White mage is the weakest healer in regards to personal cooldowns, and mit. Every healer got things to cover their weaknesses in dawntrail.
Scholar got the seraphisim skill to help with sustained hps which was their weakness
Sage got another raid wide heal and healing potency buff for bigger shields.
Astro got sun sign so you actually get a benefit in very high end optimization play at high levels even if you don’t cast aspected Helios itself because it’s a dps loss. For midcore and casual Astrid it’s another defensive.
What we needed to shore up our weaknesses was another mit or shield but holding it hostage behind our 10% was not the play. We can’t rotate shields or mit unlike the other healers. We should have the flexibility to use our shield when we want to. I don’t understand the point of a shield when we already have a 10% up. That and its duration is only 10 seconds which is very awkward. I’m fine with that and can adjust to it, but it’s unforgiving and unusual to midcore and casual. It’s the only healer aoe shield that’s not 30 seconds.
I personally would rather have it as a cooldown by itself but if you must lock it behind another action I’d rather have weaker shields but more often via assize. Or asylum. Anything really besides temperance.
I’d also like to point out that square enix divided the healer role into “pure” and “shield” subroles. Imo it’s unhealthy the direction the healers are going. With all the recent additions, there really is no reason to bring a white mage to any content.
Scholar and sage with their new cap skills encroach upon pure healer identity but the pure healers can\\'t really compete with the shield healers with the tools they have at their disposal. Shield healers have shields, multiple percentage based mit, regens, aoe burst hps and now aoe sustained hps. Astro is better off than white mage because it has shields and mit that aren’t locked together and multiple forms of it. But white mage lacks those options.
ATM in high end gameplay double shield has never been more comfortable. You can rotate between deploy for two minute mechanics, Zoe for one minute mechanics alongside percentage mit and regens and you’ll be very healthy and safe. If all else fails seraphisim will save the group. Astro has a better argument to bring over a white mage because cards and more mit. But even double shield is fulfilling the niche that white mage had which is being comfy.
White mage and Astro have been balanced for a while via white mage providing significant more personal dps vs Astro providing more raid dps via buffs and card at the cost of low personal dps. At the moment the balancing is pretty sketchy. If you go ahead with the announced job changes to Astro and reduce the draw cooldown from one minute to less it’ll 100% skew the balance that is already a bit wonky. Please keep that in mind and buff white mage potencies in line with Astro draw cooldown reduced so Astro mains can be happy and so white mages won’t 100% be left in the dust.
Because if you don’t we truly won’t be better then at anything besides holy spam and cure 3 spam. One of those is only for dungeon content/very high end optimization and the other is very niche.