Scholar is a horribly designed job and shows zero thought goes into healer design

[SweetPete]

Sch should be the one getting the complete rework and Ast should be getting the minor rework. Scholar is in need of it badly.

[fulminating]

Scholar is the best designed healer at the moment. Unfortunately this isn’t saying much.

[Renathras]

Scholar is the best designed healer at the moment. Unfortunately this isn’t saying much.

Hm...not really?

It's not the worst designed - that is definitely AST - but the Broil IV 1.5 sec cast really broke up a lot of SCH's design. "How much can I not heal and use my resource for slightly higher DPS" is something all the Healers already do, so "Energy Drain optimization" isn't necessarily an indicator of the best design. Though I do think SCH is good at having all the bases covered and an answer to everything.

I'm not sure which I would say is the best designed at the moment, though. Probably SGE, but I dunno.

Either way, I do kind of agree that it's not the WORST one right now.

[RyuDragnier]

Scholar is the best designed healer at the moment. Unfortunately this isn’t saying much.

I'm going to post a hot take...WHM is the best designed healer atm. Lilies are GCDs and thus break up the 1 monotony, and you get a reward for actively using them in the form of big damage. WHM's kit always feels relevant, compared to SCH where quite a few moves can be completely forgotten due to how unneeded they are in most content. It's sad that I use WHM more than SCH these days, and I've mained SCH as a healer since 2.0.

[Semirhage]

I'm going to post a hot take...WHM is the best designed healer atm. Lilies are GCDs and thus break up the 1 monotony, and you get a reward for actively using them in the form of big damage. WHM's kit always feels relevant, compared to SCH where quite a few moves can be completely forgotten due to how unneeded they are in most content. It's sad that I use WHM more than SCH these days, and I've mained SCH as a healer since 2.0.

I *completely* disagree with this take, but you know I do.

WHM is the dark hole of horrid healer design that dragged the whole role into the mess it's in right now. Lilies are the nadir of choice-free, safe, braincell-b-gone gauge design. WHM's design encourages farting out whatever you want, whenever, with no punishments for getting anything "wrong". Childproofing is the platonic ideal at the summit of the design, and the current state of the healer role is the result of that.

Where are the c h o i c e s. Your reward for playing efficiently is Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare. Hideous. Soporific. Most boring healer design template I've ever seen curse a class paradigm.

[RyuDragnier]

I *completely* disagree with this take, but you know I do.

WHM is the dark hole of horrid healer design that dragged the whole role into the mess it's in right now. Lilies are the nadir of choice-free, safe, braincell-b-gone gauge design. WHM's design encourages farting out whatever you want, whenever, with no punishments for getting anything "wrong". Childproofing is the platonic ideal at the summit of the design, and the current state of the healer role is the result of that.

Where are the c h o i c e s. Your reward for playing efficiently is Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare. Hideous. Soporific. Most boring healer design template I've ever seen curse a class paradigm.

The sad part is it's still more enjoyable than SCH atm. There are a number of buttons I rarely if ever press on SCH because outside of higher end difficult content, they're not needed at all. Damage (as we've all noted) is so low to where you can barely press anything and heal up the group. Tanks rarely need our assistance these days, and when they do we have Excog for that. Seraph, as wonderful as she is, is unneeded most of the time because nothing ever hits hard enough for her, and the few times things do, there's such a gap before the next attack that its easily healed back up. As much as I love playing SCH, we are boring as sin right now and have too many unneeded moves outside of EXs, Deep Dungeon, and Savage.

[Elucesta]

Tbh I find SGE the best designed healer atm. Very good, clean, and efficient.

[Renathras]

I'm going to post a hot take...WHM is the best designed healer atm. Lilies are GCDs and thus break up the 1 monotony, and you get a reward for actively using them in the form of big damage. WHM's kit always feels relevant, compared to SCH where quite a few moves can be completely forgotten due to how unneeded they are in most content. It's sad that I use WHM more than SCH these days, and I've mained SCH as a healer since 2.0.

I was gonna say it, but knew I'd be attacked if I did. Thanks for jumping on that grenade.

Though personally, I think SGE may be SLIGHTLY better designed. I love WHM, but Lilies don't affect all GCD heals, meaning you still ignore a large portion of your toolkit. Though usually not directly (the base forms), SGE can get some use out of the Eukrasia versions of its base heals for the barrier effects in some cases, as well as using it during downtime (like RDM with Vercure Dualcast optimizing during phase transitions) for damage neutral Toxicons. And SGE's oGCDs are basically more polished/useable versions of SCH's, not least of which because it's actually allowed to use Addersgall on heals/mitigation where SCH is not unless you're bad or progging. Panhamia is a better Seraph/Consolation (and quicker to apply), Physis is a better Whispering Dawn (if you don't need remote use), Plegma is a better Ruin 2 (since boss hitboxes are gigantic), etc etc.

I do consider WHM right behind it, though. If they ever reworked WHM to where ALL GCD heals nourished the Blood Lily, then it would be the best one, I think.

Tbh I find SGE the best designed healer atm. Very good, clean, and efficient.

Agreed.

I like WHM better, but I have to give it to SGE as being the best designed of the bunch.

[Sebazy]

I actually agree on WHM being the best designed healer point, sorry Semi

It's kit is reasonably cohesive, it actually goes some way to embracing the content meta of valuing DPS above all else and there's a decent amount of interactivity between the various aspects of it's abilities and cooldowns. Nothing clashes (If you put stylistic choices aside at least) and it doesn't feel too badly bloated.

Predictably one facet of the game that hurts it is the overall lack of incoming damage for much of the game which causes it to spend too much time spamming glare/holy relative to the rest of it's kit but IMO the biggest problem with WHM is actually the 2.5 second GCD.

I'm pretty confident that if FFXIV had a 1.5 second GCD like WoW, WHM would actually be pretty damn good to play in moderately challenging content and upwards.

[Semirhage]

I actually agree on WHM being the best designed healer point, sorry Semi

It's kit is reasonably cohesive, it actually goes some way to embracing the content meta of valuing DPS above all else and there's a decent amount of interactivity between the various aspects of it's abilities and cooldowns. Nothing clashes (If you put stylistic choices aside at least) and it doesn't feel too badly bloated.

Predictably one facet of the game that hurts it is the overall lack of incoming damage for much of the game which causes it to spend too much time spamming glare/holy relative to the rest of it's kit but IMO the biggest problem with WHM is actually the 2.5 second GCD.

I'm pretty confident that if FFXIV had a 1.5 second GCD like WoW, WHM would actually be pretty damn good to play in moderately challenging content and upwards.

Yeah, we've disagreed on that for a while. I think WHM's kit has the same problems that the entire role does: a bunch of redundant healing abilities that are far too close to being identical for my liking. A snoozeathon of a downtime kit. A skill ceiling that funnels you toward spamming a single button over and over again- a reward that's just boring.

I always side-eye when someone says WHM is the "best" designed, because...I think they're all designed like various flavors of dog vomit. And calling WHM the "best" one leads to everyone's favorite solution: yeah, let's leave all of the attendant problems with current healer design on WHM and actually design fun into the other three! That's the best way forward! Vomit is suddenly okay when WHM has to swim in it. ~*~

Edit:
WHM is like the crap mutant Through A Mirror Darkly version of BLM. Black Mage is the barebones zero-utility member of the caster DPS...but it's fun. It has a niche (raw damage output). It's got a mile-high skill ceiling. Its intended use is straightforward with little bloat, but it affords so many opportunities for messing up, recovery, learning opportunities, and skill-building. It's the most iconic of the three casters, but it's not the designated easy job for beginners. You *can* play it like a Blizzard Wizard or a Fire spammer and put out quite mediocre damage, and that'll drag you through quite a lot of content.

In contrast, WHM takes BLM's no-frills, tacks on SMN's infinite safety nets, and tops this pot of gruel off with a real winner of an identity: "well, it's got...uh...it has two GCD heals that refund damage! And it can clear content!" How fun. It's the easy one! Skill ceilings are for everyone else. WHM gets to be the one that...has the highest population!

There was a real opportunity to grow it into the BLM of the role, once upon a time. Now it's the Glarespammy easy one. Real fun to take through MSQ solo duties, wheeeee.