What if Tanks were designed like Healers?

[AmiableApkallu]

The point I was making is that both are of the form "We can't say X is only on one Healer Job, because that ignores people that like X who want to play the other Healer Jobs, and it ignores the people who don't like X but want to play that Job." They both are using the same form of logic, or the same principle. I feel like the distinction only exists if people are biased towards one or the other.

For example, were Semi here, she'd probably complain about WHM not getting to be the buffer one with Protect, Shell, Wall, Haste, Brave, Faith, and Float being FF series staples for the WHM Job. Why would it be acceptable for AST to get to be the buffer one and not WHM, one might ask?

It's not. And that's my point.

Don't start with buckets -- simple, complex, buffer, pure healer, barrier healer, DPSer, etc. etc. -- and then try to cram each job into one of them. That is how you get the anemic disaster that is current FFXIV WHM.

Everything should flow from the job's identity/aesthetic. Imagine the job gets, say, a two minute cutscene where it gets to be the badass in some scenario. What does it do?