Astro or White Mage ?

[Vlady]

Haha yeah the HP one for sure!! I mean I don't need the recognition or anything like that, but I find AST would probably be way more powerful if people actually knew and realized like their damage was up 10%, so pop those big attacks and so on, just stuff like that. I'm so torn myself now with ESO armour being class specific as well since it takes so long to get them. I have the weapon for my WHM, all other gear is 190 from Alex normal (I don't do savage). So I'm torn between now spending the eso's on gear for my AST, or just keeping at it for WHM. I think that new 24 man raid drops similar gear from what I saw quick so mostly waiting until then to see (also to see if they change either class with 3.1 in a good or bad way).

I liked AST before but I couldn't justify playing it with weaker heals just for the cards as they are too random. With 3.07 though making the base heals the same as WHM, that's what brought me back to it. I think if they were weaker though I'd stick to WHM.

Then why even have a white mage in the game if the astrologian is as strong of a healer potency wise? You just said what is wrong with the balance of the healers. Astrologian is going to replace white mage as the goto healer that comes with buffs now. Everyone is suggesting to the OP to go astrologian which is imo a better endorsement but it also shows the mistake SE made buffing astrologians to the same level as white mages.

[Ghishlain]

It's interesting to look at, but an "infinite MP" scheme isn't particularly useful. It's not indicative of much when it comes to balance, unless they add a "heal the mob to death" style fight later on. It also ignores a few mechanic-based things, even in your realistic version.
Just to list one, counting Collective Unconsciousness' HoT as a fire and forget it heal isn't really how it functions in practice. It's off the GCD, but if you treat it like any other OGCD heal and spam Benefic after you press the button it simply won't apply anything. Depending on where the server is for ticks, it can take up to 3 seconds of channeling to apply its HoT.

So, like I said, interesting read, and I do appreciate the research, but I feel like the value is tenuous at best, and at worst you could have someone running around using it out of context as grounds for their whining.

You are indeed correct in this respect. I originally built the table as a tool for me to gauge the maximum output a healer regardless of the situation and circumstances. A lot of posters talk about the power a WHM brings to the table but when you look at raw single target healing power between WHM and AST, that's not the case. However, once you start including factors such as MP consumption and the like, it begins to shit the paradigm in some capacity that is harder to gauge. And like you mentioned, I can't account for all variables. Collective Unconsciousness will require one server tick to proc the HoT effect so that can push the AST heals back 3 seconds. Likewise, my WHM number is skewed partially because I'm assuming you'll get five ticks of Divine Seal Regen before reapplying Regen at the very end of Divine Seal, which more often than naught not the case.

As a whole, what I built was a tool to help myself and potentially others understand specific nuances of a job and just like any other tool its important to not take that out of context. Its not different when someone using ACT can blame DPS X for not performing but forget to realize that DPS X also had to deal with mechanic A, B, and C because RNG decided to spit in their face and they weren't looking at the fine details.

In general, that Google doc I link I use as a massive scratch pad for my own thoughts and you can see some of my musings and rambling thoughts on a bit of the tabs. Because I included MP consumption as part of particular set of research, I also began to see the real power Freecure gives to a WHM and shouldn't be underestimated at all. Once you start to remove Freecure from the WHMs repertoire in my normal healing sheet, they begin to lose dramatically in the race of raw single target power against their AST counterpart. In the exact same token, Freecure is also what gives WHM the edge in MP management over an AST. Assize's 10% MP restore does nothing for WHM when ASTs are casting their healing spells that are at 10% cheaper in cost (and in the case of Benefic, almost 20%!) and the only thing that keeps WHM MP management more manageable is both Assize's 300 potency heal (essentially a free Medica) and Freecure procs. If they didn't have either, WHM would lose hands down to AST in the healing department in both power and MP management.

It's things like these that I like to do and encourage others to look at as well because it enables informed decisions and proper discussion with context. Unfortunately, not everyone will be able to use the tools properly while maintaining the context of the discussion.

[Averax]

If you like a healer with a wider range of healing abilities for more situations, go WHM.

If you like to be a more support style healer, with a smaller healing toolkit than a WHM, but more buffs, go AST.

If you like a more proactive style of healing, with more supportive dps capabilities, go SCH.