Sure, I see what you mean in terms of raw heal output from single abilities. And getting to use, ah, what's it called? You guarantee the single target crit shield and then give that shield to everyone. That's OP. Brilliant. I love that scholars can do that. Very scholarly. Panhaima is one of those skills that's great for multi-hit stacks or a multiple instances of damage in a short period, but can be hard to use otherwise. Although, baring any better options, I will often utilize the heal. So like, in Wicked Thunder, I'd pop it for Witch Hunt 2, and if it times out right, everyone would get 1 shield for their witch hunt damage, and then 4 stacks worth of heal. Was that the most optimal way to use Panhaima? Not really. Was it more optimal than just not using it? For sure for sure. But at any rate, even its hard to find a good use for it sometimes, I really like having that unique skill. Oh but, getting to use AF stacks for damage? definitely a plus. I mean I'm probably not hurting for the MP if I'm not healing anyways, but man, leaving addersgall capped for a while just feels bad. I do like the way it "forces" you to engage with that system, rather than SCH having the option to ignore their AF heals and just use ED. But. Leaving it capped is no fun.
But its discussions like these that prevent me from comprehending the idea that "they're basically the same class", you know? When you really dig into it, they're so different in how you manage resources and utilize skills. And they have different skills that are great in different situations. So again, the idea that Sage is just worse Scholar is... just not true. They're so different and both so great. At least from my perspective.
I think you might be right on the money with saying the SE is afraid to create more differences. I haven't followed the healer lore long enough to know what specific scholar incident you're referring to, nor can I really track with the class changes throughout patches, but I think we are largely saying the same things as far as "SE gives us differences and we complain". I think the hardest issue they face is that even if they make changes to please one group of players, in doing so they are going to massively upset other players. So then they get stuck playing whack-a-mole trying to placate different groups of players. Try to please all, please none. But of course every single one of us is 100% correct on what is wrong and what needs to be done to fix it... I don't envy SE, trying to navigate this.