Pros and Cons of each Healer Role

[winsock]

Scholar
...
+Highest sustained DPS of the three
...

I think this might make for some fun discussion.

Granted at end game this doesnt really matter cause SCH does the 'off healer/support healer' thing way better than WHM ever could, and at the risk of spiraling into arguments about defining 'sustained dps':

If im not mistaken, WHM sustain > SCH sustain (well, at least in a target dummy context)

[Kaurie]

Scholar
Pros:
-Pet (heals while in Cleric Stance)
-Powerful shields
-Strong AoE regen or Attack speed buff
-Limitless (effectively) MP
-High sustained DPS
-Emergency Tactics
-Deployment Tactics
-E4E
-Supervirus

Cons:
-Wields a book
-Lowest HPS potential

White Mage
Pros:
-Strong heals
-Free MP procs
-Cure III
-Highest AoE range
-High burst DPS

Cons:
-Poor shielding/mitigation
-Few to no support buffs

Astrologian
Pros:
-Stance Dance, strong heals / mediocre shields
-Strong RNG focused team support/buffs
-Strong aoe heals
-Most mobile healer

Cons:
-Mostly has what the other two jobs have, but slightly less + RNG focused buffs

[NorthernLadMSP]

LMAO, I have to say I think it's quite amusing that some people are saying SCH has very powerful shields, while at the same time saying AST has mediocre shields - when, aside from the RNG based Adlo crit, AST shields are actually the same potency or slightly more potent due to the 5% buff in Noc stance.

EDIT: I should clarify I'm referring to Succor vs. Aspected Helios and the shields from Sacred Soil vs. Collective.

[Ghishlain]

LMAO, I have to say I think it's quite amusing that some people are saying SCH has very powerful shields, while at the same time saying AST has mediocre shields - when, aside from the RNG based Adlo crit, AST shields are actually the same potencty or slightly more potent due to the 5% buff in Noc stance.

EDIT: I should clarify I'm referring to Succor vs. Aspected Helios and the shields from Sacred Soil vs. Collective.

I agree, I wouldn't say it's as OP as some have written written but it's also fairly clear that SCH shields and mitigation are better than AST shields and mitigation.

• Adlo's shield w/ CRIT of 548 starts to match and exceed Aspected Benefic's shield when you average it all out
• Deployed Adlo (even no Crit) is better than Aspected Helios
• Supervirus + Sacred Soil + Succor is better than Disable + Collective Unconsciousness + Aspected Helios more often than naught (additional 5% reduced on a 10K attack is 500 damage, Aspected Helios needs to heal for an impossible 10K without Sect bonus to get that 500 mitigation back)

What Noctutrnal AST does give you is reliability and more overall mitigation in the less controlled scenarios.

Funny thing is, even though Aspected Helios is technically better than Succor when looked objectively side-by-side, most ASTs should be defaulting to using normal Helios outside of select niche scenarios as getting raw HP back at less MP is generally much more beneficial then eHP when there's no raid buster coming up in the future or if that raid buster can't outright kill the raid.

[Fyce]

I'm a bit late but I want to answer these claims:

Adlo's shield w/ CRIT of 548 starts to match and exceed Aspected Benefic's shield when you average it all out

The average is irrelevant and crits are unreliable. More often that not, they are wasted in the sense that they were not needed because you already planned to mitigate some incoming damage without a crit Adlo.
Regular Nocturnal Aspected Benefics have a stronger shield than Adlo, and are instant cast. Saying that "Adlo is better" because of crits, isn't relevant.

Deployed Adlo (even no Crit) is better than Aspected Helios

Of course it is. But why are you comparing the two? One is a 2mn cooldown used only when you'd need to mitigate moderate to high raid damage, the other is a bread and butter raid mitigation AoE on GCD. The setup and uses are completly different. No Noct.AST would only use Aspected Helios in order to mitigate this kind of damage. They'd use another cooldown with it, which is easier to do since they're usually on a shorter timer than SCH cooldowns.
So, really, comparing the two is pointless.

Supervirus + Sacred Soil + Succor is better than Disable + Collective Unconsciousness + Aspected Helios more often than naught (additional 5% reduced on a 10K attack is 500 damage, Aspected Helios needs to heal for an impossible 10K without Sect bonus to get that 500 mitigation back)

I have absolutly no clue what you're talking about.
- Supervirus is a stat reduction, which doesn't equate raw mitigation. Disable is raw mitigation, meaning that it's 10% flat, while Supervirus is more like 7-9% (and doesn't work on darkness damage).
- Sacred Soil is 10% mitigation and cost an Aetherflow stack. Collective Unconscious is 10% mititagion and add a strong regen.
- Succor has a 150 potency shield, Nocturnal Aspected Helios has a 157.5 potency shield.

If anything, of the two sets of mitigation abilities and cooldowns you're comparing here, the AST one is slightly stronger due to Disable being better, A.Helios having a very small potency bonus and CU applying a regen.
Also, I have no idea where you 5% thing comes from.


People seems to compare the two jobs like they'd use the same amount of cooldown at the same time, without considering that the overall liberty of cooldown usage is completly different. You can't just say SCH X skill is better than AST Y, because chances are that they are used completly differently ingame, making the "on paper" maths completly pointless.

[Kaurie]

I'm a bit late but I want to answer these claims:

The average is irrelevant and crits are unreliable. More often that not, they are wasted in the sense that they were not needed because you already planned to mitigate some incoming damage without a crit Adlo.
Regular Nocturnal Aspected Benefics have a stronger shield than Adlo, and are instant cast. Saying that "Adlo is better" because of crits, isn't relevant.

I strongly disagree. If I crit an adlo on a tank, now I know they have a solid 10k+ shield and I can swap to cleric and get some DPS in. Otherwise, I'll be prepping up to adlo again. Crits are definitely not irrelevant and what make Adlo as godly as it is. Without crit and without fairy, adlo would be fairly lack luster.

Of course it is. But why are you comparing the two? One is a 2mn cooldown used only when you'd need to mitigate moderate to high raid damage, the other is a bread and butter raid mitigation AoE on GCD. The setup and uses are completly different. No Noct.AST would only use Aspected Helios in order to mitigate this kind of damage. They'd use another cooldown with it, which is easier to do since they're usually on a shorter timer than SCH cooldowns. So, really, comparing the two is pointless.

It isn't pointless, because AST has nothing to compete with that kind of mitigation. It being on a 2 minute timer is fine, as all encounters seem to be timed around spreading that sort of damage over 2-3 minute intervals. Again, this is due to the way Square has decided to create encounters. If they weren't designed this way, it'd be a different story.

I have absolutly no clue what you're talking about.
- Supervirus is a stat reduction, which doesn't equate raw mitigation. Disable is raw mitigation, meaning that it's 10% flat, while Supervirus is more like 7-9% (and doesn't work on darkness damage).
- Sacred Soil is 10% mitigation and cost an Aetherflow stack. Collective Unconscious is 10% mititagion and add a strong regen.
- Succor has a 150 potency shield, Nocturnal Aspected Helios has a 157.5 potency shield.

Supervirus will prevent much more damage than Disable and has a slightly longer duration (reducing more attacks as well as more %). Yes, Disable reduces darkness damage which is great for reducing the damage from the Cochma in Seph EX - though, that reduction is rarely if ever required there. I don't know of any other major aoe hits that Disable exceeds Supervirus though. Sacred Soil is instant and allows the scholar to continue casting AND the pet to continue casting - you can whispering dawn, fey cov, sacred soil and DPS at the same time which is significantly better than collective unconcious in the same situation.

If anything, of the two sets of mitigation abilities and cooldowns you're comparing here, the AST one is slightly stronger due to Disable being better, A.Helios having a very small potency bonus and CU applying a regen.

Again, disable is actually worse - usually. The fact that CU keeps you from doing other actions makes it worse, and the small potency bonus *1.3 shields does make that aspected helios nicer.

Also, I have no idea where you 5% thing comes from.

I believe that is the 5% additional damage that Supervirus prevents over Disable

People seems to compare the two jobs like they'd use the same amount of cooldown at the same time, without considering that the overall liberty of cooldown usage is completly different. You can't just say SCH X skill is better than AST Y, because chances are that they are used completly differently ingame, making the "on paper" maths completly pointless.

This is precisely what you are doing except in reverse.

Also on that last note and the whole supervirus + disable thing, there is also other mitigation such as E4E. That 10% damage reduction is pretty significant and stacks up with virus etc.

[Fyce]

I strongly disagree. If I crit an adlo on a tank, now I know they have a solid 10k+ shield and I can swap to cleric and get some DPS in. Otherwise, I'll be prepping up to adlo again. Crits are definitely not irrelevant and what make Adlo as godly as it is. Without crit and without fairy, adlo would be fairly lack luster.

Still, it's unreliable. Like Parry.
It's nice when it happens, but you never plan expecting it. Since you should always plan for a regular Adlo, then I'll just say that N.A.Benefic's shield is strictly better and is instant cast (meaning that you can weave cleric stance and DPS better than Adlo).

It isn't pointless, because AST has nothing to compete with that kind of mitigation. It being on a 2 minute timer is fine, as all encounters seem to be timed around spreading that sort of damage over 2-3 minute intervals. Again, this is due to the way Square has decided to create encounters. If they weren't designed this way, it'd be a different story.

Deployment tactics doesn't have the same use as N.A.Helios. Don't compare the two. Deployment tactics is unique and has no equivalent. The comparison is pointless.

Supervirus will prevent much more damage than Disable and has a slightly longer duration (reducing more attacks as well as more %). Yes, Disable reduces darkness damage which is great for reducing the damage from the Cochma in Seph EX - though, that reduction is rarely if ever required there. I don't know of any other major aoe hits that Disable exceeds Supervirus though. Sacred Soil is instant and allows the scholar to continue casting AND the pet to continue casting - you can whispering dawn, fey cov, sacred soil and DPS at the same time which is significantly better than collective unconcious in the same situation.

Supervirus is also available for SMN. For physical tank busters, it's also available for WHM and BLM. Disable can stack with these virus, doesn't leave antibodies and is on a 30s shorter cooldown.
You are comparing two skills, trying to say which one is better, without even considering that they can work together.

As for Sacred Soil, you don't consider the context of when you'd use it, its 1 stack cost, nor the strong regen applied by CU.

Comparing like that, in a vacuum, without context, it's really a bad thing and gives people the idea that something is better than something else, while it's not true at all in practice.
For instance, not considering the regen on CU prevent people from thinking about the consequences of that effect, which is to allow the WHM not to cast Medica II or use a Medica instead of a Cure III.
These kind of comparisons cut so much stuff from getting the full picture that they are the worst.

Again, disable is actually worse - usually. The fact that CU keeps you from doing other actions makes it worse, and the small potency bonus *1.3 shields does make that aspected helios nicer.

See above. Besides, N.A.Helios's Shield isn't 130%.

This is precisely what you are doing except in reverse.

No, I'm actually saying that these comparisons are pointless, while arguing why they're wrong in the first place.

Also on that last note and the whole supervirus + disable thing, there is also other mitigation such as E4E. That 10% damage reduction is pretty significant and stacks up with virus etc.

... which can also be used by WHM, SMN, BLM.


I mean, you throw "x+y+z is better than a+b+c! yeah!" without putting that in context. You don't even consider the fact that you may not even need that kind of mitigation or that healing post buster is a thing that exist.
What I'm trying to fight is this implied 'rule' that says "if you want mitigation, go SCH, don't go AST, it's worse". No, that's not true at all. It depends on the context of the fight and other parameters like the needed DPS from healers, the needed HPS and burst heal needed, and whatnot.

Getting the full picture before saying that a job is better than another is crutial when making comparisons. Yet, most people in this thread don't.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

I have absolutly no clue what you're talking about.

It's been tried and tested before that stat reduction in percentages translates into a percentage less damage dealt, assuming enemies use the same formula like the players. Ergo: -15% str, dex, int and mnd reduces physical and magical (healing) by roughly 15%. Also, disable can't be considered "flat mitigation" if Virus isn't. It reduces action potency by 10%. Then there's the thing that CU renders you immobile/unable to perform actions for it's uptime where sacred soil does not. But let's not go there.

[HPDelron]

It's been tried and tested before that stat reduction in percentages translates into a percentage less damage dealt, assuming enemies use the same formula like the players. Ergo: -15% str, dex, int and mnd reduces physical and magical (healing) by roughly 15%. Also, disable can't be considered "flat mitigation" if Virus isn't. It reduces action potency by 10%. Then there's the thing that CU renders you immobile/unable to perform actions for it's uptime where sacred soil does not. But let's not go there.

What we can say is that disable and virus play nice with each other. In that using Virus locks you out of additional Vriuses, but not disable. Meaning that your maximum uptime for mitigation debuffs is greater when mixing the two, or you can stack them for more peak mitigation. This is probably the more relevant factor to consider for composition than which of the two is stronger.

It could be argued this creates a "Pro" for AST in that their abilities compliment and compound with those of a SCH better than do WHMs or another SCH. If we want to be really silly and run with edge case mitigation you can have Bole + Virus + Disable + Sacred Soil + CU + Galvanize + Stone Skin out of an AST/SCH combo and you can't really get anything else comparable out of any other two healer setup.

[Ghishlain]

I'd like to say that the context of my comment was to compare the mitigation kits of Nocturnal AST and SCH since it was brought up as part of the discussion. While its true that healing in general is a very dynamic role in the party mechanic, it's still important to consider what tools each kits brings to the table on an individual and static level so one can gauge their uses and effectiveness. While the divide between the mitigation kits of Nocturnal AST and SCH might not be as great as some people consider, it still favours SCH in terms of raw mitigation.

The average is irrelevant and crits are unreliable. More often that not, they are wasted in the sense that they were not needed because you already planned to mitigate some incoming damage without a crit Adlo.
Regular Nocturnal Aspected Benefics have a stronger shield than Adlo, and are instant cast. Saying that "Adlo is better" because of crits, isn't relevant.

You absolutely have to consider the critical bonus of Adlo because its a defining feature of the spell and the only healing spell to date that has that kind of bonus on Crit. When Adlo crits, its effectively one of the most potent and cost efficient mitigation tools in the game.

With that being said, Adlo is better than N.A.Benefic in terms of raw overall power. What N.A.Benefic has an advantage over Adlo is the fact is consistent and overall lower potency / MP cost. Both have their niches.

Note that I never said "Adlo is better" in my quote. I only mentioned that the average shield strength starts to exceed Aspected Benefic's shield component giving it an edge in the mitigation department over the course of a long fight. Aspected Benefic has its own uses as I've mentioned above.

Of course it is. But why are you comparing the two? One is a 2mn cooldown used only when you'd need to mitigate moderate to high raid damage, the other is a bread and butter raid mitigation AoE on GCD. The setup and uses are completly different. No Noct.AST would only use Aspected Helios in order to mitigate this kind of damage. They'd use another cooldown with it, which is easier to do since they're usually on a shorter timer than SCH cooldowns.
So, really, comparing the two is pointless.

I didn't state anything about why I used that comparison but it's an apt comparison when you consider the context of raid busters that hit the table. I didn't include Collective Unconsciousness or Sacred Soil in this comparison because chances are both casters would be using these ability in conjunction with their mitigation tools to reduce the overall raid buster damage and since both reduce the same amount of damage, they effectively cancel each other when comparing the two.

Take Sephirot's raid buster after P2 for example. AST would pop Aspected Helios with Collective Unconciousness. SCH would pop Sacred Soil with Deployed Adlo. There's a clear winner in that scenario. And you'll see similar results for any raid buster with that kind of wind up.

It's true that Aspected Helios is more readily available and it does overcome Succor by 5% as it should. Again, this lends itself to the fact Noct AST provides more reliability and consistency with their mitigation tools while SCH has more raw power behind it on the things that actually matter.

As a tangent, the more I try to use Nocturnal Aspected Helios, the less I like it. With SCH, their only choice for a direct AoE heal is Succor when Indomitability is on cooldown. This is versus AST who has access to both Helios and Aspected Helios. Both provide the same potency in healing but Helios costs less MP and heals raw HP which is arguably better than eHP. If you know for a fact that your raid can survive the upcoming raid buster it's better to just heal the wounds with Helios after the fact. Alternatively if you need to top people off prior to a raid buster, it's better to use Helios to get people topped off unless they're at a very niche HP requirement that is between the healing amounts of Helios and Aspected Helios. I can't think of a good adjustment for N.A.Helios right now but it would be nice it felt more... usable in the N.AST kit. Ah well.

I have absolutly no clue what you're talking about.
- Supervirus is a stat reduction, which doesn't equate raw mitigation. Disable is raw mitigation, meaning that it's 10% flat, while Supervirus is more like 7-9% (and doesn't work on darkness damage).
- Sacred Soil is 10% mitigation and cost an Aetherflow stack. Collective Unconscious is 10% mititagion and add a strong regen.
- Succor has a 150 potency shield, Nocturnal Aspected Helios has a 157.5 potency shield.

If anything, of the two sets of mitigation abilities and cooldowns you're comparing here, the AST one is slightly stronger due to Disable being better, A.Helios having a very small potency bonus and CU applying a regen.
Also, I have no idea where you 5% thing comes from.

I would like to see the testing behind stat reduction and the damage it mitigates. If you consider my testing here, I show that Disable and (Super)virus reduce damage on a similar curve. The test itself can certainly be flawed as I did it by testing Gravity on two targets where it does "10% less (damage) for the second (target)" to simulate what effect Disable might have on Gravity which may not accurately simulate what effect Disable will have on a monster. Likewise a player losing 15% of their stats results in a 15% drop in damage but the damage formula may be different on monster than it is on players. I will change my thoughts behind this if you can provide some information that runs contrary to my own results.

Likewise, I would be curious to see what Darkness damage is. I understand that it's a damage type that can only be reduced by things that directly reduce damage like Disable, Sacred Soil, and Collective Unconsciousness and would like to understand this damage type more. So if you have any information in the matter, I'd like to see it. Unfortunately, a Google search for "Darkness damage FFXIV" leads to a ridiculous (and perfectly expected) amount of random DRK pages, lol.

With that being said, the reason I'm using a Succor + Sacred Soil + Supervirus vs Aspected Helios + Collective Unconciousness + Disable comparison here is to just show that even without Deployed Adlo, SCH's tools are superior to AST's tools because the 15% mitigation Supervirus provides is 5% higher than the 10% disable provides. Even with the 5% healing boost to Aspected Helios it would be hard press for AST to match SCH.

But as I mentioned above, healing is a very dynamic role. When you look at Disable vs (Super)virus, Supervirus will generally win hands down due to having both higher damage reduction and longer duration. However, Disable is advantageous against the aforementioned Darkness damage and also advantageous in other scenarios too such as Cascades in A3S where Disable is available on every single Cascade versus Virus being available for every other.

The one concession I will add is that it's possible for the AST to overcome the mitigation gap by having an Expanded Bole primed and ready. If we're going to go with the discussion that Adlo provides more raw power due to crit, then it's only fair to have Expanded Bole available as well because RNG is well, RNG.

People seems to compare the two jobs like they'd use the same amount of cooldown at the same time, without considering that the overall liberty of cooldown usage is completly different. You can't just say SCH X skill is better than AST Y, because chances are that they are used completly differently ingame, making the "on paper" maths completly pointless.

Again, I'll just point back to what I said at the beginning of this wall of text. Contextually, my comment was speaking directly to the mitigation kits and only the mitigation kits. I feel it's important to consider the individual tools each kit brings to the table and see how they compared to each other to determine the strengths and weaknesses of each job as this also helps players evaluate the overall toolkit each job brings as well. Not only is this comparison useful for overall strengths and power level, it can also open up ways to determine how toolkits may be more suitable for certain fights. For example, the Sephi EX fight seems tailored for the AST kit. T1, T4, and T5 was very favourable for a double SCH setup. Heck, I'd even argue T13 being great for double SCH w/ Eos as well since you're basically having Rouse'd Fey Illuminate Whispering Dawn + Fey Covenant on every single major AoE with each SCH being able to shield / heal their respective tank through Akh Morn.

I will admit that I am amused that you did make a comment about how most posters don't consider the full berth of the entire tool kit each job brings to the table and the critical importance of this. I do agree that it's important to consider all factors of a kit but find the irony that this comment stemmed from a chain of posts that started with one of my posts when I had provided a write up of what I felt were the pros and cons of each healing job just one page earlier.

With that being said, I'm always willing to learn and if more information crops up that runs contrary to my train of thoughts, I'll gladly accept that and change my thought process to suit.