What is the be Healer?

[Naylia]

There's only one rotation for healing:

Regen -> Holy -> Holy -> Holy -> Holy -> Holy -> Holy...shit I'm out of mp... hope that Regen keeps the tank alive...

[Immut]

There's only one rotation for healing:

Regen -> Holy -> Holy -> Holy -> Holy -> Holy -> Holy...shit I'm out of mp... hope that Regen keeps the tank alive...

You forgot presence of mind.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

^
Read the post above yours, thxbai.

TataRazzino post had minor things I didn't care to respond about. As it's not entirely wrong, but not entirely correct either. Your post, however, lacks proper elaborate explanation of any kind aside from "getting off high horses". Which gives off a vibe of certain degree of saltiness. But to humor you, I'll share my thoughts about TataRazzino's post right here - Nothing against you TataRazzino, but TheWaywardwind has no own opinion to quote on right now.

Scholars are pretty much guaranteed a spot for endgame content. However, not because they're branching off a DPS class. But for their entire kit. Scholars may struggle in the main healer seat in A3S due to that kit, but it doesn't mean it's impossible. Because their single target healing is GCD inefficient doesn't mean it prevents them from doing so. This inefficiency is balanced off with Aetherflow abilities. But as this is tied to 3 abilities/minute, this makes them resource restricted aside from MP. Does this mean Scholars are capable of everything? Yes, it does. But so are every other healing jobs.
Any healing job can heal (duh)
Any healing job has the ability to AoE heal
Any healing job has access to different forms of mitigation
Any healing job can deal damage
However, not every healing job can buff the group

But not every job is equal in these departments. You could call them into (sub-)optimal choices for certain needs for certain encounters.

Nearly every content requires two healers right now and any content that can be accessed through duty finder is designed - Or should be, at least - for any healing job combination. If it wasn't, it would have specified particular slots for certain jobs. Not just for healers, mind you. But Scholars can effectively ease up the HP check requirements for contents and, to a lesser extend, so can Astrologians. So again, if you're not convinced, go into Thordan EX at entry requirements with two White Mages.
But there are two sides of the coin in this story. If the meta would change that removes one healer, that would mean the total healing capacity would be lowered to an extend any healer can manage. You could say White Mages would be out of a job instead. They possess no tools to buff up the total group contribution, after all. Or in context of previous paragraph: White Mage would become a sub-optimal pick.

Lastly, the OP never specified the act of healing itself:

I\\\\'m training healer classes, so I wanna know what you think. What is the best healer in the game right now.

[CBellz]

SCH main/solohealing.

A SCH can soloheal anything an AST/WHM can with the same level of efficiency, if not even more. Currently, a SCH's burst and sustained aoe healing kit is enough to heal through any raidwide damage this game can dish out. With good GCD management, a well played SCH has the tools to soloheal while adding more DPS and being able to recover from mistakes. In certain situations, a WHM/AST simply cannot soloheal certain fights without some degree of catering in the form of bringing a SMN for virus+rezzes, a PLD for divine veil or even using tank LB in the place of raidwide mitigation (a la Thordan Ex). A SCH can soloheal without being catered to because its biggest weakness (extended aoe healing) is a non factor in this game's encounter design.

TL;DR SCH is obscenely broken.

[Sunako]

Sch is only healer that not run out mana while doing dps.

[TatoRazzino]

I never said it was impossible for a SCH to solo heal fights. I said it's harder, as it should be. SCH is far from broken and people overestimate their toolkit. They're the only job built to off-heal optimally and are also the only job to have bad solo healing capabilities. Their cooldowns and stacks barely make up for things that the other two healers have built in their GCDs in the first place. So, no, SCHs are not overpowered nor required; they're widely used because they add sustained DPS and that's it. Change fights design a little bit (which SE will for Alexander 2, since a lot of people are leaving the game because Alexander 1) and you'll see SCHs losing their fixed spot. One example: one indomitability + one ET Succor adds a total of 700 potency in heal. WHM alone can reach that with Medica II, and adding anything beyond that will simply crush SCH's numbers anytime of the day. "Oh, but there's Eos!" At the moment, the potency for the fairy's skills doens't scale in the same way the SCH's potency does and you'll get less than 500 potency from Whispering Dawn in AoEs, which Asylum can cover easily. "Oh, but I can Rouse it and I can use Fey Illumination!" Yes, you can burn two more cooldowns (apart from the two you already burned to get your Succor to not shield and your Indomitability (which also consumed one stack, lowering the amount of Lustrates you can do in that minute) to match what a WHM could do with one spell + one skill. Add Divine Seal to the equation, and SCH will be destroyed healingwise. The extra GCDs and cooldowns WHM didn't use can be spent in Cleric Stance to add some burst DPS. I won't even discuss AST, because I made my point. If you're a good SCH and feel like you can rule the world, just know that skilled players use the other two healers as well and we can do things with one key press while you must use four our five to hope you catch up.

[Rivxkobe]

snip

Isn't this a bit... much in reply to my post? >.>

It doesn't matter if SCH's have a spot in an end game group because they come from a DPS job, the fact is is that they have one. They are also needed because of their shields, which AST can NEVER match and their buffs. Which, minimally, makes them "better" than the other two healers. While they can't do everything as good as the other two, they are still at the top of the tier. Again, even though it is only minimal.

And, yeah, the OP didn't ask for specifics. So there is no reason to give specifics.

And to restate: SCHs are only minimally better.

[Shihen]

Raw healing output: WHM
Mitigation: SCH
Raid utility: AST

In a raid setting, I would choose SCH for preemptive healing. In my experience, when raids wipe to damage in this game it's more often because it's high damage they weren't prepared for rather than high damage they simply couldn't heal through. It's safer for the raid to take 50% damage and be topped off in 2-3 globals, than to take 75% damage and be topped off in the same amount of time.

There are other reasons like minimal overhealing and the costless casters that are fairies, but that's the main one. There's also the fact that they have an absurd amount of sustained DPS for a healer, by far the highest of the three.

I would take an AST or WHM for a fight with a lot of sustained incoming damage, with preference on the AST for extra raid dps via cards. If you're really serious about healing, level all 3 and choose based on the fight.

In an instance setting, just yolo and pick whichever you enjoy the most.

[TatoRazzino]

Isn't this a bit... much in reply to my post? >.>

It doesn't matter if SCH's have a spot in an end game group because they come from a DPS job, the fact is is that they have one. They are also needed because of their shields, which AST can NEVER match and their buffs. Which, minimally, makes them "better" than the other two healers. While they can't do everything as good as the other two, they are still at the top of the tier. Again, even though it is only minimal.

And, yeah, the OP didn't ask for specifics. So there is no reason to give specifics.

And to restate: SCHs are only minimally better.

SCH's deployed shields weren't needed in A1S and A2S even at launch. I know because I cleared those fights with a WHM partner running AST in Diurnal before ilvl was inflated.

For A3S, the mechanic that supposedly requires shielding is Cascade, and you can't deploy Adlo for every single Cascade in A3S, so if this kind of shielding was needed the fight would be unbeatable. The only shielding you can keep up for all Cascades is Succor and the amount of shielding provided by Succor is slightly inferior to what is provided by Aspected Helios (by 7 potency, I know, but since we decided to split hairs in here, I'll give you that).

I can't vouch for A4S, but since there have been clears with Noct. AST instead of SCH, it's pretty much a given that Deployed Adlo is not required in there.

Deployed shields aren't needed in Thordan as well, since I cleared that fight with WHM/Noct. AST.

Also, a Deployed Shield is not going to save a fight going south unless you expect a Crit Adlo, which is RNG. If that was needed, fights would be unbeatable and no one in their right mind brings a SCH expecting crit Adlos. SCHs are used for their sustained DPS, NOT for their healing capabilities. A 300 potency shield (that's the value you have to expect from a Deployed Adlo) is not that different from a Noct. Aspected Helios enhanced by Synastry: 165+20%=198, and a 102 difference is less than 1K HP; if your party is wiping because of that, you have bigger problems, too big for shields to handle.

Being needed is different than being helpful, never forget that.

[TatoRazzino]

And before someone argues that it's just a semantic difference, I'd like to point out that the main issue around SCH is that, to clear Savage as fast as the world first group cleared, you absolutely needed a high amount of healer DPS to meet the check. They couldn't clear A3S before week 3, when they got their Eso weapons, and it took a lot of practice for them to finish A4S (I believe it was cleared a week later, if I'm not mistaken). DPS checks are not to be overlooked; SCHs were the only healer capable of sustaining DPS while healing, mostly because of their MP management skill, which is the same as SMN since it's built in the ACN class. That's why, until recently, WHM and AST couldn't do the trick: it was mathematically impossible, according to the pro groups, to meet the DPS checks without a SCH. Now, since ilvl is inflated, not only that amount of sustained healer DPS is hardly needed, but you can also afford to do more DPS as WHM or AST in the off-healer spot; therefore, any combo is possible and SCHs are not NEEDED anymore. They certainly help with their extra DPS and some extra shielding here and there, but AST and WHM are also helpful in other aspects, so everything is evened out.