A summary of healer issues

[Shurrikhan]

This was the original plan I think in 1.0

Kinda, yeah.

Sorry for the likely TMI, but back then, there weren't really class-set roles... period. There were... roles insofar as a thing people would do, but usually in rotation, as to maximally exploit their kits. Instead, there were simply... threads, for lack of a better term, with different components of each of what you'd usually expect to go into a tank, DPS, healer, etc -- never having all of them, and always extending in some pretty organic fashion into domains we'd usually consider a side-role.

For instance, GLD had... pretty shitty threat generation, but had the best counterattack damage. Taunt... was a Pugilist ability, and both PGL and GLD were built to some extent around tag-teaming (with GLD having more benefit on the swap-in and being more able to reliably and burstily soak damage, but with PGL having more of the snap threat and sustained mitigation).

Your sustained raid heals? They were arguably best on Lancer (via Life Surge who had an effect similar to WoW Paladin's Judgment of Light - healing for a flat amount per attack against the enemy), though that was on a shared cooldown with suppressing enemy TP (generated, at different modifiers per enemy, off of damage dealt, taken, and certain other factors -- similar to our LB gauge now).

What we'd think of today as "healers" were just "casters" with versatile kits, and practically each playing their own Challenge Mode of the game: one an all-elements elementalist (CNJ), and the other probably the craziest class XIV design has ever seen and would today look more like a whacky base-holding PvP build out of RIFT -- the selectively stat-stealing, HP/MP-stealing, HP-spending, debuff-shifting, CC-heavy, void-blasting Thaumaturge (think a Shadow Priest + Affliction Warlock with the optional ability to nuke heal).

Your 'pure' DPS? There kind of... weren't any, since the non-DPS value they brought to the table was always significant enough for those classes not to be interchangeable, and that everyone could pump, within their ideal circumstances.

A tank? Which kind? Dodge-tank, especially able to specialize against Earth, Wind, or Fire? Able to just soak up damage of any kind when that damage isn't yet predictable? To take big hits? To simply harass and keep in check the enemy while easing the job of everyone else? A kiting tank able also to interrupt casters and bind adds? A caster-juggernaut that fed off the most recent add wave to bolster stats to ridiculous levels? A stoneclad elementalist that can just keep drawing enemies in with mass heals and then repeatedly Flood them back? Pick your poison. There were some who could anchor that position easier than others, but the game seemed content to let every class carry a useful niche.

*Obviously, little of this got fleshed out to quite the point I may make it seem here, as the game basically lacked any significantly capable physics engine, even, but that the kits definitely show a tendency towards Classes first, with roles an afterthought left to the community to figure out (which... would mostly come down to wasting those class's potential in order to reduce gameplay/"stress", much like anyone asking that a Paladin in SB waste Sentinel and Rampart from the OT position just to get a slightly stronger Intervention).