Let's all brace ourselves for no healer mention in any capacity for the upcoming LL

[GrimGale]

I agree with your overall point, but I have to cackle at WHM weaving *anything* at will.

As awful as clipping your Dot feels, when it comes to shielding, WHM still does it better than SCH, who has to use the GCD to apply a shield. If we are discussing the paradoxical situation of Pure VS Shield healers, Divine Benison makes WHM a better shield healer than SCH and Excogitation/Whispering Dawn/Indomitability make SCH a better Pure healer than WHM.

[Semirhage]

As awful as clipping your Dot feels, when it comes to shielding, WHM still does it better than SCH, who has to use the GCD to apply a shield. If we are discussing the paradoxical situation of Pure VS Shield healers, Divine Benison makes WHM a better shield healer than SCH and Excogitation/Whispering Dawn/Indomitability make SCH a better Pure healer than WHM.

Scholar does technically have an oGCD shield- Consolation. But it has far more hoops to jump through than Benison, that much is true. Man Whispering Dawn has always made me narrow my eyes at how Squeenix designs WHM. I remember when Squeenix cut Medica 2's potency in half and doubled its duration in ARR (finally reverted that change this expac). They said it was too strong giving the same amount of healing in half the time, so they stretched it out from 15 to 30s. Meanwhile Eos was furiously twerking in the background, having the same total healing potency in 21 seconds, while also being even better than an oGCD since it didn't require a weave. That wasn't too strong.

Complaining about WHM getting an oGCD shield when SCH barely has any is valid. It's just a little late to the Stole My Identity party.

[SpiralMask]

(just popping in to note that this thread isnt about the role disparity of healers in play vs dev's intentions/delusions, which is a totally viable discussion topic deserving of its own thread, as this thread is about the general lack of healer representation or even simple acknowledgement in any medium in general, and more specifically these last two years.
getting too sidetracked tends to get threads ignored as "yet another blanket X complaint thread", and would generally best keep threads more individually focused so that on the astronomical chance that someone official sees it they can actually consider the points made etc etc)

[Semirhage]

(just popping in to note that this thread isnt about the role disparity of healers in play vs dev's intentions/delusions, which is a totally viable discussion topic deserving of its own thread, as this thread is about the general lack of healer representation or even simple acknowledgement in any medium in general, and more specifically these last two years.
getting too sidetracked tends to get threads ignored as "yet another blanket X complaint thread", and would generally best keep threads more individually focused so that on the astronomical chance that someone official sees it they can actually consider the points made etc etc)

You were correct, there was barely any healer representation in the LL. This is annoying. And also something they've done consistently since we proved them wrong about SB lilies.

I gave up on expecting anything after the big ShB live letter where healers were not only a footnote at the bottom of the great hour long DPS and Tankapalooza, but they mumbled and skipped even that footnote.

[Liam_Harper]

Shield healing as an identity in this game seems to revolve entirely around weak aoe shields and their use seems to be limited to a small handful of raidwides on low ilv prog and harder Savage/Ultimate bosses. For some reason SE insists on splitting aoe shields into a heal/shield split, which often makes pre-shielding waste the heal component and only apply a pathetic 180-200 potency. These are almost worthless outside of when you need them to live, therefore shield healers are given a wide pure-heal toolkit to function in all the other content in the game.

This is why Shield vs Pure is actually Pure with Extra Utility vs Pure. SCH and AST are basically WHM's except they have aoe shields for fatal raidwides and WHM doesn't. That's the distinction.

I'm interested to see how SE plans to address this going into Endwalker. Making a true Shield vs Pure distinction requires completely changing how shield healing plays.

[IceBlueNinja]

Shield healing as an identity in this game seems to revolve entirely around weak aoe shields and their use seems to be limited to a small handful of raidwides on low ilv prog and harder Savage/Ultimate bosses. For some reason SE insists on splitting aoe shields into a heal/shield split, which often makes pre-shielding waste the heal component and only apply a pathetic 180-200 potency. These are almost worthless outside of when you need them to live, therefore shield healers are given a wide pure-heal toolkit to function in all the other content in the game.

This is why Shield vs Pure is actually Pure with Extra Utility vs Pure. SCH and AST are basically WHM's except they have aoe shields for fatal raidwides and WHM doesn't. That's the distinction.

I'm interested to see how SE plans to address this going into Endwalker. Making a true Shield vs Pure distinction requires completely changing how shield healing plays.

But like whm noct ast and sch have skill to increase their heal spell pots so the shield can be quite huge no? I usually neu sect then pop cu and helio shield b4 raid aoe owie and get a good chunk which would make that a 400 pot or more shield? or sch I guess do their serpah then ill spell and crit ado though am sure unlike noct ast that can do this fast vs light speed its more prep and time consume on sch end. What am asking is technically isnt the pots more than the 180 or 200 on sheilds with thing that increase heal potencies. Yeah while not need shields does help though to cheese a would be 1 hit mech from some spell or major hurt or help a poor geared person from suffering to much owie, mercy me with a low blm i got in old e1 normal I calculate if i didnt sling a few noct shields on him if below half hp he sure would have tip over, though i like it low ilvl people at times so i dont constant spam bust/ mal and biring card only. A reason to use even the good but very clutch snestry xd.

[Liam_Harper]

Neutral + AspHelios is a 300 shield. You do get the benefit of any HoT duration that lingers after the damage hits, but if you were at full health when you shielded you lose the initial heal component.

Abilities that increase shields generally increase Pure Heals too. So even if you can buff your shields with a Reci Adlo Spread combo or such, if you didn't need it to survive chances are you could just drop one Soil or Indom after the raidwide, which keeps the party alive equally well for much less resources. Consolation is a decent ability, but you have to jump through hoops to get similar total potency to a single Diurnal AST oGCD. In your example where you saved a BLM below 50% with shields, an Essential Dignity or Synastry+Benefic would catch him just fine too. Shields just don't serve enough purpose unless you're playing really safe (early prog) or you're definitely going to die without them.

Considering Noct is your favourite spec because of it's shields, wouldn't you prefer it if shields were actually a strong core part of your toolkit? More pure shields, larger pure raidwide aoe shields or shields that triggered heals or regens only after they popped, in exchange for some (not all) of your pure healing (examples). So that the class rewarded you for predicting and preparing for incoming damage.

[IceBlueNinja]

Neutral + AspHelios is a 300 shield. You do get the benefit of any HoT duration that lingers after the damage hits, but if you were at full health when you shielded you lose the initial heal component.

Abilities that increase shields generally increase Pure Heals too. So even if you can buff your shields with a Reci Adlo Spread combo or such, if you didn't need it to survive chances are you could just drop one Soil or Indom after the raidwide, which keeps the party alive equally well for much less resources. Consolation is a decent ability, but you have to jump through hoops to get similar total potency to a single Diurnal AST oGCD. In your example where you saved a BLM below 50% with shields, an Essential Dignity or Synastry+Benefic would catch him just fine too. Shields just don't serve enough purpose unless you're playing really safe (early prog) or you're definitely going to die without them.

Considering Noct is your favourite spec because of it's shields, wouldn't you prefer it if shields were actually a strong core part of your toolkit? More pure shields, larger pure raidwide aoe shields or shields that triggered heals or regens only after they popped, in exchange for some (not all) of your pure healing (examples). So that the class rewarded you for predicting and preparing for incoming damage.

Aye friend total agree with you , i just get lost sometimes on potencies statement regarding shields also you did only state asp helio dont forget cu and wheel of fort noct in pot how much would the helio noct and co noct be in pot when use with neuro? We can only pray what ew do, am feeling rdm more each day so..will just be abit paranoid I know at times if I feel whoever heals whos not a friend of mine may make me vercure at times since I know 80% of healers will dps, ofc I do not expect heal botting me at 80 and above but like below 50% and i see no type of heal i may ver cure lol sorry, plds are guilty of it too and it did use to bug me as a healer but now I see why they may clem and dont get mad anymore.

[Allegor]

Considering SCH even already has a spell that converts shield into raw healing, it's not like they can't make SCH [and likely Sage] a more shield oriented, if not strictly shield healer, I think they just don't want to in fear of people claiming it to be way too difficult to play proactively (even though that's how the job is set up to be played but let's hide under the casual scapegoats), not to mention potential balancing shenanigans that I myself are too casual to think.

Also, a small yet relevant thing to take into account is that Consolation is a lv 80 ability, so unless you're playing on the current raid tier [Eden, ex trials, Nier raids], you don't even have it, meanwhile AST has its entire shielding kit as early as 60

Same could be said of WHM with Temperance. I remember back when WHM had stoneskin 2 and Divine Seal as abilities below 40 I think it was which did similar things as an aoe shield (long cast) and healing buff.

Difference being that WHM doesn't need Temperance to feel like a pure healer, whereas SCH has a weird gap between 50 and 80 where shielding falls to the sideline in favor of fairy and aetherflow ogcds - they don't even really need to shield, and that's supposed to be the job's niche.

[Rosa_Frandlia]

Considering SCH even already has a spell that converts shield into raw healing, it's not like they can't make SCH [and likely Sage] a more shield oriented, if not strictly shield healer, I think they just don't want to in fear of people claiming it to be way too difficult to play proactively (even though that's how the job is set up to be played but let's hide under the casual scapegoats), not to mention potential balancing shenanigans that I myself are too casual to think.

Also, a small yet relevant thing to take into account is that Consolation is a lv 80 ability, so unless you're playing on the current raid tier [Eden, ex trials, Nier raids], you don't even have it, meanwhile AST has its entire shielding kit as early as 60

Same could be said of WHM with Temperance. I remember back when WHM had stoneskin 2 and Divine Seal as abilities below 40 I think it was which did similar things as an aoe shield (long cast) and healing buff.

More on topic, I'm guessing live letter about jobs will be about sage and possibly AST with nothing on SCH or WHM. Hopefully for both neither gets gutted like they have been the last 2 expansions,.