Need help with classes!

[Gurren Dai]

Well, I'm having trouble figuring out which class would be a better fit for me; I tend to be a decent enough healer in MMO's, so I was gonna go Conjurer, but I also like the sound of Arcanist too. Both would be fitting for my character, so I'm very torn. COuld someone fill me in on the big differences between the two? Otherwise I'm going to be re-rolling my Solaire forever. D:

[Unnamed Mercenary]

Until you unlock Scholar at lv30, Arcanist is actually a DPS class!

 

But here's my take on them.

 

White Mages (WHM) are your big bursty massive heals. They typically do larger, single target heals, like cure, cure 2 and cure 3. WHMs make great healers for groups of people. Spells like Medical and Medica 2 are an easy to heal a lot of people at once. (at the cost of enmity from the monsters). 

 

Scholars (SCH) are your damage mitigation healers. Their main way of healing is through their faeries, which add little buffs to the party, like a aoe mini-regen or a spellspeed booster, etc. SCHs heal with physick (about the same as a cure) and Adloqium, which adds a shield. Their main focus is to keep the party from taking damage, and when the party does, the WHM steps in and fixes everything. SCHs generally have an easier time with MP management and are good for a main-tank healer because they can mitigate most damage, keep low enmity, DPS o nthe side, and with Lustrate, recover 75% of a player's HP at regular intervals.

 

edit: I should note, you have to play both CNJ and ACN to unlock either WHM or SCH. So you'll get a decent feeling for each. They make great use of cross-class abilities. I'd also throw in THM/BLM in there too, so you can get swiftcast (vital for those instant-raises) and to also unlock Summoner (SMN). THe Arcanist-based classes means you effectively level up both SCH and SMN at the same time.

[Desu Nee]

I do plan on getting these both classes after I finish BLM and start my crafting career, albeit IC Quki would never really be a white mage, she can possibly be a Scholar and Summoner, she is really talented regarding that

[Kage]

The beauty of this game is that you are allowed to play on all of the classes you want. You can change classes after a certain point in the story (not long) and reach either level 10 or 15 I forget.

 

My suggestion is to play Arcanist until you can switch. Grab conjurer. Level both to 30 (use main story quests exp on Arcanist and use your conjurer to queue up for dungeons).

 

At 30, you will have the option to use Arcanist as a Scholar. You can get a feel for the healing aspect of each job. Not completely, but you will start.

 

Fairies in low level dungeons are very overpowered

[Gegenji]

Try both! You'll need CNJ up to 15 anyway to unlock the SCH job, and you can share almost all the gear between the two save weapons and shields!

 

As for the differences? Well, CNJ/WHM is more your standard straight-up healer. Standard heals of varying strengths, a few AoE heals, and Regen. Their panic button - Benediction - is a straight up full heal. You also get a bunch of procs to boost the effectiveness of your heals.

 

You also get the awesome AoE damage-and-stun spell Holy, along with a DoT in Aero I/II and straight damage in Stone. Not to mention Fluid Aura, which does a decent bit of damage and shoves an enemy away from you. Plus you get an enmity reducer and MP regen in a single button.

 

I probably missed some of the finer details, but I don't actually WHM heal at all. So let me move to the one I use.

 

SCH, on the other hand, is a mitigation healer. You only have one basic heal in Physick, and no straight AoE heal. Instead, you get Adloquium and Succor, a single and AoE heal respectively that heals for a weaker amount than the comparable CNJ/WHM heal but also gives them a shield that will absorb an equal amount of damage (or more, in the case of an Adlo on a target below... 20%?). You have a more multipurpose "panic button" in your Aetherflow stacks, either doing a flat percentage heal with Lustrate or dropping a Sacred Soil shield to further mitigate damage.

 

Not to mention your Fairy. Your Fairy is effectively a secondary healer, and the two of you more or less add up to a WHM in healing power. With Eos you get an AoE regen, and with Selene you get a spell speed buff. However, to make the most use of them requires some micromanaging or you'll have Eos popping off a Whispering Dawn at the start of a pull. I love referring to her as "lag-protective healing", though, since she will continue to heal even if you can't due to lag.

 

SCH DPS is actually rather good, if you keep your DoTs refreshed. Your summon obviously doesn't DPS and you're missing a couple of the key abilities from SMN, but switching to Cleric Stance (an ability you get from CNJ that switches your MND and INT stats and increases damage at the cost of healing) and spreading around your toxic love can mean some decent damage numbers. Not to mention that one of your Aetherflow abilities both does damage and recovers your MP.

 

EDIT:

Sniped due to my overly wordy reply, haha! Though...

 

edit: I should note, you have to play both CNJ and ACN to unlock either WHM or SCH.

 

I thought the required secondary class for WHM was THM, not ACN? So you might have to level Black Mage Lite a little anyway to unlock WHM.

[Desu Nee]

 

edit: I should note, you have to play both CNJ and ACN to unlock either WHM or SCH.

 

I thought the required secondary class for WHM was THM, not ACN? So you might have to level Black Mage Lite a little anyway to unlock WHM.

No it's not, it's Arcanist. I did the same mistake.

[Kage]

Nothing requires THM at the moment >.> to unlock a job. Well, other than BLM.

 

But yes, you need either one at 15 for the other to get its job at 30. Which is totally why I suggest both to 30. (Well not really but it's a plus)

[Gurren Dai]

Ah, thank you all so much for the advice. It's been very helpful for me, especially since Solaire is still low enough level that re-starting her is negligible.   I feel like if I go with Arcanist/when I do, I may try DPS with that. 

 

Now my  only dilemma is figuring out which is more fitting for Solaire. Both are, but combat feels a little slow with Counjurer (at least when I've been leveling a version of her I made on another server while I wait for Balamung spots to open up). I haven't really tried combat with the Arcanist version of her on Gilgamesh.

 

I know it's not a great idea to make the same character on different servers, but I wanted to try out both. @_@

[Gegenji]

ACN DPS is pretty nice, especially with Carby at your side. Your first one is DPS, and you'll get a tank one later.

 

No lie, my favorite thing to do with SCH is bust out my Chocobo (DPS-specced) and Selene and be my own little three-man team roaming around being the snot out of stuff.

[Aya]

I really wouldn't re-roll, once you're level ten you can take another class and play that instead.  You'll appreciate having the first levels of CNJ done when you're playing ARC, since at some point you'll have to level CNJ anyway ^^

 

[Okay you may have to go a bit beyond level 10 to unlock the airships to GET to your new class ]

[Unnamed Mercenary]

Nothing requires THM at the moment >.> to unlock a job. Well, other than BLM.

 

But yes, you need either one at 15 for the other to get its job at 30.  Which is totally why I suggest both to 30. (Well not really but it's a plus)

 

Summoner does.

[Kage]

Nothing requires THM at the moment >.> to unlock a job. Well, other than BLM.

 

But yes, you need either one at 15 for the other to get its job at 30.  Which is totally why I suggest both to 30. (Well not really but it's a plus)

 

Summoner does.

I forgot about Summoner because it really doesn't count because who cares about it anyway. My bad.