How you chose your healing job.

[Oohlalaheals]

I have all 3 healers and like them all very much but I LOVE my AST. Its all about the cards. Yes, my fate is left up to the RNG gods, and it doesn't always work out great, but when it does, its so satisfying, its like gambling and winning. I'm running out of mana, Luminiferous Aether is on CD, everyone is dying, and I draw an EWER, yeah! There's about to be a dps check, I've got my royal road set to aoe my next buff, and I draw a BALANCE, woohoo!

Its the little things :P

[Kaurie]

These are not comparable in terms of MP efficiency with Phsyick at 0.90 Potency/MP vs Adlo at 0.57. Phsyick is about 58% more efficient that's kind of huge. Which is not to say that the rest of your points aren't valid, at least in most casual content you're not generally MP-bounded and certainly not in 4-mans. Therefore the premium is on throughput if only to afford additional time contribute to damage (however you feel about such things).

It's also worth noting that Aldo's efficiency only holds in the case the target is going to take the full shield's worth of damage in the next 30 seconds. If you're dealing with an encounter with period damage on additional targets that's sure to be lethal if left unattended long term,. but that damage is spaced more than 30s apart Phsyick will be more efficient on throughput as will since the shield just falls off to no effect. Granted these are corner cases in current content but I think it's better to maintain a more comprehensive understanding of tools should these difference become more relevan in later content with a different design.

Again, I noted that they are similar when you take into account crit (where they converge to the same number of 1.8). Also, I don't think a 0.57 to 0.90 is a huge difference given the absolute MP totals and our MP pool and the required amount of healing and the ability to regain MP back at withe energy drain/aetherflow.

As for your second point, use adlo if they are going to take damage soon - yes. if they aren't going to take damage, let Eos/Selene heal them, don't bother with a Physick.

[Geula]

I always throw adlo on tanks between packs, gives more leeway for dps bane opener.

[ruskie]

Hmmm my main has always and will always be bard. But I picked up conjurer/white mage as my second early on. I enjoy it a lot and rarely feel the boredom that people feel from it. Even with my more healing focused play style I still drop into CS at times and DPS but never really get bored of it. I just love the raw healing power it brings to the table and regens for days.

[File2ish]

I generally got pushed into the healer role by my friends in games, but I came to this game with the mind set that it would be similar to FFXI; WHM heals only. I didn't like that. I hated main healing in FFXI. And I hated that my friends were pushing me to heal so we can be a 4 man party (as they chose PLD, DRG, and BLM. I was first on the game and didn't want to heal, so I essentially said they could suck it).

But after I got my first job up through the story (bard), I dabbled with other jobs. I quickly found White Mage to be more fun than bard. Then I mained WHM up until Astrologian came out. I got SCH to 50 as well, but didn't have as much fun on the job.

Now I main AST. I always liked having more options on my jobs. Cards and Noct/Diurnal stances called to me :P

I hope if Red Mage and/or Dancer make it into this game that one of them will be a healer. I'll drop AST for those in a heartbeat.

[Zadocfish]

Also, I find navigating through different hotbars in the heat of battle to be incredibly tedious, so I try to find an efficient setup I can use with only 16 abilities. I think I'd like to play SCH because the fairies give me a lot of ability variety that I don't need to use one of the precious 16 slots for.

[HPDelron]

Also, I find navigating through different hotbars in the heat of battle to be incredibly tedious, so I try to find an efficient setup I can use with only 16 abilities. I think I'd like to play SCH because the fairies give me a lot of ability variety that I don't need to use one of the precious 16 slots for.

I would honestly advise against SCH if that's the case. Of the classes I've played so far SCH is by far the most button intenstive. I currently have 38 buttons bound, the majority of which get used regularly. If you really forced the issue I might be able to pare down to say, 28-30 bare minimum.

Even just your base rotation + healing abilities + summon buttons + aetherflow is 13. And that's note even counting any utility, any cross class skills, or any healing cooldowns.

[Geula]

Also, I find navigating through different hotbars in the heat of battle to be incredibly tedious, so I try to find an efficient setup I can use with only 16 abilities. I think I'd like to play SCH because the fairies give me a lot of ability variety that I don't need to use one of the precious 16 slots for.

If you play on a controller you can have up to 32 slots at a time with no toggling of cross-bars, there is an option that let's you access an additional cross bar - basically, when you hold L2 and then press and hold R2 a left side of a cross bar shows up or when you hold R2 and press and hold L2 the right side of a cross-bar shows up. That adds to 32 slots. It's pretty easy to get used to, all muscle memory. I'd recommend at least giving it a try.

[Lady_Malice]

Right now, my healing main is AST because I have it sharing secondaries with WHM.

I mained SCH in 2.0 until I was put in a situation of either raid as WHM or raid with strangers. I tried to be stubborn about it in 3.0, but it feels the same especially with how many people are playing SCH. Since I've rarely been given the opportunity to play it, I'm out of practice and I don't enjoy it anymore. I find WHM boring, but ran it in dungeons because I was tired of single target stoneskin lol. I've landed on AST because I feel the same way with the card mechanic as I used to with SCH, it's engaging and fulfilling.

[Zadocfish]

snip

Hey, thanks, that's great advice! I'll try that. In conjunction with the commenter above, that should do really well.