Quote Originally Posted by KDSilver View Post
(to me, barrier vs pure healer is BS)
Agreed. Unless they actually lean into shield healers revolving around shields as gameplay (which I wouldn't mind either) instead of simply being pure healers with added mitigation and a weaker main GCD heal, it'll never be an identity. Just a limitation on which jobs you bring.

SE simply decided on a whim that AST and WHM shouldn't group together in harder content. That's it, that's basically all the shield/regen divide gave us. It's nonsense.