Hi. I don’t normally post, but as a healer I think I should throw in my two cents. I played AST to 80 and cleared both ex trials. I’ve been leveling SCH but I haven’t played WHM so I can’t say anything about WHM. I agree with a lot of the criticism of the changes to AST and SCH. Personally, I can live with most of them, but I’m not particularly enjoying them either… That’s the thing: Most people seem either angry at the changes or merely tolerant of them. While many of the new abilities are cool and fun, many of the changes feel more like annoyances than improvements.

At the moment my only suggestion is concerning low potency cooldowns, specifically Fey Blessing and Celestial Opposition. I don’t understand why they are on such cooldowns if they heal for so little. They should heal closer to Earthly Star if they are on such a cooldown. I’m considering removing them from my hotbars because such small heals aren’t worth paying attention to the cooldowns.
Celestial Opposition is worse but using Fey Blessing feels equally disappointing in a fight. The sound effects for these two abilities should be the losing horn from the Price is Right.

I don’t really understand the reasoning behind the in-combat requirement for Aetherflow. Again, it feels like an annoyance for no reason, rather than an improvement.

The new card system seems somewhat disappointing. Sure, it seemed like everything was aoe balance before but there were times when we did other things. Using Ewer and Bole from time to time felt like you were doing something to adapt to different situations. It felt more interesting. Personally, I think AST is a healer job, their cards should be part of their healing…
It seems to me, the main reason I prefer AST is the ability to switch stances depending on the presence of another healer. Healing with AST is still fun but the cards at this point feel more like an annoying chore… especially when I feel forced to play 7+ ogcds in 10 seconds when sleeve draw is up…