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I've always liked pets in game, as well as having to put in constant thought of situational decisions. The harder to wield effectively, the more fun!
I have chosen SCH, and I haven't reached level 70 content yet, but so far I have always preferred working with other ASTs !
I am the most comfortable with Scholar but I actually love all 3 healers equally. The play style feels very different for each of them even if many consider AST a clone. The cards and odd Healing Abilities force you to consider each fight differently than you would for SCH or WHM. Healing well with any of them is extremely satisfying but to be honest WHM lets you carry any group through anything and I respect that.
AST, hands-down. I do sub WHM as I like to be a little flexible as far as heals are concerned (I loath double AST compositions), but WHM is just a tad too boring for my tastes. Yes, I do enjoy the stronger DPS/MP-management on WHM (I'd rather do solo activities on WHM), but I much prefer the little randomness/decision-making that AST provides with its cards- it keeps healing from getting too monotonous.
To be honest, I've always been curious about trying out SCH but it was such a pain in ARR (and HW?) to reconfigure stats due to SMN being my then-main DPS that I've just always never given it a chance outside of PvP post-rework (where I hated it in Frontlines due to it feeling weaker than the other 2).
I prefer to play as Astrologian. I like the ability to be able to change up the gameplay and provide buffs with cards. Additionally it seems to be the one healer that I am good at. xD
Stones. Stones everywhere. WHM for days.
Hands down, Scholar. I am far more comfortable playing a mitigation healer as opposed to a purely reactive healer, and I find it far less stressful to play since the HP bars are more stable. I also love the fact that a large portion of my healing is not from direct healing spells, but rather effective use of tactical abilities. Even in Noct stance, an AST doesn't feel the same, since most of their healing is still done in a direct way more like WHM rather than with tactical play. As long as I have a good tank, I can go through an entire dungeon's trash without ever needing to cast a healing spell aside from casting an Adlo on the tank on the go between pulls. Whatever Adlo+Excog+fairy regen can't handle alone, a Lustrate will make up for. And even in boss fights, I rarely have to use any of the healing spells, but rather do most of the healing through buffed pet regens and the various aetherpact abilities.
Even though I main DPS with which one varying with expansion (2.0 BLM, 3.0 SMN, 4.0 RDM) my secondary job has always been SCH since it arrived in 2.0.
SCH by miles, with WHM being a close second. I've never gotten the hang of AST and I frankly just feel bored by it when I try to dip my toes back into the class.
I started as a White Mage, so I'll always love it the most. I've leveled up the other two to max but haven't played them enough yet to get a good feel for them. For this reason I prefer AST a bit more simply because of the unique card aesthetic and because I've played a bit more of AST compared to SCH recently. I'll have to play more SCH to form a real opinIon but I always default to WHM whenever I heal lol.
From just normal day to day things and dungeons I like AST but for raids WHM.
WHM is my main, although I'm starting to learn SCH, and I just unlocked AST recently, and that one seems really different to use, so I might mess around with that one for now.