How are healers fairing right now?

[Magnedeus]

After a 3 month break i decided to come back. What i want to know is how are each healer job doing right now?

Side note: i noticed that some white mage spells casting speed is a tad slower then i last remembered, it could be just me.

[Billythepancake]

WHM/SCH are about the same now as they were in the beginning of ShB, except SCH got energy drain back, and asylum is bigger for WHM. AST has been buffed out the WAZOO, had mimor arcana changed to need less steps, got a huge buff to combust, they're the strongest healer by far right now (and still the least played of the 3 according to FFLOGS)

[Crushnight]

Basically whm had a slightly bigger Asylum,
sch got energy drain and Seraph summoning got changed to 22 secs with 2 secs of inactivity,
Ast lost minor arcana animations for minor arcana to be a seperate play button but just for Lord/Lady, reduced mp on Aspected helios and Nocturnal aspected benefic mp was reduced to 900, Celestial opposition is buffed by a lot, Collective has sect differences again this time it is Diurnal- stay rooted for 10% mitigation with refreshing HoT, Nocturnal- stay rooted for regen with refreshing 10% mitigation.

Gameplay barely changed for any of the healers if at all, Duirnal stay far better than Nocturnal, same card system, and added more problems for controller players yay /s

[Cleovana]

Healers are the same they were at the beginning of ShB they're garbage. (coming from a whm main) Everyone said that whms were supposed to be better in this expansion but they're not and they're not even the worst healer currently. SE has nerfed healers into the ground and I'm not sure they'll fix it this expansion. I'm ditching this game while I still can and getting rid of my sub until they decide to fix healers so to answer your question, get WoW instead. I literally hate WoW but it's better than playing this game as a healer right now. I think pulling off my toenails slowly is better than playing healer currently. "But we're fixing healers and making them more fun to play", No your'e making people hate their lives and hate your game SE.

[Rasikko]

Healers are the same they were at the beginning of ShB they're garbage. (coming from a whm main) Everyone said that whms were supposed to be better in this expansion but they're not and they're not even the worst healer currently. SE has nerfed healers into the ground and I'm not sure they'll fix it this expansion. I'm ditching this game while I still can and getting rid of my sub until they decide to fix healers so to answer your question, get WoW instead. I literally hate WoW but it's better than playing this game as a healer right now. I think pulling off my toenails slowly is better than playing healer currently. "But we're fixing healers and making them more fun to play", No your'e making people hate their lives and hate your game SE.

Question.

Do you feel this way because of the damage potential of the jobs, or the healing potential? As the latter is well balanced, and WHM in particular is seriously strong if not overpowered healer.

[ReviaInfantry]

Er... Sch AoE , art of war, has been buff from 800 mana cost to 600, then potency increase from 140 to 160.
Also party list has pet name shown now (still cannot interact).

Then they took steps to ensure seraph consolation stays at 2 charges per seraph summon.

[Risvertasashi]

After a 3 month break i decided to come back. What i want to know is how are each healer job doing right now?

Side note: i noticed that some white mage spells casting speed is a tad slower then i last remembered, it could be just me.

WHM & SCH are still the most played for the moment, but AST is topping the damage charts of all tanks and healers so it will be interesting to see how many switch back to it for 5.2. Overall, healers are still very in demand on the raid scene and you can play any healer and find a group without that much trouble. You'll have an even easier time if you play SCH or AST though, as WHM ever rides the popularity of being one of the most iconic FF jobs.

[BloodRubyXII]

WHM is still extremely boring with very little optimization involved but as a result the strongest on average because it's easy to do well with. Heal with OGCDs, land miseries inside buffs and you're set.
Scholar is a bit better but again, still boring because once shields are up all you do is apply biolysis and spam broil and ED.
Astrologian is gigabrain due to timings on playing cards (if you draw a card and immediately throw it you're doing it wrong btw) but literally impossible to optimize without breaking the rules because in order to bring more RDPS to the group than WHM and SCH (since let's face it, that's almost entirely what matters these days), you need to either be in a static that logs so you know who you're playing your cards on and when, or you need your own parser, to know who the best target for your cards are (awful design by the way). Yeah you can take the simple route of playing every melee card on a melee and every range card on a range, but then you're probably less effective in contribution than WHM or SCH overall. Because Astrologian healing is balanced on the Sect mechanic, and AST damage is based on RDPS contribution with the game automatically assuming your DPS are good enough to get full value out of cards and divination, it's simply easier to be strong by playing either of the other two; however on the basis that AST is fairly APM heavy and given how boring the other two options are, I'd still rather play AST.

All 3 are as welcome in any mixed healer comp and none are left out because they all provide something, whereas AST was literally unplayable start of 5.0.

[Lethros]

I find the healing output/capacity of scholar to be a bit thin, at least when there are heavier/thicker healing requirements, or if the party takes a lot of extra damage. Maybe fine in dungeons, normal raids, trials, and the first two level 80 extremes, but in Hades extreme I really don't like how it performs with healing, so I normally only go as white mage. A scholar with cooldowns and aetherflow used can't do much with basic spammable healing spells. Things going wrong with a party in general, current expansion/patch I find those situations much more approachable/saveable as white mage. Times of saving/trying to save a wipe or covering for a disconnected co-healer include my favourite times in this game and as a healer

[Holymoly]

People still play healers, WHM mainly, if only for the lack of roulette queues. God knows why though as we spend most of our time being criticised for letting over zealous tanks die.