Which healer do you find the easiest?

With the current toolkits WHM > AST > SCH. WHM is more beginner friendly and anyone can actually give it a shot and do fairly well (talking about casual content mostly). AST is in the middle. Initially may feel hard with card management (hahaha) and their seemingly weaker healing kit but learning it is not that hard, you just need to be comfortable with weaving but it certainly comes with time. And the hardest is SCH. The fairy makes it instantly much harder cause of how clunky the AI is. Plus the fact that most of your kit is locked behind Aetherflow makes the class feel harder and definitely not beginner friendly.

All in all if you put enough time into any of them you can learn it and become better at using the job. After all healing kn XIV is not that hard as many believe. Everything is telegraphed so after a while it feels more like Spam yout dmg skill, refresh dot every 30s and heal occasionally when needed then back to Spamming damage skill.

WHM and AST are equally jokes to heal with, which is unsurprising considering how identical they are. Sch is only slightly harder because the fairy ai is awful.

For me, easiest is the comfiest and I find SCH to be the comfiest.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

AST does feels busier because they have to switch target really often, but it is this kind of busy that usually attracts people to play healer while not falling asleep in duty.

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If you are talking about cards distribution mainly, you should try to use macro and ast UI, you don't need to change target to apply card to the proper player.

You can check this Reddit post to give you an idea of what you can do with macro and hotbar near party list.

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Originally Posted by Jadkay

If you are talking about cards distribution mainly, you should try to use macro and ast UI, you don't need to change target to apply card to the proper player.

You can check this Reddit post to give you an idea of what you can do with macro and hotbar near party list.

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I have seen this macro setup and tried it before. I didn't like nor particularly any better at it than targeting players manually lol. It's great that people can find ways to make their gameplay easier, but this one isn't just for me :(

As a newbie heading towards intermediate, I used to think WHM was best in the easy department. Now a lack of Essential Dignity, damage buffs to others, having both shield and regeneration tools (for now), being in level 80 content isn't the easiest. I wish I had switched to AST for good when I unlocked it way back.

Edit: how could I forget GCD "clipping"? I get that it sounds too technical a term, but really - you can just feel your basic gameplay flow break when you switch from damaging to, say, Tetragrammation. It feels so much better and forgiving to do so in AST with Malefic's shorter cast time. I'm really ecstatic this is fixed in Endwalker.

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Originally Posted by Jadkay

If you are talking about cards distribution mainly, you should try to use macro and ast UI, you don't need to change target to apply card to the proper player.

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If you're going to macro AST I'd personally just mouseover macro. It's still not optimal (being a macro) but eliminates having to switch target from the boss and covers more than regular cards.

For me WHM>AST>SCH. SCH the ghosting and fairy management is a bit too much.

Honestly for me SCH > WHM > AST so far.

Still leveling, but I feel SCH has the most on-demand toolkit for most situations and I just enjoy it's abilities more than the other two.

AST is just way too busy for me, but WHM is too slow. So I'm kind of in a Goldilocks situations where SCH feels juuust right.

Dunno how I feel about Sage, but with the buffs that SCH is getting in Endwalker its gonna take a lot to pull me away from it.

(180% Adlos hubba hubba)

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Originally Posted by Maxilor

Honestly for me SCH > WHM > AST so far.

Still leveling, but I feel SCH has the most on-demand toolkit for most situations and I just enjoy it's abilities more than the other two.

AST is just way too busy for me, but WHM is too slow. So I'm kind of in a Goldilocks situations where SCH feels juuust right.

Dunno how I feel about Sage, but with the buffs that SCH is getting in Endwalker its gonna take a lot to pull me away form it.

(180% Adlos hubba hubba)

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i agree with this. whm easiest tho then sch but less raw healing so more thought needed and last ast. waaaay too busy

WHM, by far. Its heals are just way too powerful, and its MP regen is also quite good.

Second would be AST, best MP regen of all three and can raise more with Lightspeed.

And third SCH. The kit feels overall very weak when compared to the other two, and the fairy is dumb af.
(i still lack endgame experience with SCH though, but everytime i played it so far, there was not a moment where i wish i wasn't playing WHM or AST instead)

I found WHM easiest when I run DF for normal raid or Alliance
Powerful heal for “oh crap” moments, just heal and dps

For any content running with FC I found AST have a easier time just because more predictable and easier to optimise my tools kit

Asking which healer is easiest is like asking if 1+1 is easier to solve than 11+1.

All healers are easy. Sage doesn't look like it'll be any different. But, since you asked...

White mage is the easiest but I expect that to change when EW is released. It was my first job and remains one of my favorites.

Astrologian is second easiest. I'm not totally sold on it even though many players have told me it's the best healer.

Scholar is the most difficult; but, I find still find it enjoyable to play. Come hells or high water!

I feel like they all are equally easy to play. Ast cards RNG is such a non-issue for 99% of the content in the game its ok to ignore seals. Blue cards for melee, purple for ranged seals be damned im not shuffling cards. Endwalker might change that, but i highly doubt it. I firgure its gonna get changed so rng doesn't kick it out of preferred meta in endgame. Sch has been better since the fairy queueing abilities. I don't see sage being hard to play at all. Maybe a little chunkly with putting dots and shields up, but i think many will favor it over sch.

I think part of this depends on experience. I started in 2.3 as CNJ and leveled it to 50 as my main WHM and by the end of ARR had just gotten SCH/SMN to 50. I've flirted back and forth with both. I didn't touch AST other than getting about 5-10 levels with it after unlocking it in SB until ShB where I finally leveled it.

From my experience, WHM is the most approachable healer because it just WORKS. Its abilities don't fight with each other, it's streamlined, and powerful. And if you go through all your oGCDs and such and have to fall back on hardcasting, it has the most powerful bulk healing of any healer, meaning it has a great safety net for when things go wild or for inexperienced healers.

SCH is easier to me than AST, but this is VERY LIKELY because I'm far more familiar with it. I've rearranged my bars a dozen times before finally getting things in what I feel are a good priority system, and that helps a lot. And I just deleted Dissipation from my bars - worthless skill that counteracts EVERYTHING in the rest of your kit besides Adlo and Succor, and you can Recitation Deploy Adlo without it anyway for more shielding than you'll ever need. SCH's problem is its abilities are countering each other and its kit is at war with itself. Contrast Dissipation, Fey Union, and Seraph, the level 60, 70, and 80 capstones. Dissipation disallows use of Fey Union and Seraph. Using Fey Union under Seraph is a waste of Seraph. They just step all over each others' toes. And Faerie Gauge is already next to useless and becoming even more useless in EW.

...but even given that, SCH is, imo, the most POWERFUL of the healers right now, you just have to do a lot of work to unleash that power, leading to it having a somewhat high skill floor and being probably the most difficult.

AST is...AST. I leveled it and haven't really played it otherwise. It feels...very busy, and I feel like I need a third action bar just for the card minigame, but for taking up half a bar by itself, you only interact with it once every 15 seconds or so, which is kind of weird. I guess people that like busywork like it, and I DO like that there is one healer that focuses on buffs...but I don't like how the buffs are randomized (even if that LARGELY is meaningless now) or how much ability juggling it has to deal with.

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So easiest? WHM, hands down.
Second is probably AST.
Hardest (but likely most powerful) is probably SCH.

BUT: This depends entirely on experience. If you've played SCH since 2.0 and never touched the others, it will be the easiest for you because of familiarity.

And how hard healing is for you...depends on you the person. Some people DPS is very easy for them but healing isn't; their brain doesn't work that way. I'm the opposite; muscle memory (and memorizing things in general) I suck at, but I'm great at reactive and proactive actions and priority systems, making healing cake for me but DPSing nearly impossible on anything other than RDM and maybe MCH.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

From my experience, WHM is the most approachable healer because it just WORKS. Its abilities don't fight with each other, it's streamlined, and powerful. And if you go through all your oGCDs and such and have to fall back on hardcasting, it has the most powerful bulk healing of any healer, meaning it has a great safety net for when things go wild or for inexperienced healers.

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Just picking this out from the rest since I see it a lot...and I'm not quite sure why. With the exception of Cure 3, AST has a 1:1 equivalent GCD healing kit to WHM, and in basically every single case (except for 5 more yalms of range on Medica 2), AST's are better. And this has been true for a long, long time. I don't get how WHM is the standout "GCD healing powerhouse" when AST just dunks all over it with GCD and oGCD healing.

Probably because people have been saying it since 2.0 and never really stopped even after things were added and changed.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Just picking this out from the rest since I see it a lot...and I'm not quite sure why. With the exception of Cure 3, AST has a 1:1 equivalent GCD healing kit to WHM, and in basically every single case (except for 5 more yalms of range on Medica 2), AST's are better. And this has been true for a long, long time. I don't get how WHM is the standout "GCD healing powerhouse" when AST just dunks all over it with GCD and oGCD healing.

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It really is that bad.
AST's equivalent spells are cheaper, quicker to cast and some are even more potent than those of WHM's skills that its honestly baffling to say WHM is a powerhouse of GCD heals when it really isn't.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Just picking this out from the rest since I see it a lot...and I'm not quite sure why. With the exception of Cure 3, AST has a 1:1 equivalent GCD healing kit to WHM, and in basically every single case (except for 5 more yalms of range on Medica 2), AST's are better. And this has been true for a long, long time. I don't get how WHM is the standout "GCD healing powerhouse" when AST just dunks all over it with GCD and oGCD healing.

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I guess it's probably because of the healing buffs + a couple other skills that AST doesn't have an equivalent for (like Asylum ? Though you could argue that Collective Unconscious is the same).
I would still recommend WHM to a new player to start off with though. It's just the fact that it's "as simple as can be" while being powerful which makes it a good starting job in my opinion.
In the long run though ? AST definitely better. I've 100% switched from WHM to AST since SB and never looked back.

Yeah, AST is, by all means, WHM but better. WHM is, as a friend puts it, "the one you pick when you're new and/or want to turn your brain off"

WHM, by far. It's safe, has lots of options when things are going terribad, and is very straightforward. It's a great healer to start with.

AST would be next easiest. It's a busier class with the cards, but it can easily more than match WHM's healing power. It's faster-paced and far more mobile. (I just wish it had the old card system still, because that made things far more interesting than just spamming buttons.)

I have the least experience with SCH, and that's probably why I found it the more challenging of the three. I've struggled to keep tanks through massive pulls as a SCH that would have been ridiculously easy as a WHM or AST. Part of that could just be inexperience on my part though.