It's time to kill the argument that DPS abilities keep healers from healing.

[BooPoo]

There will always be one style that is meta it never works.

Depends on how much they vary. The current 3 healers all vary in terms of playstyle, but they are relatively balanced. Despite WHM could use a bit more window.

[Sebazy]

There will always be one style that is meta it never works.

That can be countered through content design with more thought put into it from a healing perspective. Midas (perhaps accidentally) pulled this off with WHM having some clear benefits over AST despite being numerically inferior.

Even if it boiled down to one healer being clearly the safer hand for progression with the other leading the way in farms, it all works out. It's only really an issue when one is just flat out superior to the other irrespective of the content at hand.

[RopeDrink]

The main reason people wanted Holy Paladin (in Shadowlands at least) was Venthyr specific (ie. Hallowed Ground). A long CD AoE burst that was universally usable in M+ regardless of the weekly affix (seeing as it's AoE centric, only having to differentiate between either harder bosses or harder trash). Either way, having access to a massive AoE overtime burst (which heals people inside for good measure) was obnoxiously strong. I believe it was meant to be nerfed/reworked, but I haven't seen it if so (given I quit some time before the lawsuit shenanigans happened). Some would still desire Holy Paladin if they weren't Venthyr at all but to a much lesser level.

By comparison, simply spamming Chain Lightning on a geared Resto Shaman -- mine of which was also Venthry with Chain Harvest, which almost immediately puts you top of the chart as soon as it's used -- will be keeping up pretty well with DPS for as long as this is possible to maintain, but as said, the presence of sporadic and completely chaotic damage (and just more damage-intake across the board overall), means you are always more inclined to drop this the moment healing is needed, and this happens more often than not -- compared to the more methodical dance of FFXIV, where you can literally tell exactly when damage is going to happen, how much, what type, etc, to a point of being ridiculously preemptive.

Even when you can time mechanics with the likes of DBM in WoW, the intake is still generally higher, people are still prone to moments of seemingly random spikes, and when trying to time higher keys without access to infinite res-spam (even with a full team of Druids or DK's), you really can't risk just letting people die for the sake of Healer damage, even if said damage is very respectable.

[Shurrikhan]

The main reason people wanted Holy Paladin (in Shadowlands at least) was Venthyr specific (ie. Hallowed Ground). A long CD AoE burst that was universally usable in M+ regardless of the weekly affix (seeing as it's AoE centric, only having to differentiate between either harder bosses or harder trash). Either way, having access to a massive AoE overtime burst (which heals people inside for good measure) was obnoxiously strong. I believe it was meant to be nerfed/reworked, but I haven't seen it if so (given I quit some time before the lawsuit shenanigans happened). Some would still desire Holy Paladin if they weren't Venthyr at all but to a much lesser level.

Not a "much" lesser level, at least until very high keys. I think you underestimate their natural potency and utility.

Even excluding covenant skill damage, H-Pal would commonly more than double the next-best spec's damage (heck, the gap would actually grow between it and Resto Druid, since virtually all its damage outside of mere Sunfires would come from Owlvoke burst). Heck, even after its receiving multiple waves of nerfs and some competing healers getting damage buffs it still rolls over any other healer's damage, again, simply because that damage is included as something so integral to the spec.

[RopeDrink]

It's never a surprise to me when I compete or even beat damage dealers as Resto Shaman during M+ whenever freedom allowed me to, but yes, its damage not being an integral part of its healing (eg. I don't generate Holy Power with damage and use it for instant heals -- literally having to long-cast anything that isn't Riptide spam, all of which ceases damage) is certainly a factor. As for Hallowed Ground -- of which I used extensively on my Prot Paladin -- I'm very aware of how potent it was, but the last I heard was it was having its CD shortened and potencies lowered, but I had quit before any real changes were made, then the lawsuit, then the ripcord, and now its in the "bowl of fruit" era with all kinds of random jank, so I'm pretty much out of the loop.

Here in FFXIV, I certainly do pine for more intake to heal and/or a more involved damage rotation, but I also have no problem just mashing Glare/Holy on repeat either. I guess I enjoy the contrast compared to my time spent elsewhere, where you literally do become the HP-Bar monitor and have to fret over them dropping quite randomly. I love all that too, and pushing 20 keys in M+ was literally the only reason I stayed after the "shiny and new" veneer faded from Shadowlands. Seems we're getting Glare 2, Holy 2, a Fluid Aura replacement (probably becoming the 'every healer gets a single-target buff' button), and a watery heart-like totem of some description.

As always, I reserve judgement until I get all the changes in my hands and can play it for myself, but it's safe to assume it won't be any more or less how it is now. Given I mained Priest from TBC to BoA in WoW, including a lot of Disc, I wager I'll enjoy Sage, but we'll have to wait and see if it'll coax me away from WHM, which I've mained since Heavensward.

[Shurrikhan]

There will always be one style that is meta it never works.

Not true; almost every meta has still had several competing options, especially if one allows for more than a fleeting moment's worth of thought.

Moreover, condensing to certain norms at a particular given level of play in a particular region, so long as that constrained space is still reasonably large, isn't necessarily (or even typically) a sign of things not working.

[MellowMink]

SCH in 2.0 ARR had significantly more DPS spells/abilities than it currently has in Shadowbringers.

SCH at start of 2.0 ARR
- Ruin, Ruin II for nukes.
- Energy Drain for MP and nuke.
- Bio, Bio II, Miasma, Miasma II, Aero, and Thunder for DoTs.
- Bane and Blizzard II for AoE.
- 100 percent uptime for Shadowflare.
- Strong Fairy potency.

SCH at start of 5.0 Shadowbringers
- Broil, Biolysis, Art of War
- No Energy Drain
- Nerfed Fairy potency.

There is a reason why healers say SCH has been completely gutted and shell of itself. The dev team are extremely incompetent.

It's pretty unfortunate how much this list lowered between expansions, especially with the fairies no longer being unique.

I didn't actually know that there used to be a freaking Blizzard II option for Scholar though; that's pretty wacky. Art of War is definitely more unique now in terms of job identity for that one particular type of attack, but it was pretty amusing to see that the class had some spells in common with Black Mage of all things.

[inhaledcorn]

It's pretty unfortunate how much this list lowered between expansions, especially with the fairies no longer being unique.

I didn't actually know that there used to be a freaking Blizzard II option for Scholar though; that's pretty wacky. Art of War is definitely more unique now in terms of job identity for that one particular type of attack, but it was pretty amusing to see that the class had some spells in common with Black Mage of all things.

Blizzard II used to be part of the Cross Class system since SCH took actions from Tham and Conjurer.

And, Art of War really isn't that unique. It's just recolored Aura Blast from PvP. StB SCH was allowed to have Miasma II because the Cross Role system broke SCH in a bad way when it came to AoE filler. But, when we started using it as a DPS gain to weave, oooooh no, SE couldn't have that.

Art of War is 200% a downgrade from the things we've had in the past.

[Shurrikhan]

Art of War is 200% a downgrade from the things we've had in the past.

New player: Oh, it's not a DoT anymore! We can spam our AoE! Hurray!
Actual SCHs: ...So, we just lost our weave space, downtime in which to ready Bane (for which reason we also lost Bane... and most of our DoTs), and a more powerful ppgcd AoE, all so we can now be obliged to slap the floor repeatedly, with no contested priorities for focus damage or healing pace? ...Hurray?

[inhaledcorn]

New player: Oh, it's not a DoT anymore! We can spam our AoE! Hurray!
Actual SCHs: ...So, we just lost our weave space, downtime in which to ready Bane (for which reason we also lost Bane... and most of our DoTs), and a more powerful ppgcd AoE, all so we can now be obliged to slap the floor repeatedly, with no contested priorities for focus damage or healing pace? ...Hurray?

Every time I smash AoW, I feel like I'm playing in a puddle.

T-T