If Fluid Aura gave 8% mana back on usage it would REALLY help low level mana management.
If you're synced, and always casting, Lucid Dreaming simply isn't enough.
They've claimed it, yet it's right there clear as day in the benchmark. I don't see that thing being anything but some sort of barrier.
It definitely doesn't look like any other sort of buff, unlike the arguments for what the SCH put out. It has all the coding of a barrier, and nothing to suggest otherwise when it comes to how it was used and the spell effect.
Then you better hope Sage is fun, I guess?
On average, every job gets about 2 traits and 2-3 actions in the advancement, with the 'expansion' jobs coming in under par in that regard as they tend to come out the gate more or less complete and functional to content of the expansion. Maybe a little power trouble, but since at least Stormblood, expansion jobs have more or less been solid in execution. Not so much the posterboy.
So uh...Enjoy Reaper and Sage.
Good luck Paladin.
At this point, just give us a dps rotation, move all healing into ogcd skills, and then add job flair where you actually have to pay attention to the gauges. At least maybe then we could have as much fun dpsing like gnb.
I don't think they will ever be able to make healing fun with how the game plays. Any instance not max level strips you of huge utility compared to other classes, plus you barely even need healing anyway at those levels. Raids from primal to Savage are already scripted to the point you just memorize when big damage is coming and pop your ogcds anyway.
Simple: they wanted all the healers to be able to outheal everything at higher skill levels and have plenty of "oh shit" buttons to press for the lowest skill levels. They have achieved that, and can now give us extra healing for the lowest skill level from 80-90.
Plus, much like how they call it "Pure Healer" but it's not really a pure healer, they probably only want to emphasize the dichotomy. Shields vs Regens, but only kinda, because all the healer parents have to enable the other role children to run around on the playground more.
"Please look forward to it."
You know, the annoying thing is that, all those "oh shit" buttons, every healer gets a bunch of them, but they're generally all the same thing with minor differences. Which is especially frustrating when SB introduced skills with charges. SE talks about button bloat, but then they artificially increase healer buttons by giving us a whole ton of things that virtually do the same thing for the average player, yet makes them difficult and complex to actually understand to the point that they get ignored by those average players.
And all for the sake of creating an illusion that we actually have a similar number of buttons as the other jobs? Minus something like five?
It's even more ridiculous when SE keeps declaring the pure vs shield healer dichotomy, yet the #1 shield healer has been #3 in actually being able to put on shields for quite a while now.