Quote Originally Posted by Zebraoracle View Post
I think what people are forgetting to mention regarding WoW is that WoW actually offered multiple styles of healing - there was something for everyone.

You want to be a pure healer? Holy priest and holy paladin (and even then these two are focused on AoE/raid heals and tank heals respectively)
You want to put a ton of HoTs on everyone and giggle as damage can't keep up? Resto druid
You want to be a jack of all trades and still very effective? Resto shaman
You want to heal by DPSing and damage prevention? Disc priest and kind of (not as much anymore from what I've heard) monk
You want to heal by... doing whatever the heck mistweaver monk does? I still don't know how to categorize this one and I've played it and it's fun and it still baffles me.
Who knows what the evoker healing style is going to be like.

Meanwhile you have sage as a supposed "heal by dps" job, which is kind of very misleading, and a worse scholar but with less jank.
You have white mage and astro with very similar play styles, only thing really separating them is astro cards.

That's it. The healers feel so incredibly homogenized compared to other games that offer actual variety.
Oh, I didn't forget it. I just wanted to touch on the crux of the issue with FFXIV healing, which is the lack of meaningful choices. This causes it to be unfulfilling. You're just pushing the same buttons over and over without thinking about it.

I agree the healers in FFXIV are more homogenized than in other MMOs. They definitely need a complete overhaul to regain their identities.