By the sounds of it here, I'm one of many who took to the Healer Role forums for the first time after we learned about healers in 5.0 and wondered whats going on.

In the hopes SE takes a gander at these forums now and then when considering changes to healer, I wanted to try and make some noise about what everyone found to be the peak fun of your favorite healer(s) job and how it compares to now in 5.0.

I wanted to try to put into words what I found to be so fun and not to mention engaging about scholar from what I consider the peak of the job, Heavensward:

--

3.0:
If I were going around solo and found a group of mobs I needed to kill: Fey Wind, Activate Cleric Stance, Miasma, Bio 2, ED, Bio, Bane, Miasma 2, Swiftcast Shadowflare, then either ED or Lustrate if low on HP. All the while keep Selene up for Esuna and Fey Wind with Embraces keeping me alive. If the fight is going to drag on, Adlo + E4E on Selene then DT spread it to me. Refresh dots as they fall off and try to keep mobs in Shadowflare.

In a party: Pre-adlo, wait until tank has gathered all the mobs. E4E, Rouse Whispering Dawn, Re-adlo and gauge how fast the tank's hp is dropping. If too fast, then I keep Adlo ready and use Rouse. Put up Shadowflare for damage and slow on mobs. When all seems safe, Clerics Stance, hit up one mob with Miasma, Bio 2, ED (with enough AF in case I need to lustrate) Bio , Bane and then jump into the pile hitting Miasma 2, turning mid-air then getting out of AoE central. Then apply Aero on each mob if the time allows. And remember Cleric Stance went off cooldown so I can deactivate it.

If tank keeps dropping while applying dots I stop, heal what I can before I can turn off CS and lustrate. If I run out of stacks I used Emergency Tactics. All things fail, it's using Dissipation and 3x Lustrate. Using Virus, Ruin 2 for Blind, Sacred Soil and rest of the fairy skill suite where applicable to further avoid incoming damage.

If any in the party takes too much damage and is outside range of Succor and Indom I can order Eos to fly over and Embrace. For every single gcd I cast I make use of the manual Rouse+ Embrace to top people off or save them from danger if I need to focus on the tank first.

This whole dynamic of being able to prevent damage, apply dots, shield and control the fairy while I was casting made any encounter so much fun to do. I could do any content in HW and still feel engaged with the job. There was no need for Lucid Dreaming as AF gave 20% mp every minute and clever use of stacks meant you could keep going.

-------

5.0:

Going to do anything solo in ShB: It's Biolysis, and Broil III until the mob is dead or Biolysis needs reapplying. If health drops low I can no longer rely on Embrace and just put Excog on myself.

Now in ShB you who play sch know the healing part, healing is no problem even on big pulls. There are so many ways to replenish healthbars. So in a dungeon you pre-Recite-Adlo/Excog and then tab-target through the mobs, apply Biolysis on each one before casting Broil III until you need to shield or heal again. Putting down Sacred Soil mostly because I find myself with the AF to spare. Seraph is used on cooldown, but with no way to redirect her shield Embraces it's to use the charged Consolation which works two times every two minutes.

I can't order the fairy to embrace far-away DPS anymore and often have to resort to Lustrate so they don't die from party-wide damage. Even if Embrace reaches them, it's so weak now that I will always need to give a Lustrate, Adlo or Physick so they are ready for the next attack.

---

Please notice on above I forgot to write up Broil in 3.0. That's because I had so much else to do I sometimes went entire pulls without using it once. And I was sometimes rather using Ruin 2, as that had a Blind effect. Ruin/Broil was at the bottom of all things to do which seemed right. Even the Arcanist Guildmaster's words still rings true chastising you for only using Ruin in lower levels.

I omitted 4.0 since looking back it was a feeling of things to come: Cleric stance gone, Virus gone,two less dots, Shadowflare not placeable whenever. Quickend AF did made things interesting, but I felt there was were a good part of the flavour was lost.
----

Anyone else?