Aetherial Shift vs Smudge - Please Explain

[Reimmi]

Same reason Dark Knight and Gunbreaker has a non-damage gapcloser, while the Paladin and Warrior have their with damage attached to them.

No idea at all. And they do seem not telling us why they make such decisions.

Because pld and war will lose them too but they're waiting to give them replacement ogcds, because they're less busy than drk/gnb
my guess, anyway.

[Zaniel]

Probably because a WHM with a 20s CD dash would never die ... ever? The only way for a WHM to die currently is to not pay attention and be way out of position and get one shot due to a super nuke or too many vuln stacks. If you remove the need to ever pay attention to position then a WHM is going to functionally immortal.

[Arrius]

gnb and drk have morre busy burst windows, taking out the damagign gap closers let them able to weave in defensives if needed , war and pld have less ogcds, its simple, they explaining speiffially why they did this in a LL

That doesn't explain the massive gap in levels on each job for it. This is something each of them should get at the same moment, just like tank stances and the basic AoE rotation.

[Voidmage]

Picto has some very long cast times it has to use so it’s good to have that mobility.

Not to dismiss your post but shouldn‘t we be happy that different jobs (roles even) have different things?
Even as a blm main before DT I never looked to dancer and said „I need that“.

[Pentacus]

Healers get permanent easy slide casting, and their damage is considered a “bonus” by the devs, 100% uptime isn’t expected, as such, the dev intended solution for a healer needing to move is to stop what they’re doing and move, with the dash as a backup if they really can’t get out of the way

Picto has slidecasting for their filler, but the big part of Picto’s damage comes from the long casts from Subtractive Palette and their VERY long cast paintings, dropping a 3 second cast to dodge an AoE is painful and the mobility allows them to finish that cast and get to safety

we all know the “BLMs refuse to move” jokes, this is the same principle, it’s why BLMs get Aetherial Manipulation on a 10s CD whilst Sage and Melee get 45ish second gap closers: because like WHM Sage is expected to just drop damage and run, and melee is downtime recovery for when they’re forced out of melee because melee abilities are almost all instant, you can’t “fail” a melee ability like a cast

TLDR: PCT and BLM have much stronger mobility options because dropping long casting is the most detrimental for them, so their tools are intended to allow “greeding” rather than just survivability alone

[Azlith]

Its quite simple really, Picto is dps and Whm isn't. All of the dps get better mobility options than their non-dps counterparts save for mch/brd but they don't need to cast and can attack from any range so I would assume they don't need them.

[Reimmi]

Its quite simple really, Picto is dps and Whm isn't. All of the dps get better mobility options than their non-dps counterparts save for mch/brd but they don't need to cast and can attack from any range so I would assume they don't need them.

why does dancer need them then?

[ForteNightshade]

Same reason Dark Knight and Gunbreaker has a non-damage gapcloser, while the Paladin and Warrior have their with damage attached to them.

No idea at all. And they do seem not telling us why they make such decisions.

Not quite the same comparison. They specifically said they wanted to lessen the oGCD load Dark Knight and Gunbreaker had in EW. Meanwhile, Warrior barely has any oGCDs and Paladin only has a few. So that's the reason they did that.

As for Picto over White Mage, I can assume it's because they think it's less of a big deal for healers to lose damage if they need to move. It's flimsy but does go in line with their way of thinking when it comes to the healer design.

[Avoidy]

They'll probably nerf Smudge in an upcoming patch. I wouldn't be surprised at all. Which sucks because it's a really fun skill.
If you put a gun to my head and asked me to justify the current situation, I'd bet they probably expected that WHMs wouldn't have as many issues with pre-positioning since nothing they do locks them in place quite like PCT's leylines, their new Glare is an instant cast, they can lily while moving, old glare is a really quick cast anyway allowing for easy slidecasting, and their rotation is generally 1 button so it's not like they're gonna get lost in the sauce and caught by surprise very often.

[TheMightyMollusk]

why does dancer need them then?

So they can get into close range for Standard and Technical Step?