[FF14] White Mage vs Scholar vs Astrologian

[damon8r351]

Right now I'm working my way through learning the Paladin job, but afterwards I like to branch off into one of the healer jobs, White Mage, Scholar, or Astrologian. I like creating characters that aren't good at just one thing, so I'm interested in the multi-role capabilities of Scholar or Astrologian, but I can also see the merits of being a specialist like a White Mage. I can see easily enough what White Mage, Scholar, and Astrologian are capable of by looking at their ability lists, but what I'm interested in knowing is hearing from experienced players what the potential shortfalls of all three jobs are. Does anyone have any insight on the pros and cons of all three jobs?

[Yadilie]

Scholars and Astrologians have no real shortfalls beyond they can be a little hectic with all the buttons both classes need. They have great heals, amazing shields and awesome utility which helps groups burn bosses down quicker. AST/SCH is a highly used combo.

 

 

WHM? Pure heals. No utility beyond heals. I will not be surprised if they did another rework of WHM in 5.0. They did their band-aid fix for them in this recent patch. Straight up nerfing hate gain on all our spells and increasing potency and reducing cooldowns.

 

In the long run though the pros and cons don't shift usage of them when you stop looking at the top % of the players. I play WHM because I've always liked them. Was one in FF11 and was the first class I made in 1.0 Beta and ARR.

[Caesar Clown]

Scholar and Astrologist suffer from having lots of spells, which doesn't work that well with a controller. With a keyboard/mouse there wouldn't be a problem since you have so many more hotkey bars. Doing low level content with Astrologist (30-60) is fun, since playing with the cards while healing helps keep you busy. Scholar got really complicated above 60 so I didn't have much experience with it outside of healing in Heaven-on-High.

 

I main White Mage, it's easy and it gives you a lot of safety. Low level content is kind of boring since you don't have much to do.

[Lagoon Aris]

I love white mage. It's my main class and the only one on max level so far. I haven't played the astrologian yet but my scholar is in its mid sixties. I didn't quite manage to play him in high level instances. I tried reading through some guides to get better at both classes and what I basically got from those guides is following:

- white mage is great for maximum heals. His aspect is healing during and after getting hit from enemies.

- scholar is great for a lot of damage dealing. His aspect is mostly healing before getting hit from enemies, meaning buffing the party in a way that the damage is mostly prevented. Utilising the fairy is key to get that right.

- astrologian... Ok, I haven't read the guides so far. From what I got from my friends, the main part are the cards and with them the buffing and debuffing. He's kinda the middle man although a lot of people say he is the best healer class among those three. Haven't tested it yet though.

[KondeBra]

In my opinion:

 

WHM>>AST>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>SCH

 

WHM are more efficient, AST are more "fun" to play.

[Stardroid]

WHM is by far the worst healer out of the bunch if you are looking to go into savage. It has powerful heals which aren't useful outside of Cure III that is a clutch heal. WHM is the go to class during progression as it has more flexibility to mend screw ups. It has the lowest raid DPS of the three healers by quite a fair margin. Due to the nature of WHM heals and their DPS, they actually end up as lower DPS in comparison to AST and SCH. This can be viewed on FFlogs, a website dedicated to parsing.

If you want to be a class that has a bit of everything you go SCH or AST. They are harder to master and have a higher button bloat. As a controller user myself I have zero issues playing them, though as there are plenty of ways to make it work. For SCH I highly recommend looking up pet macros. Specifically the macro that ties your Summon to their respective abilities, saving you three slots.


AST: Great raid utility and powerful off global cooldown heals
SCH: Good raid utility, good off global cooldown heals and a pet that does an amazing job alleviating your co healer from healing and enabling them to DPS more
WHM: Terrible raid utility, decent off global cooldown healing, highest personal DPS (but due to their healing kit often don't end up too much above SCH and AST)

 

Due to AST and SCH their raid utility, the actual DPS they bring to a raid by far outshines WHM.

[supaikuro]

28 minutes ago, Caesar Clown said:

Scholar and Astrologist suffer from having lots of spells, which doesn't work that well with a controller.

 

This game works perfectly fine with controller. I'm a healer main and raider, playing all 3 healers and I don't have any problems using my skills with the controller. You can simply set up your hotbar how you feel comfortable. Everything else is just a matter of getting used to it. Some prefer using keyboard + mouse, some prefer using the controller.

 

Right now the meta is Astrologian + Scholar. Damage in this game is predictable, so there is no reason to bring all the healing spells Whitemage got, because it is simply not needed. However, Whitemage is a great option for starting as a healer, because it is easier and more straightforward to play. Astrologian got the card system which might be confusing at first, but is a lot of fun, it also switches between being a regen and a shield healer. Scholar is more about preventing damage than actually healing and has less healing tools than whm, but used correctly it is a really efficient healer. It also got a fairy to manage. That said, every content in this game can be cleared by every class, so just play what is fun for you

Edited January 10, 2019 by spikeCrush