Healers, then and now:

[Beddict]

Far as I understand it, every element in FFXIV can appear in either the passive (umbral) or active (astral) form, some just trend more towards a certain polarity naturally. So while Fire is often found as it's astral form (explosive force), 'umbral fire' could theoretically exist too. In practice, that'd be the difference between a spell being packed with explosive power (our fire spells) versus something more akin to 'raise the internal temperature of a being until it cooks from the inside'. Similarly, umbral ice refers to the sheer cold of the ice spell, but astral ice would be like, idk, the rapid expansion of the ice as it freezes blasting apart whatever it's inside at the time? 'astral and umbral' in their pure unaspected forms refer to just the forces of stasis and entropy

Maybe that's just some fanmade BS I saw and internalised as 'actual lore' though, or maybe it was actual lore but got retconned idk, it'd be interesting to see it as a twist for a new job, where one might use elements in their astral form (BLM), this one instead uses them in their umbral form

From Encyclopedia Eorzea: Volume I, page 9:

In addition to the six elements, there also exist two poles - astral and umbral - which greatly influence the nature of the elements - an astral charge bringing more activity, while an umbral charge resulting in move passiveness. For example, when in an astral state, fire exhibits high volatility, whereas its umbra state is characterized by dryness.

[ForsakenRoe]

Cool we now know for sure that it's actual game lore and not just fan-theory, which means it can be used for things other than 'its a nice tidbit of background info'

[glamazon]

We really don't need to look back. Healers were more fun because we had more options available to us. This has been stripped away in the name of the almighty homogeneity.

[Videra]

We really don't need to look back. Healers were more fun because we had more options available to us. This has been stripped away in the name of the almighty homogeneity.

That, and appealing to the lowest common denominator.

[Faidid]

4.0 healing was probably my favorite healing experience in any game I've ever played on the SCH. They took away and destroyed so much since then though...it's really quite a shame. The healing role is a shadow of what it once was. FF14 healing changes make me actually relate to the Ascians.

[Connor]

7.0:
All healers no longer have healing abilities. All dps abilities passively generate healing to all party members. Cleric Stance removes the healing but gives a dps boost. That’s it, that’s the role lol.

Then in 7.5 they’ll be like ‘But we gave healers exactly what they asked for, what more can we do?!?! We had 6.0 Scholar done perfectly it was so good we couldn’t even thinking of anything new to add!’

If there’s one thing the developers excel at, it’s taking the completely wrong message from players and implementing it wholesale into the game.

[Faidid]

7.0:
All healers no longer have healing abilities. All dps abilities passively generate healing to all party members. Cleric Stance removes the healing but gives a dps boost. That’s it, that’s the role lol.

Then in 7.5 they’ll be like ‘But we gave healers exactly what they asked for, what more can we do?!?! We had 6.0 Scholar done perfectly it was so good we couldn’t even thinking of anything new to add!’

If there’s one thing the developers excel at, it’s taking the completely wrong message from players and implementing it wholesale into the game.

SCH is a good example. When we had miasma, 2 different dots, and a wide range of shield/heal abilities coupled with the ability to use 2 fairies with different function and the ability to actually AE spread our dots to various targets...THAT was the most fun I've ever had playing a job/class in any game. It was dynamic and from that point it's been downhill patch after patch. I don't know who's to blame, but someone really misunderstood what people playing healers enjoyed about their role. Spamming 1 dps button like we do today is just the worst.

[Connor]

snip

I mean, I’m going to get absolutely fucking crucified for saying it, but I never found DoT Mage Scholar fun or interesting. Putting up and maintaining DoTs was something you had to do, not some big brain contextual tactic that only the smartest of the smart used. You kept all your DoTs at as close to 100% uptime as possible by pressing the exact same buttons at the exact same times lol. Miasma - Bio first, then Bio - Miasma to reapply. Bane was, again, an absolute necessity if there was any more than 2 enemies so there really wasn’t any actual thought involved in my opinion. You used your DoTs and you liked it or you were a waste of a party slot. Even with Miasma II, you had to literally have 0 piety on any piece of gear to ever run into Mp issues with it on normal content (and never used Shroud of Saints / Lucid Dreaming lol). Doubly so if it’s single target because Energy Drain.

Aero and Thunder honestly I don’t think are anything to do with Scholar and I don’t really get that argument that they were some integral part of its gameplay. Bards used to be able to cast Cure, Protect, Raise Thunder, but I don’t see anyone begging them to return that back to its toolkit lol. Just because a class could do something doesn’t mean it should always be capable of the exact same things.

Personally I’d rather see Scholar focus on buffing and debuffing the party. You know, ‘a role that provides support’, ‘using powerful restorative and enhancing magics’ whilst being set apart from other healers by the fairies. I don’t see ‘spreading plague and disease’ in that description of what a Scholar is lol. I highly doubt they wrote the dialogue thinking ‘let’s tell players this job is the polar opposite of what it really is just to spite them’ lol. Every other job in the game retains aspects that heavily influenced the job design, albeit in extremely simplified forms (i.e Bard’s songs have been reworked like 4 times, Astrologian’s cards got neutered instead of balancing them, Summoner still has Aetherflow/Fester/Painflare). Isn’t it strange that Scholar is the only job this doesn’t apply to? It had its 4000 DoTs removed and they never added them back, but surely if the entire point of Scholar’s existence in FFXIV is spreading DoTs and painful poisons, they never would have tried to remove them?

Do I think Scholar should never get any more dps or dot abilities? Obviously not. Do I think just slapping some basic DoTs and Bane on top of its toolkit is going to turn it into the most popular ultimate fun 1000% approval rating job? I do not lol. I want to see abilities that have actual interesting supportive effects like reducing damage taken/dealt, reducing enemy attack frequencies, counterplay skills like Eye for an Eye. There’s no reason why they can’t do damage over time as well though

[Chasingstars]

Astrologians getting their cards simplified, losing spread and royal road. Ugh. Might as well rename the job to gambler for how much a coinflip their cards have been turned into. And its not like they don't know, especially with how the pvp version of astro has something resembling the old bole, arrow, and balance cards.

[Connor]

Astrologians getting their cards simplified, losing spread and royal road. Ugh. Might as well rename the job to gambler for how much a coinflip their cards have been turned into. And its not like they don't know, especially with how the pvp version of astro has something resembling the old bole, arrow, and balance cards.

I honestly can’t remember if I made it up but wasn’t there supposed to be an Astrologian rework sometime in 6.X that got moved to 7.0? I’ve always assumed that rework will end up looking more like the PvP version you describe. Basically the PvP version is like a prototype for their rework.
How much of it is actually kept for PvE though, I dare not hazard a guess lol.