What really was preferred is player skill. Ultros server first Gordias Savage clear was AST/SCH. The low amount of AST clears in Gordias Savage was because of early poor reception, and then you have the Eso job-only gear purchases so after the changes it wasn't an overnight change to just gear up unless you were already raiding in Savage to get cross-job gear. You can go back in this forum a year ago and see folks like myself and Staris, those whom raided Gordias on our server argue how good AST was in-places. It did still have some nagging downsides.


AST was really good in A3S. Synastry for solo healing hand of prayer/parting. Lightspeed is arguably the best healer cooldown for the x6 splashes, and disable is up for every cascade. The only real downside was to have some coordination for the hand of pain healer aggro. With the strict DPS checks we always had our main tank going Grit-less as much as possible. Even just having the SCH put up a few Succors to even the healing load manages it better. I always felt AST had unnecessary high aggro generation even with proper Aether use before, thankfully they finally addressed this.

In A4S With not killing straf dolls whirbelwind strategy (where everyone loses their MP). Having Assize was just an easier way of dealing with it. Every tier will have a healer that might have more luxury with it's skills than others. It's like the "But Cure III" argument in A6S/A8S. You don't need Cure III, and can Helios the damage. It isn't any harder, just a different way of doing things.