My transition from SCH to AST in 5.0

So, i started playing this game back at the end of Heavensward/beginning of Stormblood, i leveled WHM first but found it very dull and boring at times, then i tried SCH and it was love at first sight. The Pet that was a free regen, all the micromanagement of pet skills and dots, the proactive/strategic approach of it. Also leveled AST a bit but for all end-game content SCH was always my go to.

Stopped playing after more or less a year, then came back recently on a fresh new character, and this time i tackled the story with ACN/SCH immediately. However, i ended up being surprised by how much harder was clearing progression dungeons on my SCH, specially when i have to deal with large pulls. Before i used to cast an Adlo, WD, an Exog, FU if needed, and then proceed to set all my DoTs and my beloved Shadowflare while Eos kept the healing and that was it. Now, by setting Adlo, WD, Exog, FU, even SS all togheter, it still doesn't give me enough security to spam AoW, beacuse i still see the Tank health bar dropping and i have to stop DPSing asap. Even more so if he also has still low gear.

It happened a few times during big pulls in HW and SB dungeons that i ran out of Aetherflow and spamming Adlo wasn't enough, so the Tank died and we wiped, then everyone started calling me out like i was a bad inexperienced healer. Eventually i got sick of this and decided to level another healer to main. I reashed the AST because i was curious on the new card system and the reworked toolkit (also i'm a little biased being a Tarot reader myself). Mind you that i actually loved the old card system, not in a "i fish for Balance" way, but I'm currently at the start of SB dungeons with it and till now i gotta say, it feels amazing.

I know that a lot of AST mains are gonna hate me, but i don't dislike the new card system, i dislike its values and timers, sure, but the concept is kinda growing on me. Also i love the new Celestial Opposition, its basically a free aspected Helios that you can stack on top of it. In fact, stacking 4 regens all togheter on the Tank feels amazing, and pairing that with Lightspeed and Gravity spam makes the times of my life in dungeon pulls. Even when i was bad geared, between all the healing and mitigation options that i had i never felt insecure of the situation, on the contrary memorizing the attacks pattern and precasting CU/ES ecc. accordingly feels super satisfying. At the moment my only little concern on the job is its MP management, even though i still can work around it with LD and Lightspeed, and again, i wish the cards felt more impactful, all that weaving just for a 6% buff for 15 sec is kinda meh. For everything else, i love healing with this job and can't wait to get all my kit in endgame.

For SCH i dunno, i think the fairy should be buffed a little, she feels so useless to me right now. Also should i consider WHM? Is it still utterly simple and slow or did ShB bring new life to him?

Welcome back, before going into your post I'd heartily recommend you hit "Edit" and add in some paragraphs. Just some empty lines inbetween the introduction, the then and now comparsion to sch, the bit with ast and the closing questions. Some pauses to make it easier and more welcome to read.

Sorry to hear you're having problems healing on sch. Was this at level 80? If you feel you used everything, even dissipation, can check if there's more better gear to be had at that level. It can also very well be the tank who hasn't upgraded their gear for ten levels or lack of defensive cooldowns. If you got some more info can try giving some tips to maybe make it easier.

You're absolutely right Lily needs a buff, and the hotbar and Selene while their at it. Can't say much about neither ast nor whm, know whm got a a big aoe spell from their lily system that might be fun to use. If you got the time, nothing to lose by giving it a try.

Sorry, i was writing from my smartphone and didn't pay attention to that, thank you.

By the way, the time i am fully geared i have zero problems with healing, good or bad geared Tank. As i said, the struggle comes when i'm not. The worst experience i had was in the Temple of the Fist, i was half-geared with lv70 tomestone gear and half artifact gear, so not even THAT bad geared. The Tank was fully geared if i remember correctly

He was doing big pulls, 2-3 groups each, i dropped Adlo > WD > SS > Excog but the DPS were slow as f**k so all my preemptive healing wasn't enough and needed to use Adlo/Lustrate between AoW everytime

We arrive at the last 2 groups ( + a random mob that walks alone) before last boss: maybe it was the number of mobs, or those mobs were particular, maybe i could't use FU at that moment, i dunno, but i kept throwing heals of every kind at the Tank but he died 2 times in a row. Then i asked to pull less but he refused and told me to learn my job. Another wipe. The fourth time he grab one pack at a time while being passive aggressive, we finally clear the dungeon and again, he tells me to learn my job...

Of course in this case that person was kinda bad, but that aside this type of situation happened to me multiple times, so that's why i stopped with SCH

Can see it feeling sour. I know the pull you're talking about. And know I saved Invuln for that before. Actually haven't run it myself since 5.0 so don't know how bad it is when I can't help with bane nor shadowflare. The pull is definitly a group effort between tanks cooldowns, your available heals and the damage output.

Supposedly, not really spoilt for choice when Excog, Adlo, AF, WD, FI, Dissipation and Emergency Tactics is on cooldown, no Fey Gauge at 70 and they're still not dead. Then its falling back on Adlo and Physick and Lucid Dream, waiting on ET again far as I can think of. If tank still dies, dps dont use aoe lb or don't kill fast enough you simply run out of cooldowns and mp.

Would say it gets better but currently 70-80 is more cooldowns and slightly buffed broil II and bio. Just the kind of situation you describe where it felt good to help out with some aoe dots that ramp up damage over time so you'd not have to constantly use a gcd to help kill stuff faster.