What's Scholar like?

[EaMett]

I can't say I agree with that. SCH is no more dependant than the other two.

Well, based off of the simple fact that sch has the least amount of sustained hps it is by default the most gear dependent. It's hard to maintain the contrary when comparing sch to a whm who'm I'm pretty confident could solo heal most of the current content in 270 gear (provided a decent static).
This was readily evident when SB hit and tanks were pulling 60+ dungeons like they were running Baelsar's wall in 270s. Sometimes you couldn't even keep up with the HPS output required from some large pulls in places like Bardam's meddle (on SCH). This was way less of an issue on the other healers.

That isn't to say that you can't fill the gap with skill, but we are talking about leveling here afterall.

[Eloah]

snip

But you said it yourself, they havr less HPS because a majority of their heals are oGCD; including Lily, whose heals don't count towards your total.

But I think I see where the confusion is, since you stated "when SB launched", you're confusing going in blind with going in ilprepared. When SB launched, everything was brand new; including the abiliy shuffle, but that only affected job play "slightly". Anyway, the the entirety of SB was uncharted for everyone, there was no guage of mob strength, desired/standard pull length, boss mechanics, etc. Just like with everything else in the game, once you have a base understanding of your surroundings, it's all standard fair. The best example of this is The Vault. When it first came out, there was rampent death, now not really... Though ironically, I had no issue when it first came out either in full Ironworks gear, better then my WHM and AST friends, hmm, maybe it is me, lol

[Yeol]

I won't get into deep details but here is what I think you should know:

SCH is a shield type healer. So you should focus more on preventing damage rather than healing damage.

Their healing potency is lower than the other two healers, but it shouldn't be a big deal if you're mitigating damage correctly, big raw heals will not be needed. Crit shields means the enemy will deal almost no damage (Party member will receive 0 damage).
Your fairy easily makes up for the low potency. Eos can increase healing potency by 10%, give regen to the party, and by sending your fairy away you increase your own healing potency by 20%.

[Ghishlain]

SCH is a resource based pet and mitigation healer. I would argue it has a fairly low skill floor because of the auto healing fairy and high burst healing potential but also a high skill ceiling due to the resource heavy nature of the job itself which requires you to know a fight intimately to plan out the usages of those resources.

Unlike WHM or AST which make more frequent usage of their MP for their healing, SCH relies heavily on their cooldowns to mend wounds or blunt incoming damage.

At it's core, the Fairy is a constant 166 potency heal every three seconds on whomever you want and is both MP free and GCD free from the master which is better than most HoTs in the game. Eos; the healing fairy also has access to an AoE HoT, a AoE magic defense buff, and a AoE healing potency received buff (all on a cooldowns)

The other core element to the SCH kit is their Aetherflow, which gives them back both MP and three resources to use for a myriad of healing abilities including a single target heal, an AoE heal on a 30s CD, and a "smart heal" that heals the target when their HP falls below 50% HP on 45s CD. There's also a mitigation ground AoE you can use but generally it's better to use the raw heals as they tend to give more potency/Aetherflow.

SCH also has access to a crit buff that helps improve every party member's DPS on that particular target and Deployment Tactics - an ability that allows them to spread their shield to everyone around the target. When used with Adlo, it provides the best AoE HP shield out of all the healers and is even more potent if you happen to RNG into a Crit-Adlo.

In general, Noct AST has better raw shields but SCHs kit is more than just shields, having strong healing cooldowns, a consistent DPS buff, and a consistent "HoT" in the form of a fairy.

The DPS buffs is what makes "SCH/AST" meta as well, since stacked support buffs out the ying yang leads to incredible gains across the board. Also once players become severely overgeared, the healing requirements start to become trivialized thus negating the need to run the more progression meta of SCH/WHM.

[Eloah]

Since it was mentioned, I'll elaborate on the best use for Sacred Soil, the AoE defensive dome shield. As mentioned prior, usually the direct heals are best, but if the entire party is going to receive AoE damage in rapid succession, or the Boss is going to unleash a massive AoE attack, then Sacred Soil is good to use. Not sure how far you are on certain things, but stacking mechanics where you'll be hit with multiple burst attacks, Boss LBs, or having the entire party fight in close proximity, is generally when you'd use it. Flights like Nidhogg, A12/S, The Griffin, and I'm sure there are more. But you'll learn where and when it'll br good to use the more you get a feel fir the job.

[Rubiss]

As an example, one of the savage raid bosses, Guardian, will target a DPS player for a burn and/or bleed type DoT attack with ticks that are very strong. SCH can simply have the fairy use Fey Union (perhaps on top of Whispering Dawn as well), and that mechanic is handled. The SCH (and his/her cohealer) can then DPS, or heal the tanks, or whatever else as needed.

In comparison, Noct AST would have to use GCDs and spend MP to accomplish the same thing. The whole duration of the DoT, and possibly some extra healing to top up after if it's immediately followed by a raidbuster. A considerable amount of MP for a single target shield at that. (SCH's shield is even more expensive, but SCH has the advantage of having more tools to work around it).

On the Fey Union bit.

This is actually false. If you give someone with the burn a Fey Union, they will die if they receive no other healing.

[Yeol]

On the Fey Union bit.

This is actually false. If you give someone with the burn a Fey Union, they will die if they receive no other healing.

I can assure you that with BiS, I did not die. Maybe gear (from both sides) affect it.

[CYBEReris]

YMMV but the job didn't really click for me before unlocking Lustrate and learning to be more proactive in placing and managing the fairy.

One of the major strengths of SCH is that they are very good at "triaging" in tense situations because they have an auxiliary healer capable of erasing chip damage, low-cooldown oGCDs gated by Aetherflow management, and single-target and AoE shields that can protect against incoming damage, potentially buying time.

Whether calmly planning out the means to save your party from certain death in a crisis or preventing so much damage even major mistakes don't lead to a crisis in the first place, I find it a highly satisfying gameplay fantasy.

[Sebazy]

My 2 cents:

In terms of casual play and content, SCH is a little more straight forward and easier to play to a basic standard than AST. The pet does a reasonable job on autopilot and can merrily carry a group through lower level dungeons and such. Played to a higher standard in casual content it's a little more self sufficient than AST as well, whilst it's not quite the dungeon powerhouse it was throughout HW, it's dungeon dps is still very solid with great efficiency and sustainability to help push along any sub par groups you might end up in. By contrast, AST is largely at the mercy of it's group.

As far as raids and high end play goes, in my eyes the main thing that's always separated SCH from it's peers is it's ability to gain GCDs by way of offloading as much work as possible onto the fairy (thus why I've always been a firm advocate for Eos frequently being a DPS gain right the way from 2.0 when Selene's misleading spell/skill speed buffs were overvalued). Simply put, a well played SCH can contribute both very significant HPS and DPS simultaneously better than it's rivals especially with Eos out. By contrast, a NoctAST is pretty much flipping a switch between DPSing or healing with very little in-between.

There was a weird patch at the start of 4.0 where Noct AST was arguably the safer progression healer for Deltascape Savage but that simply isn't the case as of the SCH fixes that arrived shortly after.

Since I'm no stranger to somewhat controversial opinions on healers, I'd also go as far as saying that with the right comp, Chain is actually as good as if not better than AST's cards in terms of your overall raid DPS. Whilst it's not as good a buff on paper as Balance, the fact that it just aligns with the big raid burst makes all the difference.

[EaMett]

Since I'm no stranger to somewhat controversial opinions on healers, I'd also go as far as saying that with the right comp, Chain is actually as good as if not better than AST's cards in terms of your overall raid DPS. Whilst it's not as good a buff on paper as Balance, the fact that it just aligns with the big raid burst makes all the difference.

It's lower than ASTbuffs. I don't have in depth knowledge on the topic but I've often noticed that CS is an added 350-600 rdps whereas AST cards do anything between 500-1kish(on great rng) extra rdps. With that said SCH personal dps makes up for it.