The balance problem with 3 healers

[Felien]

Trying to balance the 3 healers is not simple because they not fulfill the same role in the party. We always need a regen and a shield to do a progression in the game so we have two “types” of healer.
We kinda face the same problem with the tanks, but they fix it adding the Gunbreaker. Now tanks have 2 MT and will have 2 OT. Making everything easy and more simple to balance.

On the healer side we have a “main healer” (Whm), an “off helaer” (Sch) and a hybrid (Ast). For me they should move the Ast to the “off healer” side and add another “main healer”. Don’t need to kill the diurnal stance, just need to make the nocturnal more strong and pair with the Sch. Or they can do the oposit but will be harder since whm don’t have any type of party shield anymore. (Rip Stoneskin)

I really hope they recognize that and add another healer ASAP.

[Reiryuu]

Off Healer doesn't really mean anything. I mean, I get what you're trying to say I think-- we should have two groups a "mitigative" healer and a "damage healing healer" but... in reality there are so many different ways to heal damage out there that SE decided to randomly pick 2 out as main methods and anything else was a minor sub-method at best. The problem is SE needs to expand the variety of ways to heal damage. As long as any two methods don't interfere and somewhat compliment each other, there's no need for an "off healer" at all.

RIFT, for example, has 4 healing souls the last time I played... you had the 3 cleric souls and the Chloromancer *MAGE* soul. Each had a different method of dealing with damage and if you were playing the healer class, you could mix between the 3 souls of healing while the mage you kinda had your one soul and had to try to enhance it with the other mage souls if you wanted to be a healer. They each had different methods of delivering their healing so nothing really overwrote one another and it all stacked and enhanced each other in some way.

Right now SE is trying to balance an apple, a pear and an apple-pear but the pear and the apple-pear each have something extra that the apple doesn't have which makes the apple-pear far more appealing than having just an apple.

[Grimoire-M]

Right now SE is trying to balance an apple, a pear and an apple-pear but the pear and the apple-pear each have something extra that the apple doesn't have which makes the apple-pear far more appealing than having just an apple.

You're half-right with that analogy. To put it in plain terms the healing pairs have a natural imbalance because one of the three healers has significant advantages over the rest, SCH. Embrace alone saves a ton of GCDs that would have to be spent on Regen on the main tank in a WHM/AST comp. It's worth an effective 1.5 to 1.78% total raid DPS increase just by itself because of that (It's a 12.5% to 14.7% increase for one healer). Yes WHM has problems relative to AST but by far the bigger issue is SCH forcing them to compete with one another. AST has a lot of edges over WHM, but nowhere near as many as SCH has over it and WHM both. Fey Union and Rouse add a ton of value as well.

The problems with WHM and AST is they're not SCH. I think if you really wanted to bring it closer both AST and WHM need an oGCD regen and I'd consider boosting the duration or potency of the current regen spells on top of that. I think adding a big but shorter duration single target regen on AST and WHM would help both out a ton too. Perhaps as complimentary effects, where the strong regen is an oGCD for WHM but Diurnal Benefic gets a potency buff, while Regen on WHM gets a boost in duration and AST gets a similar potency regen cooldown comparable to it, thus allowing that pair to accomplish what SCH does when paired together.

[Gemina]

There isn't a "off healer" and "main healer". In the current optimal set up, there is a barrier healer, and a HoT healer, and this is the problem that Yoshi has specifically pointed out. Each of these skills along with ogcd heals when a healer's threshold is reached opens up the DPS windows for the healer to slam away at the opposition. The issue with balance is WHM has no distinctive advantages over AST or SCH. Though SCH regen capability is limited, its powerful shields and fairy negate this weakness. Plus, SCH brings raid utility. Like Grimoire pointed out, SCH doesn't really have any disadvantages at all. In fact, I find intense healing situations far easier to take care of with SCH than any other healer, including AST.

Tanks are actually much more balanced than a lot of people give them credit for, but PLD is a true off tank because of its toolkit. Both WAR and DRK are far better suited for MT when they are coupled with a PLD, and if DRK and WAR are paired with each other, they can go either way without a hitch. So the imbalance there is that PLD is forced into an OT role no matter what composition it's put in other than another PLD. If GUN is also designed to be an off tank, then this will give both of them an opportunity to be a MT when paired with each other. I wouldn't compare healers to tanks by any means. It's not even comparing apples to oranges. It's comparing apples to beef sirloin.

Balance with healers will come when they give all three distinctive advantages/disadvantages to each of them and leap frogging is eliminated. I don't think they can prune out shields and HoTs, but I think they can change how we use them. Giving all healers Barrier and HoT capability is a direction I think they can go, and then diversify from there. I believe this would also allow for a 4th healer when the time comes, but job design is not my forte. We're just going to have to see what they come up with.

[miraidensetsu]

Or they can do the oposit but will be harder since whm don’t have any type of party shield anymore. (Rip Stoneskin)

In this case, they could rename the current Protect to Wall, add Protect and Shell to WHM. And then give them a form to spread Protect/Shell to everyone or add something similar to Protectra and Shellra that uses a lillie stack. Something like the ACN's Bane, but with buffs.

[Greven]

It would require a deep rework but I feel the duality heal-shield is limitating.

Try to think about specialising healers in one type, there could be so many healers and with so many gameplay.
Some examples:

WHM is already big heals, it needs some gimmick though;
AST could focus on shields + buffs;
SCH could have strategic heals and skills + pet;
A "Dark healer" could have healing coming from DPS and some HP management skills;
A Geomancer could work on HoTs.
A dancer-like job could be based on passive healing;
And so on.

In a game where we can do everything this differences would make it fun!