Quote Originally Posted by BigCheez View Post
There needs to be overlap between pure and barrier healers, otherwise you wouldn't be able to clear normal content with only barrier healers. You can't give barrier healers enough healing to be able to do that without also giving pure healers a little bit of mitigation and shielding.

I also don't really think it's a problem for WHM to be more reactive and less proactive than AST. Each job will appeal to some people more than the other.
It can be less proactive than AST, still play primarily reactive (as all healers will throughout fights, especially with imperfect play of party members), and can feel less helpless in the settings I described in my OP and below.

"The difference in tool kit begins to be apparent in high end content such as savage and ultimate where mitigation (albeit not completely a healer responsibility) is often the bar in which bosses test a group's ability to impact the full party's effective HP stat beyond HP restoration, which WHM is sorely lacking relative to all other healers regardless of Regen/Shield tag." This is what's being missed by many responses; pressing reprisal/feint/addle prior to a raidwide is both expected and not complex. Given the lack of useful party mit OGCDs on WHM, 1 additional button to help with raidwides that isn't a heal is not reinventing the wheel. It's simply bridging the gap btwn regen healer mitigation tools in high end settings where the kits are maximized. Hopefully this elucidates the issue.