AST's weakness in end game

[Mutemutt]

We'll have to agree in disagreeing, then. Freecure procs won't be enough to grant better MP management simply because the amoung of MP a WHM saves by getting those procs matches what an AST saves from having spells that cost less MP. For example:

Cure costs 442 at level 60; Cure II costs 884;
Benefic costs 354; Benefic II costs 796;

15% chance to proc Freecure means that one of every 6-7 cures you cast procs. You can get more and you can get less, that's RNG, but you have to be ready to face situations in which you don't get any procs, so it evens out in the chance rate. 7 Cures cost 3094 MP while 7 Benefics cost 2478. A 616 difference. That's what? 3/4 of the cost of a Benefic II? And you save more from the other spells, save more from the fact that Essential Dignity is a very powerful healing spell with a shorter cooldown than Tetragrammaton, saves from Synastry, saves from Lightspeed on intense healing situations, save from the amazing Regen effect from CU, you can also save MP by extending HoTs with Time Dilation. Assize has a long cooldown and is not that reliable as an MP regen tool, specially if you're saving the skill for specific parts of the fight. Also, I line up my LA with cards so I can use CO to buff the party.

I feel that you've left out some things. You didn't count the freecure which would shrink the difference to 263 or, assuming you matched the potency for the heals (would be the case whenever you got the full benefit of that free cure 2) it would be 143 mp in whm's favor. Whm has a similar trait for medica costs as well: whm spends only 266 more for 5 medicas compared to ast and helios. I believe both regen and medica 2 are more efficient at their base than their diurnal counterparts. And, of course, divine seal has shorter cooldown than synastry and handles aoe heals better ( the spendiest of the bunch).

Still, I think it's pretty even till you get to ewer and assize. If you were going out of your way to fish for an ewer draw, you'd get one ewer for every assize (1/6 shot at ewer; using shuffle every time you can nets you 6 draws in 90 secs). From what I understand, one basic ewer gets you roughly the same amount of mp as assize (at the moment at least). The problem is, I don't think people are constantly aiming to draw ewer and that's the only time you could hope to match assize's mp regen and that's ignoring the fact that assize can mean one less medica/helios on top of that instant mp. Of course, this doesn't account for the royal road buffs or spread (3 opportunities to royal road or spread for combos, specifically extended ewer in this case), but the key issue is I don't think the average astrologian is shuffling away something like balance when they get the chance and that means that, generally, assize is gonna outpace ewer.