My excitement and my concerns

[Paddle]

Not really, Paddle. First off you get one AoE heal (Curaga) and one Ohshit button (Benediction). Then, you're probably going to find yourself doing more than simply healing, my LS has 1.5 dedicated healers (I say 1.5 because either one of the second ones tend to always vanish from the face of the world), and they heal in pretty different manners. One of them almost exclusively holds out the battle by using Stoneskin to negate damage and Regen to heal what goes through, whereas the other tends to be curebombing the whole fight long (that said, we do tend to run with both around most of the time).
Also, the White Mage does have quite a few damaging tools that also come with situational debuffs, Stone comes with M.Eva Down (though in a boss fight it'll eventually get fully resisted) and Aerora comes with dispel, they're good off-nukers if the party is handling themselves well (heck, during the Nael fight one of our white mages was nuking as fiercely as our black mages).

That said, earlygame healing can be pretty weird, I remember this one time I was in a party fighting an NM... 2 Pugilists, 1 White Mage. The White Mage (myself no less) was nuking, one of the pugilists was tanking and the other was healing. With the usage of cross-class skills early healing can be pretty fun since you end up doing the weirdest stuff.

Well, my n00b is showing. Thanks for feedback, but like I said I haven't really done a whole lot of healing in FFXIV. I'm just noticing what I see now.

Correct me if I'm wrong Skies but you just said one whm focuses on Stoneskin + Regen... Rinse+repeat (2 abilities total). The other whm just cures and esuna? And Helius sounds like you're just single target healing everyone (1 ability total).. What's the total amount of skills that the healer will actually use in battle? I'm sure I'll get more of a feeling for what I'm in for with harder content. I'm just looking for my diversity when I heal. If I have plenty of tools at my arsenal I'll be fine. Or I maybe I need to drop healing all together and start hitting my "healing aggression" with a dps class, lol.

Which brings up another question. FFXI had 2.5 healers when I used to play. Which were RDM, WHM and SMN. Little bitter when I played SMN during the FFXI days. Here we have this cool radioactive squirrel that cast a water down cure/protect but I'm having to stay in no summon mode to sub heal? Honestly would like to see SMN be more of a hybrid roll in FFXIV. Oh we don't have a tank? Let me pull out Titan. Oh we don't have a Mage? Let me pull out Shiva. I know I know Primals are going to be only wondering NMs but you get my picture.

What other healing classes did FFXI have?

[REDace0]

...

Let me tell you a little about how I play WHM.

1. Stoneskin and Regen. Cure only when necessary to prevent death. This minimizes enmity gained.

2. If you don't need to buff or cure, nuke! People use WHM as a damage dealer in Caravans, Stronghold parties, and solo because Stone(ra) and Aero(ra) do decent damage and are especially useful when mobs are resistant to Thunder or Fire.

Unless you're running a fight with a single, dedicated healer that's kept busy, WHMs should nuke as much as possible imo. I respect pure WHMs that gear for maximum healing potency and MND, but for most situations, I think you're better off mixing nuking gear with one or two WHM AF pieces. I tend to favor Healer's Boots (enhanced Regen) and Healer's Robe (enhanced Cure, also clearly identifies you) because 90% of your healing as WHM will come from the use of those two skills.

[Skies]

Correct me if I'm wrong Skies but you just said one whm focuses on Stoneskin + Regen... Rinse+repeat (2 abilities total). The other whm just cures and esuna? And Helius sounds like you're just single target healing everyone (1 ability total).. What's the total amount of skills that the healer will actually use in battle? I'm sure I'll get more of a feeling for what I'm in for with harder content. I'm just looking for my diversity when I heal. If I have plenty of tools at my arsenal I'll be fine. Or I maybe I need to drop healing all together and start hitting my "healing aggression" with a dps class, lol.

Actually, you'll be cycling through roughly 5 abilities when doing support as a white mage. Thing is my LS's healers kind of have their own style, usually I play hearing the crossed shouts of "why aren't you curing? " "why are you curing?" and it the end it all works out.

Essentially, you'll want to cycle between Cure and Cura to keep people healed, keeping up Stoneskin and Regen as well as revitalizing Protect as the need be as well as the eventual Raise. And during certain battles, wherein statuses are particularly powerful (Stone from the moogles come to mind) you'll be tossing down Esuna. And when you get a breather, contribute a little bit to the damage with Stone/Stonera and Aero/Aerora (though that eats a lot of MP)

One thing in particular is that usually people run with one white mage, sometimes two (my team prefers two). And this game is heavily reliant on positioning and there are often a lot of AoEs requiring you to keep your eyes not only on the tank, but all of the melee as well and sometimes even the ranged. (this is assuming your party works at a level below 'absolute best skills'). As a solo healer, you'll be asking for MORE cures, believe me, i've tried and it's not easy. On a duo it'll definitely be better.

That said, my friends say that a healer job is definitely less button-intensive than DD, though.