A serious suggestion in lieu of punishing all healers.

[Cyrocco]

What though - Give WHM what
I know you weren't being serious but you make an interesting point. Basically all 3 healers are currently WHM baseline - only 2 of them have added extras.

And coming up with what could make White Mage unique is probably going to be the biggest step in actually balancing the healers. I'd briefly like to refer to another thread:

Kei Sato, Takashi Kawamoto, Hikaru Tamaki, Tsuyoshi Yokozawa

And last but most certainly not least. FFXIV's battle system design team.

As it is now, we have a total of four people who need to work on each Job for each expansion, a big question like "How do we fix an entire role?" is probably very difficult to answer with such a small team, at this point, I feel pressuring SE to increase this roster would lead to a far happier outcome than continuously suggesting healer changes.

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If this is true, this is the best and easiest compromise that would require the least amount of development time to not only create a "basic healer" for these people but also separate the WHM SCH and AST jobs as those for people who do want different mechanics and interesting things to do instead of just heal. Each one could then have their own flavor.

While I could get behind the idea of making Conjurer a more traditional healer, doing so wouldn't actually fix anything for White Mage, which is likely why people are bringing up the balance between the three healers. If recreating Conjurer puts SCH, AST, and WHM in a state similar to what they are now in Stormblood, Scholar and Astrologian come out very much ahead, given that nothing has really happened to shift White Mage up or down in power, and SCH and AST have been very much brought in line.

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Honestly, SE's interpretation of AST is exactly what brought these balance issues up in the first place. The fact that they could do either, Shield or Regen, as well as buff virtually assured their spot in the raid.
Then the question is, which is weaker, WHM or SCH? The weaker of the two gets replaced. This design failure is 100% on SE and they have no real plan on how to fix it.

This is where trimming should have happened first really, Astrologians changes shouldn't have focused on changing and revamping the card system. By leaning so heavily into the Sect system, it makes it -much- harder to detangle what each healer should be. And with the new skills we're left with what- a buffing White Mage that can cast shields? A buffing Scholar that can cast large Regens?

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Let's be honest everyone, right now Astrologian is playing with everyone elses toys, and isn't sharing its own. Astrologian needs to seperate from the other healers, and White Mage can't just continue to be Astrologian without buffs, and Scholar without shields or a fairy.