Starting healing with AST... Did I bite off too much?

[BrielleBeaudonet]

Having WAR as my main for two years, thousands upon thousands of duties, etc., I decided to give healing a try with AST. I liked the look and animations, and I figured I wouldn't notice how much harder/different the Job is than WHM and SCH because I'd never seriously played any healing job.

I'm in 50-60 process now and thinking of switching to SCH. I still like the abilities and aesthetic of AST, but I'm feeling the razor-thin margin of error in dungeons. I fully understand that I still stink at healing in general, so AST's difficulty isn't entirely to blame, but I've read how AST simply doesn't have the same healing toolkit or potency as the other two jobs. So, I'm wondering if switching to SCH, with a more established healing job with a diverse toolkit and the potential for great DPS, might be better for me as I continue learning those healing instincts. With AST, I feel that any error could be a party wipe in these Heavensward dungeons, and maybe those aren't the best or most motivating conditions for learning.

Thanks for your thoughts! Is it recommended I learn healing with a different job, and come back to AST with more experience and healing wisdom? Or am I going to have to a rough beginner's time regardless, and just need to get over the steep learning curve?

[Zari]

Some of your information about Astrologian being a much harder/worse healer than the other two is likely a bit outdated. It definitely was in the past but after plenty of buffs it is generally fine.

Though with how it works it is definitely a tough one to start off with. White Mage is the easiest one to learn healing with.

[GeekMatt]

What Zari said. WHM is a great starter healer if you're looking to ease into it, but if you like AST I'd just stick with AST. SCH isn't easier, IMO, it's very different from the other two healers. What is it you're finding difficult about AST? Healing large pulls? That can be rough on any healer if the DPS is really slow, but AST has a solid toolkit for keeping the party alive.

Run dungeons in Diurnal and keep up Aspeced Benefic as much as you can (as long as it falls off before the next pull), and if it's stil tough on you, you can throw up a Aspected Helios for additional regen on the tank, and lastly to make things temporarily easier, Synestry before Aspected Benefic/Helios to increase their potency as well as the potency of your single target heal. (I'll often refresh Aspected Benefic as Synestry reaches it's last second). If your tanks struggles and your party's taking damage use LightSpeed to keep on top of everyone quickly while saving you some MP, and if you're not too worried about your tanks aggro management, use it early on as you spam Benefic/Benefic II just to save you some MP. Also on larger pulls (or any situation where I'm confident I'll be draining a lot of MP) I'll use Luminiferous Aether the second there's a visible gap in my MP bar that I know won't fix itself naturally (So after about 2-3 Benefic IIs or Gravities I think?). At 60 you gain the ability to instantly stun everything which you can use to buy yourself some time in a pinch.

Lastly, don't DPS unless you're confident your tank will live.

[Rongway]

I still like the abilities and aesthetic of AST, but I'm feeling the razor-thin margin of error in dungeons. I fully understand that I still stink at healing in general, so AST's difficulty isn't entirely to blame,

[...]

Or am I going to have to a rough beginner's time regardless, and just need to get over the steep learning curve?

This "razor-thin margin" that you experience might not be as thin as you think, nor is it necessarily your fault; I suspect that if you see this through to 60 you will find you have more room than you think.

From 30 to 50, you were likely playing with tanks who were neglecting their accessories, and feeling the pain of having to heal a Lv40 tank still in Lv20 gear. In the 50s, some people will be geared great and some won't, but you'll not only be dealing with gear but with people who are getting used to the adjustments in their job expectations, as a lot of things change for a lot of jobs at 52.

If you like the ability animations and the AST abilities in general, I suggest going all the way to 60. You'll get some even prettier abilities, and hopefully get a feel for when you actually need to worry and when you don't. See what it feels like at 60 to be a modestly geared (or better geared, as you have WAR60 to help with that) AST with a better understanding of how to AST, healing more appropriately geared tanks who have a better understanding of how to tank.

but I've read how AST simply doesn't have the same healing toolkit or potency as the other two jobs. So, I'm wondering if switching to SCH, with a more established healing job with a diverse toolkit and the potential for great DPS, might be better for me as I continue learning those healing instincts. With AST, I feel that any error could be a party wipe in these Heavensward dungeons, and maybe those aren't the best or most motivating conditions for learning.

The AST ability set is not the same, no, but they aren't lesser healers by any means. While their numbers won't be as high as the WHMs with Divine Seal, you can triple regen if the situation calls for it, or throw out a sequence of instant heals that the other two jobs can't; and while their damage output isn't as high as SCH, you have to remember that you get to decide who gets uptime on the delicious buffs. PLD gets an extra Sentinel because you put Spear on him at the right time? That's damage that you prevented. DDs put out enough damage to push a phase because of your Expanded Balance? That's damage that you dished out.

And if none of that sounds sinfully glorious, then, yeah, maybe you picked the wrong job. Because AST is about being fabulosity incarnate.

[Zaj_Quilos]

I think people should start out with CNJ / WHM to get a feel for the rythm of healing before starting an AST.

[Rongway]

I think people should start out with CNJ / WHM to get a feel for the rythm of healing before starting an AST.

I would definitely recommend that a new healer begins with CNJ; however, by this time Brielle is already AST54. Starting over as CNJ won't teach her much that she couldn't learn by doing DR:Leveling and DR:Guildhests as a syncked AST; and as an AST in syncked gear, she'll have a much better time than a WHM in not-necessarily-the-highest-for-the-current-dungeon gear.

It would be worth revisiting CNJ to get to 34 for Stoneskin, but if we're talking about purely for the learning experience, at this point sticking with AST would be fine.

[Fernosaur]

I won't lie, leveling AST felt a lot more difficult than leveling WHM for me. I always kinda felt I had to heal more with AST. However, I know about the job in paper, and I think it has some of the best healing tools in the game, even moreso than Scholar. The only reason I haven't leveled AST to 60 is because I don't really have much time to play lately, and I just really, really love how Scholar plays. Being a fan of solo healing things, though, I think AST has the coolest tools for the job.

My advice is to not be discouraged! AST has received TONS of buffs with every patch. To the point that I think they might have overdone it a bit, haha, so I think the information you have about its potencies, etc was either misinformed or just plain outdated. It always takes a while to learn how to play a class properly, and Astrologian is a very complex job because on top of healing you have to do card micromanaging. I bet you'll get better at it eventually.

[Roxas_Andrade]

Well, I'm a main AST now and I had pretty much the same issues while leveling my WAR.

One thing to notice: If you didn't level your WHM, it's extremely recommended that you get at least to Lv34 for Stoneskin. It will be a great help.
I'd also recommend Cleric Stance, Protect, Swiftcast and Aero.

As for the feeling you're not up to the task, maybe it's because of gear. After leveling my 3 healers I didn't have lots of tank gear, so I had to go through dungeons undergeared. Because of it, I pulled less enemies and the dungeons took longer, but safe. But in your case, the tank may or may not feel comfortable while leveling and do large pulls and you have to deal with it.

Don't be afraid to use Synastry, ED and Asp Bene. Save your Boles to the beginning of the pulls. And if you feel like your tank is pulling too much, let him die and he will realize it heheheheh

[Ghishlain]

Are you trying to play AST in Nocturnal or Diurnal? Diurnal is considerably more powerful since it provides higher Potency/GCD (and by extension better MP efficiency) through HoTs and provide more synergy with the AST toolkit than Nocturnal would. If you're trying to run AST primarily in Nocturnal, that would explain some of the difficulties you're having.

Overall, the Diurnal AST kit is very similar the WHM kit. There are nuanced differences between the two jobs but both can achieve similar potencies / HPS in different ways. The Nocturnal kit is weaker but still decent at the job it tries to achieve. Anyone telling you the current iteration of Diurnal AST healing is weaker than a WHM hasn't done enough healing / theorycraft on how the two compare yet. Both kits have their strengths and weaknesses and you need to play around with those strengths and weaknesses.

Also, just like tanking, you won't know exactly how you're going to use your cooldowns until you've gone through the content a few times and gotten used to what to expect so if you feel your cooldown management is bad, just give it time.

SCH is its own can of worms as its very well tuned and considered mandatory in any high-tier content and generally has more strengths than weaknesses. It therefore isn't a bad switch but I would say at least give AST a shot at 60 before deciding on that. And it doesn't hurt to have multiple healers at 60 just because that'll give you more variety to choose from when you do decide to heal.

Are there specific things you seem to feel you have trouble with? The AST kit has a lot of nuances to it that you can generally only learn through experience and play (IE, what cards work well with what jobs, when to Spread / Redraw / Royal Road / randomly discard your latest draw, when to use Time Dilation / Celestial Opposition, when to stack HoTs for maximum effect, etc etc) that seem quite overwhelming initially, so if there's anything specific we can help with, let us know.

[BrielleBeaudonet]

Thanks for all these responses, everyone. I'm glad to hear that the 50-60 dungeons aren't necessarily representative of the 60 AST experience, so I'm going to stick with it.

Lots of you recommended staying in Diurnal Sect most of the time. Full disclosure: I haven't been doing that. So my own inexperience is a big part of it

I hadn't been using Aspected Benefic much. I didn't realize that Regen effects can make such a big difference on the ease of moment-to-moment healing. I'll definitely start incorporating that.

Reading these responses has been inspiring, especially since it sounds like the learning experience isn't dramatically different with WHM and SCH. I'll stick with it!