Astrologian Healing

[Magatsu_Kusanagi]

Mega-wall of text that will explain in-depth of what AST is meh and why it really has trouble standing up to the other healers. I originally hit AST right off the bat and leveled it to 60 with the story and did all of the end-game content, and with this, not once did I ever feel like there was anything truly overwhelming nor harder, and with this I want to make a point, yes, AST can do all content fine, yes, nothing is "harder" with a AST in the party, and yes, having a AST in the party does improve the raid. HOWEVER, the point that people are failing to truly understand is that with AST, at least imo, is that you're your co-healers "eos/selene". What do I mean by this? You bring more utility to the raid and overall you have lower potency heals (on both ends). Now, is this a bad thing? No, it really isn't, however, that does put more stress on your co-healer be it by a small amount or larger. At this point I want to refer to a earlier comment as well, which worded it very well and in a different way.

AST is "similar" to Bard/MCH IMHO,

These 2's maximum DPS potential is mathematically lesser than other DPS classes.
These 2 bring precious utility to the group in form of Mana Regen/TP Regen.
You got 3 other DPS to cover up a bard/MCH's lower DPS.

Now ASTs:
AST Healing Throughput is lower than other Healer classes.
AST brings........not that great utility to the group as of Patch 3.01.
You better hope your Co-Healer's great, cause he/she's the only 1 that'll be covering you.

I think the mentality when SE was designing AST is they wanna make a support type like Bard/MCH, but didn't take into account that Bard/MCH has 3 other players to back up its short-comings, unfortunately AST only has one.

Just as MCN/BRD, you need to slightly lean on the other three DD's to pick up your slack, it's not a huge gap they need to cover, and hell you can even help the certain type of DD's cover your DPS by helping theirs (casters and foe's requiem), but there is a gap that is there, mechanically, accounting for all potencies and buffs, no matter how good you are you can't out DPS the other jobs (BRD pre-3.0 talk, dunno how it is now). The same is true for AST, you have the tools you need to heal and you have your own little "flavor" on them as well, and hell you can even give the party good buffs and turn some sour situations into manageable ones (RNG permitting), and this brings up a conjectured point too, that mechanically you are not going to be as good as a WHM nor SCH, and this is where things get.... "fun", because now we now need to add the utility, and self-utility they have and bring as well.
Stances
Lets break down each stance, as I think this will be the fastest way to get all points done, and we'll start with Nocturnal stance since it's easier to get through. First and foremost, this stance is very underwhelming and when compared to the other stance, is a major lost for potencies for MP usage, and even with the 5% buff they get in the stance, you'll be running out of MP a lot faster than you would be in Diurnal. However, where Nocturnal barriers currently are, it is the one step down from SCH's barriers that you can take, lower potencies and no Critlo buff, but is a major, MAJOR, jump, and like I said, it's the only step-down you can take. IMHO, they only way they can either make Nocturnal be relevant is either increase the healing buff to 10%, or hell, if they really want to try and make people use it, 15% (highly doubtful), or allow stance dancing. Now flip side, Diurnal stance, any good AST will be in this stance for the current content. This stance too, is the one step-down from WHM, and honestly is in a very good state as-is. This covers both stances and potencies, which brings us to the next topic, self-utility.
Self Utility
AST has one move and then watches its 2 minute CD count down, Luminferous Aether. With the patch both WHM and SCH got more self-utilities (albeit SCH is really and OH SHI- one). WHM was given Assize (10%) with the expansion and, of course, has Shroud of the Saints. SCH has the lovely 1 minute 20% MP regain known as Aetherflow, but wait there's more! If they're truly hurting they can expend their stacks with ED for more MP! (Accuracy permitting), along with this they were given the true oh shi- of Dissipation for 3 more stacks (albeit you'll bee needing to use some of that MP for a re-summon, but they still have that option available). So, compared to the others, AST can't really get too MP happy or, just as 2.0 WHM's, will suffer and things get sketchy there-in. Now to utility, where AST shines.......... kind of.... .
Party Utility
WHM has three moves for party utility, heavy (Stone (T5 Dreadknight)), Stun (good for a pause to catch up on healing on big pulls), and Bind/Knockback, more on knockback here (Levi Ex. when add cc Stun is depleted and he starts his cast for the water pool that gives terror, T9 Demolish from Green Golem). SCH has DPS utility to the party with 3/5 guaranteed dots, 15% Damage down/reduced stats on one given enemy (Virus), Heavy (Misama/Miasma II) 10% damage down on physical attackers (Eye for Eye), 10% damage mitigation in a 8 yalm radius (Sacred Soil), 50% Up-time on a 3% Weaponskill speed increase for the party (Fey Wind), AoE Divine Seal (Fey Illumination), and a 20% Magic damage down (Fey Covenant). With cross class BLM and WHM also have access to 15% reduced stats/damage down on STR and DEX, and a 3m Eye for Eye. And finally, we get to AST (we'll get to cards later, for now we'll focus on normal utility first.) AST brings a AoE stun (Celestial Opposition, 2m CD), 10% damage down for one move (Disable), 10% damage down in a 5 yalm radius (kind of, Nocturnal Stance Collective Unconsciousness) and Heavy (Stella).
Spike Damage, and why it matters to AST
Now, why did I exclude the biggest factor of AST out of the utility list, it's the biggest mechanic of the job right?! Here's why, it's RNG, but hell it's fine, you have ways to manipulate that, but look at the above list, let me ask you, when comparing the list above of things you can guarantee to happen, SCH without a doubt wins, but then comparing the remaining two it's a scrimmage. Now this brings us to our next point, moves for when things spike and things get harder. When I was leveling AST I had a lot of people ask me what it was like (Leveled it to 50 in 14 hours of launch so I had a lot of friends interested what it was like at the level cap), and I responded that AST is a sustaining healer, when spike damage happens you honestly look to your co-healer to help. AST has one move to counteract spiking damage, Essential Dignity, and hell, I'll give you this is a good move too, it scales linearly to 1000 potency at 1% HP, but this is quite literally your only move to use and it's on a 40 second timer, past this move is the damage is outputting your healing, you have a problem that your co-healer needs to cover for you. WHM has DS (30%) for when stuff hits harder, they have Benediction when shit really hits the fan, they have Tetragrammaton, a 700 potency instant heal for free every minute, and they have Assize for 300 potency on a minute and half for when your party takes a bit more than you're willing to be comfortable with. SCH's have a free* (1 Stack) Lustrate for a 600 potency heal that they can hold 3 at any given time and possibly have 9 readily available (Aetherflow ready to be used, Dissipation), they have Fey Illumination as a AoE DS (20%) and that is also utility for your co-healer, and fairy, as well!, they have Indomitability free* (1 stack) for a 400 potency AoE for use when they're uncomfortable with the parties HP, and Emergency tactics, changing Adlo to a 600 potency heal or Succor to a 300 Potency heal. As you can see, WHM and SCH have a lot of ways to counter-act big spike damage, or hell, healing in general when stuff is sour and all AST has outside of the sustaining heals is..... Essential Dignity at a 40 second timer..... Now we've covered both stances and party utility (cards aside, but we'll get right to that).
AST's Job Mechanic only steepens the gap
Now let me ask you, with all this given information, you can see that AST really, REEEEAALLLY falls sort in a both stances (albeit this is needed because of cards) and both party and self utility they don't offer much, but you might be saying I'm ignoring the biggest thing with AST, the buffs! Well, now that we've covered everything, you can see that AST takes a very heavy, and steep slope on all three aspects of potency, self, and party utility for the jobs mechanic. Now I'm not going to bash on RNG here, but I will say this, this may be biased and a big one-sided view but AST even falls short here, why? Because they get wasted without proper communication, and to be honest, outside of a raid group with voice chat where you can get immediate response from members, they're not going to be seeing their full potential. On raids, whenever I get a spire, ewer or spear I ask "everyone good on TP; anyones CD's ready or near ready? You good co-healer?" With this you get a true maximization of the buffs from the cards. Now cutting down to pugs you can semi-counteract having them be useless but using macros (of which I did when leveling (Ex. TP Cost down <t>!, Balance <t>, Damage increased!, Spear <t>! Recast time on CD's reduced!) but even then I found to be hit and miss, although I will say this did help as I saw more people actually popping CD's or buffing when I buffed them with cards (sometimes.....).
In Closing
As you can currently, everything is doable and nothing is ever truly "harder" with an AST, but there are too many demerits going against it that cannot be ignored when compared to the other two classes to where it's currently in its "ehh" position.Two last ground I would like to cover is Collective Unconsciousness, at least in Nocturnal stance, and lightspeed. For CU this move has a heavy cost of not being able to move or cast anything and puts more stress on your healer to heal others while you don't act, or ultimate simply use it on one move (personally would just like a change to allow you to move within bubble or just not move but be allowed to cast.) For lightspeed the only true use I ever could possibly think out of this is T9S Spiral formation Heavensfall, where you need to heal but have high movement where healing isn't possible and you have on-going damage -still- going out, what can change on it so it isn't as big as a nerf than a buff? Either cut potency cost as well or give it a refresh for MP, meh. Those are just my two cents on the moves. With this it pretty much covers all grounds of healing and AST as well, if you made it this far I would like to thank you for reading this mega-wall of text and would like some feedback too, would you disagree, would you agree? Thank you for you time. o/

TL;DR: Having a AST healer doesn't make content harder nor easier, they are weaker to both healers in both sense, but once again this doesn't change the difficulty. AST are sustaining healers and have one, ONE move to counteract spiked damage and the others have a set of moves to counteract it. Not including cards, AST falls really short on party and self utility, to which is the cost of having the cards. Now the costly expense of having the cards and being able to buff your team (Lower heals, little party and self utility), you also don't get full use out of them outside of a voice chat or active response on both ends. AST is alright, but WHM and SCH simply offer more without counting RNGcards, with the cards it's still iffy for full use isn't fully gained more than half of the time.....