An interview with Yoshida and his thoughts on healers in 5.0

[Kalise]

Honestly, I think that "Shield vs Regen" healing can be easily addressed with semi-permeable shields.

So that it's not super strong to have a fat shield that can literally just ignore mechanics because you rolled a Critlo on a WAR in Defiance + Covalescence + Largesse and then spread the shield to the whole party...

But instead, it works by reducing damage incoming over time akin to how Regen works at restoring health over time.

Since, having different mechanics between how the healers work is a good thing. Since it means that they can all have a distinct feel to them *Cough*AST basically copying WHM's kit*Cough*

The main thing though is to try and address gameplay so that multiple types of healing can have similar impact, rather than keep designing around telegraphed burst which heavily favours upfront mitigation (Shields) as opposed to reactive healing (HoTs/Direct Heals)

If they don't address this gameplay issue, then it's just going to devolve into homogenizing all the healers so they have the same kit and then their only difference ending up being their DPS values (Both personal and party based)... At which point, you may as well just make "Healers" actual DPS jobs that just have a handful of oGCD's to deal with mechanics >.>

[Shurrikhan]

Honestly, I think that "Shield vs Regen" healing can be easily addressed with semi-permeable shields.

So like, it absorbs up to x% of incoming damage based on the difference between shield HP and incoming damage? If the shield has more HP than you have left, 100% mitigation until consumed. If half as much, 50% mitigation. On a full HP tank, with the shield amounting to maybe 15% by comparison, well... up to 15% mitigation until consumed. Can mostly save lives only so well as direct healing that way, but it does allow for flexible precasting.

[NobleWinter]

Honestly, I think that "Shield vs Regen" healing can be easily addressed with semi-permeable shields.

This seems like a really interesting solution. Maybe if the Galvanized Icon looked more like the Aetherflow Icon with Roman Numerals to denote 3 seperate uses. So for example you would use Succor and everyone gets a Shield that reduces damage from the next attack by 10% using up it's first charge allowing the same reduction to the next 2 attacks. The initial Heal could be tuned up to compensate for the loss of direct shielding and any reapplication would refresh the stacks. This would allow this type of percentage based shield to layer with a potency based shield like we have currently so shields from an Astro wouldn't be overwritten. Adlo would be 15% reduction with double the damage reduction from a crit. The fairy healing would make more sense and Sacred Soil could see more usage as the Scholar becomes more of a reduction specialist.