4.3 Thought on 3 healers

[LachleinStratos]

White Mage (WHM)
Ah my first healer crush and also my go to healer before leveling both SCH & AST.
A reactive healer with very strong group and single target healer.
Its pretty much you lose hp, I will heal you up kind of class.
No issues with mana if you know how to manage your heals properly.
Also has many spells that regain mana or stop mana from being used.
A free instant cast shield every 30 seconds and free instant cast heal every 60 seconds is godlike powerful.
Out of the 3 healers WHM currently is the strongest healer in my own opinion.
Fun factor probably the least as i dont find it very challenging to play and very beginner friendly however it is not easy to master at the same time.
Also lilies mechanic is kind meh and can use some rework to be more interesting than what it is currently.


Scholar (SCH)
Another strong healer capable of putting out shields to mitigate damage, while doing other things like healing or dealing damage and a reliable healing fairy pet.
Being a SCH was an awesome experience due to the fact that when you or the party takes light damage, my pet can take care of the healing while I continue dealing damage. Waiting for that moment when my fairy cries for assistance then il become a true healer. In my case, my pet is the boss who tells me when to heal or shield.
In my opinion, it is in scholar's best interest to understand mechanics of boss fights as this will make your shielding life easier as you know when the next big attack is coming so you can start pre-shield the tank or your party.
Scholar in my opinion is more fun than white mage due to management of aetherflow stacks, deploying shields at critical moment and becomes a dps when no hp is loss.
Basically a 2 in 1 package role. Literally my go to healer when i secretly want short que as a DPS than can heal.
Mana management is not an issue for scholars as they can rely on free heals from aetherflow mechanic however they do need to pay a little attention at times when all 3 stacks are depleted and aetherflow is on cooldown. Anyway, having a pet fairy with infinite mana throwing out heals is pretty awesome.


Astrologian (AST)
My last healer and my biggest regret is to not learn AST first.
Although it was quite boring to start with but as you unlock the draw system, minor arcana and sleeve draw i must say i am having a blast with this healer.
Another unique feature about AST is by having 2 stances, which turns you into a mini white mage or mini scholar. So now you can place regen or shields and play yugioh / magic the gathering cards at the same.
To me, AST is literally a jack of all trades / utility healer who can fill most roles and most of time relying on heart of the cards for good draws to buff your party.
Mana management is pretty good. The Ewer mana regen is not overpowered and Celestial opposition extends Lucid dreaming which is sooo good.
I will until the day when Astrologians start wearing duel disks.

All in all, i love all 3 healers and their unique play style
However if i have to rank them from my favorite in order it will be : AST > SCH > WHM

Let me know which are you current favorite healer im looking forward to read everyone's comments.

[Risvertasashi]

WHM:
Strong, well rounded kit. Some call it too simple, but at worst I'd say it's a "less is more" class, and it still has enough complexity that I enjoy squeezing every last bit out of it.

SCH:
My favorite healer to play when I need a break from WHM, just because it's so different. And pet class. Always love pet classes.

AST:
Never got over my disappointment in SE for cloning WHM's core kit. But it's very pretty. I like playing this job just to enjoy the VFX sometimes. Also nice to be able to buff the good DPS even further, or DPS friends if buddying up.

[loreleidiangelo]

WHM:
Strong, well rounded kit. Some call it too simple, but at worst I'd say it's a "less is more" class, and it still has enough complexity that I enjoy squeezing every last bit out of it.

SCH:
My favorite healer to play when I need a break from WHM, just because it's so different. And pet class. Always love pet classes.

AST:
Never got over my disappointment in SE for cloning WHM's core kit. But it's very pretty. I like playing this job just to enjoy the VFX sometimes. Also nice to be able to buff the good DPS even further, or DPS friends if buddying up.

My impressions are pretty similar, tbh, with a few modifications.

WHM: Throughput powerhouse, feels good to play if you need to put your carry pants on in Duty Finder. There's basically nothing that pug groups can stand in save one-shots that I feel like I can't heal through and that's great. Lily system and Confession system could use some slight tweaks (why are Confessions only like 10 second duration? Plenary is a 60-second CD so I feel like Confessions could at least last like 30). Asylum as an ability is a little uninspired and Benison is basically the Stoneskin WHM used to have just repurposed a little, so I can see where WHMs were disappointed with their 4.0 additions a bit. Thin Air despite having a stupid name is a great ability and easily the highlight of 4.0 WHM (like how Assize was the highlight of 3.x WHM). I don't get why people love Holy so much, I think the sound effect is extrememly obnoxious and the sparkles hurt my eyes, I wish I had a different AOE ability to spam.

SCH: Intricate and complex, probably the best-designed healer in this game thus far. You always have something to do on SCH and that's an extremely satisfying feeling for me. Excog after the changes still has instances of non-effect but is much better than it was at SB launch. Fey Union's cast/input lag, along with various other fairy input lags, are annoying and something I'd like to see the dev team look at moving forward. Reduce her casting animations if you have to, but it really should not take like a full 5 seconds for her to finish an Embrace and get Fey Union going; that's obnoxious. Other than that the class is great to play and probably my favorite healer not just in FFXIV, but in most MMOs I've played. I'd like to see less focus on reactive/Aetherflow ability instant healing and more focus on shields in the future, if I had to give feedback for the job moving forward. If they're afraid of shields outclassing Noct AST I'd rather just see Noct Sect dumpstered and AST being a regen competitor, with a new shield healer designed around that shielding in 5.0.

AST: Balancing nightmare with cloned abilities but very fun/engaging buff system and beautiful spell graphics. It's my main but I don't think it's well-designed and I'd love to see it reworked in the future. DiSect kit is very homogeneous with WHM, and Noct Sect is like half of SCH's kit with none of the other half that make it fun/actually work (Aetherstacks, pet management/interaction). The card buffs are in a decent spot now and aside from Minor Arcana I think have good abilities that interact with those buffs while not exactly guaranteeing favorable results. Earthly Star was the highlight of 4.0 AST; I actually think Minor Arcana and Sleeve Draw were both a bit underwhelming and I fear for the class's development going forward. There's very few future card choices the developers can add (if any), meaning the job will either get no upgrades to actual buff capabilities unless the devs think outside the box (and the DPS meta dies) or focus purely on card manipulation effects, or they'll only get more healing/damage abilities which dilutes the entire lure of the class IMO. My cohealer for raid will get dibs on first-swap to the 5.0 healer job, if one is introduced, but if she's not interested I'm looking to swap unless AST gets some serious design improvements with regards to their healing/damage kit.

[Kacho_Nacho]

My experience is less than many posters here but here are my thoughts.

White Mage: Easy to learn, hard to master. They have an ability for every situation. White mages are strong healers with good damage too. I feel every healer should start with a white mage first before branching out to the other healing jobs.

Scholar: Somewhat hard to play but no other healing class rewards good play like a scholar. Scholars are fun. You have to know fights ahead of time to make the best use of the kit. Fairy gives you plenty of opportunity to deal damage.

Astrologian: Easy to play once you get most of the card abilities. Card management is an interesting mechanic. It keeps you engaged. Diurnal sect plays a lot like a white mage. Nocturnal sect is more effective than a lot of players think. Astrologian spell graphics are amazing.

I cannot rank them yet since I don't have any at maximum level yet but I can say white mage is my go to healer. The toolkit is just too good to pass up when facing new content.

[LachleinStratos]

Pretty much agree with everyone yeh AST do lack their own identity.
Would like to see a mechanic revolving Constellation (connect stars on players) similar to Synastry maybe?
Also, outer space / stars / galaxy / planets and AST spells are all explosion just like our current (earthly star / malefic I II III / gravity) so maybe this can be what astrologian all about. Looking at Kuja from FF9

[Kacho_Nacho]

Pretty much agree with everyone yeh AST do lack their own identity.
Would like to see a mechanic revolving Constellation (connect stars on players) similar to Synastry maybe?
Also, outer space / stars / galaxy / planets and AST spells are all explosion just like our current (earthly star / malefic I II III / gravity) so maybe this can be what astrologian all about. Looking at Kuja from FF9

I wouldn't say Astrologians lack an identity. It's more like that identity wasn't taken far enough.

It would be interesting if there were astrological effects which only affected the astrologian. Say, once per day, an astrologian could make a horoscope for themselves and that particular buff would last until a new horoscope was made.

[LachleinStratos]

That sounds pretty sick and maybe they can also associate your ingame god / horoscope for beneficial buff too !

[Risvertasashi]

Pretty much agree with everyone yeh AST do lack their own identity.

I think the new stormblood abilities helped make AST a little more distinct.

But if when SE makes the fourth healer, it's "here have some reskinned WHM spells with a gimmick on top", I'm going to be pretty :| at them. Scholar feels more like an expac job than AST did in HW.

[LachleinStratos]

I think the new stormblood abilities helped make AST a little more distinct.

But if when SE makes the fourth healer, it's "here have some reskinned WHM spells with a gimmick on top", I'm going to be pretty :| at them. Scholar feels more like an expac job than AST did in HW.

4th healer has to be really different than what we have now. Yeh AST is really what you just said lol
SCH definitely feels fleshed out compared to AST

[loreleidiangelo]

I think the new stormblood abilities helped make AST a little more distinct.

But if when SE makes the fourth healer, it's "here have some reskinned WHM spells with a gimmick on top", I'm going to be pretty :| at them. Scholar feels more like an expac job than AST did in HW.

Well...yet again, I agree, but only kind of in half. Two of the three SB abilities we got were basically attempts at mitigating some more of our bad RNG gimmick (cards) and that doesn't feel good. Earthly Star is definitely a unique, powerful, and beautiful spell though. Compared to SCH, who got a brand new debuff, a new fairy ability and a...beefed Lustrate (a bit disappointing but okay in practice), it feels like both AST and WHM got lackluster additions in comparison. SCH has always been the best-designed healer in this game with the clearest niche/identity and while WHM has a solid design AST is just ugly and I'd really love for them to eye it for a rework moving forward.