Hints at Blue Mage in the level 60 ALC quest?

[Eecka]

Well that's another issue with AST that I really don't understand the reasoning behind. AST has weaker healing output as some form of compensation for their ability to fulfill both the WHM and SCH role... but they can only ever fill one at a time so there is no reason for them to be given weaker heals in the first place. When in the healing stance they should heal as well as a WHM, and as well as a SCH when in the shield stance.

Because that would flat out make AST better than WHM or SCH. Not better in the sense that in a single individual encounter they'll do better, but in the sense that they can then cherrypick whichever type of healing suits the encounter they're at, while SCH is then locked into just 50% of what AST can do. If I ran a hardcore static, in that situation I would always prefer an AST over anything else. Why take a SCH, if AST gives same party buff, has 100% equal "preventative healing" and can switch to "health healing" if the encounter calls for it?

[Eecka]

Here's another way to look at it: if player A has i190 MNK and player B has i190 MNK and i190 SMN, wouldn't you say that B has it better, when they can choose MNK if they just want good single target damage and dragon kick, or go SMN in a fight that's not very melee friendly or has lots of AoE to do?
If this versatility is built into one class but not another, it's hard to balance.

[Alberel]

Because that would flat out make AST better than WHM or SCH. Not better in the sense that in a single individual encounter they'll do better, but in the sense that they can then cherrypick whichever type of healing suits the encounter they're at, while SCH is then locked into just 50% of what AST can do. If I ran a hardcore static, in that situation I would always prefer an AST over anything else. Why take a SCH, if AST gives same party buff, has 100% equal "preventative healing" and can switch to "health healing" if the encounter calls for it?

Well right now statics will always prefer something else over an AST because they offer nothing the other healers don't already do better.

I never said AST should be able to do everything WHM and SCH can do. I just said their healing output should be equivalent in the correct stance. As it is now ASTs are simply weak healers because a SCH or WHM has a higher output no matter what. As long as they output weaker heals/shields than a WHM or SCH they will always be unpopular.

If AST could match the actual output of WHM and SCH then you would see parties choosing healers based on their utilities, emergency cooldowns, etc. The AST wouldn't be likely to cherrypick their stance per encounter either since generally they would use the stance that replaces whichever other healer is missing.

Your example using DPS jobs is not a good comparison because within that example the current AST is player B in i100 gear, at which point player A will do more damage in any fight regardless.

[Eecka]

How good/bad current ast is is irrelevant to my point. And yes, I know that ATM sch/whm is the go-to and ast is excluded, but the way you make it sound is that it's fine to overbuff AST and make another healer underused. The goal is balance.

I am merely stating the balancing dilemmas of a job that can do multiple roles vs a job that can do one. Your counter-argument to my DPS comparison is bad, because I never said that's how AST is now, I said that's how they will be they can 100% fulfill WHM and SCH duties.

Again answer this: if AST can do SCHing as good as a SCH, but has the added flexibility, why bring a SCH?

[Aeliott]

Again answer this: if AST can do SCHing as good as a SCH, but has the added flexibility, why bring a SCH?

But they won't. If they have the same potency and shield power they still lack everything else a SCH has. They don't have virus or eye for an eye, they have to become actionless if they want to sacred soil, they don't have a pet, they can only "lustrate" once every 40 seconds, they can't buff their own healing output, they can't dps anywhere near as safely as a SCH can (or as much, their dps is pathetic compared to the other 2), they don't have the safe MP management of a SCH, they don't have as many free heals, they don't have shield crits. And you could say the same for WHM. The penalty for being able to dip into both other healers is pointless when they're locked into that role anyway and don't have the stuff that makes them what they are. WHM isn't just regens, and SCH isn't just shields. So the weaker potencies aren't justified. Buffing their heals (within reasonable levels ofc) doesn't make them outclass WHM/SCH.

They don't HAVE flexibility at all without changing stances mid-fight, like Alberel said, it's pointless when they're locked into a Sect anyway.

[Eecka]

*snip*

If they have 100% equal healing to SCH, then they have 100% equal healing to SCH. How, and through which CDs they achieve it is different, but the result is same. Mentioning for example Lustrate is pointless, because that same healing potency would be somewhere else in the AST kit to ensure the same outcome.

So you don't consider out of combat role swapping to be a perk of any value? Being able to adapt to a fight or any group composition is exactly 0 weight in the balance budget? Does it at any point stop being so? If you could, out of combat, assume a stance, that outputs the dps of a real dps class, or a stance that lets you tank as effectively as the tanks, all with the same gearset, would that have to be taken into account for balance?