Quote Originally Posted by PercibelTheren View Post
Do they? AST is "better WHM with more sparkles" and SGE is "better SCH". All the healers play the same. Which is why I no longer main the role.
White Mage is the "raw output" healer. In fact, you can place the four healers on a matrix, where one axis is "output vs utility" and the other is "shield vs heals". WHM is healing and output focused. Astro by comparison is healing and utility focused.

White Mage emphasizes this in their movement mechanic being free instant cast heals (the Afflati spells), in Cure III which is a highly unique spell for maximum output only situations, their biggest CD being based on raw healing and getting mana-free casts of their biggest spells to further emphasize the ability to just go ham on everyone's health bars. Even an area that increasing healing taken, no matter from which source.

Contrast this with Astro, which shows a way more nuanced and utility focused approach. Their cards and Divinition to enhance the damage ouput of their groups and reduce tank damage taken. Their ability to intermittently provide shielding beyond a single ability. The fact that three of their abilities focus on (ideally) pre-planning for when damage will be taken to automatically re-heal it (which plays into the whole "divining the future"-angle of the job, too). Essential Dignity scaling with health missing. Their biggest CD including a damage GCD and scales with damage taken.

Then you get to the shield healers, Sage is very much what White Mage is for raw health, but for shields. Lots of ability to provide raw output, even while nuking. Instant cast shields, spammable. Damage reductions galore and stackable. Throws cola cans if actual healing is needed. Can supercharge shielding on a tank. And their primary resource for movement depends on shields since they need to be used up to provide it. Also a strong identity due to their manaregen being tied to the skills that further just push more output and more DR onto the group. To keep going, you gotta keep spamming!

And in contrast to that, again, Scholar is more utility centric (also utterly wasted as a concept, this is the one job that doesn't even show slight signs of design or identity, but on a gameplay level it works out). Damage taken debuff, runspeed, extremely varied modes of healing and shielding to cover every situation. In return it can't just spam shields while moving all day, but hey, it can actually spam (a weaker) nuke while moving!

If you actually had to use your whole kit, and your GCD heals/shields, constantly, the jobs would feel quite distinct despite so many similarities. They could be worlds better (and Scholar needs to be scrapped entirely and re-done from the ground up, it's a hodgepodge of all those years of ill-fitting design ideas), but they do work out. Or would, if there was stuff to be healed in this game.