AST Sect Theory

[Apeiron]

SCH's job is to reduce damage taken. WHM's job is to heal the party up to 100%.
If you go Diurnal + WHM you dont have the damage reduction, and if you go Noct + Scholar you don't have the AoE heals of a WHM.

If you go WHM + WHM you don't have the damage reduction, and if you go SCH + SCH you don't have the AoE heals of a WHM. Not a very convincing stance you've taken.

But this is exactly what AST is. Once you choose a Sect, AST becomes WHM/SCH jr. because it was designed that way. Right now cards are useless so yes, we can only think of AST as the weaker version of the other healers depending on the stance. AST's healing skills are all identical or very, very similar to whm and sch's skills. whm and sch however have a lot of skills that an AST doesn't have. We have a useless and overly complicated and random card system however.

Sorry, this was poor forethought on my end. When they've chosen their respective sect, the AST acts very much like a WHM or a SCH -- its AB becomes Regen, or Adlo; its AH becomes Medica II, or Succor; its CU becomes Asylum, or Sacred Soil -- but attempting to play the AST like a WHM with Diurnal, or a SCH with Nocturnal, has been met with a lot of problems. If we played them as an extension to WHM or SCH, bolstering their regens and healing, or dropping shields after theirs are down (or on party members they're not focused on) and healing, shouldn't that prove to be more beneficial than if we played AST like a poor substitute?

I'm going to leave the card system for another thread, as I'd like to focus primarily on the sect here.

I'd enjoy trying it out but SCH + Noct AST would really not be easy because of the override and the lack of options for picking the party up. If AST had one half-decent burst AoE that wasn't shield-oriented, it wouldn't be so bad, but AST already struggles with AoE and it's not SCHs forte either, so taking into consideration that AST shields would be completely useless in an AoE event, it wouldn't be ideal. SCH would have to shield everyone and then both jobs would have to fight to pick everyone up. For single target(s) I could see it maybe working, but AoE would be a horrible experience.

As for WHM/Diurnal AST, that's already common practice for a lot of ASTs, since Regens do stack.

Let's break down what a SCH/AST has for healing, shall we? We have the SCH, their fairy, and the AST. Physick, Embrace, Benefic, Adlo, Essential Dignity, Succor, Whispering Dawn, Helios, Aspected Helios, Benefic II, Aspected Benefic, Synastry... Think that covers everything.

Now, allowing that the AST is smart enough not to override the SCH shielding, that still gives the pair plenty of tools to pick a party back up. And when a shield goes down, the AST can drop AB until the fairy gets around to healing the party member, or heal them themselves. Alone, the AST can help get 1 person back up above 50% hp with Essential Dignity, then follow up with synastry and get two more party members back on top.