Something I've come to wonder as I've temporarily returned to the forums is that perhaps as I debate the ongoing concerns regarding healer design that perhaps I and others with similar thoughts to myself have not done a good enough job explaining the core issues that we see with this role.

We want more DPS. We don't want 1-2-3 combos. We don't want to be DPS jobs; we want to heal and DPS, but Glare and High Glare aren't enough. We don't want it to be hard for a casual player. We don't want it to be boring for a skilled player.

I get it. If you don't think the way I do, or the way others who have advocated for the same do, then perhaps it's more confusing than I realize. So I want to try explaining the problem form another angle. Where I think the heart of the issue lies is in one key quailty:

Cadence

When people like myself complain about the lack of DPS variety, and why we say that a 1-2-3 combo is insufficient to resolve the issue, what we're ultimately talking about is a problem in the cadence of healer gameplay. Currently, healer gameplay constantly gets stuck in long empty hallways where only Glare or each healer's equivalent DPS spell is used. Even if you change this to a 1-2-3 combo, the problem is that the cadence is static--unchanging. It's the same motion over and over across a long period of time. That is the heart of what I and others like myself take issue with in regards to healer gameplay. Current tools, like a 30 second DOT, a 40 second cooldown, a 2 minute cooldown... They're not frequent enough to break up that cadence.

Now, placing more emphasis on GCD healing is a way to further offset this, but realistically, it won't be enough on its own to resolve the issue across the board. You will not always have a reason to heal someone, and every healer should have something else they can do that offers a fun and rewarding gameplay cadence so that whether you are playing by yourself or with a competent group, you aren't stuck with only one input.

Having said this, that doesn't mean we need a full DPS hotbar. Again, the issue is cadence, not specifically volume. Volume is a solution one could take to address this, but DOTs or cooldowns that are more frequent or more dynamic interactions between offensive actions are also ways we can address this.