Quote Originally Posted by Seraphor View Post
I'm not opposed to this way of categorising healers. I think they could make healers more 'unique' and break down more of that 'homogenisation' yet still maintain these dichotomies of Pure/Shield and Personal/Raid DPS. I don't think that's a bad way of doing things.
However as you rightly say, there is currently a problem with how raid dps or 'party utility buffs' are calculated.

These buffs need to be impactful for both Light Parties and Full Parties, the problem is the more players you add the more impactful they become, so you either end up with OP 8 man or weak 4 man buffs.
The solution could be introducing some form of scaling system.
Something like it calculates the buff according to how many players it affects.

AST is better in this regard because it buffs one party member most of the time. Maybe SCH could have Chain Strategem nerfed to make way for a single target player buff.
And/or their party wide buffs could scale. Something like +10% for a Light Party and +5% for a Full Party.

Then, once dps contributions are more consistent, you can go to town with diversifying healing kits without as much risk of forming meta comps. Baring the issues with shielding of course, which they have the tools to deal with already, they just need to tweak them so that SCH/SGE doesn't become either too good at mitigating or inefficient at healing.
The problem of this system is that it’s never balanced

SCH is dominating the other healers right now and the tier has barely started and it will only scale more strongly later on, if square won’t dynamically adjust the selfish healer DPS over the course of the tier then this type of box chart is never going to be properly balanced and will always bias the buffers in 8 man and the selfish in 4 man