CANT DECIDE ON WHICH HEALER

Hello, im trying to decide on a healer...

What are your recommendations?

It depends a lot on your preferred playstyle. Here's a really quick breakdown

Astrologist - Still very new, so it is hard to rank compared to other classes with an established meta. It specializes in buffs, but seems to suffer a little as a main healer and its damage is unremarkable. This might change with patches or as new players learn the playstyle. Either way, you have to handle the stigma that this class is a subpar healer (depending on your community) in addition to the burden of a new healer. On the bright side, you start this class at lv.30, which saves you time and effort.

Scholar - best single target healer in the current meta. The presence of the fairy allows you to easily dps and heal at the same time. It's easy to play decently on a scholar simply by relying on your fairy, but it is a difficult class to be pro as pet management and memorization of boss fights is absolutely vital.

Whitemage - best group healer in the current meta. They have a lot of aoe damage in their kit starting from lv.50 too, which can be handy in specific situations. Biggest hurdle is learning MP management. Consider this if you like oldschool mmos.

White Mage - Barebones healer. Does nothing but heal. Regens? AoE Heal? Instant full-health? Buffs that increase your healing? WHM has all of that.

Scholar - A little more technical. Relies more on preventing damage than healing it up (Proactive vs. Reactive). However with Lustrate, Indominability, and Emergency Tactics being added, Scholar now is no slouch when it comes to burst healing people. Still the worst AoE healing of the 3, though. Best single-target heals, and has a few utility buffs/debuffs (Shadow Flare slow, Eye for an Eye, Virus)

Astrologian - Where the others have strong burst heals, Astrologian has buffs. Astrologian can fill either the void left by a white mage by adding regens to abilities (Diurnal Stance) or Scholar by having shields (Nocturnal Stance). Though slightly weaker than either WHM or SCH in their respective roles, Astrologian brings the best of both worlds and also provides buffs and utility galore on top of it.

They need to undo the original change to made to astro with sect changes and the job would become as powerful as the other two but limit it with a cooldown. 3 minute cooldown to be able to change sect on the fly and no double draw of same card is all I want. The double aspect is wierld when one could job change between scholar and white mage. Being able to so that once via cooldown in battle would make astro what se meant it to be

It's as simple as:

WHM: Burst heals,Burst AoE Damage, lots more DoT's now but uses a lot of mana up very quickly making it hard to master. If you want to play a healer class to heal then this is your best choice. Usually takes the main role of taking care of the party HP with their powerful heals with the other healers able to concentrate on other things.

SCH: Sustained heals and damage, Tons of damage mitigation and a pet. Mana not an issue for them. Plays best off the shoulder of another Healer and their fairy allowing the SCH to focus on damage and mitigation CD's.

AST: A jack of all trades, master of none. Work still needs to be done on finding the best way to play this class and SE will likely work on balancing it with other classes in future. Right now it's very new so there really isn't a best way to play it. Seems to do better alongside a WHM than a SCH because it's heals aren't strong enough to allow SCH's the freedom to do what they want.

JUST MY TAKE, the OP asked for opinions so here is mine and what I have experienced.

White mage:
Outright the most powerful direct heals. They are the gods of actual healing. Benediction = 0-100% heal which has amazing synergy with dark knight on super heavy pulls. They get divine seal which is +30% potency to all heals every minute (so it has 1/4th uptime), a ton of HoT power through regen, dome HoT thingy, medica 2. I'd also argue that they can contribute to party DPS quite well with a 210 potency Stone III and AoE Aero and holy. I also think assize and tetragammon are wonderful abilities that compliment their kit, despite a bunch of very vocal WHM saying how they are terrible abilities (They are wonderful abilities, period.).
PERSONAL OPINION: In a heavy hitting dungeon/raid this is your go-to healer to get through it. They can heal everything.
Pros: incredible HoT output, incredible direct healing.... NOTHING can compare to their direct healing

Cons? BIGGGGGGGGG POINT- MANA MANAGEMENT, however in high tier raiding EXPECT a Bard/MCH to be present at any given moment- they restore your mana and trivialize this issue. Aside from regens (which ARE when stacked STUPIDLY potent) they lack any debuffs to prevent damage. But do not underestimate their raw HoT power now!

***I will add that I have many WHM friends that would slap me across the face for emphasizing mana management problem, a good WHM will know WHEN they can blow mana and what aiblities to use to juice the most out of their mana. WHM mains are not ignorant and are able to manage their mana and blow people out of the water with their heals.

Scholar:
My main class that I have mained since it's release. I have been through it's lows (when it was considered shit and you'd be removed from a FC for daring to go scholar, I would know :) )
This class is based 100% on you knowing fights. You have cooldowns such as Eye for an Eye (120s) which reduces damage taken by tanks, and virus which is a single target damage reduction basically. You also have a giant dome that reduces damage taken by 10% as well. Furthermore you have a lot of shield power through aldoquium and succor (single target and aoe heal + shield respectively). You also have a fairy to assist you in healing that you can macro specifically to do specific chores for you. My fairy at ilevel 179 healed for 1291 and myself with 400 potency physic healed for 2701, to give you rough comparison of numbers. We can temporarily boost fairy healing by 40% using "Rouse" a pet buff. It is useful but it will not tip you over the edge as some may suggest.

But alas Scholar is far from this "godlike" thing some people rant on and on about. That heal + shield? Aldoquim has a potency of 300 for the heal. Cure 1 (ONE) has a potency of 400 for comparison. Aldo produces a 300 heal and 300 shield. Succor produces a 150 heal and 150 shield. To give you a comparison to WHM their regen ability (level 35) is a HoT that heals for 150 potency, their dome HoT heals for 100 potency. It is true that now we finally can convert shields to heals, but that is on a 30 second cooldown. In other words, white mage stomps and craps fire on our direct healing output. Instead we need to manage our fairy at all times properly or we risk being thrown under the bus as we spam a 400 Physick spell to top people off.

Also aetherflow is one of our core mechanics and you will see this noted strongly as an argument in favor of scholar. And it is true that this is a favorable situation, however realize this grants "3 free abilities" every 60 seconds. We can either (1) drain mana from a target restoring our own (2) use a healing AoE spell with a potency of 400 (NOT SHABBY!) (3) we can use a 600 potency direct heal. (As comparison cure 2 heals for 650 and while costing mana is spammable if a situation should warrant). But do realize that once you blow through these 3 aetherflow stacks they are GONE and you do NOT have access to these abilities whatsoever in any capacity until you generate another 3 aetherflows. There have been many situations where I have been a DPS witnessing a scholar blow their aetherflow stacks and then my team wipe a raid because they didn't save indominability (the aoe heal). These. Abilities. Are. Not. Free. Do not let anyone misguide you into thinking they are. They are strong but they are tethered and chained strongly down.

In terms of DoE DPS I can confidently say we can do it, although realize Bane (our primary AoE move) costs an aetherflow stack. Remember directly above? Yes, it comes at a premium price for us. It's all pick and choose here. I could go into more and more details, having mained this class for so bloody long, but here is a short thing;

PROS: Mana management, strong damage mitigation tools, strong ability to restore mana without needing a bard (but with a bard this is trivialized in higher tier raids!), is probably "the outright master of trash dungeons" when you overgear. Because let's be serious, if you overgear a dungeon your fairy can heal through it. But this is OVERGEARED STRONGLY.
CONS: Absolute trash in the wrong hands, as I have witnessed myself countless times when I go DPS. But in the right hands it is extremely useful. AoE healing got a boost, for certain, but play WHM immediately after scholar and tell me how you feel. (I play with many WHM and their AoE healing farts and poops fire on what I can do).

Oh and I will state here. Double scholar is VERY DIFFICULT EVEN NOW with the extra abilities. It was brutal in ARR and even now it is an ineffective combo. 2 WHM > 2 SCH. A scholar is best in a high level raid when paired with a different healer otherwise you step on eachothers feet. AKA, virus and antbodies generated, eye for an eye + deployment tactics, all our shields DO NOT STACK and REPLACE. Fairy buffs DO NOT STACK AND INSTEAD REPLACE. So that is probably the biggest drag about this class, no high tier raid wanting to min/max their group would ever consider taking 2 SCH. They will take a SCH and AST, or a SCH or WHM or a WHM and WHM or an AST or AST but a SCH + SCH? No, they do not play well together. I speak from personal experience when it feels like we are dancing together and stomping on eachother's toes.


Astrologian:
New class that most people seem to do horrifically with but I've played with some and it's been some of the most pleasurable playing experiences I've had so far. I do not main it, but I do plan on leveling it up.
My takes as a SCH who has paired with a few.
-Their healing potencies are SIMILAR to WHM but WHM is higher, and WHM gets a lot more options such as their 60s 30% cure potency buff for 15 seconds I mentioned above. Furhtermore WHM gets a lot more HoT power. However they get access to very similar abilities like medica is similar to helios, aspected helios is similar to medica 2. They have a cure 2 equilvalent. But that being said I do not feel that they come close to the sheer raw healing output of a WHM, they aren't THAT far off and they CERTAINLY DO BEAT A SCHOLAR IN RAW HEALING (I don't care who flames me for this, it's what I have seen time in and time again at i179. Their raw healing craps on mine similar to WHM.).
-They can aspect to do shields like scholar or spam HoTs like WHM and I think they are quite effective in either task. They are versatile with urinal or diurnal sects, making them able to meld to any party composition.
-Card system.... provides them with a multitiude of buffs. I personally despise RNG but with their higher level skills like royal road and shuffle and hold (???? is that the ability name? It's similar to that) they become much less RNG and much more strategy based because you can get rid of garbage you don't want and dramatically improve the chance of you getting what you want.

They can do AoE damage reduction on the party for sure through cards, as well as celestial opposition which is a very underrated move at present. They can boost the entire party's damage by 5% (NOT INSIGNIFICANT WHEN MULTIPLIED OVER 8 PEOPLE! NOT INSIGIFNICICANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), they can reduce black mages mana costs which is a HUGE deal for fire spammers, they can reduce their OWN COOLDOWNS (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SO UNDERRATED RIGHT NOW) with a card. They can increase the potency of their buff cards. I feel that the card system is a major asset.

-The card system and my brief thoughts on it above.... I feel that the astrologian is hands-down THE "offensive" healer. Scholar does NOT get the same offensive buff capabilities. (If your read deep into scholar we get a fairy buff for 30s that raises party speed by 3%. AST gets the ability to spam cards to much bigger effects though! Much much bigger.)

-With time dilation you can increase ANY BUFF (ANY bUFF) on the target by 15seconds. Absolutely never EVER underestimate this. Have you ever seen a fully buffed out DPS with things like blood for blood, eagle eye, and whatever else and a card get this move cast on them? THIS. MOVE. IS. GAME. CHANGING. PERIOD. In an organized group you can either make a tank godlike for an extended period of time or make a DPS absolutely ridiculously bursty for LONGER periods of time. This move is so underrated now it blows my mind. Celestial opposition is in a similar boat, but is only 5 seconds instead of 15.

And thus another ability furthering my argument that the AST is THE offensive healer.

Also you can pair this 90s cooldown time dilation and 150s cooldown celestial opposition with your OWN card (USE IT ON YOURSELF Before HAND IF YOU GET IT) THE SPEAR (Reduces target's action recast time (non-GCD) by 20%. Duration: 20s ). Doubled potency = 30% cooldown reduction on these abilities.

Let me go into detail and have a basic example, ifrit has nails that spawn and this is a DPS check. Burst them down (ignoring mechanics for example's sake) fast as you can.... use this buff on your highest-DPS-output (dragoon? ninja?) who has all their buffs out and watch them go haywire.
Let me give you examples of buffs:
-Dragoon +15% critical strike chance
-Blood for blood, eagle eye, invigorate, raging strikes, and all the other billion over-cross-classed-skills for DPS
-Scholar selene 3% buff to ASPD

A SCHOLAR AND WHITE MAGE CAN NOT AND WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO DO THIS. Thus I strongly argue that the astrologian is the offensive healer and the best healer to take for DPS check heavy fights. Used PROPERLY (and I see few use AST properly at all).

-Furthermore I feel synastry is also underrated, while no-doube tethered by cooldown it is able to let the ast trivially heal the offtank and tank at the exact same time which IS (despite many criticisms) much more effective than a scholar's fairy healing. Remember my fairy only healed statically for 1.2k, and my 400 potency physic healed for 2.7k. Synastry is a powerful and versatile move. Am I saying it is OP? Do not get me wrong, no. But it is another feature of the AST.

PROS: The offensive healer, played right can certainly heal off content, able to mesh BEAUTIFULLY with WHM or SCH. ie: It is better than WHM + WHM or SCH + SCH and an AST + AST WORKS! It works! One goes into urinal sect the other into diurnal and it just flat out works. They have more raw healing power than scholar by far.

Cons: No access to virus (WHM can get basic version) or eye for an eye (whm can get access to basic version). So therefore no debuffs for the enemy targets. Similar to WHM they are mana intensive, but I'd argue more mana intensive at present because I have seen many AST (even good ones) go OOM. White mage doesn't seem to go OOM as fast. Perhaps it is just new players? But I have observed this. Keep in mind, yet again, a Bard/MCH at high level will greatly offset this demand on yourself.
White mage heals directly more than you
Scholar mitigates damage more than you
BUT you can do either role (both I'd argue) / both roles at the same time better than either can. AKA, you can directly heal stronger than scholar and provide weaker shields. AKA, you can provide damage shields better than WHM and you can provide strong but weaker heals. It is odd to say and that statement will get me backlash but it is the truth. Let me clarify in absolution incase someone misunderstands:

SCH:
Direct heals: xx
Shields: xxxxx

AST:
Direct heals: xxxx
Shields: xxx

WHM:
Direct heals: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shields: (nope, nada)

So my personal feel is AST is versatile and a jack-of-all-trades class that is THE go-to offensive healer if played properly. Most people however are learning and are far from tapping into it's full potential. That being said it does a lot of things decently but it does NOT out mitigate scholar and it does NOT out heal WHM who is the absolute KING of raw heal output. But just because it doesn't trivialize the other two healers in their domains doesn't make it weak, it means that if played properly you can maximize what you DO have from both classes + your own flavor with offensive buffs to be effective.

I know AST is going to be my next class I level purely for this reason. High high skillcap but I'd argue the reward when played properly makes the effort to learn worth it. The numbers ARE there already, the skills ARE there already. It is a matter of people realizing how and when to utilize these things.

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Originally Posted by minipopeman

Hello, im trying to decide on a healer...

What are your recommendations?

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Level all 3 to 60 and play whichever one you prefer at a given moment. The ability to have all jobs on one character is great for that.

Say it with me, everyone: "All good healers play proactively. Including (and especially) WHMs."

@sovereign

While I enjoyed the praise for astro, you do have one fact incorrect. Using time dialation on someone only increases the buffs that astro has put on them. So regen, aoe regen, and a card is your best bet. Also can't use time dialation on yourself.

"Thus I strongly argue that the astrologian is the offensive healer and the best healer to take for DPS check heavy fights. Used PROPERLY (and I see few use AST properly at all). "

Not agree at all. At this moment, I prefer to have a SCH that can dps with Selene out. SCH is a offensive healer and always the best one at this moment. AST buffs are too much RNG (you need to be lucky for buff all the party member with the good buff) and aren't worth it.

If you need to reach a dps check, a scholar is still the best atm. He can dps and heal with Selene as support. AST need to be lucky through the entire fight and the time to use card and buff party member is less dps for him.

SCH have more heal instant (that use aether stack of course) than AST. SCH can dps more due to this too.

You underestimate your main heal but it's the true "offensive healer" you know. Not AST at all.

I'm 60 AST and I can't do what an SCH can do. It's probably not my job and will never be.

Another point too. I use synastry on, for example, Bismark EX during the phase 2, for let the whm or sch dps while I heal both tanks. You mean, it's better than fairy? don't agree at all again.

Synastry is 120 cooldown, it's too much for being efficient. You need to use this skill at a good moment because the CD is too high.
Selene, heal all the 3 sc all the time a tank, and you can even use maccro for let her heal one member only. Synastry is definitely not OP at all, usefull but situational. You can't say Selene is less efficient than synastry, it's wrong. It depend of the situation, period.

I think there's been a pretty thorough coverage of the healers so far, particular from SovereignAegis. I just want to round out the info with WHM a little more on 2 points:

1. WHM actually has excellent single target healing. Cure II has always been considerably more powerful than lustrate, even on tanks pre-heavensward. In fact, cure I + Divine Seal would do that.
The strength of lustrate is that it's 1. instant and 2. 1 second recast. WHM spells have significant lead time -- as another poster said, you need to be very proactive on WHM, while SCH's lustrate excels at emergency healing.
Also, just as SCH has gotten more tools to help with AoE healing, WHM has gotten a few more instant heals with the expansion to help with the whole lead time thing.

2. DPS. WHM can actually do pretty good DPS, especially with the expac now. The catch is there's no healing pet to keep up healing in the DPS stance. However, bismarck ex and ravana ex, as examples, both have burn phases without much or any damage going out. Throw out HoTs, hit cleric, and nuke away -- in this circumstance WHM does OK, and may even have advantages in certain circumstances as its damage is front loaded.

Generally, however, if you want to focus on maximizing DPS while healing, SCH is the way to go.

My AST is not 60 yet but it's DPS abilities seem to be a 1:1 copy of WHM dps skills, but with 10 less potency.

Don't forget that AST's native DoT's are unaffected by accuracy, so they are able to put a reliable 690 potency on the board in less than three seconds, especially with Diurnal's 5% cast speed buff.

For your first healer, I'd recommend SCH or WHM. SCH has a low skill floor and the fairy will heal alongside you, this is really good if you're uncomfortable healing in general since it makes it more forgiving. SCH's have a much easier time managing MP. If you are interested in AST, WHM is a great trainer, as it will teach you MP management, which is vital considering MP is much less abundant on these classes, and a lot of the base skills share similarities between the jobs.

Of course, don't feel committed to a job if you continue to level it and it doesn't do anything for you. Healing between all three jobs is pretty varied, so if you find that one class doesn't float your boat, try another. Also, low level dungeons that will test your mettle while leveling include Brayflox, Stone Vigil, and Aurum Vale, just don't be surprised to encounter a couple speed bumps along the way. Good luck regardless of what you choose, and come back with any questions you run into.

Here's my opinion if you are starting as a brand new healer.

SCH is by far the easiest to learn. Essentially unlimited MP, fairy sidekick, normal heals, instant heals, shields.

WHM is more complicated, not in terms of heals, but in terms of MP management and enemy aggro management, but they have the most powerful heals in the game.

AST is by far the most complicated, as you will need to learn both of their stances (which are similar to SCH and WHM), but they also have even greater MP management issues than a WHM does, less potent heals, plus the added complication of learning when to use their cards and on whom to use them.

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Originally Posted by Krixus

@sovereign

While I enjoyed the praise for astro, you do have one fact incorrect. Using time dialation on someone only increases the buffs that astro has put on them. So regen, aoe regen, and a card is your best bet. Also can't use time dialation on yourself.

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I knew time dilation couldn't be used on self, but it truly cannot extend other buffs that that person has?

That is actually outright disappointing and I feel mislead now, I swore I saw that before many times.

Methinks some posters have rose colored goggles. AST is not best of both worlds (WHM and SCH)--more like watered down versions but with buffs included. AST RNG is being seriously glossed over--and no you cannot "dramatically improve the chance" to get the card you want. Pass over what you're smoking. Not that AST can't do the job--but it's pretty clear from the many other threads there are a lot of people with issues (and it's not because they are all bad players). Also Selene's buff is not inconsequential not to mention SCH can give 10% dmg reduction without RNG and on demand and AOE absorb. Personally, I am having a hard time settling on a healing main myself, because they all have their pros and cons.

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Originally Posted by Tal72

Methinks some posters have rose colored goggles. AST is not best of both worlds (WHM and SCH)--more like watered down versions but with buffs included. AST RNG is being seriously glossed over--and no you cannot "dramatically improve the chance" to get the card you want. Pass over what you're smoking. Not that AST can't do the job--but it's pretty clear from the many other threads there are a lot of people with issues (and it's not because they are all bad players). Also Selene's buff is not inconsequential not to mention SCH can give 10% dmg reduction without RNG and on demand and AOE absorb.

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All of this. The RNG curbs the jobs potential. There are moments when I score just the right cards when I need em', and a host of other times when I draw the same card 8 or more times in a row, shuffles included. Let's not forget that the spear card is presently lackluster without voice communication (and even then, it can still be a pain).

I'd say try them all out, OP. :) They're each different in their own way, and you might like one more than the other. I started as a WHM and I did loose interest for a while and tried to be a SCH, but I found my comfort was much stronger as a WHM, so that's the class I've stayed with. :)