In a hindsight, I don't blame that entirely on the community. The devs plays a huge part in reinforcing this ideal when they keep deleting anything that doesn't come down to as simple as "more damage vs less damage" for whatever reason.
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It shocks me that expedient survived
Actual true raw utility, in my 14, preposterous
While the devs designed the jobs to enforce this kind of thinking, I can still blame the community for using the funny coloured numbers to boost their own ego or to try and dismiss opposing viewpoints, that kind of attitude can be wholly blamed on the community mentality of "the colour of your number proves your worth as a player".
See: Mr.Spreadsheet
In my previous mmo, there was actually a third option, which was an HoT focused healer. It was very strategic, in a similar way to the shield healers, but you'd stack various HoT's on the tank/party to try to match the damage input. There were a couple instant emergency heals available if you needed them, but which were also grossly inefficient and/or had a very long (5 min) recast. This same job also had a Dot-centric damage model. I actually enjoyed the heck out of it. I'd love to see something like that make an appearance in 14.
Mmm, and ideally such a thing would be possible here. Unfortunately, however, we have a raiding paradigm wherein certain attacks from the enemy simply cannot be 'healed' through. They do more than 100% of our Max HP, and serve to 'require' mitigation to survive. With that in mind, the 'sliding scale design' would mean that, in a WHM/AST comp, rather than the current situation of 'it doesn't work', I'd have it so AST is given ways to be the 'Mitigator' (eg by bringing back Nocturnal Sect, which reduces throughput of skills like Earthly Star but attaches Mitigation effects to them), but has little to no access to Barriers. On the flip side, I'd make WHM have access to Barriers (as a Lily spender), but little to no access to Mitigation (outside of Temperance). Thus, the two would need to work together, and cover each other's 'blindspots' if paired together. Similarly, SGE would take the lead on 'Pure healing' in a SCH/SGE comp. This hypothetical '5th healer' that is equal Pure/Barrier, would be flexible and adapt to their partner on a fight-by-fight basis, focusing more Pure healing output when with a SCH/SGE, and more on Mitigation when with a WHM/AST
An entirely HOT focused (eg what I suggested, but it doesn't have the mitigative half of the gameplay) job sounds cool on paper, and it can be in other games (where damage is faster paced, multiple hits, and doesn't instantly take us from 100% to -20%), but here it'd mean another 2 nonfunctional comps in raiding (WHM/new, and AST/new, to go with our current WHM/AST), and I'd rather reduce the number, not increase it
Speaking of regens, there's actually a way they can make it work better.
Imagine if you have a healer that can stack HoTs to an absurd level, then damage taken is partially mitigated by the HoT, so the attack deals 10% less damage but that damage will erase a portion of the active HoT.
That way, all the ticking HoTs can contribute to the mitigation and so the regen healers wouldn't be useless in a mitigation check. But the mitigation also comes at a cost, so you have to plan when you want to use it because it will weaken your HoT.
We actually do have a way to allow pure healers a chance to handle huge damage spikes while at the same time not use shields and mitigations. We use an ability to raise the target(s') maximum HP and increase the healing they receive from healing GCD (and maybe oGCD too) spells. It exists in the game already, except on the "wrong class" SCH through Protraction.
Possibly gives this to the WHM instead and make a party wide version with charges that take 60 - 120 seconds to regain one. If we go by ForsakenRoe's ideas, SGE would get the best version if they are on the deepest end of the pure healer spectrum. The current WHM is the best class to utilize such a boost to GCD healing spells due to the presence of the lily spells being needed to get Afflatus Misery juiced up. This could make a regen healer (Warcraft Druid comes to mind) pretty strong too with their HoTs ticking for more healing on a high Max HP ally.
Yeah. That could work. Divine Benison and Protraction could probably have their effects swapped with each other to get the single target versions.