Quote Originally Posted by Wayfinder3 View Post
White Mages Healing Kit is stronger than Astrologians, Astrologians Kit design primarily around using your ogcds to reward you go healer with free gcds to do damage and it really is the most supportive healer this game has. It’s GCD is the fastest but holds the lowest value meaning it’s weaker than WHM and SCHs glare and broil 3 but makes up for it by every GCD giving space for a ogcd heal. The problem comes with high healing phases and recovery where AST can’t really keep up alone as opposed to WHM that can easily solo heal a party through raid damage provided there is at least some mitigation. Cure 3 is something to take not of as it is powerful and can be casted immediately as opposed to Earthly star which is AST direct counterpart that requires planning and isn’t repeatable. AST best GCH healing tool is neutral sect but that doesn’t compare to WHM having free AOE heals in the afflatus rapture or the ability to shadow all their heals with planers indulgence. And to top all this off, Lightspeed while great for cycling through cards, is a worse Thin air in the context of actual healing. Thus why AST May have a very flexible kit, it’s much more limited in situations where you need to be direct and this is one of the reasons WHM has always been valuable for progression. Since it doesn’t need to any planning for the most part
Can't say I agree with this honestly. I have no problem with high healing phases on my AST. Proper Earthly Star usage, Horoscope usage, and Neutral Sect see to that. I've never had an issue keeping up, mostly because Neutral Sect is so powerful. It provides absorption and a powerful regen to boot, and can be reapplied if need be. Plenary Indulgence is strong, but you would need to spend 2 or so Medicas or Afflatus Raptures to match a Horoscoped Helios 1 or 2 in the same situation. Speaking of, Afflatus Abilities also cost the WHM more to cast then AST's heals cost them due to weaving. Lightspeed may not give you as much bang for your buck mana wise, but it's the skill you would use for those situations where you need direct fast healing. Also it lets the AST heal on the move, something WHM can't do during mechanics without being risky, blowing Swiftcast or using all of their lilies to do. Hell I've had do this in E1S a few times with Neutral Sect, and the healing output is insane. Aside from Cure 3, the potencies of both healers are fairly close, but AST's flexibility as you put it allows it to adapt to situations better then WHM does in my opinion, since they can heal and DPS fluidly while WHM, whose major party contribution is their DPS, cannot do this very well without spending more resources. This isn't to say WHM's healing kit is bad, but I don't think it's stronger then AST's by any means.