Picking a healer

I realized recently that I really enjoy healing, and I enjoy a good amount of complexity in a class. So I've decided that I either want to pick up SCH or AST.

As of right now I'm leveling THM for Swiftcast and then CNJ or Stoneskin. So I have a little bit of time before I pick. (I realize I could just switch whenever but I'm stubborn)

I know that either is good for end game content, but which is more fun to play? I would like your opinions on the matter. So feel free to elaborate as much as you like on why you prefer one over the other.

The one who is funnier to play is the one you will like the most.

I can't argue on which job is the best for you.
The best advice should be to test them all and see which one you like.

Personally I love scholar because he's versatile. !Strong damages mitigation trought Virus, adlo, eye for and eye, deploiement tactic.
His instant cast healing through his aetherflow stack and his 'unlimited' mana (you have to work on this first to have a good mana management).
His fairy who is helping both him and the second healer.
His great dps. Long duration on his dot that allow him to make dps and healing (related to his great mana management, thanks to energy drain and aetherflow).

But that's my opinion and why I love my job.

I used to main SCH, and while I can't disagree with anything KDSilver has said, I must add that you will need to utilize slots on your hotbars for fairy positioning and commands. And that's a lot of buttons to work with, especially on a controller, especially since you will regularly use every skill at your disposal as a healer in this game since we need to aid DPS in most content.

Saying that, and despite my previous rages at frustrating content while handling the job, AST has it's merits, too.

The RNG card system can make or break you, and much of our skill set revolves around it and the buffs they bring. This includes enhancing them, spreading them, and lengthening their duration. All of the card related skills have the own cooldowns, so it requires extra attention to draw and delegate them as needed.

While we lack some of White Mage's burst heals, we do have moves such as Synastry, which links a portion of all heals to one member, and Lightspeed, which jacks our spellspeed to almost instant cast heights while lowering MP costs.

Then there are the two stances. Diurnal Sect buffs our attack gives a few heals a regen property that stacks with others. Nocturnal (which I actually prefer) buffs our healing while adding a sheild property akin to a Scholar's. The drawback to Noct is it DOESN'T stack, so you MUST go into Diurnal if you are paired with a Scholar.

Also, 2 Astrologians must go as each sect in parties verses both playing Diurnal or Noct, so you need to learn to work as both.




All this said, don't count out White Mage! They are the original healers of Final Fantasy, after all.

If you like preventing damage (and dealing with a fairy), I would go with Scholar. If you like healing through damage, I would go with White Mage or Astrologian. AST can also support the party with buffs (which are random, but the fun is the surprise 8D).

I've got AST and WHM at 60 and I love them both, and I'm currently leveling SCH right now and I'm actually enjoying it quite a bit ("actually" because I usually don't like pet classes and I'm more of a reactive healer). I'd recommend AST just because I'm biased, but all of them are a lot of fun, really.

There's no doubt about it: AST is the most aesthetically pleasing class in the game. The first time you ever get to use their LB3, you will be in awe. ( It's a rarity, but sooooooo worth it when it happens. ) It's the 'weightiest' in my opinion, and just the most visually appealing. Tbh, AST is what sold me on FFXIV in the first place!

That being said!

It really will come down to what you're wanting to accomplish. If you want to maintain a high DPS presence while also keeping your team up and running, SCH is incredible. It also has the pet management system, which requires a decent amount of skill.

I'd recommend AST for visuals alone. The card buffs are brilliant and... okay I'm going to stop gushing. @_@

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Originally Posted by Angvir

I really enjoy healing

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Then level them all. WHM, SCH and AST have their moments so if you really enjoy healing as you say, you'll level them all.

OP - I'd suggest going with whm at first.
It's a simple class to play as you start, with no pet management to think about, and has straightforward single and group healing to start you off.

Once you're on the road with this then try the others. Sch is great fun, and I find it easier overall despite the pet management, but that's probably due more to playing time more than anything.

I would follow tera Luna because it's true that whm is the most simpliest and boring heal
Best to start

Then since it's good to get some cross skill from arcanist go for scholar
Or try the AST which has a whm oriented leveling phase

Like mp-please said try all 3 and se which one you prefer
Ast biggest advantage is low level emergency healing (essential dignity)

If you want just raw healing power, go for the WHM. If you want to nullify damage, go SCH. If you want a little bit of both with a little rng, go AST. Personally my favorite is AST. Mainly due to the cards and well..I like anything related to the stars and planets. Also a little note..be cautious of some people while being a healer. As apparently people will crucify you if you don't dps as one.

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Originally Posted by Seoulstar

If you want just raw healing power, go for the WHM. If you want to nullify damage, go SCH. If you want a little bit of both with a little rng, go AST. Personally my favorite is AST. Mainly due to the cards and well..I like anything related to the stars and planets. Also a little note..be cautious of some people while being a healer. As apparently people will crucify you if you don't dps as one.

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As with every class, you'll be crucified if you choose to spend long periods of time afking while the 3 other players in your team are actually doing stuff.

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Originally Posted by Nekotee

I would follow tera Luna because it's true that whm is the most simpliest and boring heal
Best to start

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well most of the comm will say whm is the easiest and most boring heal to play... for me (i own all three at max gear atm) sch is the easiest one to play in combination of support and dps at the same time. however whm comes with the strongest burst dmg, sch provides best dps for longterm fights but defintly lacks with burst aoa dmg. ast is for sure the "newest" or let's say most modern cls of the trio. synastry, cards, choice of stance, dots, hots, burst dmg and self buffs are way more complex than the other two.

for me – everybody who enjoy healing at all should max them all, they are all nice to play =)

as a sidenote if you a familiar with all three healers, you are ready for every raid or trial grp-constellation. for me there is no "best" healer, they all shine or whine in certain situations ; )

I'll give you a few pointers about game play.

• AoE: Do you like being able to heal everyone at the same time whenever you want? SCH cannot do so as well as the other two, because all the raw AoE heals have cooldowns.
• Extra management: Do you want to focus on healing or juggle more things? AST has to keep using cards and SCH has to take care of the fairy's position and abilities.
• Party role: Do you want to be the main healer or support the main healer? AST and WHM are the main healers because of a good reactive kit and strong heal-over-time spells, and SCH supports by preparing for incoming damage and doing more dps. This dynamic only exists in 8 man content.
• Emergencies: How do you prefer to deal with bad situations? WHM has big raw heals with cooldowns for single target and AoE, SCH has 3 charges of a buff to use every minute on various instant heals and on top of those some cooldowns on the fairy, AST has a mobility cooldown (everything becomes instant heals) and also a combined -10% damage and heal-over-time bubble that has to be channeled.
• Overall playstyle: What kind of healer do you want to be? AST is good at keeping the healing going by extending heals, WHM is good at burst healing, and SCH has both burst and sustained healing at the expense of missing some regular on-demand heals

If you like healing, though, you should level them all because they share gear. It may take some time to develop a preference.

Asking for complexity, want fun, AND your asking for actual opinions?!
I like you already.

SO, in my opinion the answer to that one is AST.

I used to be a SCH main throughout most of 2.x and up until somewhere in 3.1-3.2 because for me it was the most fun whilst being more engaging and complex [to me] than WHM.
WHM is still a fun class to play from time to time, but i personally find its toolkit is so straight forward theres not enough variables in what you can do for me.
Being able to manipulate the fairy and co-ordinate heals either chaining back to back on a single target or healing multiple people at once in different areas of the arena/map was engaging, as was juggling cleric stance and knowing how far i can push it along. I personally also found good fun in learning optimal places to position the fairy and ways to bounce skills about [placing fairy in the middle of a group away from me and launching a deployed adlo off her is always nice etc.]

That said i always liked the core toolkit feel of WHM more, and AST generally emulates that core kit layout, plus has skills that can be deployed skillfully in interesting ways like SCH; and so in the end i was always doing "more" each time i played an instance as AST than any of the others. I personally feel theres more of a juggling act going on as AST and you can use the tools in a few various ways which make tactical choices and the complexity of the class all the more entertaining than the other 2.
Sure, a noticable part of your kit is RNG, but using what you can to manipulate it to your best and then deploying things correctly is just as good to me as placing the fairy and knowing when to use her skills. You can still set up nicely to give yourself time to dps if you wish and have the means to turn things around and recover from spikes if needs be.

In all my opinion is that AST is the more fun and complex choice of the 3 simple because of how active you can be in comparison and the variables of your choices.
But you should most definately play all 3 to get a feel for the styles they bring and work it out from there; i whole heartedly believe you will be a better healer if you know how to play all 3 and use them effectively.

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Originally Posted by Rennies

As with every class, you'll be crucified if you choose to spend long periods of time afking while the 3 other players in your team are actually doing stuff.

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Not getting into another debate on this topic again. I'm just stating the pointless complaining over something that truly isn't much of a big deal.

If you want to dps while healing, go scholar. Eos allows you to basically dps most of the time and if the tank you have is a good one, you won't have to heal a lot unless mistakes happens. Whm and AST can basically heal an entire group within seconds because of their stronger healing power, so if you don't want to be trusting with the DF go with either of those 2( though from my experience dpsing as an AST can be difficult since it doesn't have as much as the regen affects as WHM and Eos.)

If you want fun, and you say you enjoy healing, you should go with AST. SCH is more of a DPS that has a fairy and shields to aid the main healer. When I go into a raid as SCH, I look to see where I can add more DPS, not necessarily making up a healing rotation like our AST would do.

Though I would second what Tera said and say don't count WHM out. There's nothing wrong with going straight to AST, but it may take you longer to get better as it's a much less forgiving job than WHM.

Thanks for the replies. I appreciate the thought that went in to your statements. I'm going to weigh a lot of this with what I think and then come to a decision. I will eventually level all 3, but I wanted to begin with a more complex class which is why I decided between SCH and AST. I'm pretty familiar with healing in MMOs, so I believe I can handle it.

The downside to starting with a more complex class first is that leveling WHM later on will be even more boring :p

To answer between SCH and AST:
Like most people said, all three healers have their good and bad parts, and which you care about more will end up determining which healer you enjoy the most.
To me personally, AST is the most fun to play. SCH always feels..limited? Don't get me wrong, you will be very active, lots of DPSing and some shielding/healing.
AST on the other hand is a healer and supporter that also is DPSing. Basically, 3 things instead of 2. Is it somewhat stressful? Yes. But also very satisfying.
Especially if you enjoy being not only a healer but also a general supporter :)

As AST, you can regen, you can shield, whichever fits the fight better. You can throw all kinds of useful buffs onto your party without having to give up regen for it like SCH has to.
If you want to throw a big heal, you just do it without having to think about maybe needing a big heal later on whenever you use completely unrelated skills (like SCH has to, because if you use up your eatherflow stacks on the wrong skills, no big heals for a minute). If you need big aoe heals, well, just cast them. No limit other than your MP.

All that said, I really hate AST below max level. While most of it's healing toolset is available from surprisingly early on, it's the only healer who gets DMG spells really, REALLY late. Aoe at 52, stronger single target attack at 54 even.
And even at 60, you will fall behind the other 2 healers in terms of DPS. Still, our high-potency DoTs are nice and also don't need any accuracy to land, so that's something :o

I will adress the elephant in the room brought up by some posters and ask the OP: Does the sound of DPSing while also having to handle healing sound appealing to you? Or do you want to just HEAL. I say this because all three healers have potential to deal a lot of damage, particularly in dungeons, but in 8-man raid settings, WHM and AST are usually relegated to being almost purely focused in healing, while Scholar usually is a secondary healing that is expected to DPS. This isn't needed in most daily content, but if you ever intend to tackle more complex fights in the game it's something that is very important to note. This isn't to say Scholar can't heal things on their own, but it takes a little bit more planning to do so.


Getting that out of the way, I'll give my two cents on the healing kits of both classes you seem to be interested in:

While I absolutely love Scholar, the one SUPER postive thing Astrologian has that no other job in the game does is the ability to make every encounter different for yourself, simply because of the cards. Sometimes you'll get a super Balance on your top DPS, other times you might get an enhanced Bole before a big hit on the tank, or you might be able to give a big haste to yourself, a DPSing WHM or a Dark Knight in Blood Weapon, and they will all love you for it. Sometimes you won't get shit and you'll be mad at the RNG for some time. I think that alone makes Astrologian a "high skill" job, since it requires you to know a lot about the other classes and their toolkits in order to properly react to the randomized buffs you get and use them optimally.

That said, my love for Scholar comes from the vast, vast amounts of options the class has for handling things. I really like solo healing current 8-man content on Scholar, because it requires you to plan ahead, know the fight or do some research. Since its reactive potential is much more limited, you have to know when to use what for better effect. Believe me when I say that using a particular Cooldown in X part of a fight can definitely make or break the next few seconds when solo healing on SCH, whereas a WHM or AST can just raw-heal everything as a reaction and still come out fine. This isn't to say that they are easier to play, because AST can definitely take advantage of its own CDs and plan ahead for better effect, but that's the core difference in their playstyle, in my opinion: Planning ahead is absolutely necessary if you're playing Scholar.

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Originally Posted by Fernosaur

I will adress the elephant in the room brought up by some posters and ask the OP: Does the sound of DPSing while also having to handle healing sound appealing to you? (...) WHM and AST are usually relegated to being almost purely focused in healing, while Scholar usually is a secondary healing that is expected to DPS. This isn't needed in most daily content, but if you ever intend to tackle more complex fights in the game it's something that is very important to note. This isn't to say Scholar can't heal things on their own, but it takes a little bit more planning to do so.

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oh that is a very good advice - like he said you should decide if you want to play a main-healer or support-healer in 8/24 grp content first. most advices in here count towards endgame in generell but for casual farm situations some things came up i wanted to share with you too.



- if you want to run dngs unsync (meant lvl60) for whatever reason (low level gear farm for other cls, craft items, etc) Ast & Whm provide aoe burst atks in which sch sadly lags (holy & gravity)
- if you want farm things in sync mode (lvl50 capped) whm is the only one who got an aoe for burst dmg.
- if you like or have to farm fates or mobs solo, sch beats the main-healers in obvious reasons... feary will heal you, chocobo will tank, you will dps

while writing things down... i recognized that those tips are just about dps-ing life of the healers... is this even interesting for you or do you want to concentrate on pure healing for now?

:o

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Not getting into another debate on this topic again. I'm just stating the pointless complaining over something that truly isn't much of a big deal.

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Nothing pointless about it. People expecting Healers to not stand around picking their nose doing nothing when there is nothing to heal is not a bad thing. At all.

As for the topic, I've given them all a spin and I like the more 'traditional' feeling of the WHM so far. Having a pet is nice and all but I found that bar to be a bit restrictive (can't swap things around into a particular order) which bugs me. Sure, I can map keys how I like, but I also enjoy having abilities in certain orders. Astro seemed fun but a bit too random for my liking. WHM is a nice, raw, standard option with phat numbers - and none too shabby in the damage department either.

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Originally Posted by RopeDrink

As for the topic, I've given them all a spin and I like the more 'traditional' feeling of the WHM so far. Having a pet is nice and all but I found that bar to be a bit restrictive (can't swap things around into a particular order) which bugs me. Sure, I can map keys how I like, but I also enjoy having abilities in certain orders. Astro seemed fun but a bit too random for my liking. WHM is a nice, raw, standard option with phat numbers - and none too shabby in the damage department either.

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I'm a little... Confused
1) did you know you could make the pet bar disappear and put all you pet skill inside your own bar ?

2) I challenge you to explain how rng and random the AST is in term of healing, honestly i'm already amused by your answer

3) your whm description is an ast description also... Pretty fun !

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Originally Posted by Fernosaur

WHM and AST are usually relegated to being almost purely focused in healing

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This is not correct. Yes, you usually take the brunt of the healing as a WHM/AST, but that doesn't mean you're excused from doing damage, especially not in Savage content. There's usually enough time to at least put up DoTs regularly, which is already half of your DPS potential. There is no healing job in this game on which you "just heal".

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Originally Posted by _slowpoke_

This is not correct. Yes, you usually take the brunt of the healing as a WHM/AST, but that doesn't mean you're excused from doing damage, especially not in Savage content. There's usually enough time to at least put up DoTs regularly, which is already half of your DPS potential. There is no healing job in this game on which you "just heal".

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Keyword almost. You seem to just be trying to start arguments everywhere lmao.

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Originally Posted by Fernosaur

Keyword almost.

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I know what almost means, thank you, you're still wrong. "Almost purely focused on healing" (what you have said) implies that DPS is an afterthought and can be neglected. That's false, because it's an integral part of every healer's toolkit.

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You seem to just be trying to start arguments everywhere lmao.

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I'm correcting wrong information where I see it, that is all. If you think that's "trying to start arguments everywhere", lmao.

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Originally Posted by _slowpoke_

I'm correcting wrong information where I see it, that is all. If you think that's "trying to start arguments everywhere", lmao.

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Nah, you're just protecting a meta that will probably be unsustainable once we hit higher ilvs, since no amount of Accuracy materia will be sufficient, unless you pentameld crafted gear.

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Originally Posted by _slowpoke_

especially not in Savage content.

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The time of Gordias is over :p

We could easily down A5-7S without any healer damage, if we wanted to do so. A8 we will see, as soon we reach the final goal. Why? Because our "damage dealers" are dealing enough damage. So every party that really "needs" healer damage in one of these turns, their damage dealers are simple said: not good.

The big reason the development did decide to put that amount of damage skills into the healer toolkit is: saving money and development time.

People like me, who have played a holy skilled priest back in vanilla WoW will remember, how solo questing was with that class. Short answer: it was a true pain.

If the healer toolkit in FFXIV would be similar to the one of a holy priest in vanilla WoW, they wold have to design every solo quest battle more than one time, because it would be not doable. Designing the battles more than one time would be way more expensive and time intensive than the solution they decided to do: give them enough damage skills.

Same for tanks, but more a "I need alot of time to kill a single mob" thing.

The solo quest issue was for me the main reason that I liked my warlock that much.

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Originally Posted by KarstenS

The time of Gordias is over :p
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I agree with your sentiment that healer DPS should only be a bonus but:

May I ask what were you guys doing with the downtime? No seriously, there is sooo much time in between healing, what were you casting?

Holy cow, the healer classes (even astro) have waaay more HPS than necessary to deal with the damage from most instances of A5s-A7s (even A8S to a degree) what the heck do you do when you have met the healing check? do you keep healing to inflate dem overheal numbers? do you sit still and look pretty?
Even the very best groups with the most top tier DPS will utilize healer DPS to 100% of its potential, its a resource to tap in to whether you need it or not.

I'm not saying the days of 100% healer DPS uptime gordias days were good but even Midas gives room for respectable DPS.

I love the way this derailed into a healer must dps topic. There's already a thread for that.

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Originally Posted by revonine

I love the way this derailed into a healer must dps topic. There's already a thread for that.

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Exactly this.

If you guys want to discuss how a healer has to dps please take it to the other thread.

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Originally Posted by CookieMonsta

May I ask what were you guys doing with the downtime? No seriously, there is sooo much time in between healing, what were you casting?

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On downtime we're probably DPSing. As I stated in another thread, not agreeing with current meta doesn't mean we don't try to adjust to it.

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Originally Posted by CookieMonsta

Holy cow, the healer classes (even astro) have waaay more HPS than necessary...

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Yes they do, and I hope SQEX changes this someday. We barely have sustained damage on normal content, the closer we got to having a fight where healers had to deal with party wide damage the whole time in DF content was Cuchullain day one.

Instead, they insist in creating hard hitting mechanics, the do-or-die type (see Ozma's meteor). We have ZERO heal checks in DF content, not even Hellwind can be counted because there's a HUGE window of no damage between Hellwind and the next mechanic.

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Originally Posted by Fevelle

Yes they do, and I hope SQEX changes this someday. We barely have sustained damage on normal content, the closer we got to having a fight where healers had to deal with party wide damage the whole time in DF content was Cuchullain day one.

Instead, they insist in creating hard hitting mechanics, the do-or-die type (see Ozma's meteor). We have ZERO heal checks in DF content, not even Hellwind can be counted because there's a HUGE window of no damage between Hellwind and the next mechanic.

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It really is only a priority check for the alliance with the main tank. But yeah, SE makes really weak sustained damage in contrast to its heavy front-loaded burst damage as shown in Savage content.

They difference between progression raid (BCOB, SCOB, FCOB, Gordias & Midas) and DF content is that DF content has only priority checks, and progression raid has a combination of HPS/Mitigation checks & priority checks, for healing anyways :).

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Originally Posted by Fevelle

On downtime we're probably DPSing. As I stated in another thread, not agreeing with current meta doesn't mean we don't try to adjust to it.

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A4S, A7S and A8S were steps in the direction of needing higher healer engagement but even then it could still be Solo healable by a whm/astro with timed input from the SCH.

As for the original post:

SCH is the most in demand healer right now, that is because it is possibly the most difficult healer to play in the current endgame because it requires you to be a tactician. You need to walk this extremely fine balance between healing, shielding and DPS. Its a high intensity job with immense benefits if played well as every endgame prog static will be looking for one.

Astro I cannot comment too much as I've only raided with them a few times but its a high skill floor extremely high skill ceiling job. In the right hands it can output similar HPS to a WHM but gives the party powerful buffs AND can mitigate additional damage thus giving it a strong edge in specific fights.