Quote Originally Posted by Miscreant View Post
The responses in this thread are amazing... how can anyone not think Ast is still underpowered? I would much rather be paired with a Whm any day, whenever I'm pared with an Ast I find my self covering for their healing. Obviously it's amazing in PVP and has cool animations, but no ones going to be using it for early progression with how it is now. Lower healing output = lower healer dps = harder longer kills.

Got to say my favourite part of this thread was when someone told the OP why his group took a Drk instead of Pld for A3 & 4, I guess no one told him during those hours of progression.

For me I think one of Ast's biggest weakness is topping up raid wide damage fast, Whm can Divine Seal Medica/Medica 2/ Cure 3. Scholar can Emergency Tactics + Succor, Indom or Fey Illumination. Ast doesn't really have a CD that can give them that single burst raid wide AOE heal, it always takes a couple of GCDs which isn't really ideal.
Funny thing, my SCH partner says he'd rather heal with AST during progression raiding, and I do most of the healing and I cover him up most of the time whenever we have to do split healing. Another thing: Fey Illumination affects everyone in range of the fairy, which means the AST would also be affected by it. Emergency Tactics + Succor adds up to 300 potency, which is as strong as a Medica or Helios, and the burst of Medica II and Diurnal Aspected Helios is the same. 20% of extra healing from Synastry raises it to 240 and raises each tick to 48; Divine Seal raises Medica II's burst to 260 and each tick would heal for 65 instead of 50. The difference is not that high in the long run, so there's no need to say that this would hurt healer DPS. A Balance or an Arrow in any part of the fight would make up for the healer DPS you're supposedly losing. Also, if you're stacking for Cure III it means you can stack for Collective Unconscious, which reduces damage taken by 10% and adds a regen tick to the group that keeps being refreshed if they stay under the bubble and that stays with them when they walk out. Another thing: for big hits that would require Cure III, AST can use Disable (which stacks with Virus) to reduce the damage even further. And finally, Celestial Opposition can add 5 more seconds to all of these regens.