Quote Originally Posted by RichardButte View Post
I did that months ago, but please, don't go marinating your foot in BBQ sauce because you're still not WRONG at all...

The "new AST meta" would've revolved around a simple principle: the job of a healer is to keep the party alive until the end of the encounter. WHMs and SCHs do this by healing or shielding incoming damage.

AST, hypothetically, could've done this by bringing about the end of the encounter more quickly. Weaker healing and fewer emergency buttons are fine as tradeoffs if the AST is genuinely capable of increasing the party's DPS to the point that phases end more quickly, and everyone would take less damage because the boss/adds aren't alive long enough to DO that damage.

This is rather what I imagined for AST, too. Who knows what the upcoming changes will bring, though. If the patch delivers what it sounds like it might based on what Yoshi was talking about, with more impactful card buffs and some improvements to AST's healing game, AST might more effectively fill the "support caster" niche while closing the healing utility gap with WHM and SCH just enough to allow them to hold their own.

Even if it takes more skill and more effort, that would be an acceptable tradeoff and a welcome challenge if the reward were there.