Thinking on the pure/healer split it’s always been weird to me that the devs have never acknowledged the other split in healers. That is to say, the fact there’s two ‘raid buff’ healers (AST,SCH) and two ‘personal output’ healers (WHM,SGE)

Obviously the difference is only like 1-2 abilities, but then it’s not like the pure/healer split wasn’t always paper thin too lol except maybe ARR and HW.

Given that one would logically expect that the ‘raid buff’ healers would be oriented around support/utility than direct healing, while the personal output healers would be oriented around direct healing and managing their own dps mechanics. But then you look at AST and SCH and there’s things like:
- Macrocosmos
- Neutral Sect
- Seraphism

…so I guess they’re going for a more ‘balanced’ (lol) approach where AST and SCH can output high potency direct healing as much as the ‘personal output’ healers. Similar to how the pure/shield split lets the pure healer use limited shields?

Naturally you would expect WHM and SGE would have raid buffs to compensate to keep it balanced that way, right? They have:
- Dia Potency +10
- A second, unstackable DoT

Ok so maybe not. But then, surely their own healing/dps mechanics would be more in-depth and complex to give them an edge against ‘raid buffers (who are also mega powerful direct healers lol)’?
- Toxicon
- Afflatus Misery
Wait a minute these are (supposed to be?) healing mechanics! I guess theres Psyche lol.

Like, it’s hard not to see why people generally favour SCH+AST combos over any combo involving a White Mage / Sage. I think anyway. That’s not even going into things like Sage being Scholar with a fake moustache or White Mage having relatively little going for it overall.

But ultimately I just think it’s funny that not only is balance between pure/shield split is kind of a mess right now, but balance between the other ‘buff’ vs ‘no buff’ split they have (but don’t acknowledge) is just as much of a mess too lol.