A summary of healer issues

[Irenia]

That will never happen; this dev team is obsessed with homogenization sadly.

Anecdotally, the reason for that is probably that myself and people I've spoken to don't identify themselves as a role. Rather, for example, they identify as a WHM that happens to be a healer, for example.

This is a bit personal too, as whenever I play SCH or AST, I don't really enjoy myself. I've been asked a couple of times to do it in pugs and statics and I hated it. Guess I just won't be able to pug if the pf strat calls for astro and sage to use their unique, unhomogenized tools, and I only enjoy white mage.

If SE wants to avoid having people feel like that, then I can see how this homogenization has come about. I wonder if they can avoid this situation, while also giving each job unique tools still... and how impactful can those tools be.

[Recon1o6]

Anecdotally, the reason for that is probably that myself and people I've spoken to don't identify themselves as a role. Rather, for example, they identify as a WHM that happens to be a healer, for example.

This is a bit personal too, as whenever I play SCH or AST, I don't really enjoy myself. I've been asked a couple of times to do it in pugs and statics and I hated it. Guess I just won't be able to pug if the pf strat calls for astro and sage to use their unique, unhomogenized tools, and I only enjoy white mage.

If SE wants to avoid having people feel like that, then I can see how this homogenization has come about. I wonder if they can avoid this situation, while also giving each job unique tools still... and how impactful can those tools be.

They absolutely can avoid these things. They could start by communicating with the playerbase again, a two way communication that is. Especially here on the official forums.
Then take feedback, and with official threads explain areas they are looking at, maybe get suggestions for alternatives, and then when the unfortunate happens, explain rationale and how they will improve later.
I'm not sure what happened but the devs stopped responding here sometime in late hw. Since then the game has notably slipped in several areas where it shouldn't have.

[Axxion]

Anecdotally, the reason for that is probably that myself and people I've spoken to don't identify themselves as a role. Rather, for example, they identify as a WHM that happens to be a healer, for example.

This is a bit personal too, as whenever I play SCH or AST, I don't really enjoy myself. I've been asked a couple of times to do it in pugs and statics and I hated it. Guess I just won't be able to pug if the pf strat calls for astro and sage to use their unique, unhomogenized tools, and I only enjoy white mage.

If SE wants to avoid having people feel like that, then I can see how this homogenization has come about. I wonder if they can avoid this situation, while also giving each job unique tools still... and how impactful can those tools be.

here is the thing with that. If you cant find a group then you will create your own.

[ForteNightshade]

Anecdotally, the reason for that is probably that myself and people I've spoken to don't identify themselves as a role. Rather, for example, they identify as a WHM that happens to be a healer, for example.

This is a bit personal too, as whenever I play SCH or AST, I don't really enjoy myself. I've been asked a couple of times to do it in pugs and statics and I hated it. Guess I just won't be able to pug if the pf strat calls for astro and sage to use their unique, unhomogenized tools, and I only enjoy white mage.

If SE wants to avoid having people feel like that, then I can see how this homogenization has come about. I wonder if they can avoid this situation, while also giving each job unique tools still... and how impactful can those tools be.

This is precisely the reason they don't place higher emphasise on role diversity. They don't want players to feel obligated to play jobs they aren't interested in even within their own role. It's hard to fault them either when looking back at Heavensward and Stormblood. If you were a White Mage, you were likely asked to play Astro incessantly, and had difficulty finding a static willing to accept you as a White Mage. Meanwhile, Dragoon players practically had a red carpet rolled out for them.

While that issue isn't nearly as prevalent nowadays due to rDPS, but if stronger job diversity created an imbalance, it would happen again.