With all these astrologian complain threads

[fanservice]

Sorry, there's nothing incorrect about it. Playing well as SCH is 150% simple as hell.

Easy to do the minimum required effort to keep people alive, sure.

It requires almost no effort to shine as a SCH.

This is where you're wrong. All of the following is the effort a SCH needs to 'shine'.

-Fairy positioning
-Direct control of when, and where the fairy uses abilities
-Knowing the fight well enough to swap in and out of cleric stance for damage, and healing
-Mitigating damage instead of just reacting to it
-Multitasking by putting out at least 3 sources of direct healing in under 4 seconds between fairy, aetherflow abilities, and a casted spell

Any fool could get away with not putting in effort, and do none of the above, but I wouldn't say they shine if they stand there, and wait for a reason to press the green button.

AST is fine they can keep up with the other healers if played correctly

They don't.

which is harder than the other classes due to AST need for situational awareness.

AST lack the abilities to do so.

They can still do their job, but they cannot address sudden issues mid fight as swiftly, nor as consistently as WHM, or much less SCH.

The more sources of healing not on standard GCD a job has, the easier it is for them to deal with mistakes, which is why SCH is especially strong at 'oh shit' moments. AST only has essential dignity with a 40 second downtime and HOTs if in diurnal sect. When something goes wrong, AST falls flat at pulling a group out of the fire compared to WHM, and SCH.

[Kaizersan]

Like I pointed out before Fanservice AST is fine compared to the other healers the difference is it's not as easy to play as SCH or WHM so people get frustrated and give up without mastering the job.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

AST lack the abilities to do so.

They can still do their job, but they cannot address sudden issues mid fight as swiftly, nor as consistently as WHM, or much less SCH.

Do elaborate

[Kaizersan]

Fanservice I have played sch for a long time and I have been playing AST alot and I have had no issues keeping people up and to me when geared right and played right it feels just as good as when I played SCH.

[fanservice]

Like I pointed out before Fanservice AST is fine compared to the other healers the difference is it's not as easy to play as SCH or WHM so people get frustrated and give up without mastering the job.

Mastery of the job aside, AST is just not as strong as a healer.

Do elaborate

Let's start with lustrate.

It's a 600 potency instant cast heal that requires 1 stack of aetherflow to use.

Indomitability is a 400 potency AOE heal that takes one charge of aetherflow to use.

You get 3 stacks every time you cast aetherflow. Aetherflow has a 1 minute cooldown.

Aetherflow cools down the moment is used, meaning often times, a SCH has access to at least 6 charges at the start of a boss fight.

Lustrate, aetherflow, and indomitability do not share GCDs with other spells since they're tagged as abilities, allowing a SCH to immediately begin casting physic, adloquium, etc without having to wait ~2.5 seconds to begin the cast after using lustrate, indom, or aetherflow. That is huge. AST's essential dignity works the same way, but it's the one ability they have like that, and it has a 40 second CD to use it once.

I didn't even mention how you can order the SCH's fairy while mid cast of anything else.

ASTs may be able to spam instant casts, but since they're still spells, they will incur the ~2.5 second GCD on nearly everything.

ASTs are hard limited by cast times/GCDs. SCHs ignore them at will. A SCH can have a 100 potency AOE hot out, lustrate someone for 600 potency, and finish an adloquium cast before an AST finishes casting helios twice without burning swiftcast (which the SCH has too), or lightspeed (which gimps the AST).

Other than that, SCHs, and WHMs have actual direct buffs to their healing output in fey illumination/rouse, and divine seal/presence of mind respectively. ASTs have... lightspeed, and synastry.

Fanservice I have played sch for a long time and I have been playing AST alot and I have had no issues keeping people up and to me when geared right and played right it feels just as good as when I played SCH.

Not saying AST is weak to the point it's unplayable, but they are weaker as a healer. If your group isn't on point, and mistakes are made, a SCH has a far easier time keeping the group in one piece between their aetherflow options, and fairy while still having spell GCDs free for casts. AST leans heavily on normal spells when essential dignity is used.

Forgot to mention, SCH MP sustain is on another level.

[Cynfael]

Sorry, there's nothing incorrect about it. Playing well as SCH is 150% simple as hell. It requires almost no effort to shine as a SCH.

If by "shine," you mean "be adequate," sure. Everyone would be an amazing SCH otherwise, and judging by the number of lazy, slow, reactive, and/or autopilot SCHs I've encountered in the game, this is clearly not the case.

It's more accurate to suggest that the skill floor on SCH is rather low since the fairy will help carry a poor player, whereas a poor WHM or AST has no auto-healing turret to support them.

[Leiloni]

AST is okay for everything, I think. It is not as broken as 2.0 warrior, but there are some ugly marks on it. MP management is going to be the first problem, especially now that whm has 2 MP income abilities. Gear scaling is going to actually highlight that more since it is based on base MP.

Before 3.0 I never had huge issues managing mana on my WHM and our only MP regen ability is the same as your Luminiferous Aether in every way except yours has a shorter CD. Yes we get the occasional free heal but you have cheaper heals, so it balances out. I think anyone whose played WHM and switches to AST likely already has figured out how to manage their mana. Yes SCH had an easier time with mana, but that doesn't mean WHM had it hard.

[Cynfael]

Before 3.0 I never had huge issues managing mana on my WHM and our only MP regen ability is the same as your Luminiferous Aether in every way except yours has a shorter CD. Yes we get the occasional free heal but you have cheaper heals, so it balances out. I think anyone whose played WHM and switches to AST likely already has figured out how to manage their mana. Yes SCH had an easier time with mana, but that doesn't mean WHM had it hard.

Also, I think that the leveling process from 51-60 has helped remind players, even SCHs, that MP-management is supposed to be a thing. We were pretty spoiled by the end of ARR in that nothing short of rez spam was likely to cause problems due to how much our MP pools grew with ilvl inflation.

[Zeikial]

Like I pointed out before Fanservice AST is fine compared to the other healers the difference is it's not as easy to play as SCH or WHM so people get frustrated and give up without mastering the job.

What is so hard about ASTRO? What is so technical? please explain the difficulty in playing ASTRO. I leveled my ASTRO to 50 and see no more difficulty in the class compared to the others, none what so ever. The cards are not difficult by any stretch of the imagination you pull card and you either use it, shuffle it, or RR it that's it and if you want to use it well then you use it, sounds real hard

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

snip

Well, if you're using solo healing situation:

Astrologian in Nocturnal sect has +5% added potency. Aspected benefic has 262 potency then and has an equally potent shield, totaling up to 524 potency (floored down). Not the most MP efficient thing to do, however. I really doubt scholars use 3 lustrates/minute. Or the very least, I don't.Aspected Benefic can still function as a panic button heal, however.

Indomitability has 400 potency, but cannot be spammed back to back. In nocturnal sect Helios is 96 potency behind on this, but can be casted in succession. If indomitability isn't available, Scholars will have to do with Succor. Which Aspected Helios is only 3 potency behind on with the same effect in Nocturnal Sect. Or recover more HP over time in Diurnal sect.

I'm not sure what you're trying to get at with the aetherflow abilities part. From what I understand from it, unless you're sleeping, wake up and noticed the tank/party is in bad condition, then yes, that would be beneficial. But if you're in the heat of battle and paying attention, how is this a "huge" benefit?

You also mentioned Astrologians can spam instant spells, but be locked for 2.5s every time for doing so because they're spells. Why does this not apply to Scholars who can only use 3 aetherflow stacks every minute? You could argue each use of Aetherflow ability has a 20s CD between each on average. Scholars do not ignore GCD/Cast times at will at all with the Aetherflow limitations. You could burn all your stacks in matter of seconds, if you want. But what about the remaining time while Aetherflow is on CD? Scholars are restricted to this.

And I'm not sure why you're mentioning the ability to control fairy mid cast here. What's the relationship in all this?