Endwalker White Mage has Issues

[Sarim]

In those situations:

Nobody's really "downplaying" WHM's capabilities, it's just how noticeable the stark disadvantage WHM have in that specific level range. No matter how you put it, WHM will always be the first healer who has to lose something sooner when compared to other healers.

Well SCH sure has Aetherflow. But you will probably use it early in the fight, to even have access to your lustrates. Meaning you won't have it after that, so no mana recovery for you, sorry (assuming you started with fairly full mana, its even wasted). Unless the fight lasts longer than 60s. And I'm not sure I would want to rely on crit adlos tbh.

AST can use Lightspeed and lower mana costs, and get some mana back using card draws (and if you're so daring that you actually switch to a different player to play the card, when your tank's life is on the line, you have my admiration)! ED is nice sure, but again its on a 40s CD. I'm not sure if I would be casting Asp. Helios in a tight situation just to get higher regen ticks...not sure it would help enough to be worth the trouble/time.

SGE won't be dpsing because well, tight situation and you have to keep your tank up! So...do you cast a dps spell for a measly 170 potency heal (? not sure exact amount at that level, but even with Soteria its not that much better), or a real heal spell? I know which I would use. So forget about those Kardion ticks. Druochole is nice, yes. And against many mobs the fight will probably be long enough to get a fourth one, true. But still, beyond that you will have to spam (E.) Diagnosis and hope for the best.

WHM only has regen and cure II, true. And while Holy helps a lot, if your tank pulls that much (and your DPS cannot keep up), then the WHM will have to fall back on those two heals and Lucid after the third Holy and hope for the best.

Again, I'm not saying WHM is super and everything is great, I would also love to have more tools available earlier. But there is no real "disadvantage" in this situation. The WHM has the tools to overcome the situation, and IMO it can even do so better than some of the other healers.

[ManaSel]

Holy is an absolute monster in Aurum Vale. WHM absolutely has issues but for the most part using Regen while pulling and proceeding to Holy spam right from the get go is very good. If the tank is losing too much HP during Holy spam you can cast Cure 2 between the Holy stuns. If the WHM wasn't spamming Holy they were not doing everything within their power to keep the tank alive.

That said WHM absolutely needs improvements for low levels but trash pulls should not be that much of an issue at that point when Holy exists. If they were spamming Holy and the trash pull managed to last long enough or the tank still took too much damage than someone else was doing something wrong and other healers would have likely struggled as well.

[Sarim]

Holy is a band-aid and doesn't solve the issue, it only helps to cover up the flaw that low level WHM has nothing to help it heal with when crap hits the fan. Yes, it's a great skill but the fact was that I doubt the tank would've survived if the WHM stopped to use Holy at all. I did see they had to burn Swiftcast on Cure 2 just to keep the Tank alive mid transit on the pull after the 2nd boss and there wasn't really time to cast holy with the volume of enemies. The 1st pull they might have been able to use a Swiftcast holy but I don't expect a new player to really pull off something like that. One of the most common pieces of advice new players receive for Healers is to not DPS until you feel comfortable doing so, so I can't fault them for not using Holy.

As for the other healers, SCH has Aetherflow at that level so they'd have less MP issues then WHM.
SGE can heal on the go so it kind of comes down to how much the SGE can switch between rotating DPS and heals

You are right in that Holy is a bandaid really. And I think it's the big thing that keeps the devs from making any significant changes to WHM. But still, as long as its there, it will give WHM the edge over the other healers in a situation as you described.

[Silver-Strider]

Holy is an absolute monster in Aurum Vale. WHM absolutely has issues but for the most part using Regen while pulling and proceeding to Holy spam right from the get go is very good. If the tank is losing too much HP during Holy spam you can cast Cure 2 between the Holy stuns. If the WHM wasn't spamming Holy they were not doing everything within their power to keep the tank alive.

That said WHM absolutely needs improvements for low levels but trash pulls should not be that much of an issue at that point when Holy exists. If they were spamming Holy and the trash pull managed to last long enough or the tank still took too much damage than someone else was doing something wrong and other healers would have likely struggled as well.

Assuming the exact same scenario on all healers, minus any AoE casts, I think SGE would have an equally difficult time as WHM, while AST and SCH would have slightly easier times.

A SCH has free regen via embrace, with Whispering Dawn, Fey Illumination and Lustrates to help offset their Addlo spam.

An AST has cheaper spells to WHM on top of ED so the same scenario would have much less of an affect on AST's MP, even if they fully ignore their cards.

SGE would have Physis and Druochole, which would help with their MP but the lack of their regen via Kardia (and by extension Soteria) would keep whatever benefits they had to a minimal.

Here's something to consider though. WHM used to have Divine Seal for Aurum Vale. All the way up to SB, they had it in one form or another and it wasn't until ShB that they locked it behind level 80 as Temperance. While Largesse was also available to SCH and AST, the fact is they never really had access to it prior to SB and thus were never impacted by its removal at lower levels whereas it does negatively impact WHM because they used to have it at those levels and don't any more. Simply returning Divine Seal as a low level version of Temperance would at least offset that experience without really affecting the overall balance of the game. It would make the level 71-80 grind on WHM slightly more forgiving but that's the only area of the game it would affect and really, WHM didn't have any problem with that level range to start with so it wouldn't really matter there.

[Deceptus]

After the reduction of the filler spell GCD to 1.5s, Pressence of Mind is pretty useless outside of Rez (maybe holy spam)

[Charganium]

After the reduction of the filler spell GCD to 1.5s, Pressence of Mind is pretty useless outside of Rez (maybe holy spam)

Recast is still 2.5 so PoM serves the same function as before.

[RinaShinomiya]

Not to mention that DoTs and HoTs cast during PoM still tick every 2s instead of 2.5s even after PoM expires. I don't get the notion of it being useless at all.

[Deceptus]

Not to mention that DoTs and HoTs cast during PoM still tick every 2s instead of 2.5s even after PoM expires. I don't get the notion of it being useless at all.

That's a first. Never heard of HoTs and DoTs ticking faster due to spell speed (or PoM). Not saying it's wrong, but I am suspect.

[Semirhage]

That's a first. Never heard of HoTs and DoTs ticking faster due to spell speed (or PoM). Not saying it's wrong, but I am suspect.

It'd be the first I'd heard it too. Last I checked spell speed increases the damage/healing of HoTs and DoTs, not the tick rate. It's always once every three second server tick. Not only that, but PoM doesn't increase DoT/HoT damage either. It reduces recast by 20%; it's a direct reduction to your GCD, not an increase to spellspeed that would have the same effect.

[Rilifane]

SpS affects HoT and DoT value per tick but not the intervalls at which they tick; that's how it worked in WoW but in FFXIV they tick at server tick rate and that is fixed.
Any recast time reduction affect neither HoTs nor DoTs, though. So PoM does absolutely nothing for Regen, Asylum etc.

And regarding Sage healing these pulls: shielding on the run and 3 Addersgall stacks + Physis + Sorteria while you dps is plenty to get a lot of aoes out until you're forced to EDiag spam. By then, the mobs lost a good chunk of HP and you'll soon get a new Addersgall stack. Lustrate/ Druo is extremely strong in this level range and readily available every pull.
Sage doesn't have any trouble healing these pulls in AV.