AST : some people say...

[Teraluna]

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.

But other mmo's manage it, with a wider variation in healing mechanics. Rift's Chloromancer, Tera's Mystic, for example.
My point was their decision to introduce 3x classes at once seems to have stretched them, denying the opportunity to come out with real differentiation.

I refuse to believe they don't have the ability to do this, to introduce different ways of hp recovery or loss prevention. This is what I'd like to see in a future healer, and wouldn't it be great if it came along with some new cross abilities that could be taken up by the Sch and Whm.

[Anienai]

Awesome signature

Very cool signature.

[Sebazy]

Pre endgame and especially pre 50, AST is by far the most complete healer job early on, the only thing it's lacking really is decent dungeon AoE with gravity only coming at 52 and celestial opposition (for the stun) at 60. Otherwise AST has both a cleanse and mp regen from level 18, way earlier than WHM and SCH.

At 60, for stuff outside of Midas Savage it's also absolutely fine. If you're struggling with content it's more likely to be a skill or experience issue than any 'issue' with AST.

Once you're in Midas Savage things change a little bit, personally I run the main healer role using AST for A5-6S and WHM for A7-8S, the biggest issue for me is weighing up the stronger personal DPS and better aoe healing range of WHM vs ASTs ability to pad the DPS on fflogs and the quirkiness offered by Lightspeed and Synastry.

For example, imo I feel that AST is superior for me on A5S because I handle most of the mechanics whilst main healing leaving the SCH free to push dps pretty much the entire time. I can use lightspeed to give me the freedom to move and trigger goblixers whilst healing and getting in position for both monkey+bombs. Synastry also renders the extra damage from the Gobbledygroper a non issue. Range is never a problem as people are always crammed into a corner for the aoe phases that actually matter.

On A6S you could go eitherway, WHM has massively superior DPS on Blaster (the first robot) and Cure 3 is a godsend for Vortexer (4th) whereas AST's cooldowns simply work better for Brawler (2nd) and of course there's that DPS padding potential. On the flipside, A7 is a win for the WHM in my book, medica II's range and duration is a god send.

Another tip for upcoming AST players: Don't forget you can also extend Lumi Aether's duration with Celestial Opposition giving you almost double the MP return of Shroud before you start throwing Ewers on yourself <3

[Kabzy]

I refuse to believe they don't have the ability to do this, to introduce different ways of hp recovery or loss prevention. This is what I'd like to see in a future healer, and wouldn't it be great if it came along with some new cross abilities that could be taken up by the Sch and Whm.

Of course they can do that, and that was sort of my point. A different take on healing could be the new healers' unique point, but no matter how unique that may be their initial skillset will still have to complement the current three healers. They tried that with AST, giving them lower potencies in exchange for faster casting and lower MP costs. It failed and so they buffed them to the 'norm' in order to make the job viable. They won't make the same mistakes again.

AST is a very unique healer outside of its' basic healing toolkit. The mistake SE made was giving them two sects to make it seem like they are mimicing WHM/SCH. If we had only diurnal sect and Nocturnal never even existed, no one would complain about AST having an identity crisis. They simply gave the job too much as an attempt to make any healing pair viable, but even that failed.

[Sebazy]

Calling it very unique is probably a stretch, squint a bit and really it's just a WHM with different flavoured cooldowns and card buffs traded for some burst. The stance mechanic feels like an afterthought to make it a reasonably viable stand in for a SCH imo.

Truly unique healing roles are doable np. I still stand by my opinion that SE should have copied Warhammer Online's Warrior Priest and glossed it over as Red Mage to give us a meleeing healer with more of a DPS twist. Maybe for 4.0 <3

[Teraluna]

Calling it very unique is probably a stretch, squint a bit and really it's just a WHM with different flavoured cooldowns and card buffs traded for some burst. The stance mechanic feels like an afterthought to make it a reasonably viable stand in for a SCH imo.

Truly unique healing roles are doable np. I still stand by my opinion that SE should have copied Warhammer Online's Warrior Priest and glossed it over as Red Mage to give us a meleeing healer with more of a DPS twist. Maybe for 4.0 <3

One of my favourite (yes I'm putting the 'u' in despite getting a spelling error) healing classes is the Aion Cleric. Didn't play Warhammer but sounds something similar.

[Werhusky]

A good AST is as good as a good WHM/SCH. I personally say I suck as AST and talking to my static WHM we agreed that it possibly is also to issue of not playing it regularly enough and that the cards and Royal Road/Spread/Redraw mess our hotbars ^^

[Rawrz]

I still feel that pushing a nocturnal AST into the off heal slot, when with a WHM cohealer, is one of the reasons people feel Noct AST is so weak. They are trying to perform a role that they aren't equipped at. Diurnal AST would make a better off healer than Nocturnal (Increased DPS and Regens.) Noct Asts have the choice between minimizing overheal and preemptive mitigation with shields or raw HP catch up with Ben II/Helios, making them efficient at main healing with Noct's healing potency buff.

They do not have as many instant cast abilities that they could pop off right after Cleric Stance, but from a main heal point of view its okay. They have 2 powerful DoTs (Combust II is the most powerful Healer DoT in the game) both of which can't miss if you don't gear for accuracy. If you do build some accuracy, you can put all your DoTs out in a single Cleric Stance lock out.

Noct Aspected Ben ~> Cleric Stance on~> Combust II ~> Combust ~> Aero ~> Cleric Stance Weave off ~> Noct Aspected Ben

You can increase DPS without risking a cleric stance lockout with cards. ASTs have the power to sustain the most DPS heavy healer in the game, WHM, into the off heal role. One ewer is a balance.

Just a few things I think about. I always love to see a good AST heal. Too bad we can't share a mind bonus just yet, as sch and ast. :c

[Ragology]

Do WHM and AST regens stack?

[Rawrz]

Do WHM and AST regens stack?

Yes. Ast + ast regens do not, but WHM + WHM do as well.