How should they address the disparity within the role?

[Rithy255]

I feel like at this point we got to look at sage and white mage and ask what do they offer over their counterparts Scholar and Astro, even healing/utility kits on Ast/Sch are way stronger then utility on whm/sage.

I do actually think a part of that is current healer design is so static that mild variance in damage & utility will just make a clear choice, theirs also a question with astro that should a top end astro player be rewarded compared to a white mage, previously i might have been against that but now I think white mage should be a lot closer in total damage due to not having to jump through as much hoops as astro to get there.

Sage and Scholar is a conversation where Scholar just out classes Sage's kit because both classes were closely designed but Scholar brings more vital and a more stronger kit then Sage, even if sage feels more refined and less annoying to use in comparison.

Ideally healers should have more different/stronger niches, its a problem relating to making every job relative to each other which healer has been the most known for doing this out of anything else, so the choice is obvious even when the differences aren't that massive.

[GrimGale]

healers should have more different/stronger niches

To have "niches" you need gameplay variability. All of the encounters are mostly "move here then here", "hit boss", "restore HP/mitigate"- There are no other meaningful mechanics beyond do the dance and mitigate then fill bars up. No status effects, no CC, no unique buffs to apply or debuffs to handle. Utility and its niches have been steadily been removed- You can't have uniquely designed jobs because the game has been designing them away in order for every job to be able to tackle all the content.

[Rithy255]

To have "niches" you need gameplay variability. All of the encounters are mostly "move here then here", "hit boss", "restore HP/mitigate"- There are no other meaningful mechanics beyond do the dance and mitigate then fill bars up. No status effects, no CC, no unique buffs to apply or debuffs to handle. Utility and its niches have been steadily been removed- You can't have uniquely designed jobs because the game has been designing them away in order for every job to be able to tackle all the content.

Look how well that's been going you can never design a game to be 100% balanced, getting rid of what made every job fun and different has been pointless because now your just playing different versions of the same job, but people still only bring the "good jobs" despite how much we have had to cater to removing job Identity for the sake of people at the highest end wanting to play any job. People now just mostly define what job is "meta" by dps numbers.

Ultimately I'm not arguing that making Jobs more fun and different would make the game more Balanced, but this approach we've had for three expansions now has clearly not properly worked if we're still discussing why some jobs are too bad or too good.

No amount of making every job play the same will stop people from optimising the game and wanting "meta" jobs over "non meta jobs". I personally would rather go back to having more fun and creative Jobs, what's the point of having a more boring game because we're trying to cater to a impossible task.