The zerg style gameplay is definitely the biggest thing I don't like about the latest frontline modes, but them being flooded by summoners is a close second.

Quote Originally Posted by Kyani View Post
For AoE healing, Equanimity is slightly better for AST than SCH/WHM because of your ability to choose between Medica and Succor, but CU is not very good outside of a coordinated team - you're giving up your mobility and several GCDs (thanks to the shoddy way the buff is applied) to maybe get the HoT on half of your party. Whispering Dawn is a more reliable (if slightly less powerful) version of the same effect, on a shorter cooldown.

You're still missing the forest for the trees, though! Outside of Retrogradation every 2 minutes and ED every 40 seconds, AST is tightly GCD locked - your cooldowns, even Synastry, are all about giving you better healing per GCD, rather than a faster GCD or OGCD burst options. As fights go longer, this becomes a significant disadvantage - if you're ever crowd controlled or otherwise forced to stop casting, you don't have anywhere near the ability to recover compared to WHM or SCH's OGCD and passive options.
I feel like sch is the only one you can say isn't bound by gcd and ast is the only one you can say isn't bound by cast times. You can't bug ast with normal attacks like the other healers; the only thing that will force essential dignity is high burst on a target. You can often force whm and even sch into using their emergency heals just by constantly bugging them, keeping them from getting casts off normally. I can find use in equanimity for sch and whm but for ast... pretty questionable since lightspeed trumps it in every way.

And am I the only healer that places so little value in aoe heals and HoTs? Only dangerous aoe damage I see is cometeors and when 3 or so smns bane buffed DoTs and usually my first response to either of those is the healer limit break. Indomitability, Assize/cure 3 and lightspeed helios is just the back up or the "this isn't even worth my lb" option. Being brutally honest, Medica 2's HoT is just about as useful as protect in keeping people alive: fodder to keep retro/wither/one ilm punch/glory slash from hitting an actually useful buff.