Why so much complain on AST?

[lucioe]

I returned after a year, and from scholar, switched to AST.

I read the forum just to get a feeling on what is going on on healers role (always been a healer, scholar, and decided to switch to AST to have a new experience)

I tried both (still have the SCH at 62), and while I was surprised now fairy are the same (it took me a while to notice that), I was also surprised on how AST has changed. Now is more "easier" and just give a dps buff, but all in all, you have always something to do with this class, and is versatile (diurnal / nocturnal )

Healing is not that bad, I could say is even better then my scholar, the only "lack" is the fast lustrate (3 charges) that AST doesn't have.

Can't compare to WHM, never played one, but If I have to choose between AST and SCH, AST win.

So why lot of ppl are complaining? (still need to ding 80, so I have no clue on late game)

For a endgame play, should I prefer AST or scholar?

[YusiKha]

People aren't complaining about any of the healers' healing output, but moreso how boring all of the changes in Shadowbringers have been.

Every skill added outside of Afflatus Misery has only made healing easier and downtime longer, the only healing skills in the game that require any forethought (Afflatus Solace/Rapture and Earthly Star) are a drop in the bucket of the +???HP tedium, and is way too little too late.
All this while our damaging kits have been reduced and dumbed down to the benefit of absolutely nobody (optimisers are more bored, anti-dps ignore as before, newbies aren't taught that they're supposed to dps).

The only healer which needs to think about their damage contribution is AST, but that requires learning every other classes' burst phases and being able to identify them at a glance, as well as getting the melee/ranged card on them. You'd better not be using 3rd party tools to track their cooldowns as that's breaking the game's ToS.

The healer specific stat is basically Accuracy, in that you require a specific amount for each fight (depending on the amount of healing GCDs required - always lower than you think) and it rewards nothing on top of that, compared to DHit and TEN which contribute damage.
Tank Stances being 'reworked' has removed the punishment for overhealing, further promoting bad practices in newbies.

I may have gotten off track a little bit...
People are complaining because we're bored. We want our class fantasy back (The Strong, The Strategic, and The Stargazer), and we want to contribute more than just 'spam nuke lmao'.
I'd recommend AST, personally, as it has more things to master than SCH.

[Rilifane]

All healers are a bit too fine when it comes to healing because they're even more overpowered compared to incoming damage than ever but at the same they have also less to do during downtime than before.
People aren't complaining about the lack of healing but about the lack of things to do during downtime. You have one 30sec dot and one nuke. That's it. You have your dps kit at level 4. Knowing that from level 4 onward your gameplay will not change one bit during downtime is pretty sobering.
It was likely done to achieve better balance and get more people to play healer but in the end it had the opposite effect for the latter: many veterans quit healing and only very few new players joined the ranks.

Compared to before, when you had to watch aggro, watch and carefully manage your mp, fight harder for your downtime and had more things to do during downtime it feels unrewarding to improve your gameplay. Overhealing was punished (double because of aggro and MP), chosing the wrong time to dps was punished (cleric stance lock anyone?) and you had multiple dots with shorter and different durations to manage.
But now you are basically fighting to push the same button even more. This is escpecially demotivating in endgame where you map out a whole fight as best as you can with your co healer only to get a couple more Glare/ Broil/ Malefic casts out. Improving your gameplay just leads to less engagement and more boredom when it should be the opposite.

[Elladie]

I believe the people who are complaining are healers in the top tier of gameplay. For the rest of us - by which I mean healers who play to have fun, enjoy the game, run dungeons with friends (I am not suggesting that top tier healers don't do those things as well btw) but are on a lower rung skillwise - healing is still engaging. I ran Gubal Library on my lvl 79 AST last night, it was a struggle to keep the tank up through the big pulls (she died twice) and even more of a struggle to get cards on people. Also ran a Ravana trial, my co-healer fell off half way through, solo healed the rest. Weeping City raid, alliance almost wiped on Forgal. This was all the the space of a couple of hours last night. So the concept of downtime for your average healer is not the same as it is for the bunch of top tier healers who complain on the forums. Which is pretty much why SE made the changes they did, I guess.
I hated AST pre ShB, now I quite enjoy it. Should have all three healers at 80 by tonight. I don't do any content that would be considered 'demanding' (I play to relax and have fun, not be stressed by some random who thinks I suck because I don't have any FFlogs or I don't immediately know fight mechanics off by heart on the day it gets released) and I quite often only run dungeons with Trusts these days unless friends are online. But I'm very happy with the state of healers currently

[lucioe]

I just read in the forum AST is not good as scholar or WHM, is this true (I care only about healing output in general, not dps)

[YusiKha]

I just read in the forum AST is not good as scholar or WHM, is this true (I care only about healing output in general, not dps)

For healing output:
Diurnal AST > WHM = SCH > Nocturnal AST

WHM has better emergency tools (Cure 3, nigh-infinite MP), but AST's healing skills are stronger.

[Truen]

I just read in the forum AST is not good as scholar or WHM, is this true (I care only about healing output in general, not dps)

Yes. It's a watered down, inferior version of the system they changed it from. Though, that can be said for all healing jobs right how. Their dps rotations are dreadfully dull, uninspired, and overly homogenized. Of the 3, the AST is in the worst shape followed by the once great SCH. WHM isn't as bad as the others, but it's pretty darn boring too.

[Jirah]

The game has been suspiciously getting easier to the point of giving Gamefreak’s Pokemon a run for its money. Easy difficulty is conveniently easier to devolve for. Tanks no longer worry about Aggro, DPS/Healer no longer need To worry about stealing eminity under regular circumstances. I’m getting way off topic AST main draw were cards but turning every card into balance undermines the lore and the jobs main appeal, though I still enjoy AST I still miss the era of Royal Road and Cards being unique

[Gemina]

The game has been suspiciously getting easier to the point of giving Gamefreak’s Pokemon a run for its money. Easy difficulty is conveniently easier to devolve for. Tanks no longer worry about Aggro, DPS/Healer no longer need To worry about stealing eminity under regular circumstances.

Facilitating the function of a job's primary role makes the job easier to play; this doesn't necessarily translate to the game being easier. There's a big distinction there.

In order for the game (encounters) to be easier, things like DPS checks have to become more lenient, hard enrages removed, longer cast times for boss abilities, more telegraphs, less out going damage, etc. In this regard, the game hasn't got any easier at all. In fact, just the opposite as the devs are stacking more and more mechanics in normal mode encounters because the playerbase is consistently getting better at handling them. Which you can add to the reasons on how a game gets easier over time. But I digress.

As to the topic, AST is just fine as simply a healer, but this is easily accomplished with the game's healing requirements. It suffers a bit with MP regeneration and still lacks a solid skill to restore MP quickly, but other than that the majority of the complaints all gravitate towards its card mechanic. Which is a mess. Has always been a mess. And will continue to be a mess because a mechanic that heavily utilizes RNG isn't going to work. Even after stripping most those layers away with ShB, the little RNG that is left is still creating a lot of grief with this job. Not necessarily because the RNG makes getting a desired (seal) difficult, but because the RNG aspect of this mechanic has forced all of its cards into a single buff.

This job has an incredibly high APM, and a incredulously low feeling of reward even if doing it all optimally. They are what I call the catapult loaders. They do the brunt of the work, but the person launching the catapult gets to have all the fun. I hope that makes sense.

[MPNZ]

Facilitating the function of a job's primary role makes the job easier to play; this doesn't necessarily translate to the game being easier. There's a big distinction there.

In order for the game (encounters) to be easier, things like DPS checks have to become more lenient, hard enrages removed, longer cast times for boss abilities, more telegraphs, less out going damage, etc. In this regard, the game hasn't got any easier at all. In fact, just the opposite as the devs are stacking more and more mechanics in normal mode encounters because the playerbase is consistently getting better at handling them. Which you can add to the reasons on how a game gets easier over time. But I digress.

As to the topic, AST is just fine as simply a healer, but this is easily accomplished with the game's healing requirements. It suffers a bit with MP regeneration and still lacks a solid skill to restore MP quickly, but other than that the majority of the complaints all gravitate towards its card mechanic. Which is a mess. Has always been a mess. And will continue to be a mess because a mechanic that heavily utilizes RNG isn't going to work. Even after stripping most those layers away with ShB, the little RNG that is left is still creating a lot of grief with this job. Not necessarily because the RNG makes getting a desired (seal) difficult, but because the RNG aspect of this mechanic has forced all of its cards into a single buff.

This job has an incredibly high APM, and a incredulously low feeling of reward even if doing it all optimally. They are what I call the catapult loaders. They do the brunt of the work, but the person launching the catapult gets to have all the fun. I hope that makes sense.

TBH, optimizing things in general can just strip a ton of enjoyment out of games. Especially, if it's an aspect that's like totally forced and hen-pecky