A summary of healer issues

[GrimGale]

So, when I think of "interactivity", I think of something different -- I think of Black Mage. In normal mode content, even as a casual, it's possible to end up in various recognizable "failure" states. For example:

• You greed in Astral Fire a bit too much, the timer drops to zero, and all of a sudden, you realize you're at zero MP and can't easily get into Umbral Ice.
• You transition from Umbral Ice to Astral Fire, only to notice that you forgot about Umbral Hearts.
• You got distracted by mechanics and let Enochian drop right before generating a Polyglot stack.

There's this definite feeling that it matters what buttons get pushed when and which order. Which is to say, there's some sort of interaction happening, even if it's not always literally "push this button to modify this other button."

In that same normal mode content, I can't say I feel the same for White Mage or Scholar. (I don't touch Sage or Astrologian, so I won't comment on them.) There are no real failure states that come to mind.* And beyond that...

I routinely forget that Fey Union exists, so it makes no difference to me that there are buttons that feed the fairy gauge. Dissipation just feels bad to me, which means I don't push it, so asking whether it interacts with my kit is like asking whether a tree falling in a forest with no around makes a sound. When (or if) I push Temperance and Plenery Indulgence generally feels irrelevant. There's nothing to make me feel bad about overcapping on lillies.

*True, when I push Swiftcast and Thin Air matters, but it's always before Raise, and this is so rote that it fails to register as a "real" interaction.

I'm interested in the interactivity within a job's kit because it seemed the players largely enjoyed the PvP healer rework. Many in this forum praised the PvP design for healers for its level of simplicity (Having fewer skills), and abundant interactivity with itself, which granted the jobs an distinct and engaging gameplay.

I'm not a PvP player but I was tempted to try the new skill sets back when they were new and they felt really cohesive and interesting. Ofc the mindset is different in PvP than it is in PvE. We have a different focus regarding our role and our skills were changed accordingly. We can no longer spam heal our allies, instead we were given limited healing or shielding resources so as to not make PvP fights drag forever-

Still, I wonder how much the proportion of skill interactivity has changed within the kits when compared to PVE skill sets.