I wish AST never had a DPS buff

[Seraphor]

No don't worry. As much as I love and loved AST, I always felt the same.
Or I would say, I would have prefer AST to stand on its own with its unique gameplay and not all this regen/shielder mess + copy paste of WHM based toolkit.

I'd say the problem was having a Regen/Shield dichotomy to begin with, as it prohibited the existence of other unique healers.