Quote Originally Posted by Liam_Harper View Post
Actually, AST takes the crown in all categories. I'm not sure where the idea that WHM is the "heal powerhouse" or SCH is the "shield king" comes from when AST has free oGCD's, the strongest aoe heal in the game with Star, COpp and CU which are half the cd of Seraph, a far superior Plenary and Tetra and it loses the least potency for GCD heals. Not to mention its higher rDps and full mobility. This is why top raid comps are nearly always AST + Other.

Healer balance is fairly terrible right now. They gave AST everything.
true-ish.

Everything you say about AST's capabilities is right on. Because WHM is still the most popular and populous healer, AST is just flat out better/"OP" to at least get people to play it. Combined with the expac's SCH nerfs means SCH is no longer the "mandatory" healer for high end comps, and it's now AST instead.

However, in that "other" slot, SCH and WHM are pretty decently competitive with each other. The end result is a meta where any healer can be played and most people aren't feeling the pressure to switch that characterized Heavensward and Stormblood.

So, in that sense, the balance is not so bad. It does mean Scholar can't have the buffs its aficionados periodically ask for on these forums, however. And still, having one healer clearly be on top obviously isn't ideal.

~

But it looks like this is finally being fixed. But just as many SCH mains were very upset with ShB, there's going to be no small amount of hurt feelings/salt/etc with AST now. Still, with any luck things will be much improved from 6.0 onward.