AST's weakness in end game

[AzureFlare]

You can also see that WAR/SCH can't replace PLD/WHM as well as DRK/AST, simply because the last two were designed as main-tanks/healers. If you ignore their DPS toolkit and just focus on their healing spells/skills, you can see that WAR/SCH doesn't have a complete toolkit to main heal. They can, but it takes considerable effort to do it. In my opinion, that's not a problem, and I bet our next tank/healing job will compete for the off-spot of the meta. We just have to give it time. Until then, we can use PLD-WAR/WHM-AST for heavy damage fights where no DPS check is tight, since they offer the safest mitigation/HP restoration combo.

EDIT: another thing that I just remembered: in SCoB, the meta for lots of the fights excluded an off-tank, as lots of groups (even in the beginning) took only one tank to T8-T9. The chosen tank was PLD.

My problem is that from a "bare bones" point of view, SCH and Nocturnal AST are both made to at least fulfill their basic requirements, being able to contribute enough healing (with a partner in 8man/alliance setup) and that SE largely ignored the extras both of them bring, nocturnal AST being the one to have the short end of the stick and having a completely different design mentality than SCH for some unknown reason ('Arcanist iz hard to balance guise, SCH fairy fundamental 'cuz no regen'). Just talking about healers, it feels like SCH was allowed to keep the 2.0 flaws because 'it's strengths don't matter for the barebones design' (high near-mana neutral DPS), or in the fairy's case it is 'too fundamental' to the job, with 3.0 fixes to make it fit more with the barebones design (apparently it was lacking AoE healing). Meanwhile, WHM never had those design flaws coming from a pure healer class and only lacked healing flaws (quick direct heals) while AST also wasn't designed with those inherit flaws. And because nocturnal AST was meant to replicate most of the healing part of SCH, without breaking too much into its flavor (strong mitigation and pet), it doesn't have anywhere near the 'non-healer' strengths of SCH.

And for the same reason I don't see WHM-N.AST becoming a really favorable match-up at all. At most WHM/N.AST will become on par with D.AST/SCH-WHM/SCH if the SCH has to focus on doing a lot of healing and spending waaaaay less globals on DPS than it does now (which honestly is good enough). Unless they make a complete oversight (wouldn't surprise me) where stacking regens becomes obscenely powerful, in which case WHM-D.AST would be the king comp.

[TatoRazzino]

@AzureFlare
Notice that I didn't say nocturnal Astro. I don't see N. AST as an off-healer version of D. AST because your toolkit is still there and you can still main heal some fights in Nocturnal, even with a SCH in the group (A2S, for example). In my opinion, it's more a matter of play style than a matter of duty requirements.
Also, WHM/N. AST is a good combo for Thordan. The constant moving around the arena, repositioning the boss and constant AoE damage allow for N. AST to shine a bit in areas a SCH can't. Also, a lot of the SCH's DPS is lost when Shadow Flare becomes hard to use efficiently; if we're just throwing some DoTs and adding some burst spells when we see the boss doing his basic Dragon Eye + Knights of the Round rotation in the beginning of each fight, AST's combined potency can be higher than SCH's. When I cleared Thordan for the first time, I was playing D. AST with a SCH; I solo healed the first phase while adding some DoTs here and there and he DPSed the whole time, he also DPSed a little bit during the two knights part while I solo healed, and on the phases after Ultimate End, we DPSed the same amount of time by adding our full DoT rotation and some burst spells at the star of each phase. At the end of the fight, he parsed something around 360 and I parsed 280. Only 80 more, and he DPSed way more than I did. The second time I cleared it, I beat the SCH in DPS, and I had to solo heal the first phase with almost no DPS at all, only adding DoTs at the start of each phase. We're not as far behind as some people want us to be.

[AzureFlare]

Stuff

I did notice Thordan as a pretty fierce exception as well. Haven't cleared the fight yet (please don't ask why), but I can generally keep up 300+ DPS regardless if the other healer is a SCH or WHM unless chainraising is needed. Given from your example it does sound like there are a lot of differences since I got plenty of time to toss Malefic 2 in nearly every phase and you claim to only have been able to DoT at the start of phases (and I assume meteor/Sacred Cross being exceptions) and get near-similar results. Thordan is also nice enough that the you get a ridiculous amount of time to refresh your mana though.
My fear is also that Thordan-esque fights are a dime in a dozen. Wouldn't mind if all fights were of that structure really, all healers and their.. I guess playstyles? Shine in that fight pretty nicely.

[TatoRazzino]

I did notice Thordan as a pretty fierce exception as well. Haven't cleared the fight yet (please don't ask why), but I can generally keep up 300+ DPS regardless if the other healer is a SCH or WHM unless chainraising is needed. Given from your example it does sound like there are a lot of differences since I got plenty of time to toss Malefic 2 in nearly every phase and you claim to only have been able to DoT at the start of phases (and I assume meteor/Sacred Cross being exceptions) and get near-similar results. Thordan is also nice enough that the you get a ridiculous amount of time to refresh your mana though.
My fear is also that Thordan-esque fights are a dime in a dozen. Wouldn't mind if all fights were of that structure really, all healers and their.. I guess playstyles? Shine in that fight pretty nicely.

I only applied DoTs and maybe did few Malefic IIs simply because I was main healing and I'd rather get ready for the phases by using Stoneskin on some people than adding more DPS when it's not needed. Playstyle, I guess.