The biggest issue I have with that article (at least that hasn't been addressed so far) is that the only reason we're being forced into more and more simplified healers is because of the very worst of players.

Healers are a single point of failure in a way that no other role is in XIV for casual content. The number of times you need a tank or dps to be doing more than standing up and occasionally pressing any of their buttons is laughably limited and is reduced even further by having other competent players in a party.

Sure, you can squeak by sometimes on Clemency and/or Vercure but not only are you not able to count on having those jobs and skills available to you but you really shouldn't need to.

A recent example during my leveling of a dps - Aurum Vale. I know, it's the first bigboi dungeon, but it wasn't any of the usual issues that caused our disband. The tank pulled small, the other dps and I AoEd, it was all moving along without issue until the first boss.

The persistent damage coming from the Burrs stacks literally killed everyone because Eos can only do so much. The SCH never cast a single Succor or Whispering Dawn, nor did they heal anyone who wasn't the tank - including themselves. Despite auto-translate explanations of what went wrong this happened two more times before we disbanded.

This is the kind of person who they're designing healing around at this point, someone with absolutely no understanding of game mechanics or idea of what any of their buttons do. They need to be able to let their hands just fall on their keyboard and clear anything in the MSQ (just like tanks and dps can) or its somehow bad.

XIV would be able to solve this "unsolvable" problem if they would just stop catering to the worst common denominator and force players to put in a modicum of effort... not they won't, and so we'll keep having this same discussion.