Having played the expansion.....

[NanaWiloh]

Overall, Astrologian is in fact in a pretty bad spot right now--hell, I'm not looking forward to leveling it--but I ultimately know that it's really nowhere near the end of the world for them. Just what happens when you go from being the most broken raid asset in the game to being slightly closer to balanced. Yes, they could use more adjustments (some of which were brought up at press events), but all you can really do is just adapt or switch to something else.

I have mained Ast since the start of stormblood they are far worse off then you think. Weak potencies and long cool downs on our OGCD's forcing us to GCD heavily, which is a nightmare on large pulls cause you are pretty much going to blow most of your OGCD's keeping the tank alive through it unless the dps is borderline god level. If you dont use Neutral sect on large pulls you will find Benefic II to be as about as useful as slapping a band aid on someone whos guts are falling out. I am not even going to mention the Mana issues, lucid dreaming barely helps if at all..

[SturmChurro]

I have been leveling AST after never really playing it before (only whm as heals seriously). I think it is actually pretty good, and very useful to have for damage utility. However, I think there are too many cards for what little they do. Either melee or ranged dps % increase, pretty substantial, but a bit of bloat. I find that I don't even care what card I draw, I partially care what color of aspect the card I draw is, and once I have all 3 aspects, and even sometimes when I don't, I'll just turn it into a lord or lady. The healing is actually more fun than I thought it would be. I will hold off on endgame thoughts until I get it to 80.

I have mained Ast since the start of stormblood they are far worse off then you think. Weak potencies and long cool downs on our OGCD's forcing us to GCD heavily, which is a nightmare on large pulls cause you are pretty much going to blow most of your OGCD's keeping the tank alive through it unless the dps is borderline god level. If you dont use Neutral sect on large pulls you will find Benefic II to be as about as useful as slapping a band aid on someone whos guts are falling out. I am not even going to mention the Mana issues, lucid dreaming barely helps if at all..

On large pulls where I may have trouble, or when I face tank I personally combine a use of swiftcast if I have to, and the extremely powerful lightspeed. Generally I use lucid dreaming at the very start of some pulls, or some damage, or just in general I use it when on cd, as in I use it when I have barely used like 5-10% of my MP, while I am still casting. Still, I will hold off true judgement until I have done actual endgame healing with it.

[ErryK]

This expansion is amazing...if you aren't a healer. I feel bad for healers.

Why? I'm enjoying healing this expansion, even AST. Although I do think AST needs MP adjustments and potency buffs, in addition to Divination CD reduced.

As for WHM, Aero 3 being removed was unnecessary, but Holy being nerfed but letting me do the same damage on all mobs? I'll take it, as for Lilies, no thanks, the old system was garbage. Much prefer the current one.

[Qeilos]

Would also be nice if Protect came back.

I had to argue with so many people over this, bosses get tuned with things like this in mind. If every healer has it a bosses damage will be increased to compensate since you can assume it will ALWAYS be there it completely nullifies its own existence.

[Granyala]

The issues I have as far as White Mage are.

1) The loss of Aero III.
2) Holy damage nerfed.
Would also be nice if Protect came back.

1) The loss of damage options in general is pretty lame because the epicly failed on the "make healers heal moar" front. I still spend way too much time in a fight massaging the glare button, trying to not fall asleep.
2) I'm ok with that since they reduced the mana cost and we can spam it indefinitely now.

Never gave a hoot about protect. Glad to see it gone, one less GCD I have to waste on people that die.

[Nedkel]

It's funny their excuse for not coming out with new healer was " balancing the healing classes" and that was a fail. They used that excuse in stormblood and now in shadowbringers. Four years to balance healers and it still didn't happen. For some reason they need 6 years to balance the healers, before we get another healing class. It would've been better for everyone if they left the healing classes as they were and just buffed the white mage a bit.

Dancer should have been healer.
I was hoping for a healer and tank, no idea why they have not do that.

[Keddera_StormMoon]

I got SCH and WHM to 80 and have no complaints

I have AST 2 mil away from hitting 80 and I'm not impressed.

AST is in a really really bad place in terms of healing power right now. The cards I don't mind so much as most AST's were drawing for balance anyway. But the healing power just isn't there. It's rare I can get damage of my own off during a big pull without getting Lightspeed involved.

[Zyneste]

Holies damage has been buffed on 5 or more targets and is the same at 4. With much less MP cost...

[DonovanLifeweaver]

Stoneskin was different. It negated damage. Protect in Final Fantasy games doesn't negate damage, it reduces it.

stoneskin offered a temporary 10% negation for your max hp
protect is 20%, idr correctly, increase in magic defence and physical defence for 30 minutes......
if you take all the dmg you can take in 30 minutes and compare it to 10% max hp absorb./... im pretty sure protect > stoneskin in terms of mitigation

[AngelCheese77]

Protect really wasn't that useful. Wasn't it like, minimal % protection?

Lilies aren't that bad to get, just keep fighting and healing. I've gotten them quick enough to then throw out a Blood Lily.

As for Aero III, eh .. my Dia and Glare can do some serious damage so I don't notice much change.

What really hurts is when I'm in a dungeon that is synched at ~50. Like, over half my heals poof away ><