Yoshi-P's Interview with Famitsu includes a few comments about AST

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vlady

Shuffle timer being on par with draw timer is probably the right balance along with preventing double draw of the same card. The buffs in itself are not an issue as they are strong enough to merit an astrologian with the group. Most teams seem to suffer from lack of strong cooldowns for the astrologian which I hope they will focus more on then increasing potency that is not needed.

---

Buffs are underwhelming... Spire and Ewer are buffs that nobody should never need, if they need them is because they are mismanaging their resources. Spear is utterly useless. When you draw bole you just throw it to the tank because you can, not because he needs it. Arrow only works with BLM, the other classes have their rotation messed because of that and it's just a MP/TP sink. The only useful card is balance.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AlphaSonic

Spire and Ewer are buffs that nobody should never need

---

Really?

You cannot fathom a scenario in which a capable player might run low on MP or TP?

Can you introduce me to these players who can maintain optimal dps while their TP does not decline?

Its not useful because raid groups are already capable of sustaining MP/TP without an AST.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sacerdos

Its not useful because raid groups are already capable of sustaining MP/TP without an AST.

---

Technically, a group with an AST healer could probably forgo a BRD/MCH allowing for a little more party DPS. It's just that there isn't a good enough reason for players to make the mental change given the overall powerlevel of AST currently.

Ewer and Spire can't be consistently drawn though. You can plan around when a BRD/MCH is restoring resources, you can't plan on when you draw Spire/Ewer.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sacerdos

Ewer and Spire can't be consistently drawn though. You can plan around when a BRD/MCH is restoring resources, you can't plan on when you draw Spire/Ewer.

---

People want reliability in a group not random acts of the RNG gods. That is the biggest flaw with AST. They are a gamble and the pay off isn't even worth it. You can go with Sch or Whm and get the same results easier. Until their entire kit is fixed (heals and cards) they will be pushed to the sideline for old faithfuls sch and whm.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zaresin

People want reliability in a group not random acts of the RNG gods. That is the biggest flaw with AST. They are a gamble and the pay off isn't even worth it. You can go with Sch or Whm and get the same results easier. Until their entire kit is fixed (heals and cards) they will be pushed to the sideline for old faithfuls sch and whm.

---

I think this is the key here. The most important thing for a healer is reliability. It seems the community is a bit split on which way to go. Some people want buffs and fixes for the cards while others are more focused on the healing aspect of things. I'm firmly in the second camp.



The cards are nice and all, but they're not the most important part of our job. What good are cards if people are lying on the floor or you've wiped to something? Obviously, as we've seen, very skilled players and groups can clear most content (Savage 4 unknown) using an AST. However, it appears to require a great deal of coordination from the group as a whole and the other healer in particular. Certainly, with stronger cards, many highly organized progression groups may opt to take an AST. However, more mid-tier progression groups will probably opt for the reliable healing of WHM/SCH and security they bring. Likewise, if you're making an PF when the content is relatively new and you don't know your healers, WHM/SCH would be the safest bet. Strengthening the cards could simply leave AST being used for high organized statics and and farm groups, a marginal improvement from the current state of things.

The RNG is a gimmick. The fights are heavily scripted dances, so most healers are looking to use X cool down at N time. Bole is practically useless because you won't know if you're going to have it at the moment you really need it. If there's a possibility you won't have the card at all, then the content needs to be 100% healable without it. Therefore, it makes more sense to try to get a card that enhances DPS, unless your lucky and the bole lines up with an tank buster.

Addressing AST healing through the adjustments of CDs, or adding reliable secondary effects to the cards will increase the appeal of AST for all types of groups. As long as AST is able to fulfill it's duties as a healer and reliably keep the group up, most people won't complain about the RNG nature of the cards.

I would have preferred a new unique type of healer, but I guess that'll be for a later expansion. AST is still a fun job though and they can make adjustments that make it a worthy addition to either group. I also don't believe it should be made "easier". It's okay to have a job that is complex and challenging to play, but it needs to pull its weight. However, right now the challenge of AST isn't for the AST player, it's for the AST's group and the other healer. They don't necessarily have to make AST desirable, they just have to make sure it's not undesirable, which seems to be what most people have decided it is at the moment, fair or unfair.

Considering Yoshi-P is concerned with both the luck based party buffs and the overall lack in healing potency, but is also concerned about striking a balance between the two, what jumps to mind is to make Diurnal and Nocturnal sects specialized in the same manor that a Scholar can choose between Eos and Selene. Diurnal sect is intentionally made into the stronger healer sect while Nocturnal put emphasis on stronger damage enhancing buffs. It's a concept that has been brought up before and the exact way that such a change could be executed can be handled in a variety of ways. One such method would be to have the chosen sect have influence over the card buffs such as an additional 5-10% damage reduction to all cards while under Diurnal sect whereas Nocturnal sect would provide an additional 5-10% attack or speed buff to all cards with Bole being changed to increased healing received and Balance/Arrow changed to increased critical hit rate. The exact percentages would likely have to be adjusted accordingly to prevent buffs from becoming too strong, but the underlining focus would be to add a layer of consistency to the healing support or buff support of their respective sect.

A potential issue with such a change (increasing the healing potential of one sect while raising the damage output of the other) would be that a double AST composition would be made more viable, or at least it would seem so, but honestly the way buffs interact with each other is already pretty unforgiving. When two Scholar use Selene their Fey Wind buffs won't stack, but because of its duration and recast timer it's easy to fall into a rhythm that allows for full uptime. With card buffs being inconsistent and random it becomes considerably more taxing to stay coordinated, more so when AoE buffs are thrown into the mix. To be honest the current system doesn't feel perfect and it makes me wish that Diurnal aspected buffs and Nocturnal aspected buffs could stack, but that would only make the potential issue of double AST even worse so perhaps that wouldn't be the right approach.

Some would say SE is at fault for creating the double AST conundrum simply by way the job was designed. The main reason why doubling up on AST buffs is even a concern is because they have allowed for the job to interact with itself in a way that mimics the WHM and SCH symmetry. Perhaps more thoughtful planning could have avoided this whole situation, but by this point we have to deal with the hand we've been dealt. For the most part I believe the job will stay the way it is. The concept behind Diurnal and Nocturnal sects will stay the same, but the extent at which they interact with other abilities can be expanded in a way that helps to better define the job.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alahra

*snippity snap*

---

I don't really want full control, because why would I ever pick anything other than Balance except in extreme cases? I'd rather they buff all the other cards to make up for it. Right now the RNG is bad because anything except Balance/Arrow and sometimes Ewer really feels like the impact didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. If the other cards actually felt like they had an impact, I wouldn't mind the fact that I didn't get Balance/Arrow at any point in the fight.

So maybe if they made Shuffle so you could recast it 3 times in the next 10 seconds, so you get 5 chances at getting the card you want (Draw + Shuffle + 3 recasts)?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sidra

Technically, a group with an AST healer could probably forgo a BRD/MCH allowing for a little more party DPS. It's just that there isn't a good enough reason for players to make the mental change given the overall powerlevel of AST currently.

---

Maybe if AoE Spire/Ewer wasn't awful and it wasn't up to RNG.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sidra

Technically, a group with an AST healer could probably forgo a BRD/MCH allowing for a little more party DPS. It's just that there isn't a good enough reason for players to make the mental change given the overall powerlevel of AST currently.

---

actually due to the random nature of cards and the fact that spire is single target while you probably have multiple dps and tanks in a party. Odds are the ballad will be needed anyways for everyone that didn't get the spire making it ultimately useless.
ewer is kind of the same, the only mage that ever has mp problems is the astro himself
bole is actually really strong but the randomness totally neuters it
spear is utter trash
the arrow just creates tp issues for physical fighters and messes up their rotation and tends to have a similar effect on black mage with enochian and the "attack speed" buff doesn't seem to translate into the individual spell speed/skill speed components for boosting a summoners damage.
the balance is genuinely good but fun math, top end dps do about 1300. if you had the balance up 100% of the time it would translate into 130dps, the cooldowns on draw alone drops that to 65dps, it's basically a 1/6 chance of even getting the balance making it worth about 11dps <-- great party buff!

At a bare minimum, here are four changes that would greatly improve AST:

(1) Disable makes no sense in comparison to Eye for an Eye. Instead of working on only a single hit, Disable should work for all hits on a single target for a set time frame.

(2) Draw and Shuffle need cooldown reductions. It would be really nice if shuffle was reduced to like 2-3 seconds so you could shuffle a few times off a single draw. This would greatly increase your chances of getting what you need off a single draw.

(3) Eternal Dignity makes no sense. Benediction heals a single target completely, and Lustrate can be used multiple times. Eternal Dignity's cooldown needs to be revamped to be an adequate heal for "oh shit" moments.

(4) The day stance should increase spell speed more and should also increase healing potency. The night stance should increase critical hit rate and spell damage. This way the night stance can be used to DPS and give better healing shields.

We need an overhaul.

Tonight i did some scholar to help an fc mate with some trials and dam it was depressive.

I actually felt like a complete class once more.

-i had fairy to help me out with heals and could buff on command
- i had my own shields in all sizes and clolors, from single target shield to party shield to aoe bubble.
- i had mitigation tools like virus and eye for an eye
- when stuff went bad i lustrate on command and i could pop rouse+ fey illumination if it was a lot of damage over some time rather then spiky.

Comparing this to my ast
-lower heals in general
-the only oh shit button is at least for me almost used on cd
- a funky lolrng buff system that i swear someone trolled me by putting like 6 extra spires in
- no healing cooldowns

My scholar on 50 felt a lot more complete then my ast on 60.

Reposting just as a comparison to show lacking we actually are. I didn't knew it before tonight.
That experience basically made me feel like i am playing half a class and now i am considering what to do next.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SuzakuCMX

I don't really want full control, because why would I ever pick anything other than Balance except in extreme cases? I'd rather they buff all the other cards to make up for it.

---

I agree, honestly. But the idea comes up in just about every AST thread at this point. Outside of potential balance concerns (oh hey, a pun), there's just not a simple way to pull it off logistically within the current framework.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alahra

I agree, honestly. But the idea comes up in just about every AST thread at this point. Outside of potential balance concerns (oh hey, a pun), there's just not a simple way to pull it off logistically within the current framework.

---

I've been thinking more and more and maybe the best thing to do is give AST better mana management and healing so they can contribute to DPS, and then reworking Balance to be an indirect DPS increase like Spire/Ewer/Arrow/Spear are. Maybe make it raise Crit Rate? Then they could buff the cards a lot more and they are all a lot more comparable, and it doesn't feel like you got shafted everytime you draw a card that isn't Balance.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SuzakuCMX

I've been thinking more and more and maybe the best thing to do is give AST better mana management and healing so they can contribute to DPS, and then reworking Balance to be an indirect DPS increase like Spire/Ewer/Arrow/Spear are. Maybe make it raise Crit Rate? Then they could buff the cards a lot more and they are all a lot more comparable, and it doesn't feel like you got shafted everytime you draw a card that isn't Balance.

---

That might work okay, though honestly if they nerf Balance, people will probably just focus on Arrow instead. It's not as good as Balance, but it's fairly close (and it's possibly better than Balance on MNK/NIN since it synergizes really well with their high attack speeds, so long as TP costs can be mitigated).

You know, that's an excellent point that I haven't thought of. If they gave us full control over the cards, I would literally pick nothing but balance. There is no reason to pick anything else. As silly as it sounds, shorter fights = increased healing.

Even if they reworked the cards, you would still only pick one or two at all times. There is always going to be a 'best' card. Four or five of the cards would be rendered useless just because you can pick the best one at will.

The RNG must stay. There is no choice. Unfortunately, this means that we are most likely going to get what i've been fearing: spread 1, spread 2, and spread 3. Three slots for holding cards, and button bloat gets two bigger.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Geardagas

The RNG must stay. There is no choice. Unfortunately, this means that we are most likely going to get what i've been fearing: spread 1, spread 2, and spread 3. Three slots for holding cards, and button bloat gets two bigger.

---

That's highly unlikely, as they are not generally in the habit of handing out multiple abilities per level, and they also seem pretty set on making sure all of the classes have the exact same number of abilities. They are also presumably aware of the tight squeeze people are dealing with because of the additional abilities in Heavesward.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alahra

That might work okay, though honestly if they nerf Balance, people will probably just focus on Arrow instead. It's not as good as Balance, but it's fairly close (and it's possibly better than Balance on MNK/NIN since it synergizes really well with their high attack speeds, so long as TP costs can be mitigated).

---

I usually use Arrow on myself if there's no BLM since it increases cast speed and decreases the GCD = a little more healing.

I think the problem right now is Balance is the easiest to see an effect for and also the other cards are too weak to compare at all. Maybe if they buffed Spear/Arrow to be more noticeable it wouldn't be such a problem.

Maybe they could make it so each time we use Draw, we gain a stack of Fortune, and Shuffle costs a stack of Fortune? That way after a few dead draws you can Shuffle multiple times.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SuzakuCMX

I think the problem right now is Balance is the easiest to see an effect for and also the other cards are too weak to compare at all. Maybe if they buffed Spear/Arrow to be more noticeable it wouldn't be such a problem.

---

Well, Arrow is indeed noticeable: Throw to many on a NIN/MNK and sometime soon you gonna listen to "OMG WHEREZ MY TP!?" via VoIP xD. Nevertheless I almost always throw Arrow on a DD, cuz out of the 6 cards we got it's the second best in terms of dps (iirc)

+15% attack speed is really enjoyable for the dps "quality of life". Casters would specially appreciate this during an aboudant aoe phase, they could preserve their Fire III instead of spamming Scathe.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mclyde

+15% attack speed is really enjoyable for the dps "quality of life". Casters would specially appreciate this during an aboudant aoe phase, they could preserve their Fire III instead of spamming Scathe.

---

Well it's only 10%, but yes it's somewhat noticeable but it could be a lot better, like most of AST cards.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mclyde

+15% attack speed is really enjoyable for the dps "quality of life". Casters would specially appreciate this during an aboudant aoe phase, they could preserve their Fire III instead of spamming Scathe.

---

you say it like astro can just throw out any of their buffs on a whim
happening to draw an arrow right as an aoe phase starts while also having an enhanced royal road on deck and ready to go is something around a 5% chance of falling in line

if you don't have that you got something else that will be usefull for someone else. Like balance on one melee who can stay in contact with the boss. Or one mp regen card that will allow yourself to help a little more with dps skill for exemple.

It's pretty sad how quickly AST runs out of mana in comparison to SCH when dps:ing xD.
After not even a minute, I kinda have to stop to have mana left for healing, lol.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mclyde

if you don't have that you got something else that will be usefull for someone else. Like balance on one melee who can stay in contact with the boss. Or one mp regen card that will allow yourself to help a little more with dps skill for exemple.

---

Or a Spear when no one has meaningful CDs ready to burn, or a Spire when no one needs TP, or a Bole when the extra mitigation makes no effective difference for your healing requirement...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cynfael

Or a Spear when no one has meaningful CDs ready to burn, or a Spire when no one needs TP, or a Bole when the extra mitigation makes no effective difference for your healing requirement...

---

This comment makes me curious. Every card can't be a dps increase so giving this restraint, you can have 3 attack and 3 support cards, what would you like to see the buffs be? Best I can come with attack, speed, critical hit and def, healing potency, tp/mp restore.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dyvid

This comment makes me curious. Every card can't be a dps increase so giving this restraint, you can have 3 attack and 3 support cards, what would you like to see the buffs be? Best I can come with attack, speed, critical hit and def, healing potency, tp/mp restore.

---

Some effects are bound to be situational no matter what. It's not that the effects I listed are always useless, but that some players seem to think that you always have a useful card action, which is sadly not the case.

I think that the only way they could make more of the buffs relevant more of the time while preserving the RNG would be to package secondary effects with each card. E.g. Balance and Arrow are almost always useful, so they get situational (read: close to useless) secondaries such as Arrow granting a small Evasion boost. A card like Bole, on the other hand, might grant a small crit buff, and Ewer might also grant a 5% healing potency buff, etc.

I gotta say I don't like your secondaries at all. The obvious route to go with arrow would be tp reduction. A crit bonus doesn't help the tank at all. Honestly there should just be a healing % increase tacked onto every one of them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dyvid

This comment makes me curious. Every card can't be a dps increase so giving this restraint, you can have 3 attack and 3 support cards, what would you like to see the buffs be? Best I can come with attack, speed, critical hit and def, healing potency, tp/mp restore.

---

The ideal would be trying to get a set of cards that can be considered generically useful.
Even if they are not equally useful at all times
like
damage+
damage reduction/healing output
critical hit
attack speed, could have the spear effect bundled on since it's so minimal to begin with
tp/mp regen and maybe include the old conservation mechanic too (definitely do not need 2 cards for basically same effect on various classes)

those seem like the obvious choices, there aren't really any other base attributes to buff though after that so the last one would have to be something a bit more special like
-an instant heal or shield based on aspect
-buff that builds limit break faster
-all base stats+x%
-all secondary stats +x%

hard to come up with something that's not super basic

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Geardagas

I gotta say I don't like your secondaries at all. The obvious route to go with arrow would be tp reduction. A crit bonus doesn't help the tank at all. Honestly there should just be a healing % increase tacked onto every one of them.

---

You're missing the point a little. The idea here is to give secondary benefits to make cards a little useful even when their primary function is unnecessary.

E.g. If you have no need to Bole your tank, you can throw it on a DPS or the SCH for a tiny crit boost. As for Arrow, it's already plenty useful in most situations and doesn't need a mini-Spire as a consolation prize.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cynfael

You're missing the point a little. The idea here is to give secondary benefits to make cards a little useful even when their primary function is unnecessary.

E.g. If you have no need to Bole your tank, you can throw it on a DPS or the SCH for a tiny crit boost. As for Arrow, it's already plenty useful in most situations and doesn't need a mini-Spire as a consolation prize.

---

Hmm, interesting idea but the secondary would have to be done in such a way to not OP the cards. AoE DEF + Critical Hit bonus on the whole team is something to consider.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cynfael

You're missing the point a little. The idea here is to give secondary benefits to make cards a little useful even when their primary function is unnecessary.

E.g. If you have no need to Bole your tank, you can throw it on a DPS or the SCH for a tiny crit boost. As for Arrow, it's already plenty useful in most situations and doesn't need a mini-Spire as a consolation prize.

---

That makes sense. If that's the case, you'd actually want secondaries that don't match the primary buff because it would spread out the rng. Not a bad idea.

The reason I mentioned the tp usage reduction for arrow is that sometimes people complain that it's running them out of tp...although they more often complain that it messes up their rotations in relation to their buff/debuff timers, which really can't be helped.

That will, sadly, still have the same problem right now. The cards aren't good enough individually to take something like an AST over a Scholar. If you want more DPS, the cards need to directly compete with the Fairy and actually beat it at its own game all the time, which they just don't. Even with secondary benefits, they'd still be trash, they just wouldn't be completely useless on top of it.

The issue the AST suffers from sadly won't be fixed by fixing the cards, either. It's a class without an identity. From the ground up, it was designed so that it could either replace the WHM or the SCH, but it wasn't made powerful enough to actually accomplish this for the obvious reason that if it can replace either, it will replace both. As others have brought up, the class just needs a complete rework to design it such that it's actually a unique healer apart from the Scholar and WHM, instead of trying to be a bad replacement for the SCH/WHM. The devs really messed up on this class.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Taranok

That will, sadly, still have the same problem right now. The cards aren't good enough individually to take something like an AST over a Scholar. If you want more DPS, the cards need to directly compete with the Fairy and actually beat it at its own game all the time, which they just don't. Even with secondary benefits, they'd still be trash, they just wouldn't be completely useless on top of it.

The issue the AST suffers from sadly won't be fixed by fixing the cards, either. It's a class without an identity. From the ground up, it was designed so that it could either replace the WHM or the SCH, but it wasn't made powerful enough to actually accomplish this for the obvious reason that if it can replace either, it will replace both. As others have brought up, the class just needs a complete rework to design it such that it's actually a unique healer apart from the Scholar and WHM, instead of trying to be a bad replacement for the SCH/WHM. The devs really messed up on this class.

---

Finally people are starting to get it.
This class feels like a rushed mix of ideas without a care of how it would actually work. Purely from design this thing needs a rework from the ground up. We are currently a support healer in a game that does not allow it. You can buff the cards up to 1000% potency but it wouldn't fix the design issues and will turn us into a farm content healer.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Assirra

Finally people are starting to get it.
This class feels like a rushed mix of ideas without a care of how it would actually work. Purely from design this thing needs a rework from the ground up. We are currently a support healer in a game that does not allow it. You can buff the cards up to 1000% potency but it wouldn't fix the design issues and will turn us into a farm content healer.

---

It doesn't need a total overhaul. If we had a way to buff our own healing temporarily or a way to shove our missing healing to the other healer, our healing would be fine. If cards were more reliable or more effective, they would be fine, too. Neither of those need a total reworking of the class.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SuzakuCMX

It doesn't need a total overhaul. If we had a way to buff our own healing temporarily or a way to shove our missing healing to the other healer, our healing would be fine. If cards were more reliable or more effective, they would be fine, too. Neither of those need a total reworking of the class.

---

Agreed. Astrologian does not need any overhauls and there are two prime cooldowns ripe that could be changed to boost our abilities somehow. Also I love your sig art.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SuzakuCMX

...

---

What she means is that no matter how much they buff us, we will still be a whm/sch jr.
Both whm and sch are unique
Whm: burst healing, raw healing power.
Sch: Damage mitigation healer.
But AST is just a ripoff of both.
Sure, they'll buff ast, but it will still be an almost complete copy of whm and sch, there's nothing unique about it.
When you switch from whm to sch you gotta learn how to play a complete different job with different tools.
But when you switch from whm/sch to ast, you will pretty much have almost everything you had, with just different animations and some useless cards.
Nothing unique about it.
Ast really needs its own identity.
But sadly SE came up with the "brilliant" idea of turning it into a hybrid, instead of using the amazing time/star mage theme to make something unique like they did when they created SCH.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vlady

Agreed. Astrologian does not need any overhauls and there are two prime cooldowns ripe that could be changed to boost our abilities somehow. Also I love your sig art.

---

Oh, thanks :) I did it myself from the Countdown 10 art.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Muahbec

What she means is that no matter how much they buff us, we will still be a whm/sch jr.
Both whm and sch are unique
Whm: burst healing, raw healing power.
Sch: Damage mitigation healer.
But AST is just a ripoff of both.
Sure, they'll buff ast, but it will still be an almost complete copy of whm and sch, there's nothing unique about it.
When you switch from whm to sch you gotta learn how to play a complete different job with different tools.
But when you switch from whm/sch to ast, you will pretty much have almost everything you had, with just different animations and some useless cards.
Nothing unique about it.
Ast really needs its own identity.
But sadly SE came up with the "brilliant" idea of turning it into a hybrid, instead of using the amazing time/star mage theme to make something unique like they did when they created SCH.

---

I don't necessarily agree that they need a complete rework to become a unique healer. Instead of copying WHM/SCH they could just keep their basic abilities the same now while tweaking CU/CO and somehow incorporate the cards into healing (Synastry perm buff and heals someone for 10% of their max HP when a card is used?) They could also further develop the support healer by giving AST a Mind buff and letting them place a 5-15% Healing Buff on their co-healer, so that way AST can only soloheal content they are overgeared for or that has low healing requirements and in raids they can become the DPS/Buffing healer that only throws out heals every once in a while.

Also I'm not sure I'd classify SCH as "damage mitigation healer." They only have 4 spells that mitigate damage (Adlo, Succor, E4E, Supervirus) and half of those can be cross-classed to WHM and the other half aren't their primary form of healing. Succor was formerly their only AoE heal option outside of a fairy CD and Adlo was only used before big hits, in the same way that WHM used to use their 18% Stoneskin before a big hit. The difference between SCH and WHM was also slightly lessened in 3.0 because of SCH getting a couple more AoE options and WHM getting better MP management and oGCD heals. WHM is still THE powerhouse due to Divine Seal and Presence of Mind, but SCH always had Eos if they wanted to pump out more heals anyways. Lustrate and Fairy Healing was just good enough to get by without in 8-man content, but now a SCH/AST duo would probably require Eos to make up for that (but since it's a DPS loss to use Eos over Selene in raids and AST is a DPS loss as well.....)

The biggest differences in WHM and SCH healing is that SCH traditionally had better oGCD heals (3x Lustrate per min vs. Benediction 5 min) and better MP Management/Efficiency (Lustrate and Aetherflow and Fairy Healing).

If AST could bring a buff that matched or surpassed Eos consistently and they had better mana management, a Di AST and an Eos SCH would probably be a worthwhile raid composition.

AST is just comparatively bad right now, though.

just saw this post. Made my night :)
to comments:
I feel AST's identity is actually its cards and Aspected spells because you can change how you do things by a switched stance. I practically mained WHM in 2.0 but after trying AST I feel in love with it and its star globe/deck animations and because my job is to Heal >/= Buff> dps instead of DPS >/=Heal. the RNG and Potency made me cry and I decided to work on a dps class to 60 first, let them make some changes. After 3.05 I was so sad that more hadn't been done for AST. now as I'm about to start it up again, I see this!
Cheers Yoshi-P, thanks for seeing and listening to our fears for AST

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Taranok

Snip

---

I thought about this as well and I happen to agree with you that the class needs an overhaul. What are your thoughts on them making AST a HoT based healer with a few direct heals that are buffed depending on how many HoTs you have rolling on someone? That would certainly make it different than the other two healers, as for the cards, I've been really having trouble thinking of a fix, but I do like the idea of the card fitting in with the HoT idea above, but not sure how.