Quote Originally Posted by Gemina View Post

For shields to become viable
It needs to be less efficient to heal up than it is to shield up.

Shields are valuable because it's health you don't have to heal, but if the shield stops less than a standard heal brings back, that's when we're in the realm of "shields are pointless" unless something will outright kill you.

With the exclusion of stacking shields from most sources, shields can afford to be stronger and cheaper than an equivalent heal, but the source of the shielding (Aka the healer) then needs less ability to heal what actually comes through, or rather, less ability to deal raid wides. There obviously can be some amount of overlap, but given how damage is tuned in the current patch for most content, the Barrier class shouldn't ever need to cast a point of HP restoration in casual content, and that should be a sticking point for them when they actually have to heal it up - That it's more difficult to do so, so mitigate it instead.