Man, the Healer's should/shouldn't DPS derailment. It all comes down to "Are you comfortable DPS'ing? yes? Then do it. no? Then don't."

But looking more and more into AST I can say I'm super excited. I'm going to assume the buff they bring is a Skill/Spell Speed buff because of what Square has mentioned about the Haste Buff, and the fact that SS is being updated in the expansion. The people who are talking about the barrier stance being all mitigation actually makes me cringe. I imagine in Healing Stance, they'll have their Cure at a Potency at 350. In Barrier stance it'll be a 200 Potency Heal, with 150 Potency Shield on top of it. I imagine white mage will stay with its burst healing, and healing over time. Scholar will still be the kings of shields and a high dps output. The strength of the AST will be that it can do what they can do, while not to the same extent while still bringing its own abilities to the table. I like this design as it means each healer will be welcomed, and not one will be "better" the the other except maybe very specific fights and stuff.