The Healer Double Standard

[TonberiScholar]

SHB SCH is in a much cleaner state if your goal is to balance the healer jobs and expand upon them in the future. The ACN relics we had before were an obstacle for the long term future and I'll gladly take the changes (except Energy Drain, it needs to come back in some form) if it means there's a chance we get meaningful choices in the future.

It feels like they left the job half-finished, with no indication of them even seeing that leaving it half-finished is a problem.

This is the same Job design team that's held up GCD cast-time heals with almost no interactions with the rest of the Job kits as the gold standard for what they expect the "majority" of Healer gameplay to consist of for the past six years.


Best examples:

All of SCH's pet control buttons are useless now but still on their bars (this hits Summoner to a lesser degree but they at least got new animations for stuff).

We have one entire Role skill (Repose) that's there just for one Role Quest.

SCH's "new" AoE is literally just a recycled PvP animation.

Fluid Aura still exists (a WHM thing, but still).

Content is interesting, not the number of buttons.

Engaging Job gameplay is a type of "content" too, and it's one Healer players have been more and more removed from with each expansion.

Their solution to adding new things for Healers is simply to throw more redundant Green Sledgehammer buttons at us while taking away DPS options to make room for them.

They don't "get" how to make engaging Healer jobs because their vision of them is basically a glorified Trust system that exists to make the Jobs they actually put effort and resources into have better queue times.

That doesn't leave me hopeful for the "future".

But, to others who quote replied me, because I feel this way, I'll likely never feel DPS is a part of a healers identity, so I won't really hold a debate with people that do, I just don't see the kits as vital as you do, I dunno.

Okay, so.

Do you view Healers as an "adventurer" or as someone who follows real adventurers around?

Because if the only thing you can do is heal, you'd be far better off staying in one fixed, safe location and allowing people who need healing to come to you.

Going out into the world with nothing more than a stick and a sunny disposition is a quick way to get killed, and that's all "Healers" are without at least some form of self-defense/offensive magic.

Given that they need to have the ability to defend themselves (and presumably, the people they're helping), why shouldn't their damaging/offensive abilities be distinguishing features?

Ignoring the fact that, in a mechanical sense, Healers both occasionally have to solo and the raid-level group reward for more efficient healing is "more overall DPS", an increase that's baked into the Healers themselves to avoid dropping a Healer for a DPS Job.