Know that I greatly appreciate the work that has been done over the years since A Realm Reborn to make Eorzea a better place to play in, along with the battle content that you’ve tested and shown to us. I still have favorites like Alexander Savage that were exhilarating to run through mechanically and with a team. Just being able to fight even Exdeath and Kefka was fun!

However, there is a fine line to be drawn between what you, the developers, have seen in testing and what people experience. In Stormblood, I’ve read about how many people have talked about White Mage not being as useful as Astrologian or Scholar, and the talk about the meta in terms of DPS.

As much as I think the correct route is there, the media tour feels like a major letdown after your media embargo was lifted. So, let’s start off with the good things that I think might have been done right:

Note - This is my opinion and is open to constructive criticism.

Removal of TP and Protect was the first things that got me hyped about the media tour from the Live Letter not too long ago. The fact that TP was becoming a redundant resource for all weaponskill users felt limiting, especially in the AoE Skills. With that gone, it gives more freedom to create combos as you have. As for Protect, it was a redundant buff that punished you for dying in raids a lot, and I’m glad it’s gone.

As for the bad news, there’s been a huge uproar in the Healer Forums recently(in case you didn’t notice, but you probably have) regarding Healers being reduced down to simple rotations and a lot of pure healing. Even though we do not know the damage output yet, this is a very drastic change given how the balance has been tipped at the mid-point in the expansion just about every time: 3.4 in Heavensward, and 4.5 in Stormblood.

What I ask is that you LISTEN TO YOUR FANBASE WHEN IT COMES TO JOB BALANCE. They’ve come up with a multitude of ideas to help fix balance issues and adjustments for QoL. White Mage also has been a big talk of discussion, namely how Lilies are even less engaging than before along with the Afflatus series being literally on the Global Cooldown. People are baffled how this came to be when the other Healers simply were reduced to simplify everything just for what you want to enforce on the entire FFXIV Healing Community. They still have things to do, but WHM is in dire need of a way to match the other Healers not in flat potencies, but handling their oGCDs(which they have more than they can swat a fly at).

With this amount of homogenization, it’ll be difficult to find Healers instead of Tanks, since the new Tank changes actually helped somewhat. So please, listen to the community as a whole to make the correct changes and make healing more engaging for everyone.