Astro in savage

[tjw]

That's why I compared AST\SCH with WHM\SCH. As long as party is alive, and healer's dps is the same with AST(or even more with cards, though I can't say for how much) - isn't it fine? Ofc, if dps from cards is negligible, almost no point to struggle with astro at all.

I agree that if you CAN clear, it is fine. However, as your last sentence suggests, AST requires far more effort and compromise by the co-healer and even the party in order to utilise it in its current sub-optimal level. One can argue that the 'effort' of using AST is part of its appeal, but it shouldn't be. It should be able to fulfill its current role as a healer without hampering or placing larger difficulty on the party and the user.

And I thought there was ppl who clearly think of AST as incapable for Savages("No AST" thing and that's all).

You have mainly three crowds in terms of AST changes. One views AST as complete garbage and unwilling to give it a chance, and people see it as the new "Derp of teh month" and jump on the bandwagon. Another crowd views AST as completely fine and insists that it is perfectly up to standard and able to hold its place against its sibling healers. The last crowd acknowledges the issues of AST but know it is currently capable of healing, and instead want to see AST brought to its potential, and discussing ways in which it can improve.

But of course, as a former WHM myself I agree, that it could be done with WHM with MUCH ease, not only cause WHM have better healing toolkit, but as AST you have to press much more buttons, plan your card setups on the fly. And parties need a reliable healer...

And that's the crux of the situation. AST just has no viable place in the current endgame's meta compared to WHM and SCH. Its current design attempts to mimic either a WHM or a SCH with the extra niche of buffs...which are, however, largely unreliable and inconsequential, leaving the only comparison being in terms of its healing capabilities and toolkit. And currently, WHM and SCH far outshine AST in their healing kits and potential.

Currently, WHM, SCH and AST have their own definitive healing niches. WHM specialises in burst and raw healing, SCH specialises in mitigation and utility, and AST specialises in versatility and support. However, in any given party, only 2 spots are allowed for the healers. That means that in each party, the choices made need to be able to properly make up for what is lost. A WHM/SCH would need to make up for less buffs and less versatility on each of the healers. SCH/AST would need to make up for the loss of pure healing. WHM/AST would need to make up for the lack of mitigation and utility. However, AST currently only has versatility outside of combat, so it's strengths become based on its support skills. It is currently evident however that its support skills just do not make up for the loss of either healer's tools; in fact, SCH is able to reliably pump out as much, if not better, support than an AST is able to. This places AST as the inferior healer.

Does this make it incapable? No. It just makes it sub-optimal and less likely to be utilised for progression and even farm.

I personally feel that the Sects have close to a minimal impact, with only three abilities really receiving changes and the lack of an option to switch in-combat. I would rather see the Sects brought more into AST's gameplay style such as affecting the cards, and additional abilities that reflect off whichever Sect is active, or even abilities that change the sect. I feel this will bring a better 'support' functionality if the Sects have different effects on cards and more abilities. Of course, there are other issues prevalent, but improving the Sects (especially Nocturnal dear god that Sect is terrible atm) will help greatly.

summoner threads were that way and even then it took over a year among half for the fixes to come in.

WARs had their own hellfest in 2.0. They were quickly remedied in the next major patch of 2.1.
DRGs were being excluded very heavily in 2.4 from FCoB. This was quickly remedied in a minor patch to stop the exclusion.

The reason to why SMN took so long is that any inherent changes to traits or ACN abilities would also significantly affect SCH, which was in a very good position. With the freedom of 5 new abilites in Heavensward, the devs were more than able to improve on SMN's problems compared to if they had to tweak its 2.0 abilities. SMN was also not as affected by its flaws compared to what WAR and DRG, and now AST, had to go through.

Plus the real question is how the Japanese counterparts ate faring.

Considering there is a 190+ page thread on Astrologian on the JP Healer forums, they are more than likely not completely satisfied with the Job either if they are discussing it to that extent..

I (and no doubt many others) are also eagerly awaiting your proof of increasing a player's DPS by over hundreds using AST. Pray do not ignore us.