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As a hardened Final Fantasy 14 stan and a shameful (no, not shameless) hardcore raider, I've accumulated thousands of hours worth of healing in various forms of content, but the actual amount of healing I've done is probably not all that high.
That's because I've primarily been concerned with, you know, dealing damage… as just about every role in Final Fantasy 14 must be so as to keep up with DPS checks.
This has rung true for me in everything from Savage raids to Ultimates (I'm looking at you, TEA), and I'm so pleased to say the burden of balancing necessary heals with constant damage output is going to be lifted come 8.0 expansion Evercold in January of 2027.
Alongside the very nice changes to tomestones, roulettes, and item levels, Square Enix is tweaking jobs with two new modes: Reborn and Evolved. The latter – albeit seemingly simple in theory – makes things a bit more streamlined for all classes while still maintaining a good skill ceiling.
All these adjustments to jobs in 8.0 especially impact healers, though, as they transform us into… well, real healers.
Instead of having to grapple with the long global cooldown drag that healing abilities are while trying to deal as much damage as possible, we'll get to insta-cast our DPS-aligned spells.
Battle system planner Hikaru Tamaki – now lovingly known as "Mr. Prime" – confirms as much during Fan Fest 2026 in Anaheim, California, saying that "by casting a global cooldown heal, you will still be able to attack" come Evercold.
"We've removed casting times for attack spells." Why? "We want healing to be a healer's main priority." Tamaki notes that we're usually asked to avoid using healing spells as it is currently, so as to do more damage.
Evidently, Square Enix wants to remedy this, and the 8.0 changes are the best way – in my opinion, anyway – that developers can do so. "It's kind of like a heal plus [you] have DPS, and that's how we'll have it for the Evolved mode."
I think my jaw literally dropped when Tamaki announced all this, honestly. I mean, healers have spent over a decade now trying to act as a strange pseudo-DPS while relying on quick OGCD heals.
This, coupled with what seems to be the death of the two-minute meta, is pretty dang game-changing, and I personally can't wait to see how it affects me as Astrologian and my static as a whole. Healers aren't alone in having an exciting Evolved mode to anticipate.
I'm genuinely thrilled to see the long-promised job changes coming to fruition – it's been a long time coming. Part of me is worried about what this all might mean for my cards as an AST, but I have a good feeling Evolved mode might tweak 'em for the better.
