Thoughts from a 60 AST & 60 WHM

[Adventica6]

I'm currently lvling my low lvl whm and yeh, I never have mp issues, dont have to waste gcds for card gimmicks, just staight, pure healing, the way it should be. Ast honestly kinda sucks because of the terrible mp regen..I feel bad when I say that because I know some of you like the class, maybe it will get changes.

Whm allows other healers to off dps and just lightens the load on others greatly, without a whm I guarantee your group will struggle in almost any scenario, they are just that good.

From playing all the new jobs, lots of hours on each, they all feel sub par compared to the base classes (war/pld way better than drk, brd better than mch, etc)

These are just my observations, others may believe different, but I know what I see.

[Royin]

Just an idea, but an interesting change to Lightspeed could be that instead of lowering potency, it decreases both cast time and the GCD (minimum 1 second GCD or 0.5 seconds?), but silences or "aether blocks" you from being able to cast any spells (Essential Dignity is omitted from this) for five seconds. So it's similar to Berserk; however, it can be cleansed by another healer OR be removed when you activate Luminous Aether.

Therefore the drawback from the current Lightspeed is removed, but a new drawback no healing for 5 seconds (or 3?) and faster stacking enmity!

I like this idea, it would certainly solve the lack of burst healing.

[Deheuty]

This might be an unpopular opinion but I think AST's heals should remain as they are, nor should they get a buff to emergency situations. To me, AST is much more of a support class than BRD or MCH and I think they should focus on that.

This is reasonable only if the instance or raid can be solo healed. Unlike DD/DPS, there are only two tanks and two healers. You cannot assign one to be a utility class if the boss mechanics require both to do their main classes well. For example, if a boss mechanic requires tank swapping - having the DRK be a 'utility' tank is nonsensical. Likewise for healers.

[Deheuty]

I like this idea, it would certainly solve the lack of burst healing.

To me, the main problem with AST is not with burst healing but with healing spells that have poorer potency than WHM or SCH. This indirectly affects mana-efficiency. The cards are interesting but they add very minor benefit to the whole static given its unpredictable nature and minor magnitude/duration of the buffs. So it all boils down to healing potency/mana of the AST.

[Selli]

Another problem I noticed with AST is level 50 content. They have no way to help mitigate incoming damage on the tank and party.

WHM
-Holy; AoE stun, can be used about 3 times before mobs are stun resistant.
-Medica II and Regen; if needed they can double HoT a tank during a big pull. In i130 BiS + Zeta that's at least 500 HP/pt.

SCH
-Fairy heals while you DPS, kind of like Regen/Cure I spam
-Sacred Soil mitigates incoming damage
-Shadow Flare slows mobs, this reduces the amount of damage they are doing to the tank
-Aldo, you crit this and it doubles, meaning you can focus on something else for a few seconds.

AST
-Possible chance of Drawing a Bole card.
-Double HoT like WHM, only weaker.

It's pretty noticeable. :\ It doesn't help that you don't get your AoE mitigation (one being similar to Holy and the other being like a Sacred Soil/Asylum that you can't move for) until level 58 and 60 when you're already done the leveling process. Meaning, up until the Vault and Neverreap/FC, you're basically Bene II spamming and praying for a tank who pops CDs.

[Risvertasashi]

Just to follow up on my original post... Cleared floor 4 of Alex yesterday with an AST partner. It wasn't too bad, actually; I only really ran into MP issues when I had >1 res going out, and the AST was clever enough to let HoTs (both my own and his) heal as much as possible.

...That said, on every floor, I'm kind of imagining all those mechanics will do a lot more damage in savage. It's going to be rough.

(And on a random tangent, got 2 pieces of alex gear and some tokens to save up for the more expensive pieces ：D)

[Vill_Castiglioni]

AST really isn’t as inferior or as bad as everyone is making it out to be. Shuffle could be more reliable, sects changeable during battle, and the unfortunate boredom during synced content where I cant use Gravity or Time Dilation which I like to use with the Bole + regen on the tank so I can DPS longer.

Synastry is great to use appropriately in a long fight where you know you need to heal 2 targets at the same time. Essential Dignity has a short CD and can heal crazy amounts when people are low on hp. If you know someone is or will take a lot of damage and time everything right, youc an both buff them with a card and use Time Dilation with regen(s). Celestial Opposition can extend ALL your effect timers including regens, which can also help you save mana if you let them keep ticking. Collective Unconcious is also good, use during boss downtime to top off the party, pop that- effectively healing the party and giving you time to regenerate mana without using any more.

Even Lightspeed isn’t useless, it’s amazing during movement heavy fights in making it extremely easy. Like someone else said either in this thread or another, you will gain more HoTs during a movement heavy section of a fight using it than a healer who can’t heal at all or less during all that movement.

Basically, by knowing what’s coming, being preemptive, and being ready for any situation by paying full attention, AST plays just like I would play any other healers. Those are the methods I use, and I just think people don’t know how to use the class properly. I don’t know if I’ve just been with crappy healers in 8 man content, however there have been many instances where I was the one carrying and fully capable of doing so, without fear that things would go south.

[Risvertasashi]

AST really isn’t as inferior or as bad as everyone is making it out to be.

My biggest issue under 'viability' is that, healing the same thing, it just seems to run out of MP so much faster. I'm not exactly a new healer and do everything I can to maximize efficiency.

Kinda what I meant in my OP: Buffs may well be worth that drawback. It's something raid groups have to decide for themselves.

My other criticisms don't really matter as far as gameplay/raiding goes, I just personally don't like the bolted on feel of the card system. I'd still raid on it if I didn't think I would be making things harder on my team (and still might experiment with it a few times).

But I do think some people are being a bit overreactive, kinda like with BRDs/MCHs. Someone posted a parse on reddit of the MCH doing over 900 DPS in Ravana EX, for example...

[ZodiacSoldier]

This is my opinion from my experience leveling all the healers to 50s.

AST feels a little lack luster compared to SCH and WHM.

WHM offers alot more usuable cooldowns, AOE healing and burst healing. They also provide really good AOE DPS with Aero 3, Holy and Assize (although this has a high CD), they can also cross class for Eye for an Eye.

SCH has a fairy that helps alot, and they have amazing burst healing and mitigation. Their one weakness I felt was AOE healing but even this was fixed with Indomitability and they probably provide the best single target DPS out of all the Healers.

AST on the other hand just feels meh. They have the basic heals and AOE heals + their card abilities but they don't feel as reliable as WHM or SCH. When I leveled with AST I had alot of MP management issues that I didn't notice while I level WHM or SCH. Their card abilities aren't too bad, but they lose too much versatility for a unreliable gimmick. The only cooldown they have just let them heal in movement heavy fight, but with that nerf to your magic potency, I'm not even sure if it is worth using. Hopefully it will change once I hit 60.


And the worst is when people try to speed run with them, they dont have enough oh $h!t buttons, they just have Essential Dignity on a 40 sec cooldown. WHM can pop Divine Seal, Benediction, Presense of Mind, Eye for an Eye and they get so many free Cure II procs that mana is not an issue. SCH can pop Sacred Soil, Lustrate Spam, Rouse, and Eye for an Eye and your fairy helps alot, and your aetherflow more or less gives you unlimited mana. When I'm on AST on the other hand I'm just spamming Benefic II just to keep tank alive and use Essential Dignity whenever its up while barely keeping tank about 25% health, might be better once I get Time Dilation and Collective Unconscious, but then again this might be due to the fact that all the Tanks I ran into on AST were DRKs and most of them were undergeared / refused to use Grit or both...



What they should do is make it so that the cards are not random, but actual abilities, but make the potency of the cards random. This of course will change some of the other current abilities, draw of course will be removed.

Royal Road - Same effect but you will activate Royal Road then another one of your other cards to gain the special Effect, instead of using it with Draw.

Spread - Allows you to use a second card effect for the next activity card ability. (IE you use Balance on a DPS, then activate Spread and use Spire on the same DPS)

Shuffle - Lets you "reroll" the potency of the card you drew.

[Menardy]

Part 1:

I've leveled my WHM first and then my AST to 60 and I healed through all possible content with both of them (including Ravana EX and Alexander T1-4).
The only real noticable difference between both of them is the healing potency. My WHM can carry everything easily while on AST i really had trouble sometimes (mostly in dungeons...i could hardly keep the tank alive with AST, that was horrible)

The card system is nearly fine as it is now, but the effects need to be buffed a bit (maybe 10% -> 20%, 20% -> 40%) and if you remove/reduce the cd on shuffle it gets more reliable, because you can shuffle (more) till you got your desired card.
(The ewer card gets the scholar in my raid btw, b/c she always runs out of mana o_o, even if I'm on WHM)

(1000 Characters)