I'm bored when I heal because I need more complex DPS rotations

[Renathras]

Dear god, Hell has frozen over because we actually agree on something.

If you read back a bit, you'd see I've been saying this for months, possibly over a year.

I feel like the current design requires at least some mitigation, and WHM is the one Healer Job I consistently find I'm reaching for a mitigation button and there's not one. I first noticed this with 6.0 with Ra-La's fight, where on SCH and SGE and even AST, I could reliably pop a mitigation of some kind timed to each of the raidwides he did, which were about 30 seconds or so apart (if they fight only goes 1:30-1:59, AST can still manage using Collective, Neutral, Collective). But with WHM, after Temperance for the first one, you've got nothing unless the fight goes on long enough for him to get around to doing a 4th or 5th one.

Sure, it's not NEEDED for that fight (though with some of the Tanks and DPSers I had...ahem <_<), but the point is, when fights have a simple cadence raidwide, all the other Healers have several tools, and the CDs are where they can answer MOST raidwides with some form of mitigation or shielding.

WHM is the only one that does not.

And BECAUSE of how simple that fight is, and BECAUSE of how apparent the cadence is, it becomes really apparent how utterly lacking WHM is in the department that it can't even mitigate TWO of them; just the ONE.

If AST didn't, either, that might be a different story - would still "feelsbad", but at least the Pure/Barrier dichotomy would hold - but the fact is AST has 3 per 2 minute period and WHM has as little party mitigation as BLM does is a problem. And ADDLE, of all things, even has a SHORTER cooldown of 90 seconds. So technically, BLM - and SAM with Feint - the selfish DPS, both bring more party mitigation to the table than WHM does! WHM would actually have MORE frequently available mitigation if it actually lost Temperance and was given Addle! (Note: This is NOT something I'm proposing, and the physical mitigation would be half of Temperance's, but it would be available 4/3 times as often.)

It's not hard to find common ground when the topic of said ground is 'WHM has been consistently bent over the table and screwed by SE design for several years, and here's one example (where is my 60s mit) where it's direct competition wipes the floor with it designwise'

There is a problem with "homogenization", but the thing is, WHM had some tools in the past between Proshell (granted, every party wanted it, but it meant an AST/SCH party only had the physical mitigation from it, not the magical) and WHM had spamable Stoneskin (unlike Divine Benison which only has two charges) (and SCH/AST Cross-Classing it only got the base version that was a shield for 12% or whatever HP of the target, not the Trait version WHM got that went up to 18%).

It's hard to worry about homogenization when WHM had the abilities first.

Additionally, homogenization is only a good argument when it's not "all but one have this". If it was JUST SCH or JUST AST that did, that'd be one thing. But the fact is, SCH, AST, and SGE all have this, meaning it's pretty close to a "required for the role" ability. Imagine if SGE didn't have Raise, for example, and people were saying "You can't give SGE a Raise, that'd be homogenization!". Obviously, that wouldn't be an argument (even WoW eventually gave Druids a spamable raise since their unique combat raise - which they got to keep for the flavor, btw - could only be used once per HOUR; not so great for wipe recovery in a 5 man if more than one person died). And mitigation, at this point, is "role essential".

Personally, I feel like “increasing max HP” is the primary answer to mitigation needs that should be White Mage’s wheelhouse. It’s not reducing incoming damage, but it increases how much damage the party can take while also being refillable for its duration, letting tools like regen/medica II or liturgy offer more value for certain mechanics. It’s basically a refillable barrier.

What would be interesting is seeing each healer approach mitigation needs differently as their primary response to big damage.

WHM: increases max HP
SCH: flat mitigation
AST: stagger damage taken
SGE: staggered barriers

That doesn’t need to be their only mitigation strategy, but could be their main 30 second cooldown or something similar.

I actually do agree that there's design space for "different roads; all roads lead to Rome". By my band-aid in the moment issue is that 1 out of 4 can't do a thing that 3 out of 4 currently can, and that's a problem.