3.4 Healer Rebalancing Thread

[_slowpoke_]

A8S is more viable with WHM/AST than before

Yes, because of overgear, mostly, we're in the catch-up patch after all. There is exactly one N.AST on FFLogs who cleared A8s before 3.3, and exactly one more who actually cleared it on N.AST first. All other of the grand total of 6 N.ASTs on FFLogs (last time I checked) who killed A8s did it on other jobs (mostly SCH) first, and did one or two kills on N.AST for funnsies. The numbers speak for themselves: N.AST is still not really viable for progression endgame raiding, and probably never will be, because the entire aspect of the job has no direction, no internal synergy, horrible DPS potential, and neither the utility of a SCH nor the consistency of a WHM.

[Teraluna]

Yes, because of overgear, mostly, we're in the catch-up patch after all. There is exactly one N.AST on FFLogs who cleared A8s before 3.3, and exactly one more who actually cleared it on N.AST first. All other of the grand total of 6 N.ASTs on FFLogs (last time I checked) who killed A8s did it on other jobs (mostly SCH) first, and did one or two kills on N.AST for funnsies. The numbers speak for themselves: N.AST is still not really viable for progression endgame raiding, and probably never will be, because the entire aspect of the job has no direction, no internal synergy, horrible DPS potential, and neither the utility of a SCH nor the consistency of a WHM.

I tend to agree with the latter part of this.
Having mained healers, I'm left underwhelmed by the Astro.

For me it needs more exclusivity, more stand out abilities that would give the class that bit of envy from whm and sch.
Envy? - yes. Skills that you'd look at and think, wow I wish my other healing classes had that.
But there aren't any really. The whm and scholar have been handling content quite nicely thank you with their current abilities list.
So much so that SE decided merely to lift several of these abilities directly across, then add some minor extras and padded out slot fillers.

If I have been playing a whm for ages why would I switch to Astro? For the differences? There aren't enough to detatch it from feeling like I'm still playing the whm but with less overall utility.

I wish SE would spend some time on reworking the Astro to give it real differentiation, even to the point of making the N.Ast totally different rather than just a slightly altered version.