Do people in this game not comprehend the concept of shield healers?

[Rongway]

99% of them don't take full advantage of shields.

But you are not taking full advantage of the heal. Whether you are shielding the tank or the party, there will be another attack within the next 30s, so you'll still get the full effect of the shield by casting it after the hit. What you won't get by preshielding is the initial heal, which is 44% of the SCH Succor/Adloquium/A.Helios/C.Opposition and 29% of critAdloquium/A.Benefic.

The number of shield healers using shields like normal heals is so staggering that I wasn't sure if the game failed spectacularly at explaining the concept or if I was missing something since I don't play a shield healer.

You were missing something since you don't play a shield healer.

However, I have a friend who plays AST and particularly enjoys Noct AST and another friend who plays SCH, and they both confirmed that shields were meant to be used to negate incoming damage, so my understanding of the concept was correct.

They were missing something too.

what I noticed with SCH is that when they use their shields after a rather heavy attack hits, their healing doesn't do much and the shields will eventually fall off, thus rendering their spell kinda pointless.

There is always another attack coming in the next 30s, or the heal could have safely been delayed 5s~10s so that the shield would last until the next attack, or it doesn't matter.

Don't get me started on overhealing healers because that's a frustrating can of worms I'd rather not open.

This is an ironic statement because you are advocating for overhealing by insisting that shield healers precast their shields.


If a full health tank or full health party would die to a hit or an immediate followup, precast the shield. Otherwise, cast it after the hit.

Like, I get it. Someone told you how shield healers are supposed to play. Yeah, they understand the design intent. But sometimes the design intent isn't the most effective in practice. Shields suffer from lower effective potencies already; why would you make things harder for yourself by also wasting 44% (almost half) of the spell by healing a full health party? There are only two acceptable answers here:

• Someone would have died without a precast shield.
• The content is so easy the 44% doesn't matter, so it also doesn't matter whether the shield goes out before or after the hit.