Which healer???

[Jinko1]

As the title says i wanna make a healer class im not really into white mage, but like the look of scholar and astro. I havent really healed before but im making 1 of each type of class melee, ranged, magic, healer.

[Zari]

It all depends on your playstyle
WHM is big, pure heals
SCH is great damage mitigation with a pet healing or buffing
AST i dont have much experience with just yet but to my knowledge it uses rng buffs and can switch between a regen and shields on certain heals (but the shields arent very good)
Just a warning AST seems to need a bit of a buff at the moment

[Leiloni]

If you haven't healed before and are deciding between those two, go with SCH. It'll be an easier learning curve, although between all three WHM is the easiest. Not to mention SCH also has the benefit of also letting you level SMN at the same time, so you can knock out two birds with one stone there. Also, both SCH and SMN are doing fairly well in this patch from what I've read (I haven't leveled mine past 50 yet), so that's always nice.

[Zari]

If you haven't healed before and are deciding between those two, go with SCH. It'll be an easier learning curve, although between all three WHM is the easiest. Not to mention SCH also has the benefit of also letting you level SMN at the same time, so you can knock out two birds with one stone there. Also, both SCH and SMN are doing fairly well in this patch from what I've read (I haven't leveled mine past 50 yet), so that's always nice.

Your last statement would be correct
SCH got a bunch of useful skills that improve it and like one that doesnt really have many, if any, uses.
SMN is now a dps king

[MidnightTundra]

Honestly, SCH is amazing in all content.

Raids, Dungeons, Solo content. To top it off, you have a Pet aiding you with free heals and abilities. It's an extremely powerful class in the right hands despite having an easy means of getting to know the class from the get-go.

AST is a iffy class at the moment. You can make it work but SCH just makes the same case and it does it better. If AST receives buffs to its cards and it's mana sustain, I think we'd have a nice alternative to SCH as an off-healer.

[KisaiTenshi]

I'd suggest Scholar if you're new to healing, if only because it covers both your healing and DPS needs. Learning to heal with as WHM requires a lot of attention to everyone's HP meters, while SCH mainly only needs to pay attention to the tank in most light parties. AST and WHM healing largely the same "watch everyone, focus on tank"

If you normally do PUG's... definitely SCH.

I'm not fangirling over SCH, I mainly play WHM, but I find that SCH is better for "DPS" players to get into rather than WHM/AST. WHM/AST's DPS-capability is entirely dependent on how non-squishy the tank is. A lot of Tanks do "all STR" which makes them super-squishy.

[fanservice]

Go SCH.

Easy to get into.

Rewarding as hell when you're good.

Feel like a god soloing.

[shawnaus1986]

I have switch to astro and I like Astro/SCH. I done the new content with and without ballad and that mana struggle is hard. But you have a double buff healer. I was the link ability on astro was on a short cooldown because it is OP. A bole card with max buff can reduce damage up to 30 percent with virus and you can prolong that bole card. I'm liking astro but you have to think about what you're gonna do.

[416to305]

It's really personal preference honestly. I started healing with WHM and just love it. I absolutely hate SCH, couldn't wait to get to 15 just to be a WHM. I don't have any interest in using the pet, and find it more difficult on PS4 since it takes up more of your limited crossbar room. I might give it another go eventually but been playing AST more now and do like it. WHM is high potency heals, you get a ton of healing spells to the point some seem redundant. Like you have at least 3 different ways to put a Regen on someone, a few AoE heals, etc. However all seem to be useful at some point like Cure III, even if you don't use it all the time, there's definitely times that it does help. AST on the other hand I find feels like some DPS classes where there's skills that just aren't that great, like Disable, reducing the enemies next attack by 10%, but only if cast before it does its attack, meaning you pretty much have to know it's about to do something, and use Disable and then hope it doesn't do just a normal attack or its wasted. Things like that, where as on WHM I find pretty much everything has a use. I find for DPS that WHM works great as well especially on solo content, as once you get Holy it's SO easy. When doing main story quests where 2 or 3 enemies appear, I always just spam Holy and boom you're done in 3 seconds. I've also had many save the day type moments where half the party is dead and I'm able to keep the tank and 1 DPS alive (8 man stuff) just with the high potency heals. AST doesn't get AoE until 52 with Gravity and it's not as good as Holy since no stun.

Now that my AST is at level 51 though I'm liking it more and don't really see the issues others have yet. At first I didn't like it, the heals are weak and I kept comparing it to WHM too much. Now that I have good gear though the MP issues are really not that big of a deal and I'm able to weave cards and DPS in while healing no problem.

It comes down to as well where you want to be and how fast. If you're already in Ishgard and want to be a 50-60 healer ASAP, then AST is prob a no brainer since you'll start at 30 where as WHM and SCH you're starting from the ground up, even though I don't think it would take long to level them to 30 now. If you haven't healed before it might be confusing at first to start at 30 with a bunch of skills, where as WHM and SCH you gain them as you go, so bit easier to understand but not too big of a deal. It also depends on your comfort level, like I was terrified healing at first and took me a bit to get used to it, so starting at 30 I feel like would be a bit worse especially with a class that has weaker potency heals.

WHM is still my favourite but AST is growing on me. I like that it's the same gear so will get both to 60 and can use either of them. The only area I've really found AST to be a struggle so far is in the higher level dungeons where the tanks do big pulls, or in the HM ones where the goal is more to speed through it. When the tanks do really big pulls it can be hard to manage the MP and to even just keep up as sometimes you just can't hit those heals as fast as they are taking damage. For me any negatives I had against AST were from comparing it to WHM though.

[rawker]

SCH.

All those mitigation and free heals from your fairy. Oh, and applying dots XD.