How can we really define Healers?

[Renathras]

Another thread, in another discussion, this came up. But it's actually an interesting question:

here's a thought which occurred to me just now as i type this: what distinguishes a healer as 'in the healing role'? take this thought experiment as an example: overnight, SE has released a patch. Curing Waltz on DNC is now 20y radius like medica2, and has a CD of just 2 seconds. Shield Samba has also been reduced to a 30s cooldown, to match Soil and Kerachole. This would EASILY be enough to complete anything up to extreme trials, and i'd hazard a guess it'd even have been enough to clear P1S and P2S with week 1 gear because they hit like wet noodles. Still, the question is, with those changes in effect, would this recategorise DNC to be a 'healer'? IMO it would not, but it'd have more HPS potential than any of the other healers like this. So, what makes a healer, a 'healer'? how many healing skills vs not-healing skills it has in it's kit? how OFTEN it presses healing vs not-healing skills? some other metric we've yet to see or understand?

Mechanically, something like this has a fair amount of capability, and some WOULD call it a healer while others would not.

If RDM had "Vermedica" with the potency of a Medica but the cast time and MP cost of Vercure, would it be a capable healer? Would it be fair to define it as one? Or would it be something else?

What defines a healer as a Healer and not a something else?

To be fair, DNC already straddles some weird lines, and DNC with this model would even moreso. Some MIGHT call it a healer in that situation. I remember when RDM was introduced, I first thought it would be a healer. After all, "Job with healing abilities that also uses some DPS spells" already described WHM at the time (late HW), just the damage spells being Earth and Wind element instead of Fire and Lightning.

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Is it the focus of the Job (healing vs damage dealing)? The number of healing abilities? How efficient those healing abilities are?

Hm...