them. (single target non-branching combos are generally button bloat that have no actually skill increase/expression to them)

2) * Adding a 1-2 combo for Holy. (AOE combos are generally button bloat that have almost no skill increase whatsoever)

3) * Making Dia branch from the 1-2 combo AND only be usable on a single target. Or, alternatively, removing the DoT aspect and making it a damage buff (the later is actually easier to track than DoTs, so this is a case where WAR and WHM are comparable now in the sense of Storm's Eye requiring a bit more prep work but current Dia being a higher skill cap)

4) * Making Assize for AOE and something (Fluid Aura?) for single target. (In practice, you only use Upheval for single targets and Orogony for AOE, so unless you have your hotbar set up weird, this is not a skill/complexity increase)

5) * Giving WHM a gauge mechanic with a attack GCD spender (Fell Cleave). ARGUABLY this is what Solace/Rapture (and to a point, Misery) are, since WAR doesn't have to interrupt GCDs to use tanking abilities (they're all oGCDs) and these count as GCD "pseudo oGCDs" for WHM. So I'm not sure this change for increased complexity makes sense to do, since locking WHM into a resource GCD damage set they need to burn in the burst window could cause issues with healing. Personally, I think Solace/Rapture captures this mechanic, with the only issue being you can't just spam the heck out of them back to back. But then again, Fell Cleave has a limit, it's just high (5). So this one I think is already pretty good as-is given the alternatives become a lot more janky.

6) * Making Misery trigger from Presence of Mind. This change...I honestly think would be stupid. I only place it here for the sake of completeness, but...I think it's stupid in the sense I think present Lilies works much better.

7) * Making Thin Air also allow a Lily use without consuming a Lily charge, and boosting the effect. This would make it more comparable to Infuriate. Though you get into weirdness with Misery and burst windows unless you also made it where that use of the spell didn't nourish the Blood Lily, which would be kind of confusing. But again, here for the sake of completeness.

...and I just put an asterisk by everything. <_< Well, that wasn't intentional, but I do consider the two more or less comparable. Making Cure 1 and Medica 2 upgrade into their 2 versions and giving WHM a 1-2-3 combo, making Dia a -4 branch but also making it a self-buff instead of a DoT would basically be the only change really needed to make WHM and WAR's damage kits pretty much comparable to each other, but this would be a side-grade in terms of skill, not an increase...hm.

ANYway, what about the other Jobs?

You may raise points with the above if you like, but please do so as an aside; what I'm really curious about is how to do the others. SCH as a parallel to PLD's complexity, AST to DRK's, and SGE to GNB's. Since those aren't really extant right now (unlike WHM which is kinda comparable to WAR) since...well...ALL of the Healer Jobs right now are basically in WAR territory.

NOTE:

Some Tank damage has minor contributions to tanking (e.g. GNB's -2 generating a heal and a barrier, WAR/DRK's -3 and PLD's HS giving healing, etc), so some "this also heals" is fine. But we're not talking about the healing kit GCDs (Cure/Adlo/etc) or oGCDs (Tetra/Lustrate/Holos/etc) here. JUST the DPS buttons.