How does SE plan to restore White Mage's identity as a healer?

[Cynfael]

snip.

I actually like this kind of thinking as well. I'm sure that the "Healers are Non-Combatants" contingent would throw an absolute fit if Cleric Stance management became even more integral to playing any healing job, but A) I care less about their feelings by the day and B) there is opportunity there beyond direct damage.

Why not offer special debuffs or (non-crappy) crowd control skills that can only be used while under the effect of Cleric Stance? E.g. Breakga for petrification, anyone? As long as they include at least a few skills that might actually be of use in boss encounters and make sure that WHM has access to some intriguing options, this could be a way to enhance the support role in addition to the obligatory DPS spell upgrades we are sure to get regardless.

[Vulcwen]

I think this goes more into the issues with the DPS meta in general, it's pretty clear that a lot of healers want to be able to be useful without having to all become DPS. The DPS meta is an issue with this game, and while it's currently optimal (and therefore you should dps as healer), and the risk-reward portion of cleric can be rewarding, it's ultimately not what a lot of players want from a healing job. So, introducing other forms of support, like crowd control can make healing more viable, and WHM can become the best CC'er of the healers, in fact, they already are, it's just that encounter design currently gives no use to it by making enemies immune, nor introducing mechanics that require things like sleeps and AoE stuns.

I think a primary issue with CC is that not enough jobs have access to it, SE doesn't want to force players into specific group setups, so they can either make it useless, or give it to more classes as well, I think I'll prefer the 2nd option as it can make content design more interesting in the future.
For sleep mechanics: It could be possible that an enemy has to be kept asleep, which means spending GCDs on refreshing the sleep, it'll be less of a DPS loss to let a healer do this compared to a BLM or other DPS.. you can give other DPS classes sleeps to not force BLM or WHM choices, but if WHM is the only healer with a sleep, it'll be an advantage over other healers. Alternatively, you can vary durations, so that if other healers also get a sleep, a WHM's one is longer in duration meaning less GCDs spent on refreshing it.