Healers Deserve a Male Mascot

[Eloah]

As others have pointed out, two of the most popular characters in the game are male healers. And Y'shtola has shifted over to a DPS role.

Sage's Job art might be a viera, but will the art for the other healers also be of female characters? Likely not all of them.

What other healers? All the artworks depict females.

There seems to be confusion about the official artwork versus character artwork. While it is true that Alphinaud and Urianger are healers, they don't represent those healers, they just happen to have those jobs in game. Not all artwork of a specific character represent a certain job. That's what the OP is referring to is the nameless WoL that only represents a particular job. This point is the same for female representation among the melee jobs as well, especially the tanks. That's where the game has it's disconnect. The game itself is inclusive and showing a wide variety of people in each role, but all official artwork is "gender locked" in a sense. And while that isn't a bad thing per se, it sends an example of expectation that some people can't really look past.

[Edax]

What other healers? All the artworks depict females.

There seems to be confusion about the official artwork versus character artwork. While it is true that Alphinaud and Urianger are healers, they don't represent those healers, they just happen to have those jobs in game. Not all artwork of a specific character represent a certain job. That's what the OP is referring to is the nameless WoL that only represents a particular job. This point is the same for female representation among the melee jobs as well, especially the tanks. That's where the game has it's disconnect. The game itself is inclusive and showing a wide variety of people in each role, but all official artwork is "gender locked" in a sense. And while that isn't a bad thing per se, it sends an example of expectation that some people can't really look past.

But how far can this grievance go? You put in a female Miqo'te paladin in the official artwork and someone else can complain about the skin color, or not being a Lalafell or the fact that Paladin isn't wearing pants armor or that the paladin isn't wearing robes.

[Eloah]

But how far can this grievance go? You put in a female Miqo'te paladin in the official artwork and someone else can complain about the skin color, or not being a Lalafell or the fact that Paladin isn't wearing pants armor or that the paladin isn't wearing robes.

That is correct, it can easily escalate into something else just from a simple "minor" complaint. Like why are both Miqo'te WoL ranged, BRD and MCH, or why only WHM is represented by a Lalafell, when WHM isn't even a Lalafell job, BLM and SCH are. It can all get muddled pretty quickly and the actual purpose of the complaint can get lost. Basically, if people are looking for something, odds are they might find it, even if it was never there to begin with.

Artwork aside, I like how the game handles the NPCs. No one gender or race feels like they are shoehorned into a specific role/job. It would have been easy for them to keep Y'shtola a healer for ShB, but making her a DPS, and having all the DPS be female felt nice. We as the playerbase have to take what we are given with a grain of salt. Things aren't always going to work out as we like, but that doesn't mean the Devs are doing these things to spite us. We just have a biased view based on our own personal experiences. Viewpoints that we have to try and overcome to reach a middle ground with everyone else.