AST (and DRG) had their improvements pushed to 7.0 PLD are getting theirs in 6.3

[fulminating]

What does savage clear rate have to do with healers being poorly designed in all content?
Not that t13 is remotely relevant to non blue mage healers these days, but all the old clear guides/vods indicate is that white mage wasn’t as well designed as scholar. A lot of the gcd healing the did seemed unnecessary, but they did have aero uptime. It’s also unfortunate that coils were chosen seeing as there’s no logs from the time.

[Renathras]

What does savage clear rate have to do with healers being poorly designed in all content?
Not that t13 is remotely relevant to non blue mage healers these days, but all the old clear guides/vods indicate is that white mage wasn’t as well designed as scholar. A lot of the gcd healing the did seemed unnecessary, but they did have aero uptime. It’s also unfortunate that coils were chosen seeing as there’s no logs from the time.

The argument often goes "FFXIV healers have never worked this way", so here is demonstration that they, in fact, DID work this way.

It's an odd "appeal to authority" fallacy where people are appealing to the game's history to make their argument have an aura of authority to it. The problem is - they're wrong, as the game never WAS what they are saying was.

It's fair to say - as I did - that it was PARTLY that way in that SCH was a support DPS/Healer hybrid. But it clearly was not that way in total truth because WHM was not. It's also interesting to see how LITTLE Aero uptime there is in those videos, and how the vaunted Cleric Stance dance, supposedly the high point of healer design and gameplay, wasn't even being used at that high level by WHMs, and was only somewhat being used by SCHs.

My point was to dispel that faulty appeal to authority so we could actually come to a shared realization:

FFXIV has, through its history, appealed to both types of players AT THE SAME TIME in Job and encounter design. And there's zero reason why that was true then and not possible now. No laws of physics or even encounter design have changed to make a thing impossible that was once the norm.

Also: Do you have links to these guides/analyses about WHM not being as well designed as SCH in ARR? I remember that argument (and it was valid) in SB, but in ARR, the assumption was you carried one of each to raids and they were considered to fill different niches and do so well.