Suggested changes to AST Design to bring it in line with WHM/SCH

[TatoRazzino]

This is a point that has been made by a lot of people: WHM is easier. Another thing: raiding as a WHM didn't require a job learming curve, only an encounter one. People started as WHM/SCH not because the AST was bad (it was impossible to foresee that before the actual fights), but because it is always safer to use the combination you're already familiar with. The groups that used AST faced three problems: unbalanced new job, learming curve to a different healing style and encounter learming curve. Some people simply gave it up and now the job has a bad reputation. It's impossible to say what aspect was the most important, but the result is the same. Now, months later, people are still crying about a job that's perfectly fine instead of actually trying to learn it.

[Miunih]

This is a point that has been made by a lot of people: WHM is easier. Another thing: raiding as a WHM didn't require a job learming curve, only an encounter one. People started as WHM/SCH not because the AST was bad (it was impossible to foresee that before the actual fights), but because it is always safer to use the combination you're already familiar with. The groups that used AST faced three problems: unbalanced new job, learming curve to a different healing style and encounter learming curve. Some people simply gave it up and now the job has a bad reputation. It's impossible to say what aspect was the most important, but the result is the same. Now, months later, people are still crying about a job that's perfectly fine instead of actually trying to learn it.

That's why we used Drk in A3/A4S World First clears, including Lucrezia as well, and most that followed. It was a totally new class, but it outclassed paladin, which was a 1.0 class. Learning a class, especially in this game, is very easy, and ast is pretty easy as well. The problem is ast does not compete with neither whm nor sch, and will still not be used in end game progression that aim to be the top 5-10. It just does not keep up.

Funny enough, everyone everywhere whined that Drk was shit and pld was amazing, just like now when everyone says ast is fine, while in reality it's a severely underperforming class that no top group will take to progression.

[TatoRazzino]

That's why we used Drk in A3/A4S World First clears, including Lucrezia as well, and most that followed. It was a totally new class, but it outclassed paladin, which was a 1.0 class. Learning a class, especially in this game, is very easy, and ast is pretty easy as well. The problem is ast does not compete with neither whm nor sch, and will still not be used in end game progression that aim to be the top 5-10. It just does not keep up.

Funny enough, everyone everywhere whined that Drk was shit and pld was amazing, just like now when everyone says ast is fine, while in reality it's a severely underperforming class that no top group will take to progression.

It took a while to see those clears and the reason they took DRK to those fights is DPS output. A3S and A4S were built with massive magic damage, which makes a PLD pretty much useless in there. In fact, the general consensus is that DRK is overpowered in relation to PLD. DRK is an unbalanced job that can perform as well as PLD in defense and is better in offense (or so people say). The unique aspects of PLD were made useless by the way people are organizimg their strategies. A person with so much raid experience should know this by now, but it seems that you're ignorant to the fact that a hybrid job can easily become overpowered to the point where it takes the place of the specialized job. That happened to PLDs and can happen to WHM. I'll stop this discussion since you're not here to discuss anything, but to support absurd game design to match your desires (you want to play WHM, but AST is prettier, cooler etc.). You blab so much about GCDs and ignores the attack speed buff that ASTs get in Diurnal, ignores the fact that Synastry is a GCD saver, ignores the fact that AST takes less GCDs to apply DoTs with combined potencies higher than the WHM ones (which can all miss by the way). Another thing you ignore: this game has more than raiding, and some spells/stances were build with other things in mind (E.g. Swiftsong, Fists of Wind, Fists of Earth, Feint, take your pick)