For those who main/semi-main a DPS (e.g. DNC, RDM) but like Healers...

[Renathras]

What exactly is this "4 Healers Model"?

In super simple terms:

We have 4 Healer Jobs, so it makes sense to have each have a bit different rotation and focus, this way to appeal to the most people.

Look at Casters right now. SMN plays borderline like a phys Ranged, RDM has a cast-instant (dualcast) cadence with a melee+ranged instant cast burst phase that's easy to pick up but has a high skill ceiling to optimize, and BLM is...well, BLM. This means Caster players are spoiled for choice. They have three completely different options from easy to hard and from mobile to immobile and even from lots of party utility to totally selfish DPS.

Healers, though, do not.

We have one general playstyle which is DoT + spamnuke + 2-3 Job specific attack (Assize/Misery, Energy Drain/Ruin 2, Earthly Star/Macrocosmos, Pneuma/Plegma/Toxicon), with the AOE being a single one button spam. And our healing is very similar, too, with almost all healing being oGCDs with the exception of WHM. (Ironically, given Lilies are GCDs, WHM has the most diverse playstyle of the healers right now while SCH/SGE are almost right on top of each other as much stepping on each others' toes they do with their overlap.)

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So the idea of "4 Healers Model" is that we could change up this to where each plays distinctly from the others, meaning no matter what gameplay you like, you likely have a Healer Job that YOU personally would enjoy the mechanics of.

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There's no specifics to it other than that, but here would be one example:

WHM: No change from today.
SCH: Return it to its SB incarnation with several DoTs and where pet abilities can be macroed and aren't on the oGCD
AST: Return the SB era card effects or add new buffing mechanics
SGE: Give it a rotation akin to SMN or RDM level complexity and shunt its healing away from oGCDs and into Kardia

Another example would be:

WHM: Give it an elemental builder/spender rotation (probably something like RDM but without the melee part of its rotation); reduce its oGCD kit to where it does lots of GCD healing
SCH: Give it something like 7 DoTs and make them generate Faerie Gauge, make AF used for attacks of Fester, Bane, and Energy Drain, make Faerie Gauge where the AF healing abilities are
AST: Make it into an outright buffer, something like Cards are GCD but have no CD so you can just constantly throw them out on people
SGE: Leave IT like it is today.

The only constant is that at least one Job remain more or less like it is now (for people that enjoy current healer gameplay) and that at least one change to something to appeal to those that wish for a more complex design and rotation. Taken to the widest form to appeal to the most people, this would likely include one of the Jobs being a dedicated buffer class (probably AST since it's already borderline set up for it), and probably two of the others being different flavors of damage (e.g. one DoT focused and one with no DoTs that's rotation focused instead like RDM or SMN are).

That's it in a nutshell anyway.

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I'm sure Ren will clarify better in just a moment, but an outsider's summary
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Rather than letting each job develop...

This is what we call "bias". If you can only present an idea in a negative light instead of a neutral tone, perhaps you should leave it to someone who can. When someone asks what a thing is, you should leave out your bias in the initial description. You can offer your personal critiques after giving them a general view on it.

categorical niches meant to appeal to a portion of the overall healer playerbase to ensure that each "camp" has a job meant for them.

THIS is far more accurate and a better description, though doesn't word it very clearly.

Its likely problems are that it seems to assume that gameplay desires can and will be held separate from desires for particular themes, aesthetics, and so on, and that those gameplay desires must be clustered in mutually exclusive ways, so if you like both the gameplay elements that end up allotted to Job A and those that are allotted to Job B, you're screwed, and if you like the gameplay elements of Job A but the visuals of Job B,

No, it assumes that Healers shouldn't be different from other roles.

Say you love BLM's aesthetic right now but hate its gameplay. What do you do? Do you get on BLM and play exclusively as "an Ice Mage"? No. You don't get to play BLM.

For this critique to hold water, "Ice Mage" would need to be within 5% or so damage of optimally played, BLM, which it isn't and never will be, and that would be BAD for the game. We as players, no matter the game, have to choose between playstyle and aesthetic all the time. And besides, this critique leaves off the fact that if you change any but especially all healer Jobs to be more complex, you have the exact same problem of people liking an aesthetic but not being able to enjoy its playstyle. So your solution has the exact same problem, meaning you can't use this as an argument against the position you oppose since it's a weakness of both proposals, not just mine.

Your "4 healer model" as I've said countless times means that people that want WHM to be more than what it is are told to go play another job.

Two points:

1) How is this different than people that like WHM as it is being told, under your idea, they have to go play ANOTHER GAME since NO Job will be what they want?

2) Look at the above proposal. I've said before that SGE instead of WHM being the one left the same would also be acceptable - it's only ever been the way it is now and this is the way it was designed, so it remaining this way can't be alienating anyone since it's the only way it's ever been and what everyone from 6.1 on picking it up knew to expect from it - and have also said I don't care which one it is, as long as it is "at least one".

...meaning this "counter argument" is not valid.

The way I see it 25% could want all healers to have more complexity/depth in dps and healing. 25% want healing, 25% don't care, and 25% want nothing done at all. Your argument is to say, for the 25% that want nothing done to any healer let's say screw the other 75% and leave just one healer when that wasn't what anyone wanted in the first place.

Again, two points:

1) No, my way is saying "each of you 25% get 25% (1 in 4) of the Healers entirely to yourself that will play exactly as you want, so we all win".

2) Your argument is to say, for the 25% that want more complexity/depth in dps and healing, they get all four healer Jobs, and let's say screw the other 75% and leave just ZERO healers for them when that wasn't what anyone wanted in the first place. It's mind boggling to me how you people think "1 healer not appealing to (you) is unacceptable...but other people having ZERO healers that appeal to them is perfectly fine". You're literally telling people they have to play a different game and I'm telling people like you that you'd have 3 options where right now you have 0 that you like. There's no world in which my model is more restrictive or saying it doesn't are about people than yours. MINE is the one saying that there are different types of player and trying to ensure each has at least one option that they can enjoy. Hell, MY model is an improvement over what we have now, since as you guys say all the time, you don't like ANY of the healers right now so there are ZERO that you like. 3 > 0 and thus automatically better.

Yours is insisting that all four healers must be made to where people like you enjoy them and screw everyone else, even if everyone else was 75% and the vast majority.