I am stuck in a Scholar midlife crisis!

[Synaesthesia]

Scholar being "less desired" than the others? No, absolutely not. Is it getting worse by design? Yes.. But it's not being singled out.

The sad truth is that healers in general are neglected and seemingly undesirable to Square's attentions. Astrologian's lore and gameplay was gutted even worse than Scholar's. White Mage is left with several useless skills, basically the same gameplay depth they've had for years and was only at the top of the pile at the start of the expansion by the grace of not being gutted during their reworks. None of them got any particularly good love in Shadowbringers.

They just don't want to properly fix healing in general.

[Rasikko]

They just don't want to properly fix healing in general.

I feel like they don't know how.

[Synaesthesia]

I feel like they don't know how.

It definitely feels like that.. I mean.. Who would look at people who play a pet based class where a lot of the fun is in you working together with your fairy and go

"You know what we should do in the next expansion? Make Scholar's partner dopey, sluggish and unreliable"

The weirdest thing is that they used to do much better than they do now..

Even if it wasn't perfect, some content like Dun Scaith had mechanics that made healing more engaging, like random Doom, Earth Shaker attacks that would hit random party members, rescuing people from falling off during the knockback attack from the first boss or the heavy hitting tank busters that the last boss would do in succession. Monsters being able to afflict slows, or lethal dots meant you had to try and respond as fast as possible if 3 people got hit and your triage was on a short timer.

Along with the more greater variety of attacks and buffs that healers had, Scholar and Astrologian's special job traits being more varied and engaging and that ogcds didn't outpace the content to the point of getting by on them alone, it was really enjoyable.

I don't think it's just the healer design that's less inspired now, it's also that the fight design doesn't offer a lot to keep healing engaging.. All 4 current Eden Savages have a healing design like "Tankbuster, group damage, tankbuster, group damage, lots of group damage near the end" that just repeats.. There's a brief moment during E2S where you have to identify 2 people with a debuff and heal them, then it's back to normalcy. E4S gets intense enough at the end that you have to focus and work but..

It's like we've been given this massive toolkit based around a few 60 second splotches of intense damage at the end game without consideration for how it feels to play the rest of the time..

[CrimsonGunner]

It definitely feels like that.. I mean.. Who would look at people who play a pet based class where a lot of the fun is in you working together with your fairy and go

"You know what we should do in the next expansion? Make Scholar's partner dopey, sluggish and unreliable"

The weirdest thing is that they used to do much better than they do now..

Even if it wasn't perfect, some content like Dun Scaith had mechanics that made healing more engaging, like random Doom, Earth Shaker attacks that would hit random party members, rescuing people from falling off during the knockback attack from the first boss or the heavy hitting tank busters that the last boss would do in succession. Monsters being able to afflict slows, or lethal dots meant you had to try and respond as fast as possible if 3 people got hit and your triage was on a short timer.

Along with the more greater variety of attacks and buffs that healers had, Scholar and Astrologian's special job traits being more varied and engaging and that ogcds didn't outpace the content to the point of getting by on them alone, it was really enjoyable.

I don't think it's just the healer design that's less inspired now, it's also that the fight design doesn't offer a lot to keep healing engaging.. All 4 current Eden Savages have a healing design like "Tankbuster, group damage, tankbuster, group damage, lots of group damage near the end" that just repeats.. There's a brief moment during E2S where you have to identify 2 people with a debuff and heal them, then it's back to normalcy. E4S gets intense enough at the end that you have to focus and work but..

It's like we've been given this massive toolkit based around a few 60 second splotches of intense damage at the end game without consideration for how it feels to play the rest of the time..

that is just in savage tier ,what about the other content like MSQ or dungeons or normal raids even? it feels even worse there unless you actually got a really bad or inexperienced party/alliances members that will make you burn your heals.
their idea for healers is neat(having a pet class healer,card using healer and the classic healer) but their kit design seriously sucks, i said it once and i will say it again whoever in SE that was in charge of designing the healers kit in SHB designed it for a brain dead bot and not for a living and breathing human beings.