Anya or Festus

[SmartyPants]

Who is the better healer?

Anya: A human Psy Healer who is able to use Long Shield and Light Resistance.  Her Mind Shield can have a range of 2.

Festus: A Psy Healer who has the benefits of being a shadowlings. Those benefits include the ability to float, inhuman speed, and Shadow Resistance.

[Zackirus]

I Like Festus because:
1.   Shadow Resistance is extremely helpful for fighting against Cerzak and the shadowlings.
2.   Festus travels father than Anya and he can fly
3.   He can Attack

I do not like Anya because:
1.   The only time you need to have light Resistance, is in the Psy Academy Fight, which she is not in
2.   She cannot fly, attack or move far in a turn
3.   If You train Festus Defence enough, before you met her, he is both stronger faster, and heals more than her
4.   The only time I would use her would be if I needed an extra healer for a battle. 

[KZ]

I would be very surprised to see someone choosing Anya over Festus.

Looking at the two advantages give to Anya:
1). Long Shield, well, with Festus' ability to float over water and other obstacles, and his higher mobility, he can effectively use Big Shield in place of Long Shield (from a side) to heal the same amount of people, and he has the same reach, if Anya and he start from the same position, and Anya uses Long Shield- he'll simply move more, and use less penetrating shield, thus, overall, Long Shield would very rarely give Anya better battlefield coverage (the only map I can think of where that might come true is the Psy Academy first battle, but Anya does not participate in it)
2). Light Resistance, as Zackirus rightly put it, it can be used only against Tastidian and Nelis, or against Energy Golems in the Nelis battle, 'cause I very much doubt someone will invest so much gold early on in the game to give Anya level 16 Defense before mission 3 begins.
3). I actually find the Mind Shield 2 rather annoying: this means that in cramped quarters, Anya is unable to use little PsP on a normal Shield to heal a teammate- and using Mega Shield early-to-mid game can be quite wasteful. And towards the end, she learns Long Shield, so her cheapest Shield attack is 5 PsP, whilst Festus' is 3 PsP. Thus, he can conserve more PsP.

Going for Festus bonuses:
1). As quite rightly noted by Zackirus, under equal leveling up, Festus has slightly higher stats, for both hismelf and the attacks.
2). His mobility is superior in all aspects.
3). His resistance proves very useful against both the most potent enemies in mission 6 (and he isn't slowed down, unlike Anya, in the hard battle against Cerzak) and against practically all enemies in mission 7 against Somnus

And, again, as Zackirus put above, Anya is useful when you want a second Healer, and don't want the Main equipped with the Indigo orb.

[torugo]

the reason festus is better
1.he is faster so he can get to people quicker
2.because of him being faster he can get the back side of enemys
3.his mind blast is twice as strong as anya
4.he has more resistance against shadow
5.he has more health so he can live longer
6.he can get out of dangerous situations better than anya can
7.festus is more effective with healing power
8.the most important he has been of help to me

[KZ]

There are two people how have chosen Anya over Festus in the poll, if you're one of them, can you explain why, please?

[Zhampir]

I'm not one of them, but I can guess as to their reasoning. it allows a tank, with a ranged support to both attack an enemy and have Anya heal the tank. For instance

Anya
Guy
Flint
Mechanic

Flint and Guy can bombard the Mechanic while Flint stays healthy due to Anya.

[Frosty]

No actually, I prefer Anya to Festus because of a different reason.
Anya can go in front of energy golems, and survive Nelis's Holy Blast easily. So I up her power a lot before the Nelis battle, and then set her to attack Nelis.

the reason festus is better
1.he is faster so he can get to people quicker
2.because of him being faster he can get the back side of enemys
3.his mind blast is twice as strong as anya
4.he has more resistance against shadow
5.he has more health so he can live longer
6.he can get out of dangerous situations better than anya can
7.festus is more effective with healing power
8.the most important he has been of help to me

The bold ones are only because you use Festus more, and the italasized reasons are alike. So really, only 2 reasons that are real are listed there.

[Presentiment]

Festus moves faster and floats, so his Big Shield gets better coverage than Anya's long shield.

He can also be used as an auxiliary fighter better than Anya, because he is more mobile and won't get in the way of more powerful attackers.

And he does have muchos more health.

[torugo]

the eight reason is the only one that is not real i train everyone the same in this game and festus still better than anya

[Frosty]

Torugo, ask whoever you want, Festus and Anya deal/heal the same damage IF their psy power/defense is the same. He barely has any more HP if their psy defense is the same too.

[Zackirus]

Torugo, ask whoever you want, Festus and Anya deal/heal the same damage IF their psy power/defense is the same. He barely has any more HP if their psy defense is the same too.

The problem is Anya can't deal damage! Each have their own pros and cons and they both do the job of the healer in the end.

[Frosty]

Anya has an attack called mind blast. I think you should use it more often.

[torugo]

frosty what zackirus is saying is that it is pointless to make her fight  because she is weak and if you send her in to a fight then it is highly likely she will die

[Zackirus]

Anya has an attack called mind blast. I think you should use it more often.

Thank you Torugo that was what I was saying

[KZ]

I don't think that that is a valid argument: leveling up Anya's and Festus' stats to the same levels, we see his hp 1 more, I believe, than hers, his defensive attacks either the same, or 2-3 more than hers. This is certainly not enough to label her a useless and easy-to-kill teammate as she can deal the same damage as Festus and has little difference in vital stats.

What does make a difference is Festus' increased mobility (flying and much greater speed) and his Shadow resistance being more useful in all, but two battles in the game. There will be one or two specialized battles, such as the one with Nelis, where Anya is a better choice, but broadly speaking the player is probably better-off investing in Festus. (Plus, depending on which strategy the player adopts, it's more than possible to avoid getting hit by Nelis' and Tastidian's Light-based attacks in battle, and Festus is more able to cover the limited ground area in the last battle- Anya would be restricted to the periphery.)