The State of Homogenization: A New (Healer) Player's Perspective

[Elesh]

you do realize u have 70% identical skills in every one of the healers? they each have almost identical spells and skills in their healing and dps spells.
that is not a base kit if every one of your spells is copy pasted in another with no variance across all jobs in said role. you can have the same identical hotbar for each healer and it will play the same. except maybe ast but they suffer from button bloat that SE decided to create for them cause reasons.

So let's compare WhM/Astro, which are the two who share the most in terms of role.
Cure 1, Cure 2, and Medica have identical counterparts. Glare and Dia have nearly identical abilities.

That's... it, actually(aside from role actions). Essential Dignity is fairly similar to Tetragrammaton, but not identical.Celestial Intersection is fairly similar to Divine Benison, but again not identical.

So no, it's not a copy paste.

There are abiltiies that serve the same role in different ways - ex. Earthly Star and Assize serve similar roles, so could be put on the same bar, but aren't identical. Medica 2 vs Aspected Helios, again. Similar, but not identical. But you have to be REALLY reductive to say 'these abilities are identical'.

Oh and raise. But... that's basically a role action.

Please provide me any abilities I didn't mention above that White Mage has that any other healer has word for word identical. I can't think of any.

[CrimsonGunner]

So let's compare WhM/Astro, which are the two who share the most in terms of role.
Cure 1, Cure 2, and Medica have identical counterparts. Glare and Dia have nearly identical abilities.

That's... it, actually(aside from role actions). Essential Dignity is fairly similar to Tetragrammaton, but not identical.Celestial Intersection is fairly similar to Divine Benison, but again not identical.

So no, it's not a copy paste.

There are abiltiies that serve the same role in different ways - ex. Earthly Star and Assize serve similar roles, so could be put on the same bar, but aren't identical. Medica 2 vs Aspected Helios, again. Similar, but not identical. But you have to be REALLY reductive to say 'these abilities are identical'.

Oh and raise. But... that's basically a role action.

Please provide me any abilities I didn't mention above that White Mage has that any other healer has word for word identical. I can't think of any.

regen and aspected benefic.
medica 2 and aspected helios.
glare and dia are identical to combust and malefic the only thing different is potencies.

[Elesh]

regen and aspected benefic.
medica 2 and aspected helios.

An upfront heal + heal over time is identical to JUST a heal over time?

I think you're reaching here, my friend.

Edit: And this actually points to my problem with the 'homogenization' argument. People who complain of homogenization tend to be VERY reductive. Which goes back to one of the first things I said in this thread:

If you are reductive enough, everything is similar. An orange is the same as a chocolate bar if all you care about is that they're both edible. A car and a skyscraper are identical if you just reduce them to 'metal frame with stuff inside'.


Edit: I had originally had a bit about Medica 2 in there, but I had forgotten that Helios is just much faster and cheaper, not instant. (Not going to erase my mistake, just correct it)

[CrimsonGunner]

So you're saying an instant heal and one with a cast time are identical?
An upfront heal + heal over time is identical to JUST a heal over time?

I think you're reaching here, my friend.

i think you are trying to ignore the similarities here my friend not me reaching.

also what cast time... both regen and aspected benefic are instant cast.

wow you really try to ignore the bluntant similarities, dont you?

[Elesh]

i think you are trying to ignore the similarities here my friend not me reaching.

also what cast time... both regen and aspected benefic are instant cast

The cast time was in reference to Aspected Helios, which I'd forgotten is simply significantly faster and not instant. A factual error that I later remembered was incorrect so edited.

But no. there are similarities. But... similar is not identical. And a regen healer having a basic building block of:
AoE Heal
AoE Regen
Single Heal
Big Heal
Nuke
DoT

Doesn't seem like an unreasonable level of similarity when you add on all the other stuff that ISN'T identical.

But... saying '70% of their spells are identical' when it's really just... 7 out of about ~24 class specific skills... is just factually wrong. And needlessly reductive.

[CrimsonGunner]

The cast time was in reference to Aspected Helios, which I'd forgotten is simply significantly faster and not instant. A factual error that I later remembered was incorrect so edited.

But no. there are similarities. But... similar is not identical. And a regen healer having a basic building block of:
AoE Heal
AoE Regen
Single Heal
Big Heal
Nuke
DoT

Doesn't seem like an unreasonable level of similarity when you add on all the other stuff that ISN'T identical.

But... saying '70% of their spells are identical' when it's really just... 7 out of about ~24 class specific skills... is just factually wrong. And needlessly reductive.

lightning speed and presence of mind.
temperence and neutral sect.
exaltation and aquaveil.

you can play semantics all you want but when skills are identical almost to a T both play,use and have identical effects with only 1 small thing added to one job to make it different sorry that is not similar that is identical.

[Elesh]

lightning speed and presence of mind.
temperence and neutral sect.
exaltation and aquaveil.

you can play semantics all you want but when skills are identical almost to a T both play,use and have identical effects with only 1 small thing added to one job to make it different sorry that is not similar that is identical.

This is my core problem with homogenization arguments. They're so incredibly freaking reductive. Yep, if you go simple enough everything's the same. FFXIV is the same as tetris. I push buttons and things happen on screen. A beautiful sonnet by a professional singer is the same as a two year old throwing a temper tantrum - they both involve sound and impact your emotions in some way.

[Faafetai]

The cast time was in reference to Aspected Helios, which I'd forgotten is simply significantly faster and not instant. A factual error that I later remembered was incorrect so edited.

But no. there are similarities. But... similar is not identical. And a regen healer having a basic building block of:
AoE Heal
AoE Regen
Single Heal
Big Heal
Nuke
DoT

Doesn't seem like an unreasonable level of similarity when you add on all the other stuff that ISN'T identical.

But... saying '70% of their spells are identical' when it's really just... 7 out of about ~24 class specific skills... is just factually wrong. And needlessly reductive.

They are not the same thing? You are correct in some respects but whm has a unfair disadvantage for regen cure and cure 2. There are differences sure but they are in essence exactly the same thing serving the same exact function similar to Aetherflow on scholar and Addersgall for Sage you can even throw Lillies from whm except the unfairness of it being on the global.

[MiaShino]

Stuffs!

Shall save you the time of awaiting their reply.

"Reductive. Reductive! Buzzword buzzword buzzword. Soooo reductive."

[Elesh]

They are not the same thing? You are correct in some respects but whm has a unfair disadvantage for regen cure and cure 2. There are differences sure but they are in essence exactly the same thing serving the same exact function similar to Aetherflow on scholar and Addersgall for Sage you can even throw Lillies from whm except the unfairness of it being on the global.

I said that those specific spells were the only things thaty WERE the same.(although I don't consider regen and aspected benefic to be the same) - the basic building blocks are the same. But while Assize and Earthly Star both serve the same function of 'damage + healing', and while Tetra and ED both serve the same function of 'emergency heal'... they aren't identical. Down the board. Outside of the BASIC building blocks... every tool past that serves a similar PURPOSE but in a different way. Liturgy vs Macro. Opposition vs Afflatus Rapture. Temperance vs Neutral Sect. They serve similar purposes... but play differently. Neutral sect gives shields while temperance reduces damage taken. Similar effect, but not the same. Rapture is on the gcd and requires a lily while also enabling the blood lily. Opposition is ogcd but has a large cooldown and provides a regen. Both give aoe healing, but don't feel the same to have.

Like down the line... the healers have toolkits that serve the same purpose, but they don't do it in the same way. It's important they have these tools. You can't have a healer that can't aoe heal because they'd be useless. So you NEED tools that serve the same purpose. But the important part is that they function in different methods - different resources used, casting methods, secondary effects, cooldowns, etc.

Only the base toolkit of like cure 1, cure 2, medica, raise, glare, dia, medica 2 are 'identical'.