Aetherial Shift vs Smudge - Please Explain

[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