So Tried to Heal Sohm Al as an Astrologian...

[Selli]

He had full dreadwyrm gear. Is that considered good at that level?

Yes it is. The dungeon only drops i130 gear, so i130 Coil gear is still fine at that level. I healed that dungeon in full i130 Dread/Poe myself when I was leveling my AST.

Was he popping CDs? And waiting for your MP? If not, that is his fault.

The thing about AST is you need to think of yourself as a weaker 2.0 WHM trying to do 3.0 content. (I mean hella weak. At level 60 and i185 my WHM's Regens do a hefty 1.1k a tick, while at level 60 and i185 my AST's barely do 750. The lower potencies are very noticeable, so do be mindful of them).

Save any Ewers you get for yourself as well as Spears before you use LA. Pairing Lightspeed with Ewer can help a bit, but keep in mind Lightspeed will make your heals even weaker. Use your Regen-like skill as well as your Medica II-like skill, the extra HoTs will help a lot. AST does not have any mitigation (like how SCH's have Soil or Shadowflare and WHM's have Holy and Asylum), so you have no way to really reduce the damage the mobs do (Shadowflare has a slow, Holy stuns, Soil mitigates, and Asylum is another HoT). You're really at the mercy of the tank's CDs and your healing output.

[technole]

Save any Ewers you get for yourself as well as Spears before you use LA. Pairing Lightspeed with Ewer can help a bit, but keep in mind Lightspeed will make your heals even weaker. Use your Regen-like skill as well as your Medica II-like skill, the extra HoTs will help a lot. AST does not have any mitigation (like how SCH's have Soil or Shadowflare and WHM's have Holy and Asylum), so you have no way to really reduce the damage the mobs do (Shadowflare has a slow, Holy stuns, Soil mitigates, and Asylum is another HoT). You're really at the mercy of the tank's CDs and your healing output.

Yet using Ewers or any cards constantly on yourself is just killing the utility of AST. So that is something to consider if it's constantly being an issue, gear, the party make-up. This shouldn't be a long-term solution.

But yes, AST DPS skills are the weakest of the three healers. No practical mitigation effects aside from Stella and the Heavy debuff. You can buy some time before the tank gets hit just like if SCH uses Miasma II on a mob during the pull (which I wish more SCHs would use). Although Stella has a pretty long cast time for such low potency and the AST could be trying to catch-up so it's much harder to use this utility.

But I can get pretty frustrated doing a dungeon as AST with DPS being so slow to kill anything whereas if I went as WHM/SCH we'd make it up with healer DPS mitigation, be well ahead, and using way less MP.

[Selli]

Yet using Ewers or any cards constantly on yourself is just killing the utility of AST. So that is something to consider if it's constantly being an issue, gear, the party make-up. This shouldn't be a long-term solution.

I never said they were a long term solution, OP said they're having trouble, using the cards on yourself is one way to help with that. Obviously they aren't going to start throwing Enhanced Balances on themselves. Spear cards generally go to the Royal Road anyway 'cause they're hard to co-ordinate with DF parties (unless its right before a boss), so there is no harm on using it on yourself. As for Ewers, you probably won't use them on yourself in a dungeon if you don't need to, but in a raid 9/10 you'll use Ewer on yourself because AST has the biggest MP issues out of all the healers right now.

And AST is a healer, their main job is to heal. If they're having trouble with that, maximizing their utility becomes second and keeping everyone (or at least the tank) alive becomes first. "Why did we die healer?" "Well, I got an Ewer and none of you are casters so I Shuffled it and got Balance for you, since that's more useful, but then I ran out of MP 'cause I was Bene II spamming."

[technole]

Basically what I'm saying is keep the utility up while healing. Rather than fish for self-use cards or letting any draw slide. Getting damage buffs could be enough to get back to healing normalcy. Playing a healer without healing potency buffs means you really have to use your card RNG to your advantage, if it's possible and really the only frustration with the job if the cards and stars never line up. If Ewer is drawn, it's up to the player to determine if they need for themselves it now or soon. Which could be a deciding factor.

I'm not saying never use it on yourself, just don't get into a situation where you are looking for cards only for yourself or forgetting your utility could soothe the pain.

I haven't really ran into deep AST MP issues even when stuff hits the fan. But I'm pretty aggressive on using aether just as much as WHM Shroud on cooldown. Although I always had highest ilvl gear for each level having leveled WHM and SCH already so it is very possible my perspective isn't the same result as someone with an i115 weapon. Only one time I said we were going to die due my MP because the NIN was lagging so bad on a big pull, the WAR, and BRD themselves were taking forever and nothing was dying. That was expected.