What makes WHM special? Nothing anymore.

[RichardButte]

I'm sorry since when did how something looks and feels to a person become absolute fact?

What WHM has that AST doesn't:
-an AoE that heals everyone for 300, damages all enemies for 300 AND restores 10% of my mana
-a 30% boost to healing power for 15 sec on a minute CD (which boosts HoTs, unlike AST's Synastry)
-a bubble that doesn't require channeling
-E4E
-Virus
-a mana restoring ability that reduces aggro immediately instead of just reducing aggro generated while it's active
-not one but TWO instant-cast heals that restore a crapton of HP (one restores ALL HP, while the other is 700 potency)
-an instant HoT with 150 potency (as opposed to AST's 140) which lasts for 21 seconds as opposed to 18 seconds and costs less mana (618 vs. AST's 707)
-the far more important MND party buff instead of PIE

If you're not healing better than an AST with this toolkit, maybe it's time to sober up to the fact that it's not the TOOLKIT that is to blame, here...

Seriously, go level AST to 60, and when your static leader politely but forcefully asks to to go back to WHM, maybe THEN you'll get the message.

I'll just chime in to say that I don't really feel SCH is a gimmicky healer. It was (IMO) a really well designed alternative to just straight healing. My "proof" will be that their new skills were able to integrate into existing systems (ie use aetherflow, modify how existing SCH abilities work, etc etc). Even with the relatively homogenization, SCH is very distinct from WHM.

Now let's look at AST. Reskinned WHM spells... bolted on card system that doesn't integrate with the rest of the class... Yep, that I'd call gimmicky. (I say this even though I do enjoy AST)

...And the irony here would be that, even if they retooled AST from the ground up to make it completely different from WHM in EVERY single regard (which wouldn't really be possible), Whine Mages would still complain that their class feels too "vanilla" when it's the vanilla healing class...