Quote Originally Posted by ForteNightshade View Post
No offense, but Baelsar's Wall was nerfed into the ground ages ago. Not to mention, most of the 70 dungeons don't have a level sync on them, thereby making them a very poor reference point. Holminster Switch and above is where you need to put Astro through its paces.
I didn't bring up Baelsar's Wall because I feel it's relevant content, I brought it up because I carried a group through it despite adjusting to the AST changes, which were significant enough to affect how the job plays before max level.

Let's face it, if it can't get the job done @50, 60, 70; it's not going to get it done at 80 either. At the time of my post, I had not run HS with my AST yet but I've taken it through it several times now, and what I have surmised about the job has not changed. I still casted plenty Gravity outside of LS; lots of Benifect IIs, etc. Still no MP problems. There was one wipe, but silly DRK pulled wall to wall after the first boss, and didn't use Living Dead. Other than that, healing was not an issue in there.

To your credit though, even HS isn't all that good of a reference point to gauge any of the healers in ShB considering at 72 all of them just get upgrades to their DoT and filler spells; hardly a game changer. Running 70+ dungeons however, does give AST access to Sleeve Draw, which allows for better efficiency with Divination. I already have my own issues with that skill, which I pointed out in my last post.

And from what I've seen and heard, it suffers significantly worse than both White Mage and Scholar in virtually every category. A friend of mine has a near panic attack every time a DRK pops Living because without ED, Astro simply can't burst heal efficiently whatsoever.
For the sake of argument, let's just say that the AST panicked because the tank was in critical HP and it's a concern due to low healing efficiency. This I can agree with, and I also pointed out in my last post. AST lost potencies on both offensive and healing, and I think they are probably going to have to pump up the latter a little bit at some point to help out with the leveling stages. On paper, it would seem Horoscope and Neutral Sect should help with this, but those are in the upper levels.

When it comes to EX Primals, White Mage is pulling upwards of 3,000 more personal damage. The cards won't come remotely close to making up such a massive discrepancy. So... that begs the question, what is Astro even good at anymore?
That really is a huge discrepancy if that number is true. If it is true, it's going to get addressed. However, AST DPS by itself was always a snorefest. What makes made it interesting was all the weaving they get to do between Malefic/Gravity spamming. They still get to do this. Between my filler spamming, there was a consistent amount of draws, redraws, plays, and minor arcanas keeping me busy. Those three charges of redraw fill quickly, then add sleeve draw on top of it all and it feels like I'm always drawing cards. This means that those 6% buffs are consistently going out, and almost feels like upkeep than an actual buff. We're going to have see those savage numbers ran to see what exactly an optimal AST is doing to rDPS to really know.

Seriously. I'm struggling to find one thing Astro is better than White Mage or Scholar at.
Well, that was the position WHM was in from HW through all of SB. Funny thing though is that I still really enjoyed playing WHM, and the ironic thing was I could not enjoy AST despite it being a far superior healer in raids. I'm actually having more frustrations finding new glamours for my AST than how it compares with the other healers but it is early still, and my greatest concern is actually for SCH.