With all these astrologian complain threads

[MidnightTundra]

Try Diurnal again , Aspect benefic>Aspected Helios at the start of large pulls . The 150 potency regen justs makes it alot easier to heal.

I find it overall better then Noct. Even when doing trials with a partner being WHM i prefer diurnal stance since it much more mana efficient then Noct.

SCH's base shield are lackluster. It's their crit shield trait that AST does not have.

Keep in mind that Aspect Benefic is 2/3rds the cost of Adloquium. It would be an incredibly powerful spell if it inherited the boost of the shield's potency on crit for a fraction of the MP cost. Noct stance is there to fill the role of preventative healing. It's a big thing in raid scenarios where there's a mechanic that needs a large amount of mitigation to survive its impact. Think t13's Gigaflare. Dirunal Sect isn't going to do much when the boss is one shoting the group. So you need nocturnal stance to soften the blows of the raid killing ability (Or maybe for mechanics like T10 prey).

Pretty much, Noct for raid (If WHM/AST); Dirunal for everything else I guess.

[jars]

aspected benefit costs twice as much as benefic I for fairly low potency heal. it's incredibly mana draining and doesn't even offer high throughput in exchange. diurnal spells are very mana efficient. I wouldn't use nocturne even with a whm since the hots stack.

adlo isn't an efficiency heal, it's the sch equivalent of cure 2. it gives you throughput at the cost of mana since crit heals go all the way up to 900 potency. ast doesn't need that because we have benefic 2.

[HexWeaver]

I love it! it's a really fun job to play, plus I've always wanted to fight with tarot cards!

[Elleia]

I think my biggest concern at this time is how well AST will do when paired with a SCH for raid content. At least in my case, I handled nearly all of the healing in FCOB while our SCH was dpsing, only healing for mechanics such as earthshakers. With an AST partner, I feel that SCHs may have to adapt into the "main healer" type of role, reducing the amount of time they can spend dpsing. On top of this, both AST and SCH bring the piety party buff, leaving WHM the only class to bring the mind buff. With this in mind, it seems that AST currently has better synastry with a WHM partner, as the WHM will handle the bulk of the healing while AST supports and buffs the party. As much as I enjoy the class, I'm continuing to level my WHM just in case the AST/SCH combo doesn't go as planned in Alexander.

Of course, without knowing how the new raids will function, this is all pure speculation and may become irrelevant.

[RukiaFae]

I like it more with better gear. 40-50 was rough until I got my 130 gear. It's just harder to keep up if you have an oh snap what just happened moment. Coming from a WHM main I'm always in Diurnal stance unless I'm confident. I'm trying to practice more with the other stance. My only complaint is the lower heals make me feel like I'm spamming the heals button more and the struggle is real when crap hits the fan.

[SakiKojiro]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...68#post3069868

As I stated in this, The buffs and utility just aren't doing it. The base healing is fine. The AoE stun has to go. Utility needs to be added to the skill and the stun needs to be removed. Honestly, It feels like Square Enix figured AST to be overpowered and changed it right at the last second, and now our pops are crap. I remember reading that one of those abilities was supposed to "spread" our buffs to other party members. So, like increased card effectiveness. I can see how this would be really powerful, but what they gave us instead is not okay.

[Sebazy]

Personally I think they are a little underwhelming all round. Whilst the baseline healing is indeed passable (and I've had no issues on Rav/BisEX healing alongside them), they just don't bring the same overall package to the table that I can see. When the RNG falls into place and you get the right cards for the moment then the job is incredible, trouble is that just doesn't happen even remotely often enough mid encounter to make up for the personal HPS/DPS shortfalls.

[RichardButte]

Most of them are totally useless?

They are all quite effective in real content, Im loving them.

So you've run Alexander already? Tell us how it went...

Looks like a certain someone never learned that if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all and a ban would probably teach him a good lesson.

You can technically not insult someone, yet still be trolling them and this is very much trolling, like you want to bait Fanservice back into a fight.

Beyond that, no, AST is not worth bringing to a raid in its current situation. The lack of real emergency options A) pales in comparison to what other healers have and B) a 17% chance to make a BLM do 10% more damage for 15 seconds is not enough to compensate for this fact.

If people want to sit around in this thread, going "yay! cardz r fun!!!!11!1!", at least they won't be distorting the discussion in other threads where people are actually trying to seriously analyze the AST's weaknesses and make suggestions for balancing them...

[giantslayer]

AST is purposefully designed to be lower in raw healing power than the other two healers. Just step back and look at the conceptual designs of these classes:

AST: has cards for non-healing buffs.
SCH: has a faerie to put out additional healing.
WHM: has no gimmicks but just more abilities that feed into their core competency as the king of HP restoration.

For the sake of evaluating AST's overall balance as a class, it is best to compare to WHM because it is more like comparing apples to apples. The basic healing spells are about the same, but WHM has a lot more cooldowns at their disposal, as others have already explained in great detail. IMO, AST about as effective in healing as WHM is at lol 50. At level 60, WHM has a lot more healing potential, especially in a pinch.

Does this mean AST is underpowered as a class in general? Not necessarily. Remember that WHM is a no frills max healing class and that AST is a healer with buffs, most of which are DPS buffs or MP/TP buffs. Aside from Selene, who got nerfed pretty hard, the other healers don't have comparable buffs at their disposal.

The question really becomes how good are these buffs, and does it make up for having fewer healing tools? On the one hand, most content can be healed with just the basic stuff they have. As a SCH, I have a LOT of resources and cooldowns on tap that go mostly unused in most content.

On the other hand, cutting edge raiders are always fighting for every little bit of DPS. A lot of runs are made or broken by whether the healers (usually SCH) can put out just enough extra DPS to get them through a DPS check. If you get the right cards, you can buff the entire party's DPS by 5% for 15s. That's huge. It's also hard to get and entirely unreliable due to RNG, but gambling is part of the theme with Cards.

We need to look at AST for what it is, not what it isn't. It was never meant to be as potent at healing as WHM and SCH. Their main shtick is their cards. They also have the ability to switch between SCH style shields and WHM Regen, which isn't ground shattering but has at least a few uses other than adapting to the other healer in an 8-man.

By the way, I haven't heard anyone mention Time Dilation, which, if it does what it sounds like it does, has the potential to add 15 more seconds to Hallowed Ground. Proper use of that ability to extend tank cooldowns may very well close the gap in speed run viability.

I think there is a valid discussion to be had over maybe buffing or tweaking a few of their skills (Light Speed and Collective Unconsciousness come to mind), but not for rewriting or buffing the class to the point where it can heal equally with WHM.

[giantslayer]

Looks like a certain someone never learned that if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all and a ban would probably teach him a good lesson.

Trolling someone to the point where they lose their cool more than you do does not grant you some kind of moral high ground.

P.S. Fanservice was right in his analysis of the classes' healing abilities.