What does everyone think about those AST buffs?

[FaizeD]

Once a farm healer, always a farm healer. Where are the off-gcd heals? And why the nerf to A. Helios in Diurnal?

[Luvbunny]

These buffs are very good indeed. Now the job function as it is originally intended, a healer who can provide consistent buffs to the party, pretty much nonstop, or every 30 seconds for AOE buffs. Now we can heal just as good as the other healers. Our mana recovery is the worst out of the three, but the card is suppose to help if you get lucky. Our DPS is decent. We officially now have three healers with distinct tools and play style. Bard + Astro + Scholar is now a quite potent force to be reckon with, as well as Mach + Astro + Sch, 4 DPS + 2 Astro.

Basically you bring Ast + Ast, or Ast + Sch for more attack power, depending on your choice for the buffer job, Bard or Machinist. White Mage is your defacto "safety net" for the healer if you want to thread carefully, which means you do need your buffer job with White Mage in tow. But Ast + combo (sch, ast, bard, mach, or another dps) can provide interesting strategy that is more offensive in nature.

[Velox]

Bard + Astro + Scholar is now a quite potent force to be reckon with, as well as Mach + Astro + Sch, 4 DPS + 2 Astro.

The combo with SCH and BRD is going to be amazing. If anything, these buffs will be the final nail the WHM's coffin since AST now has roughly equal-healing strength as WHM plus retains party utility which WHM has absolutely none.

[AlphaSonic]

I'm happy for the buffs, that's it. I was expecting Collective Unconscious restore MP while channeling, but well, I can't complain.

[Tashim]

the mana regen problems stem from a lack of scaling with max MP. refresh and ewer wont give you more mana back if you stack piety, but assize and aetherflow do. As such, I expect mp problems to get worse as new content / more gear becomes available.

However, AST does have exceptional healing-per-mana ratios. We'll just need to learn to make good use of that efficiency.

[RazeLandale]

Basic heal potency buffs

Generic, but nice.

Aspected diurnal changes

Helios actually seems like a bad trade. Benefic is nice since it was so heavily nerfed version of regen. Most spells are, or were, just a bit weaker than their whm counterparts, but a.benefic was considerably weaker.

Aspected noct changes

Does nothing to fix the fundamental problem with noct. Baseline spells benefic II and helios are better, as a general rule. And exceptions to the rule don't warrant giving up regens.

Synastry

Sweet.

2 min Celestial opposition

Well...it lines up with LA. I don't know that mps as much a issue anymore, and really, it should be more than a enhanced LA trait. It remains, the worse timestop spell.

Collective unconcious

Better for a raid. Probably worse for free healing in a dungeon post gravity spam. Buffed a.benefic probably makes up for that though.

Card buffs

Really nice. I get why spire and ewer weren't touched, but where's the spear? 30s spear might actually be useful, it'd be a lot less of a 'maybe it'll do something' crapshoot, because at 30s you'll probably pop SOMETHING. But for arrow/balance/bole that's pretty huge.

[OmegaFlare]

OMG this is so insane. Synastry and lightspeed will give AST virtually no problem at all healing thru double preys in AS1. Solo healing 2 tanks in A3S? No problem. Essential Dignity (instant cast with 0 MP) is even better than tetragrammaton imo because it has only 40-sec cd.

The biggest benefit of AST is the 30-sec balance card which is vital in dps checks like during double hand in A3S. Combust II is better Aero III with 45 potency for 30 seconds. I think AST will put WHM out of work. They might have gone overboard with the buffs but we shall see. One thing is for certain, I will be leveling my AST as soon as I log in next time. Time to ditch the whm

[Luvbunny]

One thing is for certain, I will be leveling my AST as soon as I log in next time. Time to ditch the whm

I would not count WHM out just yet, since as of now, there is no healer that can rival the power of healing from WHM. If anything, WHM is your tried and true, safe bet, and by far, the best healer in the game. AST at least now can compete with SCH since with the card tweak, AST buffs is far superior overall and you can almost keep the buffs forever.

WHM is the defacto healer, you always want one if you need a solid healing output. AST is now at least on par, and bring the buffs (granted, still random) to the party, and it can be sustained forever, at least one party member will always get buffs, or everyone could get buffs every 30 seconds (which can be extended). AST is still the third in position when you rank healers in this game, but at least now we are way way better than before patch 3.07.

[OmegaFlare]

I would not count WHM out just yet, since as of now, there is no healer that can rival the power of healing from WHM. If anything, WHM is your tried and true, safe bet, and by far, the best healer in the game. AST at least now can compete with SCH since with the card tweak, AST buffs is far superior overall and you can almost keep the buffs forever.

WHM is the defacto healer, you always want one if you need a solid healing output. AST is now at least on par, and bring the buffs (granted, still random) to the party, and it can be sustained forever, at least one party member will always get buffs, or everyone could get buffs every 30 seconds (which can be extended). AST is still the third in position when you rank healers in this game, but at least now we are way way better than before patch 3.07.

We'll see though but in this age where dps is so needed to clear new contents, the balance card might make a difference between and a clear and a 1% wipe. Healing wise I do think AST is very close to WHM because of the potency buff. I'm trying to think what the whm could bring to the table that AST couldn't. Maybe free cure 2 or benediction? but then free cure 2 is just mana management and the AST has the ewer card for that.

[technole]

We'll see though but in this age where dps is so needed to clear new contents, the balance card might make a difference between and a clear and a 1% wipe. Healing wise I do think AST is very close to WHM because of the potency buff. I'm trying to think what the whm could bring to the table that AST couldn't. Maybe free cure 2 or benediction? but then free cure 2 is just mana management and the AST has the ewer card for that.

Well it should go without saying WHM still has MND party bonus which of course benefits both healers, and it's pretty obvious where SE stands on this with the changes they gave AST in potencies in both stances. WHM oGCD heals, procs, reliable MP management, and higher potency regen tics are still their niche.

AST changes are good in-which its a fair tradeoff for card RNG, and when it falls in your favor, it can be rewarding. Buff and lower cooldown on bread-and-butter skills like Synastry is totally where it needed to go.