Astrologian Speculations! How will it fit in?

[Ghishlain]

I'm curious as well. Without CS an AST won't be as useful for DPSing or soloing as the other two healers which would be pretty bad. And without Swiftcast they would be so gimped... It's going to be interesting so see what happens with Crossclass skills. I'm wondering if they are going to change it to 3 classes that every ob can crossclass with or something. Because AST may need some ACN spells as well (virus, e4e).

Just emphasis on the bolded part, you can make the argument that AST card buffs indirectly providing DPS to groups via their buff mechanics. Say a SCH or WHM can provide 200 DPS in any normal boss fight; AST buffs would need to be able to generate a comparable number to that 200 DPS via their buffs thus negating the need for them to have CS in a party setting. Of course this is its own can of worms for balancing - will AST buffs be single target only? Area effect? Aura around the AST? Balanced for 4-man or 8-man parties? etc. And of course this changes dramatically in a solo setting as well.