AST : some people say...

[Mattelot]

I have Sch and Whm at 60 and casually got Ast to 50. I can say that I didn't have any problems healing as Ast for the past 20 levels however, I also have 2 full jobs 1-60 of experience on healing. If Ast had been my first healing job, I may or may not have had a different answer.

I very much enjoy Ast. Diurnal Ast is not on par with Whm however, it's close and good enough. Plus I love the card mechanic. It's fresh and sometimes awesome... but sometimes frustrating (when I get into a group and I seemingly get nothing but Spire and Spear).

[Valmaxian]

I'm rather surprised that AST-bashing is still a thing. Perhaps our dual-role flexibility brings out the more clearly-defined roles of SCH/WHM; instead of classic healing/shielding or DPS, we get a pyramid of Heals/DPS/Cards. This sounds like an advantage to me, once you've mastered all three. The fairy does add an additional facet to the SCH to be fair, and the best SCH's trigger fairy buffs manually at the best moments. But we must remember that they learn their skills from reading books "which makes them huge nerds and therefore, terrible." (credit to Ellice - Cerberus)

I would reiterate everything Darkmoon said, putting particular emphasis on the mobility of AST healing. Personally, I never find myself lacking healing options, and feel that AST's also bring some refreshing utility to parties and raids through effective card use.

[Rolfy]

AST can definitely pull its weight as the main healer in harder content while in Diurnal Stance, their cards are pretty useful and Synestry is super good too. The thing is that they still have a bad stigma and WHM is slightly more reliable. The extra range on Medica 2, Assize being an instant AOE heal, Benediction, Divine Seal being a 60 sec cooldown (opposed to Synestry's 90 sec), being able to Holy in level 50 content, and having Cure 3 being some of the "real" differences. This is mainly talking about Savage stuff, however. Everything is great in roulettes IF played properly, woo!

Nocturnal Stance is a whole other deal, you'd have to compare with SCH. It's hard to compare to SCH.

[technole]

AST "bashing" is still out there, you might even see a party finder or two that will shut down that job from joining. Generally I find they are from people who don't know any better, also don't raid alex savage, and/or personally not had good experiences with the job. All things considered, the raid naysayers were shut down after AST/SCH tandem was involved in a world 3rd A8S clear. There is no rebuttal to that, aside from maybe not being first lol.

[Teraluna]

Astro is basically WHM-Lite. (ok a bit tongue in cheek here :-)

If you've been playing a whm for ages, why the heck would you want to spend Groundhog days doing nearly the same thing lvl after lvl.
Ok, it's got some differences, but it's half the whm.
In fact as you start off it is the whm, and shows they where really stretched introducing three new classes simultaneously together with all the other expansion work.

They've said they'll not be doing 3x classes again as it was too much. So it appears the lesson's there.

I was looking forward to some real differentiation with a new healing class, possibly even with some new cross class abilities that could be taken up by the sch & whm.
Unfortunately the Astro gave nothing to the other two healers, just taking the same well trodden ones.

Hopefully this reduction in simultaneous class launches will result in significant differentiation to any new healer introduced in the future.
It would be really good if it could be accompanied with new cross class skills that could be taken up by the sch/whm - adding a spark of newness to those classes at the same time.

[zuzu-bq]

AST healing abilities are overall weaker than the other healers, considering this to be as effective as other healers, you'd need to understand AST really well and master the job. Doing so you make AST be as effective as the others on any content. But don't you worry! Unless you're playing the newest contents (current raid / trial) the lack of healing output be either by player skill or job power is compensated by gear or even lower damage output from enemies.

Most things people say about AST lacking something is because they don't understand how the job should be played to be completly effective. Diurnal AST is perfectly fine while Nocturnal only "lacks" a bit becaus its actually SCH that is too powerfull. The biggest tip I can give to you is: do not try playing DiAST as WHM or NoctAST as SCH. They're themselves and completly different from each other at the same time. Embrace the the job's duality and find the way to play it!

[AlexanderThorolund]

I'd just like to add my two cents as someone who plays all 3 healers at level 60. 'Those people' are idiots. Astrologian is an amazing healing class and stands up with the other 2.

[Kabzy]

If you've been playing a whm for ages, why the heck would you want to spend Groundhog days doing nearly the same thing lvl after lvl.
Ok, it's got some differences, but it's half the whm.

-snip-

This is a bad attitude to have towards levelling any job. Tanks have their 1-2-3 enmity combos, DPS have their 1-2-3 DPS combos, and healers heal. You have the option to not explore a jobs' full toolkit, but all the jobs manage to retain some form of uniqueness outside of their basic actions.

One could say the same thing about SCH. I could choose to ignore the fairy/DPS and play the job like a WHM. But SCH has it's fairy and DPS rotations, in the same way AST has a whole buffing system that no other healer has access to. AST shares some abilities, yes, but so do WHM and SCH. Basic cures are all 400 potency, AoE cures are 300 potency (counting shields), all have AoE Regens (Eos) etc etc, it's nothing new. No matter how many things they add, no future jobs will have the freedom to be revolutionary as they have to perform the basic actions required by the current three roles.

[Zari]

You probably heard about people who dont pay attention and didnt realize AST got a lot of major buffs. It WAS fairly weak at first but it got buffs throughout the patches and is VERY strong now.

And also dont listen to the person who said it is WHM-lite. That is very much wrong

[Mattelot]

I play all 3 healers and it is Whm-like but that's ok. My Whm is just over-heals while my Ast does just fine while I love the cards.