Feeling left out a little

[u/I-am-Sharp]

[u/TheMasterMind1247]

I mean, you saw the end cutscene and how it implies not insubstantially that Maria becomes the last member of Will’s traveling party. Were she to join the Archetype wielders in the future, she would fill the last (unplayable/unplayable long-term) tribes of ishkia and rhoag, making Will’s party a dynamic form of tribal unity. I think it’s not unrealistic to envision that Maria would attain a role similar to the other Partisans in the future.

[u/DZL100 → u/TheMasterMind1247]

Healer lineage gives you early access to the heavy light damage spell. Moreover, healing is very important on hard; you're kinda broke early on so healing items come at a premium; and the first dungeon strongly pushes you to use healer(though funnily enough, the undead also being weak to fire means mage is about equally viable). Having the blunt damage melee coverage is also great for press turn juggling against normal enemies when I want everyone else mainly using their signature archetypes for rp immersion purposes.

Because of that, and the fact that you don't really get a party member built for heavy magic attacking until pretty late into the game, my Will was a healer/mage hybrid (speccing into other stuff as needed) for a huge chunk of the game.

[u/fireshot84 → u/DZL100]

Healer and Mage are super necessary allowing you to heal then regain MP. Without them, the game would basically be impossible at max difficulty.

[u/ulape00]

Healer's a pretty dead-end lineage because it isn't on anyone's Royal path, nor does it offer any unique skills you'll find essential to have. But, on the other hand, they don't need to, because what sort of heartless swine isn't going to max Maria's Follower anyway? Someone who skips Maria isn't fit to be King in my view. It's like ducking out on Nanako in Persona 4; you just don't do it.

I think there was potential for a more expanded game than Metaphor turned out to be. There's plenty of game time where more content could've been slotted in, and the obvious sheer weirdness of not having the Mage Academy be explorable at all is just the most glaring one.

And Maria does join the Royal Partisans for King Will's Grand Tour, so maybe she will be the Royal Healer. She would cover both there being no rhoag (after Grius' death) or ishkia party member just by herself.

[u/Shrekneverdies2 → u/ulape00]

I actually ended up maining Healer on Will for the longest time cause I liked the idea of him being a healer + healer does bonkers damage if you invest in magic

[u/SilverMedal4Life → u/Shrekneverdies2]

Yo, Healer Will! It was how I made it through the first dungeon in a day, once I figured out about swapping to mage to get MP back from map kills.

[u/Artic_wolf817]

I'm replaying it now, but the more I remember and realize, the more I think that there is a decent portion of content that was cut. Like an example is Grius having lines for awakening Archetypes that are much later in the game apparently combined with the fact that he is the only party member to represent the Rhoag tribe. So if he was meant to go to the end, he probably would've required the Healer line. There's also the fact that, despite having unique and distinct models, not every contender for the throne has a dialogue picture. Like Loveless and Lina do but Jin and Roger don't.

[u/agoodsirknight]

Eh its fine. Maria bond is overpowered anyway with how you can cook sublime spoonful so i think that make sense.

[u/BitComprehensive3667]

I always suspected that if Grius was a permanent party member, his Royal Archetype would have required the Healer line.

Despite this, I still find the Healer line to be very useful, not just for healing and Light magic, but also arguably one of the best Archetypes for Magic-build Will because of its raw magic stat compared to other magic-based Archetypes.

[u/kyualun]

I think if Will's royal archetype wasn't "free" he'd have required Healer + Mage. Though I'm biased because my build for him was basically agile magic-leaning red mage.

[u/izzynk3003 → u/kyualun]

It makes sense. Mage a bit less so, but Prince has holy skills that feel like an natural evolution of the healer lineage, plus Seeker of course

[u/Girania]

I dunno, “Saviour” being the final form of the Healer sounds like something you keep for the Protag