Quote Originally Posted by Cilia View Post
You're not entirely wrong; however the problem with AST is that, while it is a competent healer, it's neither as good at direct heals as WHM nor as good at barrier heals as SCH. As such, outside of people trying it for fun I don't run into many. Additionally AST isn't really a hybrid class; it's a healing class through and through.

We do have a hybrid class, though - ACN and its specializations SMN and SCH. I played one back in 2.0, using SMN for when I was soloing in the open world and SCH for dungeons. They're both viable jobs (especially now that SMN has the Bahamut Laser), but it's tough to play them both on one character since one's INT heavy and another's MND heavy. It can be done, but it's not optimal (not that it matters, given I don't raid).

Could BLU work in a similar way? Hmm...
Well that's another issue with AST that I really don't understand the reasoning behind. AST has weaker healing output as some form of compensation for their ability to fulfill both the WHM and SCH role... but they can only ever fill one at a time so there is no reason for them to be given weaker heals in the first place. When in the healing stance they should heal as well as a WHM, and as well as a SCH when in the shield stance. At present they're just a weak healer with some offensive party support. I don't think the devs really understand how the 'hybrid tax' works as there is only any need for it if a class can switch between roles on the fly, which AST cannot.

I know it's not a true hybrid in the traditional sense but it is a hybrid of two sub-roles in the healer archetype. The fact is most raid groups will always want a WHM and a SCH as they heal in very different ways, so those are essentially two separate roles in terms of party composition at this point, much like a BRD or MCH will be wanted by most groups, resulting in a de facto support role existing whether the devs admit it or not. If they wanted to experiment with the possibility of hybrid jobs in the future then starting small-scale with sub-roles like these would be the safest way to test the waters. As I said though they don't seem to understand how to balance hybrids like this...

I don't think the ACN => SMN/SCH thing will ever happen again though as it has caused a whole list of problems for the two jobs due to shared skills, traits and stats. If BLU is a hybrid then it will function more like AST I think, just with more dramatic differences between those stances and a strict mechanism to prevent switching in duties.