The Problem with Healer Feedback, and requested changes

[Renathras]

If I may, let me expand on a few things...

Hm...

I guess I don't consider healers like fighters, per se? Like Ryu from Street Fighter or even Sora from Smash aren't mages. When I think of a mage's duel, I think of something different. There are wizard duels and then there are mage duels. Wizard duels are things like Merlin from the Disney Sword in the Stone movie where he and she are swapping between different types of animals (and she cheats by using additional magic to go invisible) which he wins without killing her by becoming a germ and making her sick. Another example is Dumbledor vs Voldemort from I think it was the 4th Harry Potter movie. Wizard duels a contests of magic, but not in a direct contest of powerful spells. They also include a lot of trying to out-think the opponent and clever use of magics such as Dumbledor turning the flying shards of glass into more or less harmless sand.

On the other hand, when it comes to mages, I tend to think more an exchange of power. Which...would probably not be realistic (they'd just incinerate each other unless their spells contested somehow). I think more like this: https://youtu.be/OVXSWE7KE68?t=535 Or not as good of a "mage" example, but in Dragonball where the fighters contest with their energy projectiles in a more brute force contest of power.

In a very general sense, I consider mages more "crude but effective" magic users vs wizards "masters of the arcane arts" type magic users. A mage wouldn't have a spell to turn glass into sand, for example, or to turn into a germ. They would have Flare or Holy. Large, powerful, brute force spells that "do the job". And likewise, mages involved in healing are more combat medics whereas wizards that chose that route would be more akin to magically enhanced doctors or churgeons. (Which, contrary to the "does damage that heals; with lasers" SGE gameplay, is the actual LORE of SGE...a mix of doctor, wizard, and researcher.)

A Black Mage (non-FFXIV, more general fantasy) isn't cycling through hundreds of spells. They're probably casting the same powerful ones multiple times to batter enemy defenses and break them down. FF1 Black Mage/Wizard late game is mostly casting rank 3 Fire/Ice/Bolt spells (enemy weakness or just whichever you like the look of if there's no weakness to exploit). FFTactics, same story. Less wizard, more mage.

And I suppose that's the way I think of healers in games like this. Yeah, I'd think it silly if MNK just used Bootshine over and over again. Because MNK is a fighter. Combos and mixing up attacks is what I would expect. I might even expect more of a wizard style of combat from a SCH.

Conversely, I would expect more of a mage style of combat from a WHM or BLM or even to a point a RDM, though I'd expect RDM's to use slightly less "brute force" magics in favor of mixing the two schools they have access to together with some martial prowess. Likewise, I consider PLD's a type of mage (as opposed to wizard) in that they are much more focused on their martial skills, but their magic is straight and to the point - a brute force heal, a brute force attack spell, and a brute force area attack spell centered on their person, since a Paladin can be expected to be in the thick of battle and have plenty of foes immediately around them to strike with it.

So I guess in this sense...I don't get tired of the same spell mostly being cast over and over, with a build up to a bigger spell from time to time (Misery) since that more or less fits the class fantasy for me for WHM and to a point for SGE (since I tend to think combat doctors learn a few basic combat techniques, but don't spend a lot of time with it; sorta like a Jedi Consular with Form 6 or the Paladin case, just with their non-combat spell knowledge being focused on a breadth of healing magics rather than swordplay). SCH I feel should have a bit more branching from it, but I also really like Broil 4's cast animation and sound effect, so it doesn't bother me as much as it otherwise might. But again, I think of SCH more like a wizard than a mage in this paradigm/using these definitions.

Another example is BLM. I felt BLM was much more a Black Mage in ARR. Now it's kind of a weird wizard hybrid since a lot of its spells are high power in game mechanics, but not really Black Mage spells. Other FF games, you don't see Black Mages with things like Xenoglossy as spells. Normally the ultimate Black Magic spell is either Flare or Ultima. Some games have more utility spells like Teleport/Warp (when not White Mage spells) or Frog, and stuff like Drain(HP)/Osmose(MP), but they tend to cast more the "big three" of Fire/Blizzard/Thunder 1-2-3-4, and they usually are the ones with Tornado/Break/etc as very high level spells.

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Honestly, my only issue with WHM casting, aesthetically speaking, is that Holy is supposed to be the ultimate offensive White Magic...and it's weaker than Glare. And point blank AOE. Holy should be Misery, basically. And Holy-Misery should be a full cast SPELL, not an instant cast.

But I got over that a while back and just kind of roll with it, though it has bugged me in FFXIV I guess the whole time, lol

So no, I don't get bored with it, so I wouldn't really feel more engaged with WHM having multiple animations/don't specifically feel it would look better, since I think the way it looks right now is more or less in line with the class fantasy. /shrug It is kinda funny how different two people's perceptions of a thing can be.