Whm / Scholar - who is better

[Its_Elodie]

I can't wait for astrologian. If these whm vs. sch threads make me want to rip my pretty miqo Lightning hair out like they do now, I'm going to be coughing up hair balls in a psych ward somewhere when astro releases for sure.

[Raminax]

Rawr!

(Disclaimer: I quit WoW shortly after Blackrock Foundry was released. Numbers might've scaled faster or slower than I've anticipated.)

Unless Scholars get a lot of 'pure', stackable and easily used absorbs like the Discipline Priest does, I wouldn't worry too much. Scholar absorbs are 'weaker' per default because their absorbing spells are split 50/50 between healing and actual absorbing, while Discipline Priests have a handful of spells that are 100% absorbs. A Scholar equally geared to their raid might give the group something like a 15% max HP buffer with a Succor, or double (and double yet again if critting) with Adloquium. Meanwhile, a Discipline Priest will be giving you a 30% max HP buffer with a simple Power Word: Shield, possibly as high as 80% with Archangel active and some crits/multistrikes (despite my modest gear, I'd get 220'000+ Power Word: Shield crits on people who were slightly above 300'000 max HP on a good day). Combine that with things like Divine Aegis and Spirit Shell which stack with all other absorbs, along with their absorption numbers actually being able to increase with repeated castings, and you can have Discipline Priests easily doubling a person's max HP with absorb buffers.

The difference in the damage model/flow also causes Discipline Priests to look even better. Most raid encounters in WoW cause medium bursts of damage regularly, allowing your absorbs to get used up, despite the shorter duration. Healing failures were usually caused by healers not pushing enough HPS to counter the regular damage, encouraging you to adjust between efficiency and throughput on the fly. Most encounters in XIV hit you with massive bursts of damage rarely, often leaving you barely alive, if not outright dead. Tank busters and the many Astral Flows/Super moves come to mind. Here you're encouraged to set up mitigation and pre-cast healing spells.

While absorbs are still valuable in the healing environment of XIV, they still end up looking weak compared to what a Discipline Priest can do. The lack of easily used 'pure' absorbs, along with only one type of absorption (Galvanized, compared to simultaneous Power Word: Shield, Divine Aegis and Spirit Shell) means that Scholars won't ever reach the point where they can do absurd shenanigans, such as fully nullifying moves like Gigaflare. Assuming they were carbon copies of Discipline Priest, they would probably be bringing Gigaflares down to 3 digit damage with a bit of button mashing. And assuming Squeenix does allow things like stackable absorbs, I'm hoping they monitor the situation closely, because besides creating a God Tier Meta™, it would also heavily reduce the difficulty of XIV's healing model, considering how reliant it is on massive bursts of damage.

Oh... I just realized I got way too serious with this post. Here, enjoy a lovely healing guide.

[Ashika]

It's clearly Eos and not among the two. Eos is also best tank.

[Dualblade]

Snip

Informative to someone who only did a little WoW AND I finally know where that Healer Motto came from!...or atleast see a video of someone saying it!

Also for on-topic, as far as I've seen both jobs do rather well on all content. Only one I can't speak for is Coil.

[Alisi]

Unless Scholars get a lot of 'pure' ...

Oh, I know. That's why I said I was hoping they wouldn't go that way so much. I started WoW in WotLK as a Disc Priest and I remember my first raid assignment was literally just to bubble and cure people in ICC so it was interesting to see how they changed Disc in their efforts to cap them but what could they do? Give them stronger heals and they'll be too strong. Weaken their absorbs and they're useless. And then there was that push for all healing priests to be disc priests. You know, you'd hear 'yeah, holy priests are good too and completely viable' but there'd always be that unsaid 'but disc priest is still better so why aren't you disc?!' that I really, really hated.

I don't want a king healer on top. I want them all to be equal so I don't have to feel bad for playing the healer I love most. That's all I want.

Well, I'd really love to be able to rename Eos as "Henry". Don't ask me why. I don't know.

[Alisi]

Oh... I just realized I got way too serious with this post. Here, enjoy a lovely healing guide.

That video! That! LOL! Tip #2 only works in raids with HPS meters tho...

[Raminax]

Rawr!

Yes, I fully understand. I kind of feel that Blizzard shot themselves in the foot regarding Discipline Priests, although I can't say that I envy the job they have on their tables. Balancing five reasonably different healing specs compared to just two (soon to be three) healers must be a nightmare. :/ Though I was also hoping they'd get Discipline right after 4 expansions... xD Sometimes it feels like they just don't care.

Aaanyway, I've got faith in Squeenix!

[Kumabear76]

When comparing SCH, WHM, and AST (?), which is the better healer, the answer is simple really.

The player who knows the job and their role best.

[Yare]

I don't want a king healer on top.

Good King Moggle Mog XII is the best healer!!! He could instantaneously raise and top-off multiple moogles. Sadly, His Majesty's WHM failed to use benediction in time.... ... He should have chosen Yare to be His Majesty's WHM.... I am the same size as moogle anyway.... *sobs*

[Galdous]

Scholars are way stronger then white mages right now. Most white mages go scholar to do content which makes them a closet scholar main.