Quote Originally Posted by Dearche View Post
Also, I don't think the idea of raid utility is a forgone conclusion. WHile AST would entirely lose its identity without cards, SCH still has chain stratagem and has never lost it. So unless if SE cares so little for healers that they had intended to strip all raid utility from healers aside from the AST cards, and simply forgot that chain stratagem even existed (I don't say that this isn't a possibility), the skill does suggest that SE does think that raid utility should be a part of the healer kit, even if it is on a very basic level.

Though, at the same time, it's possible that SE does actually account for healer damage in job design as WHM's attack potency is the highest of the three healers in place of having any raid utility.
Oh, my chortling about WHM and raid utility isn't because I don't think Square wants healers in general to have utility. It's because WHMs have been begging Square to give them something to do during downtime for years. Some form of raid utility would have killed two birds with one stone: given WHM something to manage, while also bringing them up to AST and SCH's level. Back in Stormblood it felt like garbage playing WHM compared to the other two. You did less damage, your heals weren't really any stronger than theirs, you had nothing to do in downtime except refresh your dots and spam Stone, and if your party needed you to do anything other than heal them up or stare at them while spamming Stone, you were SOL. Lethal AOE damage going out? Can't help you, I have no AOE shields and no damage reduction. And no debuffs to reduce boss outgoing damage. Party's struggling with a tight DPS check? Oh well, I don't have anything to help you with that. Need to Esuna multiple people quickly? Don't look at me, I'm not Selene. As a WHM, there was no scenario you were uniquely useful in outside spamming Cure 3. Conversely, there were TONS of scenarios where the other two healers were invaluable, but you had no equivalent ability to help. Offensive utility was just the tip of the iceberg there; WHM just had effectively nothing unique going for it.

Shadowbringers healer design by all appearances is the healer design dev saying "yeah we see WHMs have been begging for utility for literal years now, I'm gonna go with no. But we have to balance this out with two really strong, flexible healers. What to do....oh I know! Let's blow up their flexibility instead."