What is the be Healer?

[Eul]

I have all healer to level 60, and my main job is Scholar. Why scholar? Because you can leave your fly (I mean, faerie) to heal tank while you can DPS as SMN (2.0 SMN without Fester).

For WHM and AST, I like playing with them. The magnificent amount of heal number is pretty awesome.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Since this whole "white mage > scholar single target healing" thing is still going and is still completely subjective, let's throw some numbers in there. Keep in mind that this is in line with napkin math. So do realise that this numbers in the post would be a healing output ceiling that can be reached with White Mage/Scholar. Forget about GCD loss, assume everything aligns perfectly, and that every ability is used the moment it pops off CD and there's no GCD loss. Because why not.

Let's take a 630 second encounter. Why 630 seconds? Because Regen has this odd 21 second duration and 630 gives White Mage an advantage with an extra Asylum.
630 second duration equals 252 GCDs when the recast time is 2,5s. That's the maximum amount of GCDs a single player can squeeze out

For those who can't be bothered with the numbers, skip to the wall-o-text bit under lined up

Modifiers
Divine Seal 30%, 15s duration with 60s CD. On average the increase is 7,5% for it's duration, effect and down time
Rouse 40%, 20s duration with 60s CD. 13,3% increase on average for the fairy
In case there's an Eos present: Fey Illumination has a 3,3% increase on average

Abilities (not affected by modifiers)
Tetragrammaton: 700 potency
Asylum: 800 potency over 24s
Assize: 300 potency (although it's AoE, let's throw it in there as a White Mage advantage)
Lustrate: 600 potency

White Mage
30 regens: 33862,5 after modifiers
222 Cures: 85460 potency after modifiers
Or 222 Cure II: 155122,5 potency after modifiers
7 Assize: 2100 potency
10 Tetragrammaton: 7000 potency
7 Asylum: 5600 potency

Cure spamming leads to a total of 144.022,5 potency over 630 seconds and would have spent
Cure II spamming leads to a total of 203.685 potency over the same period
Alternating both cures would have a total of 173.853,8 potency

Scholar
630 seconds would mean 10 aetherflows and if you assume the Scholar has 3 stacks to start with - Highly recommend for those who aren't doing it yet! - The total amount of available Aetherflow stacks would be 33. Assume all stacks are used on Lustrate for single target healing purposes. As the argument for Embrace is that the potency isn't really 300, but closer to 200. I'll be using 200 potency for Embrace instead.

33 lustrate: 19800 potency
210 Eos Embrace (3s recast time): 49186,67 after modifiers
Or 210 Selene Embrace: 47600 with just Rouse
252 Physicks: 100.800 potency with Selene, 104.160 if Eos is involved
Or 252 Adloquium: 151.200 potency with Selene, 156.240 if Eos is involved

Physick spamming with Eos leads to a total potency of 173.146,7
Physick spamming with Selene is a bit lower at 168.200
Spamming adloquium makes no sense, so just assume it's weaved with Physick:
Weaving spells with Eos has a total potency of 199.186,7
Weaving spells with Selene is lowered to 193.400

Lined up
Cure II spamming 203.685 potency
Weaving with Eos 199.187 potency
Weaving with Selene 193.400 potency
Cure weaving 173.854 potency
Physick spam with Eos 173.147 potency
Physick spam with Selene 168.200 potency
Cure spam 144.023 potency

If we were to strip out Lustrate completely (19.800 potency):
Cure II spamming 203.685 potency
Weaving with Eos 179.387 potency
Cure weaving 173.854 potency
Weaving with Selene 173.600 potency
Physick spam with Eos 153.347 potency
Physick spam with Selene 148.400 potency
Cure spam 144.023 potency

Anyone can come to some sort of conclusion here. I'll just remind you that this is a ceiling either healer can reach. Doesn't mean it's a practical representation of any sort. But the very least it shows a Scholar can rival a White Mage for single target healing. Does this mean White Mage is obsolete? Possible, I'll let you decide on that considering Astrologian is also out there. But I'm not touching that subject (yet). Two things:
First would be the on-demand healing requirement. No sane White mage is going to blow out Divine Seal. You use it when you can get the most out of it or have no need for it for the next sixty seconds. Cure II would go to 845 potency in a single GCD whereas Scholars are at 600 potency with Adloquium of which half doesn't fill the HP bar. The fairy is an unknown factor as Embrace can land too early or up to three seconds late when you actually wanted it. Yes, a Scholar can compensate with a lustrate and bump it up to a 900 healing with 300 mitigation. White Mages bump up to 1545 with Tetragrammaton. Many more factors of which I'm not even going to touch because it's full of maybe-if-else-what-variables.
Second issue would be resource expenses. Weaving Cures would consume 165.726 MP over 630 seconds while weaving physick and adloquium would require 189.252 MP. That's not exactly one or two max-ether differences! Yes, Scholars are known to be some infinite MP engine. But they can actually run out of MP, especially with the cost tied to Adloquium.

Finally, I'm going to address this particular Gem that hasn't been confronted yet on Page 3:

Take the DPS out of the equation, and you can Clear fights without it. Introduce healing requirements that are not catered to SCH's toolkit, and SCH will vanish from parties. SCH doesn't have anything built into the job that makes it better than the other two; it's a fight design problem, and even that is arguable.

Meanwhile the following encounters for 3.0 content has groups stack up rather often for AoE damage so the White Mage can Cure III:
Alexander floor 1 (savage)
Alexander floor 3 (savage)
Alexander floor 4 (savage)
King Thordan (Extreme)

And the following encounters occasionally have people too spread out to stay within 15y range:
Alexander floor 1 (savage)
Alexander floor 3 (savage)
Alexander floor 4 (savage)
King Thordan (Extreme)

And the content is being catered for just Scholars?

[VanilleFang]

maths

Those were a lot of numbers to get through, but very nice work. I'm not entirely surprised by the findings. This isn't even taking into consideration the amount of damage the SCH would/could be mitigating. It's a bit disheartening as a WHM!

[Shyluv]

I main AST and used to main WHM. As much as I don't like playing SCH, myself, I agree that it is the most in demand and for good reason.

[vigioX-Sun]

I don't believe there is such thing as "best healer" since every job can perform outstanding..is more about who you feel better with, my advice is to get them all honestly an from there you can feel who fits best for you, so far my choice is WHM as favorite healer.

[Kerrigen]

I'm glad you pointed this out. I had thought about making a whole post comparing Noct AST and SCH in way of mitigation, akin to Lyrica's WHM vs SCH post. Some people seem to think Noct AST has as many mitigation options as SCH. They may be similar but there are differences that make SCH, like you said, the best at mitigating damage.

Please do so, if only because it is a topic that exists within the JP healer forums and SE could help getting as much feedback as possible because they do not seem to understand how their game is being played very well.

[KaitlanKela]

AST is the best hands down.

In PVP

Otherwise, they're all good at different things. SCH is the most omni-useful. The others are a little more nitchy, but still good.

[Rivxkobe]

I was a afraid to come back in here, lol.

I'm glad to see things have calmed down though.

[DamianFatale]

Could a mod please edit the title of the post, I was on mobile, and it auto corrected me. D: