White Mage vs Scholar

[Abigs]

I think it boils down to WHM having lackluster cooldowns and mechanics compared to SCH..

WHMs are reactive healers, if nobody gets hit you really cant do anything outside probably a hardcast stone skin.. (which makes most of their free cure mechanics inefficient and anti-fun.. ie: having a free cure but none to heal)
SCH on the other hand have their basic turret heals while having aetherflow as strong heals depending on situation (makes it fun because you have to manage your '3 bullets' every minute)

im also not really liking the fact that WHM cds being a bit buggy.. benediction having some internal cast delay, im fine with divine illu and the buffed presence of mind but do remember that even as off gcd skills you still have to wait half a GCD before you can cast again (internal delay with gcd) as opposed to eos/selene which have their own GCD.

i also still think than pet party buffs provide a lot more utility than whatever WHM does.. POM (self spell speed increase) vs pet buff of (whole party spell/skill speed increase)

i have a whm at 50 and i really hope im wrong.. at present im skewed to leaning that sch offers a tad more utility but i concede that both healers are still viable for any content

oh one more thing is mana issues (which i really hope im wrong) it seems to me that WHM are a lot more common to guzzle their mana rather than sch due to aetherflow mechanics.. i rarely see SCHs go OOM compared to how common it is to see WHM going really low

[Roxinova]

WHMs are reactive healers, if nobody gets hit you really cant do anything outside probably a hardcast stone skin.. (which makes most of their free cure mechanics inefficient and anti-fun.. ie: having a free cure but none to heal)

i also still think than pet party buffs provide a lot more utility than whatever WHM does.. POM (self spell speed increase) vs pet buff of (whole party spell/skill speed increase)

oh one more thing is mana issues (which i really hope im wrong) it seems to me that WHM are a lot more common to guzzle their mana rather than sch due to aetherflow mechanics.. i rarely see SCHs go OOM compared to how common it is to see WHM going really low

1: If there is no one to heal on WHM, you should be DPSing.
2: Pet buffs are SCH. Protect + Stoneskin are WHM. They each have their own buffs that they specialize in.
3: Shroud of the Saints. I never have OOM issues. Especially if there's a Bard in the party who actually does Mage Ballad.

[Parawill]

Scholars will almost always be strictly better than a White Mage when it comes to your group playing 99% efficiently.

White Mages truly shine when it comes to recovering from near-wipe scenarios such as Titan Extreme Super Bomb (slow DPS) explosion into Geocrush. As for "Mana Issues," you don't really have any mana issues as a White Mage unless:

1. Overhealing.
2. Divine Seal Management
3. Unnecessary Damage / Deaths
4. Undergeared tanks that cannot hold threat vs. your heals which in turn means you cannot use Shroud on CD.
5. *Ress pls*

[Freyt]

I seem to heal very differently from most of you. I was about to post an essay talking about how both healers perform differently, but I'll just summarize.

WHM
-Party healer extraordinaire
-Healer nuker
-Requires MP conservation
-Can easily build hate

SCH
-Single target pocket protector, will never let target die if that's all that's going on.
-Lag is not as much of a problem with AI healer fairy.
-Immensely vast MP supply means very little conservation unless people are doing it wrong.
-If the party is doing it wrong, the SCH is not the one to bring for the job, as everyone will probably die due to small party heals.

In 4 player duties, SCH is usually the one you want around. SCH doesn't have their best spell until 30, condition removal until 35, and has no sleep spell, but will otherwise meet more demands more often.
In 8 player duties, WHM is much more appealing, as 8 player duties usually have more spread out damage and more AoE's, which means more people taking damage. 2 WHM's will even be good in many occasions, though often 2 SCH's will feel lacking.

[DreamWeaver]

@Parawill
I am extremely curious on why you consider Scholar better in an ideal situation, could you elaborate? (Since this is the internet....no sarcasm intended, just genuinely interested in what everybody thinks )

@Freyt
-Immensely vast MP supply means very little conservation unless people are doing it wrong.
-If the party is doing it wrong, the SCH is not the one to bring for the job, as everyone will probably die due to small party heals.

Don't you think these two scholar points of yours contradict each other?
If people are mucking up, should you not choose scholar due to their "Immensely vast MP supply means very little conservation unless people are doing it wrong" ?

[DarkerOrange]

I think the idea is that if everyone is taking damage at the same time, the SCH will struggle to keep up, since succor is not a great party heal, whereas the WHM can just medica through it with no issues.

[SummonerSenah]

I feel like it's a little more difficult to pick up the slack or solo heal as a scholar in 8 mans if the other healer is bad or dead. Or at least, a scholar needs to be better geared than a whm trying to do the same. For the reason posted above; Medica and Medica II make it easy for whm to aoe heal. Also, Medica II and regen stack if you have two whms, but the galvanize effect of Adlo or Succor doesn't.

[Freyt]

@Parawill
I am extremely curious on why you consider Scholar better in an ideal situation, could you elaborate? (Since this is the internet....no sarcasm intended, just genuinely interested in what everybody thinks )

@Freyt
-Immensely vast MP supply means very little conservation unless people are doing it wrong.
-If the party is doing it wrong, the SCH is not the one to bring for the job, as everyone will probably die due to small party heals.

Don't you think these two scholar points of yours contradict each other?
If people are mucking up, should you not choose scholar due to their "Immensely vast MP supply means very little conservation unless people are doing it wrong" ?

No. It depends on the severity of the situation.

If the situation is, every now and then someone takes a big hit, or even someone dies, and the tank does not take a whole lot of damage, then bring the scholar. If it's the whole party taking considerable amounts of damage, the Scholar will fall short. Scholars only big heals are Adloquium and Lustrate. Lustrate can only be used 3 times every 60 seconds and Adloquium has normal cast time and cannot heal the whole party in a short enough time to keep them alive. Succor will have to be cast so often, that with their vast amounts of MP they will run out, and the tank will die because they will be busy with the party instead of the tank.

[Jim]

They are different classes for a reason, because they are different. They cannot simply be compared, overall if you are picking one to play I recommend white mage, just me personally I love the class, scholar is more forgiving however if that is what you are looking for.

[Tranquil]

It seems to be a trend that whenever the then-latest Coil becomes farmable by some top-end FCs (instead of it being "work in the progress" -tier), people hop on the "SCHs are better at everything" -bandwagon. I will agree that you have a marginal edge in some situations by having dual-SCHs or even solohealing with a SCH instead of a WHM, but this is just a case of people knowing the fights through and through and the encounters being tank-healing-heavy with the occassional AOE-damage that a SCH can prepare for. In this kind of way, some of a WHM's raw healing power gets wasted, ie. with familiarity, and a SCH can shine more easily, especially with their DoT-fueled off-DPS and sustainability.

That being said...I honestly don't enjoy running stuff with another SCH - it's possible to synergize very well, but I feel like I can do my own thing easier if there is no one overlapping with me, hence a WHM compliments a SCH and their most common playstyles very well. It just is that simple: Regen uptime on the MT, AOE-heals of theirs with my support, 18% Stoneskins for the big buffering, enhanced Protect, the MND party-buff (that turns into an INT-advantage in Cleric's Stance, too). All of those are reasons I prefer healing with a WHM. Also, Savage Coil: the damage can be pretty ridiculous, especially in T6, so the raw healing output is definitely a lifesaver. More burst-healing-heavy content like that would be fun.