#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[ForsakenRoe]

Funnily enough, you don't actually need a super complex job kit to solidify lore identity within gameplay.

Let's take WHM for example, they could get really high potency on their attack spells because they're said to be equal to the BLMs, but to balance that destructive power, ALL their heals are on the GCD (but also very powerful).

Or let's take SCH for example, they could get some buff fields to place or special stratagem as they're meant to be a tactician (not a fairy mage), then their DoTs could have debilitating debuffs tied to them, like healing down or slow or heavy, which, while not being useful in challenging content, do provide flavour and identity.

Unfortunately, it would seem that SE prioritizes 'let's implement the new gameplay idea we have, and then contort the lore to fit the new gameplay', rather than letting the established lore naturally guide the gameplay design. We can see this most clearly with AST, where it once was a job based on something that is inherently 'random' (drawing a card from a Tarot deck and interpreting its meaning), now the gameplay has changed to 'you know exactly what you'll draw and when'. And previously, the initial quests had to be rewritten due to making every card functionally identical for SHB/EW's effects

Same with SCH. Some of the quest dialog still refers to curing debuffs from NPCs with the line "Traditional restorative magicks may treat the symptoms, but not the underlying cause. To balance their humours, you must leech the impurities from their bodies." At least, so says GamerEscape's articles on the quest dialog. I have no idea why they felt the need to remove Leeches/Exalted Detriment and force us all to use Esuna, because it didn't save any buttons on the hotbars in the end

And let's not get started on WHM, who abandoned the 'elemental damage' aesthetic in favour of twinkly lights, which is fine if if were a burst phase or something, but Glare/Dia being the whole game for WHM now causes a conflict with RDM's lore. If RDM was made from the knowledge of WHMs and BLMs working together, surely we'd have VerGlare instead of VerStone? or VerDia instead of VerAero3? Some might say 'oh it's cos we went to the First and there was lots of Light there to use', to which I'd counter A: We're no longer on the First, and B: We had access to Glare 3 in The Void, the place where there is literally zero Light aether remaining, and bringing some back is the whole plot point of 5 patches worth of story

[Iedarus]

Same with SCH. Some of the quest dialog still refers to curing debuffs from NPCs with the line "Traditional restorative magicks may treat the symptoms, but not the underlying cause. To balance their humours, you must leech the impurities from their bodies." At least, so says GamerEscape's articles on the quest dialog. I have no idea why they felt the need to remove Leeches/Exalted Detriment and force us all to use Esuna, because it didn't save any buttons on the hotbars in the end

And let's not get started on WHM, who abandoned the 'elemental damage' aesthetic in favour of twinkly lights, which is fine if if were a burst phase or something, but Glare/Dia being the whole game for WHM now causes a conflict with RDM's lore. If RDM was made from the knowledge of WHMs and BLMs working together, surely we'd have VerGlare instead of VerStone? or VerDia instead of VerAero3? Some might say 'oh it's cos we went to the First and there was lots of Light there to use', to which I'd counter A: We're no longer on the First, and B: We had access to Glare 3 in The Void, the place where there is literally zero Light aether remaining, and bringing some back is the whole plot point of 5 patches worth of story

Something something Leeches being too different.

I was also talking about the light magic simply complementing WHM. I mentioned a while back that WHM should have their earth, wind, water and light magic to mirror BLM's fire, ice, lightning and dark magic. Having something like Holy being a finisher to a mini rotation would pay better homage to how the spell worked in previous titles while letting an earth spell like Quake take the place of their AoE. I would also love to see Aero 3 make a comeback and maybe be upgraded to Tornado.

The psycho in me also still yearns for WHM getting Ley Lines to play into a high potency stationary playstyle like BLM but that'll probably never happen.