Healer role design change?

[Renathras]

But that's what you're asking for there. You're asking for the removal of 3 uses per minute of 800 ST or 400 AoE free cure potency per minute. That'd be huge... on anyone.

No, I'm not asking for that. I'd hate that. I'm pointing out that Lilies are a crutch that is the only way WHM is currently viable, much like Triplecast and SEVERAL instant casts like Xenoglossy and Thundercloud are for BLM. Again, remove SCH's Aetherflow and you've removed Incom, Soil, Excog/Lustrate (which SCH players frequently ignore to cast ED anyway), but they still have ample healing somehow because their other non-"on CD" use healing is more than adequate for most encounters. If a SCH has to move, even ignoring AF, they have Blessing, Dawn, Embrace casts, Aetherpact, Seraph/Consolation x2, and the Embrace casts are happening all the time passively. SGE is in a similar boat, having Panhaima/Haima, Holos, and Physis on a really short CD, as well as constant Kardia healing going out with every damage cast AND they can cast Eukrasia Prognosis/Diagnosis while moving AT ANY TIME, and they have pretty good MP economy allowing somewhat liberal use of those tools. They also have frequent access to Icarus allowing them to stand and hardcast something if they wanted to (though they really have no need) and still move in time. AST I don't know as well, but I believe it also has a lot of healing options that can be used while moving.

Note that with WHM, it's not JUST healing, either; Lilies also contribute to its damage via Misery (in buff windows, this is a DPS increase on a Healing Job that doesn't have any party buffs, so its "selfish damage" is important), but ALSO is an MP management tool. WHM needs to use four lilies a minute. Recall before 6.1 that it was MP negative over the course of encounters because Misery was a DPS loss so people were using Lilies only if they had to and instead chadding on their co-healer to actually do most of the encounter healing. Making Misery damage neutral was the equivalent of giving WHM 1600 MP per minute.

Lilies are entirely essential for WHM to be viable because of how much is tied up in them. On demand movement, on demand healing (Rapture can be boosted with Plenary), "selfish DPS" essential damage, and MP economy. And unlike Faerie abilities or Kardia, WHM does not get Lilies at level 4. It's not just a "core element" (which is added half-way into the leveling process...), it's an ESSENTIAL element. SGE without Kardia would still work. SCH without Aetherflow would still work. SCH without Eos would probably still work as well, btw. WHM without Lilies would NOT work in FFXIV's current encounter design system.

Sorry, yes, fairy skills would be the more apt comparison for healing output.

And again, doesn't matter; SCH without Faerie Skills would still be fully capable of healing in the current game using Aetherflow augmented by its non-Faerie skills like Recitation, Deployment Tactics, Emergency Tactics, Expedient, Protraction, and also still bringing Chain Strategem to the table for the party. SCH is not so dependent on any one thing to be functional since it has a lot of functionality across its skills. It's why I've said before that SCH doesn't really have a lot of fat to trim since all of its skills ARE useful (albeit generally overkill; you can make Spreadlo shields so strong that many attacks in the game won't even scratch the party, and if you add Consolation and mitigation on top of that, it's entirely possible to have "ultimate" attacks land with no party members taking actual damage to their health bars), and was designed around the concept of oGCD healing in the first place. Far moreso than WHM, anyway. And it has carried those traits forward to the modern game.

Likewise, SGE without Kardia could heal just fine. Even if you took away its oGCD heals, SGE with Eukrasia has the most mobile GCD heals in the game. Where WHM has 3 Lilies, SGE can keep casting Eukrasia heals until it runs out of MP, which is at the VERY least 11 Eukrasia Prognoses in a row, possibly 12, roughly three times what WHM can do with Rapture. "But WHM has Plenary to boost that!" and SGE has Zoe. It also gets a healing boost from Physis II if it wants (Krasus if we're talking single target), or a damage reduction from Holos or Kerachole.

And recall in 6.0 when Lilies WEREN'T damage neutral how WHM was far and away the worst Healer for raiding. It had to chad on its co-healers or tank its damage, and unlike SCH and especially AST, it didn't boost its party damage to make up for this. Without that 1600 free MP from Lilies per minute, it was in an MP deficit over long fights even if it wasn't having to cast any GCD heals. It was far and away the worst Healer and the most non-Meta pick in 6.0, and it was so bad, it was one of the fastest times SE has actually addressed a Healer issue in the game's history, something that people like Semi and so on can attest is...not a common thing for them to address quickly.

We know how bad WHM would be in current encounter design without Lilies since we got a partial taste of that in 6.0 (that wasn't even the full taste) and it was already bad.

That.
Said:

...because healing requirements in general are so low. That is the core issue.

Agreed.

So we've got a litmus test healer that tells us the modern condition has gone basic-bitch; shouldn't we be addressing the condition, then, rather than just going straight to homogenizing that healer / ignoring whatever that test tells us? The more we roll over with/to the problem, the less we can contest it in the future.

I am.

I'm consistently ragging on encounter design in this game. That's what I'm doing right now by pointing out the problem of ARPG movement heavy fights in a tab target, hardcast game like FFXIV. The reason SMN is what it is and RDM and BLM and all the Healers have become so mobile is because the game is now designed such that Jobs without mobility CANNOT execute mechanics in current encounter design.

I do see that as a problem.

My solution is that encounter designs need to be re-designed more akin to the way they were earlier in FFXIV's history when twitch movement at home in a FPS or APRG was not the order of the day for solutions to most of the game's mechanics.

Some others may be arguing for something else, but then you should be addressing them in your post, not me.