Starter healer... WHM?

[IceBlueNinja]

I would go with sch. They have instant heals and unlike ast they can use them up to three times in one min.

Umm sounds like your insulting ast there, ast aspected benefic is instant without light speed and using light speed = makes all spells instant cast and res cut spell time by 50%. I am assuming your just basing it on arr content, because at heavens ward and further expansions lustrate and indoms loses out bad to cure 2/benefic 2 and and medica/helios heals. Finally you forgot to mention if you have no aether you cant even use lustrate or indom which is the only 2 instant spell cast spells sch have.

[Risvertasashi]

So I want to level a healer on top of my growing list of jobs. I'm *really* interested in AST, but I'm on a controller and the constant target switching and general busyness is just overwhelming.

I have SCH at 37 but I hear that's just as bad.

So I'm guessing go WHM? I haven't the slightest clue how lilies work, and I'm not used to NOT hardcasting heals(last played a healer in 3.1, had all 3 at 60 and was pretty good at AST but now? Urrgh) so I'm like...

What do? Suggestions?

Try them all. We've got a fair chunk of time to kill till the expansion, so there's no rush and nothing to lose.

Try them all and go with what feels right/feels best. We can pontificate on the good points and bad points of each healer all day, but... you won't really know which style you prefer until you've played them.

[Imora]

WHM is a fantastic choice for dungeons because Holy is just so good but if you want to learn how to properly heal while dpsing instead of the classic "I'll just heal everyone first and then maybe dps a bit", WHM mostly teaches bad habits because its toolkit is so barebone you have to use a lot of GCD heals. Far more often and for much longer than the other two. As beginner friendly as it looks, it's actually strongest in the hands of very experienced healers and not particulary good or easy to handle for a starter healer because healing and dpsing is mutually exclusive for a long time.
If you struggle with getting rid off the GCD heal habit, WHM will shove it right back down your throat.

SCH has far less target switching than AST because your instant aoe is centered around you, not targeted. So you can just keep targeting the tank while doing your thing. It's a bit more busy and has more buttons because you have a larger toolkit but managable. It's very easy to get used to GCD dpsing and oGCD healing on SCH.
And the fairy auto heal makes it a bit more forgiving than the other two because it's like a permanent regen on (mostly) the tank.

AST is the busiest healer with frequent target switching because of Gravity being targeted but remember that while cards are good, you can gradually incorporate them as you get more used to target switching on controller. So if you fail at cards at first and card the wrong person, it's not the end of the world. Chose your battles and set your priorities correctly, then you can go for AST aswell. You'll only run into problems if you want to nail everything at once.
Just like SCH, the free weaves make it easier to practice GCD dpsing while oGCD healing and slidecasting is more forgiving. But it will require more target switching than WHM or SCH in mass pulls even if you don't focus on cards at first.

Gravity being targeted isn't a problem because my offensive spells are target of target macros. It's more of "I don't have time to DPS". I'm only 40 though.

[Imora]

Try them all. We've got a fair chunk of time to kill till the expansion, so there's no rush and nothing to lose.

Try them all and go with what feels right/feels best. We can pontificate on the good points and bad points of each healer all day, but... you won't really know which style you prefer until you've played them.

I have all 3, just low level. 37 for SCH and 30s for WHM, and 40 for AST.

Maybe it's just lower levels suck?

[Risvertasashi]

I have all 3, just low level. 37 for SCH and 30s for WHM, and 40 for AST.

Maybe it's just lower levels suck?

Yeah, low levels do - and with more and more low level skills cut to make room for new high level skills, it's only become worse over time.

So, whichever one sounds the best from what you've heard right now, maybe take that one to 80. Play with it a bit. If it feels right then cool, stick with it, though curiosity may eventually take you to the others anyways. If it doesn't, then, move on to the next one and see how that goes at the higher levels.

You can use Palace of the Dead to at least get an easy preview of how they play at level 60. Which, a lot can and does change between 60 and 80, but it's better than nothing I suppose.

[Seraphor]

How the hell do you handle cards? I'm constantly having issues swapping players to apply cards because the tanks getting trucked and I need to spam him because low level tanks don't know what mitigation is T.T

Tab between players using the d-pad. You'll get quick with it eventually.

[Rilifane]

I have all 3, just low level. 37 for SCH and 30s for WHM, and 40 for AST.

Maybe it's just lower levels suck?

Lower levels don't allow for as much dpsing because of several things: you lack tools, tank lack tools, dps lack tools, people are more likely to be undergeared and some ARR dungeons like Brayflox or Stone Vigil are infamous for hitting escpecially hard. WHM has absolutely nothing at that level, AST has one ED every 40s, SCH has WD every 60s + fairy auto heal.
Until you get your aoe on healer, dpsing in big pulls is high risk vs very low reward. I did find time to dps at low level but it was much rare compared to higher levels.
Once you get your aoe, however, you should definitely aim to use it as much as possible, even if it's mostly at the start of a pull when everyne still has their cooldowns.

Try them all, they each have their ups and downs and if you end up playing them all, even better because it gives you a better understanding of healers. You have gotten several suggestions and opinions by now, but the decision is yours. We voiced our thoughts, nothing more we can do.

[Imora]

Yeah. I appreciate it.

Been working SCH today, might level that one. AV is scary though. Lol.

Does Ruin not upgrade to Ruin II? My Bio macro upgrades up and down when I sync, but Ruin doesn't. Do I really need to have ALL my single target nukes on my bars or am I missing something?

[Roeshel]

Umm sounds like your insulting ast there, ast aspected benefic is instant without light speed and using light speed = makes all spells instant cast and res cut spell time by 50%. I am assuming your just basing it on arr content, because at heavens ward and further expansions lustrate and indoms loses out bad to cure 2/benefic 2 and and medica/helios heals.

By instant I meant ogcds. They can keep spamming their aoe damage ability while healing. You can't cast gravity while you are casting benefic II so what's your point? Whm can also cast cure II for heal botting too.

And no, lightspeed doesn't cut rezz time by 50% but by 2.5s so it's 33%.

No, I am not basing it only arr content and lustrate doesn't lose to benefic 2 or cure 2 at any point of the game. It is ogcd with 600 cure potency that you can use instantly while doing damage. The other two are gcd heals who are 25 cure potency stronger than a non-crit aldo which is sch's gcd heal. If we have to compare which healer has the strongest single targeted heal on gcd (aldo, benefic II, cure II) that would be the scholar because of the Catalyze buff. Aldo becomes a reliable strong gcd heal only after obtaining Recitation though.

Indom never loses to medica/helios. I don't know even where you would need to cast medica and helios in lvl 50+ content in the first place. The reasoning is the same, it's an ogcd, medica and helios are gcd with even weaker potency than indom on top of that. Succor which is the sch's equivalent for gcd cheap aoe heal is also stronger if the shields are utilized. Succor has 405 cure potency in total, medica is 300, helios is 330.

Finally you forgot to mention if you have no aether you cant even use lustrate or indom which is the only 2 instant spell cast spells sch have.

Also, I did say that you can cast them up to three times per minute. This is actually not very true because u can cast them more frequently if you manage your resources properly but what I meant to say is that you get 3 aether stacks per minute and you can use them for lustrate.

If we count the fairy commands as instant casts, which they technically are, just the execution of the commanded action is delayed, then the SCH has 8 instant casts for healing and only half of them require an aether stack. In addition to that, the sch has an automatic 96 actual potency regen in 15y radius on the party member with the lowest hp known as fairy.

[Roeshel]

Yeah. I appreciate it.

Been working SCH today, might level that one. AV is scary though. Lol.

Does Ruin not upgrade to Ruin II? My Bio macro upgrades up and down when I sync, but Ruin doesn't. Do I really need to have ALL my single target nukes on my bars or am I missing something?

Ruin II is not an upgraded version of Ruin, it is a different spell. It's an instant damage spell. It's meant to be used when you want to move or use out of global cooldown actions like fairy commands.