Quote Originally Posted by LegoTechnic View Post
As long as they adhere to this design philosophy players will never truly be happy. Despite having the strongest heals and the highest damage potencies WHM will always feel neglected as long as the other healers bring buffs that the other 6/8 raid members find to be more valuable, especially if they contribute with faster encounters. Additionally as long as they try to instead impose "value" for a pure-heal class by reducing the effectiveness of buffs, which has not only led to the gradual and complete death of Selene but the general neutering of the AST card system, then the identity of a "buffing" healer will continue to suffer. If the intention is to bring healers to a point where any healer combo can handle combat with minimal favoritism, then WHM needs to be made separate from the BLM design philosophy even if the two classes are iconically mirrors, and given a "buff-role" switch similar to SCH's fairy choice or AST's stances. Something that takes away something from their kit, but adds party synergy that the 6 out of 8 non-healing party members can salivate over. Only then will they be able to allow healer buffs to both be meaningful decisions and something the playerbase can feel good about.

And this will remain true no matter what they do for a "new" healer, be it debuff, haste, reflect, evasion, or whathaveyou.
Unfortunately, the devs seem utterly determine to maintain White Mage's identity as the selfish healer. I had hoped they would simply give White Mage Bravery and Cheer so it could compete with Astro's cards seamlessly. That just doesn't seem to be the case and I wouldn't be entirely surprised if they stubbornly hold out on buffing Astro's utility purely to keep White Mage from falling out of favour again.