Healer Identity in 6.0

With the next declarations regarding Endwalker, SE had stated that healers will be split into pure and shield healers.

Fundamentally, healers were thematically put into these two categories since the beginning, but reviewing the actual skills the three healers we currently have got, there was one thing which became clear to me: We actually don't have a split as things stand right now.

WHM has Devine Benisin for a powerful shield on a 30s CD (which is better than non-crit Adlo, and comes more than often enough for any content) along with Temperance, which is basically Sacred Soil before ShB's buff. AST has Celestial Intersection for a free succor level shield even during Diurnal Sect, and Neutral Sect to be both a pure and shield healer ever two minutes.

Alternatively, AST has the same skills that allowed it to act like Dianural while in Nocturnal Sect, and SCH had gained a powerful regen on a stick in Sacred Soil, Indominability and Excognition for powerful raw heals, Whispering Dawn for a decent regen, and Fey Illumination for a healing buff, and that's on top of Emergency Tactics that simply turns Adlo and Succor into raw healing, with a 15s CD so that it's available every time you need it unless if you want to use it twice back to back to solo save a DRK who just used Living Dead.

With SE's declaration of having two pure healers and two shield healers, I think they should really double down on this idea. As things stand, we didn't really have this dichotomy since as early as HW, but if it's done well, I think it could be really interesting, though the two pairs would need to be distinct from each other.

Though some would complain that double shields would still be unviable in raids, I don't think it's an issue. Changing jobs to match raid comps isn't really a new, or bad, thing. As long as a strong meta doesn't get developed at least.

So, with the...success...that WHM has gotten with its changes in ShB, I think the first thing would be to define how it works.

WHM should draw mainly from two aspects, the pure healer role, and its lillies. First, it's oGCD heals should be entirely stripped, aside from Bene as an emergency heal. All of its regens should be stripped as well, as to why, I'll explain later. From there, its GCD heals should generate blood lilies, and more than one could be stocked. Regular lilies could be used to empower the GCD heals, like next heal has double potency. Glare and Afflatus Misery should be roughly comparable in damage in regards to consumed GCDs(technically, the existing potencies already allow for that), so that healing won't be a DPS loss for WHM.

This would allow WHM to become the GCD healer, spending more actual GCDs healing, but not at any sort of DPS loss. You won't feel bad using your GCDs healing, and it would even make the basic Cure viable at endgame as you'd simply be trading Glare casts for Afflatus Misery on top of small amounts of healing. Maybe WHM could get a new heal spell that has miniscule potency, but recovers MP, allowing WHM to also ping pong its MP like BLM, though to a much lesser degree.

Some sort of utility skill would be needed, but it could be anything from a generic oGCD party damage buff to a targeted buff. But I think for WHM, the simpler the better, and make the high skill part be more on the timing rather than the usage itself. A Chain Stratagem/Battle Litany copy would be fine.

Next is AST. Since their cards would be the core of their identity, I imagine two possible ways to run them. The first is to simply revert the cards to how they used to be, aside from balancing their utility better. Spire and Bole need to be changed, and maybe Ewer as well so that all cards increase DPS in some way. Alternatively, AST could go in a way I had been thinking they should have been designed since the beginning: the cards are a way to preserve MP. Each card is a form of normal healing spells, from Cure 2 to Medica. They're all heal abilities, but are free. Though I think AST should also be able to stock as many as three cards to be able to chose which one to use when or even spam them all at once if needed.

Either way, I think AST does need the ability to stock up cards. Have three dedicated skills that simply turn into the drawn card when you hit draw. AST already has a dedicated Play skill already. I don't see how it would be overly difficult to implement more play skills.

I'm a little light on ideas when it comes to AST overall though. The cards are so good conceptually, that it feels like AST can just get away with improving the card effects and that'll be enough. That's the only real issue they have at the moment anyways. The cards are way too simple and generic. Make each card unique, and have a legitimate reason to actually shuffle or burn them into a Lady or Lord, rather than simply because of a tiny buff loss due to party comp.

So next up are the shield healers, with the infamous SCH being up first.

SCH's identity has been in quite the crisis lately, but its problems had been around since the beginning. But when you looked at the main mechanics people loved about SCH, you can pinpoint some interesting things. Those are the DPS healer, the oGCD healer, the pet healer, the shield/mitigation healer.

From the start, being the DPS healer was bad for the health of the game. You couldn't play high level content without a SCH if it was the "DPS Healer." So that bit needs to go. Fortunately you can get rid of it by simply equalizing each healer's ability to do damage, rather than nerfing SCH. FFXIV is designed so everyone HAS to contribute to dealing damage in high level content anyways, so nerfing this would be antithesis of the healer role that SE had, intentionally or not, created and sustained. Getting rid of this would be tantamount to removing the entire healer role and replacing it with a new role that simply has the same name. It's a quick way to lose an entire segment of the player base.

The other aspects are things we can do something about. Being the pet healer is hell for SE from a service standpoint, as it causes so much chaos. The easiest and probably most effective way to deal with that is to rework our fairy so that instead of the SCH commanding it to do things, the fairy skills would effectively be our own, but the fairy would be the focal point of the effect and animation. Everything the fairy does would have to be commanded manually, and all the ranges would be determined by the fairy. But the fairy wouldn't care about anything in itself. It wouldn't have problems interrupting animations or even doing simultaneous effects, such as giving an AOE heal while moving. The heal would simply originate at wherever the fairy was at the time the animation started. They would have to be able to be placed manually to satisfy high level SCH players, but I don't think that's much of an issue in the first place. And if all heals aside from the most basic ones turn into fairy skills, while the SCH itself become the source of damage and utility, then it would be pretty lore friendly, being the strategist/commander and the co-healer.

This would work well as the oGCD healer as well, as then most of the heals would be oGCD acts, and would preserve the whole pet dynamic perfectly.

The weird thing about SCH right now, is that it's a crappy shield healer. SCH basically just has Crit-lo to stand apart from the other two healers and their innate ability to shield/mitigate. Sacred Soil is just a Temperance/Collective Unconscious with more uptime at a greater cost. Regular Adlo is just an inferior Devine Benison/Noct Benefic. And Fey Illumination is just a joke from a mitigation standpoint when standing beside Sacred Soil. Somehow, SCH doesn't have any other shield/mitigation, despite being the game's preeminent shield healer.

SCH needs some real shields, and it's sad how easily it is to do so. Just replace some of SCH's heals with shields. Adlo could lose its healing and simply always give catalyze. Succor could double its potency but only shield, not heal. We can even keep Emergency Tactics, but raise its CD to 30/60s to make it really feel like it's only for emergencies, not some cheap way to stop pretending we're not pure healer when it suits our mood. Adlo and Succor would probably have to become instant casts so that it's not overly punishing for people who haven't memorized fights, but I think that's not really a bad thing. It's already like that for AST's Aspected Benefic.

Lustrate could turn into an AOE regen. And for that matter, make shield healers the regen king, not pure healers. Regen was originally a way for pure healers to reduce their MP consumption, but nowadays WHM is the king of MP. SE doesn't need to keep pretending that regen's purpose is to preserve MP, and instead make it part of the shield healer's identity. Shield healers could be crap at quick healing, but they can put up lots of powerful shields to keep people alive while the regens are working to fix them up. Excog could be an especially powerful single target regen as well under this direction.

This direction would give shield healers a powerful identity that's more than simply damage prevention, and allow the two sides of the role work together in symphony. What's the point of pure healers also being the regen healers if their raw healing is enough to quickly bring up everyone from 25% to 85% whenever they want? Transferring the regen effects to shielders would both allow the two sides to feel much more distinct, but also synergize them better as a team. Shielders handle the front and back of big damage, while the pure healers handle the middle.

I don't know how Sage will work, but if we build shield healers with this sort of role identity, it would give the new healer a nice place to expand into. All the while, as long as the regens continue to stack like before, we can continue to get mechanics like True Walking Dead in casual content, as double shield healers wouldn't be crippled for having to do so much raw healing once in a while.

I love your ideas. Keep them coming, Dearche!

I agree with what you mentioned in regard to Scholar & the fake "Shield King" identity that it currently carries.

I kept hearing over and over again "Scholar is all about shields! So much shielding! Won't somebody think of the shields!" But in practice, I wasn't experiencing this at all. As you said, Adloquium without scoring a critical is technically worse than the White Mage main shield in multiple ways. The Scholar fairy being on autopilot is like having a 24/7 wasteful overhealing regen that will choose to take precedence over important spells in an emergency. Also, I kind of would like to cast my own heals or I truly will have nothing to do in a dungeon as a Healer, other than a 2-button DPS rotation.