A summary of healer issues

[ty_taurus]

See, that's why I think the split is a silly idea. If you want two healers to deal with 'Pure Healing' (or, bulk HP restoration in hard hitting scenarios like Harrowing Hell) and two to deal with mitigation/applying barriers (ie reducing the damage dealt by the hits of Harrowing Hell) then the end result of following that idea to its logical conclusion is that the two healers that do Pure Healing don't care about mitigation, and the two healers that do Mitigation/Barrier stuff don't care about Pure Healing. Effectively, all that this does is lock out the healers from interacting with the opposite side of 'healing design'.

I'm not entirely against pure vs barrier healing if it were actually done well, but if I were going to lean into it, I think there is a way to resolve that issue. In order to explain, let me start by establishing what a healing action can cost.

Any given healing action will have some sort of cost: MP; DPS; mobility, cooldown, or other resources (such as lilies or aetherflow).

If White Mage is a pure healer, then their pure healing--their high-potency heals that allow them to resolve large healing checks effortlessly should be their primary method of healing and should come at minimal costs. Meanwhile, they can still have access to barrier and mitigation tools, but those actions feature all high costs. When paired with a barrier healer, the pure healer will generally rely on the barrier healer for those barrier mechanics, but can both assist and/or replace the barrier healer in a pinch at a steep cost. In other words it is significantly less efficient to be the barrier healer when you are the pure healer and vice versa.

Like with my Sage example, it makes a negative amount of sense to me why they have a 2 regens on a 30 second and 60 second cooldown respectively--the 30 second cooldown actually restoring your MP mind you, when all their barriers either cost them DPS or sit on 2 minute cooldowns. It should be the other way around. I should have a party-wide barrier on a 30 second and 60 second cooldown. And maybe I have a regen on a 120 second cooldown, or a regen spell that costs a major chunk of MP and costs me DPS.

But personally, I'd rather each healer have a more distinct healing style. Pure and barrier can be where those styles lean, but that each healer approaches both pure healing and barrier healing in their own unique ways. For example with barrier mechanics:

Scholar has large, single-use barriers that block most of the damage.
Sage directly reduces the damage taken by the party and has smaller, layered barriers.
White Mage extends the party's Max HP so that they can soak more damage.
Astrologian can cause damage to be staggered across several seconds.

They're all different and have different strengths and weaknesses, but all four of those are able to function as barrier and mitigation mechanics.