Astro or White Mage ?

[NamoNanamo]

I would pick astro for now. They outclass white mages right now with a better toolkit for tank healing and utility.

whm are still better.

[Nyrii]

Just play AST, everyone will love you for your card and you will have a preview of Whm and Sch gameplay through the stances.

[Dante_V]

Honestly starting with WHM makes more sense. Then if you like astro switching over. You are going to need a few things from the WHM kit anyhow along with swift cast from the THM kit and the leveling experience of going thru the beginning dungeons are a better introduction to basics of healing than just starting at 30 on astro.

[Nekotee]

Whm are easier...
Ast is a bit more challenging and fun !

But still whm is fine not better.

[Anova]

Honestly starting with WHM makes more sense.

The OP does have healing experience in other MMOs, so I honestly don't know how much benefit Sastasha and the other dungeons will be. Maybe she learns a lot, maybe not. She's been to 50, so she knows what the endgame mechanics are like and should know how much her experience applies to it. She can make her own assessment on that end.

Diurnal AST healing is comparable to WHM but Noct AST is very different from SCH. The fairy and utilitarianism of the scholar skill set are big game changers.

I would recommend the OP at least do the hunting log for Conjurer simply for protect and cleric stance (lv.8) if nothing else. Lv.26 THM for swiftcast is useful, but not necessary until 40 or 50 when you can't out-heal through stupid.

[myahele]

AST will be getting adjustments next week when the patch releases, so who knows what will they change.

I am currently leveling AST, but from what I see it seems to play similar to a WHM but with the use of cards. The cards can be quite fun since I can help the party in more ways than just simply healing and occasionally dpsing

[Mibgestalt]

The goal of my model was to measure maximum potency in a given scenario.

It's interesting to look at, but an "infinite MP" scheme isn't particularly useful. It's not indicative of much when it comes to balance, unless they add a "heal the mob to death" style fight later on. It also ignores a few mechanic-based things, even in your realistic version.
Just to list one, counting Collective Unconsciousness' HoT as a fire and forget it heal isn't really how it functions in practice. It's off the GCD, but if you treat it like any other OGCD heal and spam Benefic after you press the button it simply won't apply anything. Depending on where the server is for ticks, it can take up to 3 seconds of channeling to apply its HoT.

So, like I said, interesting read, and I do appreciate the research, but I feel like the value is tenuous at best, and at worst you could have someone running around using it out of context as grounds for their whining.

[416to305]

One thing I want to know is how many DPS in all honestly know what the AST cards are and when they are up? First thing someone told me when I started as a DPS was to trust your healer and not focus on your HP which I do when playing as DPS. When I started as WHM I assumed everyone just knew when they were at like 300 HP and my Benediction saved them from death and so on. However when I play as DPS, I rarely pay attention to that specific detail, focusing instead on doing damage. So I always wonder, when I pop that expanded balance for example, or if the WHM is low on MP and I pop Ewer, do people even notice? I know for me I focus on the party list and mainly watch for debuffs to remove with Esuna and so on, but playing on PS4 I can't just hover my mouse over a buff or debuff on myself to see what it is like a PC player can. So half the time I could have something on me and not even know about it unless it's doing something bad. I just personally get the feeling that people don't pay attention, like when I pop extended Balance on a DPS and then Time Dialation, it's not like it screams out to them "Your damage just went up by 10% for over a minute!"

[myahele]

snip

Probably not many know/ pay attention to the AST buff they get unless they also leveled an AST themselves .... but they certainly know when their HP is too low, lol

[416to305]

Probably not many know/ pay attention to the AST buff they get unless they also leveled an AST themselves .... but they certainly know when their HP is too low, lol

Haha yeah the HP one for sure!! I mean I don't need the recognition or anything like that, but I find AST would probably be way more powerful if people actually knew and realized like their damage was up 10%, so pop those big attacks and so on, just stuff like that. I'm so torn myself now with ESO armour being class specific as well since it takes so long to get them. I have the weapon for my WHM, all other gear is 190 from Alex normal (I don't do savage). So I'm torn between now spending the eso's on gear for my AST, or just keeping at it for WHM. I think that new 24 man raid drops similar gear from what I saw quick so mostly waiting until then to see (also to see if they change either class with 3.1 in a good or bad way).

I liked AST before but I couldn't justify playing it with weaker heals just for the cards as they are too random. With 3.07 though making the base heals the same as WHM, that's what brought me back to it. I think if they were weaker though I'd stick to WHM.