Which healer do you find the easiest?

[Sqwall]

I have been healing in MMO's for a long time and I have always felt it pretty simple, but I have never picked up WHM or SCH at FFXIV initial release. I found WHM healing WAY to simple and SCH just gave me a headache.

But when the AST came out I lost my literal S*$&!

I don't know what it is about AST but I find it the best healer, it just clicks with me. I love that the job focuses buffing the party vs. being a glare mage.

Decided to run some PF diamond extremes, joined up as tank, but healer asked if he could tank. I said sure and changed to AST (have all my diamond weapons, and mount so I didn't care).

Some anxiety when healing extremes even if I knew the fight, but I was confident.

Ran Diurnal unless asked to run noct, I did my normal Divination opener, and kept Celestial Opposition, Synasty, Neutral Sect, Earthly Star all on cooldown like always. And throwing out Celestial Intersection for damage spikes. All normal.

While also throwing out cards, arcana, divination w/e draw was ready, and doing my DPS when I had a chance. All normal.

I healed maybe 6 diamond extremes and didn't run into any issues.

However on one of my last run's the WHM friended me and sent me some tells asking "How in the hell do you play AST?" I didn't understand the question, was he asking for tips or literally asking.

We talked for around another 5 minutes, and I basically just said "Practice, Practice, Practice" and make some macros that can help. WHM to me is just to simple and I don't like spamming glare (which he agreed can get boring), I like my cards (even though they are shallow now) and he couldn't get a grasp on the cards. The card system is complex while trying to heal and complete mechanics (knowing the fight helps a ton)

I walked away from the conversation and thought? Are some healers harder to play then others, and do certain healers sit better with other players? Is AST that complex?

Just asking what others think and if they have tried a healer and said "NOPE"

Thanks

[rewd]

AST feels like easy mode to me. Strong oGCDs, natural windows to weave them and overall great mobility. The card system keeps you busy (but busy doesn't necessarily equal hard) but it's a very shallow system as you said, and it doesn't really required much attention. You may need time and practice to adjust to the shorter cast times, but once you get the rhythm of the job down, I think it's a pretty comfy healer to play.

WHM is straightforward, but not necessarily easy. All your healing tools are very basic in function and use, but the mobility suck and you are also limited in the ways you can weave your oGCDs. Might be the easiest healer to play in casual content, but mobility does make the job harder to play in endgame content, if you care to play your job well, that is.

SCH has the most complex kit in my opinion, which again doesn't necessarily means hardest. You have a pet, your healing tools use three different resources and some skills lock you out from using other skills. It's easy to feel weak as a SCH if you don't know your kit very well, but it's also easy to feel like a powerful healer once you are used to it. The amount of skills SCH has that you have to combine also makes the job less straightforward for newcomers, I'd say (Adlo+DT, Adlo/Succor+ET, Recitation+Excog/Indom, Dissipation+FI for stronger shields...).

[Grimoire-M]

Scholar is a toolbox of cooldowns. I find it the easiest to learn how to heal the way XIV encourages you to heal, for better or worse.

White Mage has the easiest dungeon runs once they acquire Holy. Before then the other two excel but you also don’t get access to them till level 30 and 50 respectively.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I like to divide them based on different level ranges due to how some abilities really improves their overall capabilities. My personal take from easiest to hardest:

• Lv01 - 30: SCH/AST > WHM
  Fairy trivializes many incoming damage & Whispering Dawn is all we need to deal with raidwides, AST gets their essential dignity and their big GCD heal before the other two sibling. WHM gets... Cure II.. at lv30
• Lv31 - 45: SCH > AST > WHM
  Fairy remains the same, and now SCH have shields that scales well in their level range. Once AF is unlocked x3 Lustrates is usually all they need. AST can stack their aoe and single target regen for more help in sustainability when needed. WHM gets Regen & Holy... but still need to be cautious cause lack of insta heals.
• Lv46 - 50: SCH > AST/WHM
  Being able to spam AoW while throwing Lustrates whenever needed really makes me find SCH is the easiest to use at this lv range. WHM at 50 gains access to Medica II & Benediction (finally!) kinda put them sorta on par with AST in term of healing.
• Lv51 - 60: All same-ish
  They finally gain access to their delicious partywide oGCD heal in this lv range. Additionally WHMs can finally start to depend less on casting Cure II!
• Lv61 - 63: AST/WHM > SCH
  StB dungeon starts to hit quite hard on tanks even with proper cooldown usage. As a SCH I always hope that whoever I'm matched with can DPS down wall pulls reasonably fast because when I'm unprepared, 3-6 shots of lustrates is all I have before I have to resort in spamming Adlo with near-dry mana from AoW spams.
• Lv64 - 70: All same-ish
  Excogitation really made life much, MUCH easier for SCH healing from this point.
• Lv71 - 75: AST > SCH > WHM
  Considering how Assize is usually fired on cooldown for their damage, I often have to stop to cast Medica (II) to heal a party as a WHM when Asylum is on cooldown. This feels uncomfortable when I'm already babied with Collective, Celestial Opposition, Recit-Indomitability, WD, and so on.
• Lv76 - 79: AST > SCH/WHM
  From this point, using AST really feels like 'cheating' now. WHM gaining Rapture also improves their partywide heals immensely.
• Capstone: SCH
  I've always been more comfy with SCH than any other in cap lv, perhaps that's because I played them more than anything else in this game.

AST does feels busier because they have to switch target really often, but it is this kind of busy that usually attracts people to play healer while not falling asleep in duty.

[Sqwall]

AST does feels busier because they have to switch target really often, but it is this kind of busy that usually attracts people to play healer while not falling asleep in duty.

I can relate to this. I am targeting like crazy during high end content, and it get's a lot easier to throw cards and keep draw/play/arcana/divination rolling when people aren't standing in the fire. The cards are a direct compliment to AST crazy amount of oGCD's that are insanely powerful. Celestial Opposition on a 60 sec cooldown makes managing cards really easy.

[IceBlueNinja]

I started as whm (started to play 14 in stormblood)then when I first met an astro and saw the cool things it did(it was in noct ) I got so interested in it. At first when I picked it up I was like no way this class is just really too busy for me with the (stormblood card system) so I kept going back and forth through out heaven ward with whm and ast, near the end of heaven ward I kept practicing and looking at ytds to learn more of ast and in the end I fell in love to it for bits and never really wanna touch my whm again, I still lvl my whm simply cause it felt good to at least lvl my starting job max but ast really take the cake because it was design of being the filler healer where the other one is not available, noct for co whm(ofc this one is ignored because se was silly for making whm regens work with dirunal ast whm) and dirunal(playing a whm role for sch co healer) and the cards doing so much party contribution. From learning the cards to the regen/shielding was at first very challenging, seem to overwhelming me and I first thought oh heck no not for me this job is too busy. Also recall ast cast times use to be as long as whm/sch before shadow bringers where they reduce all our spell casting times. Ast in stormblood was so fun and more busier in stormblood. It still is powerful in shadow bringers however now feels way easier than it should be because of the new trashy water down card divination mess we have and way shorter cast time.. So in theory ast would be the toughest if it still had its old card functions and slower cast times (stormblood)but the shadow bringer ast well honestly is way too easy to play now, oh how I miss playing it the stormblood ast on ps4, My friends always wonder how in the world could I managed it so much on a controller, but yeah I did it and it was so darn fun now stormblood. Shadow is so meh atm in terms of the cards. Only time I loath being ast is when I get crummy 50 and below ARR content via rollos. Where I agree that sch is best since that fairy can do alot of work for you to just spam the ruin 1 2 button and you have alqo at 30 which is great if you hit a cata makes you able to dps alot while that tank hp wont drop a good min.

Whm is still and is technically too simple to play. Its good just its not as fun , its honestly boring even though it has the biggest dps. Its mostly nothing but all pure raw healings meaning not much party contribution so mostly a green dps bot feeling. If I get tired of ast here and there sometimes I will play it on occasion but sometimes regret it cause the long cast times and lack of party utility.

Sch was just not a healer for me, the whole resource management thing I cant deal with it. It heals did not seem strong to me ofc I know am most likely wrong, it seem to lack oh snap moments like whm/ast say bene/ess dig, I know it has lustrate but you need aether flow for it, idom as the only burst aoe heal they have I feel needs a bigger potency and that has to be on 35 cd and use a stock? I can just fling helios/medica none stop if I have mp for it. As a healer I should be feeling to have all my heals needed when ready not count on some resource mech to make use of em. Again no hate on sch and credits to my friends and anyone here who plays it.

[Sqwall]

So in theory ast would be the toughest if it still had its old card functions and slower cast times (stormblood)but the shadow bringer ast well honestly is way too easy to play now, oh how I miss playing it the stormblood ast on ps4, My friends always wonder how in the world could I managed it so much on a controller, but yeah I did it and it was so darn fun now stormblood. Shadow is so meh atm in terms of the cards.

I agree with this 100%. Playing on PS4 and now PS5 controller my FC and Friends don't know how I play AST in high end content either. Stormblood AST was way harder and really made you think about the situation at hand. The practice from Stormblood made AST in Shadowbringers CRAZY easy to play. And the fact that the cards were completely striped of their complexity.

I will forever miss Royal Road and Spread. Man I hope AST regains some of that what made it so unique again in Endwalkers otherwise I might switch to Sage to see what that's all about.

[Halfgeeek]

Sch was just not a healer for me, the whole resource management thing I cant deal with it. It heals did not seem strong to me ofc I know am most likely wrong, it seem to lack oh snap moments like whm/ast say bene/ess dig, I know it has lustrate but you need aether flow for it, idom as the only burst aoe heal they have I feel needs a bigger potency and that has to be on 35 cd and use a stock? I can just fling helios/medica none stop if I have mp for it.

SCH has Emergency Tactic, ogcd, 15s CD for those situations. You turn Succor from 180 + shield to ~410 aoe heal. I find doing that, follow by another Succor will be enough, if not, Indom. For ST emergency burst heal, force crit Adlo + ET and it's ~1500 potency heal. For pt wide aoe, can prep Adlo and transfer it to everyone and ppl take minimal dmg. Really clicks with me compared to WHM toolset.

[MellowMink]

In my subjective opinion, White Mage is currently the easiest one to play as, but Astrologian is the most fun; looking off newer tooltips alone, I'm expecting about the same for Endwalker as well with Astrologian getting more attack-related actions, but I definitely look forward to leveling up Sage and sincerely hope that ends up becoming my favorite healer job.

[PaulH]

SCH is the easiest for me personally because I can deal with the mitigating and dumping shields onto people approach. I have always preferred proactive healing classes and Adlo, excog etc are just my cup of tea. In fact I wish we had more shields and less regen in our kits as a barrier healer.

I liked AST for Noct Sect but the card system I was lousy at in HW/SB so didn't really pick it up again apart from levelling.

WHM I just do not enjoy I can see why people love it but reactive healing causes me a panic and a headache.