Quote Originally Posted by Mutemutt View Post
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In a meta way, yeah it's a bit weird. But I disagree about it being a big deal balance wise. If you run AST/SCH, then ok whatever scholar still has sacred soil to throw around for damage mitigation, and if you truly need that extra regen at the same time there is also eos and whispering dawn.

If you have a WHM/AST pair in a fight, however, it is the *only* field damage reduction you have since you don't have sacred soil (succor and aspected helios are roughly equivalent though aspect. helios shields for slightly more iirc, and you definitely have no equivalent to deployed adlo). Being able to still have the shielding (and regen) up through Bloody Fuller / Chanhadras, Thordan's Spear phase or the whirlwind jump thing in Seph Ex was something useful and unique that AST brought to the table that made it a decent alternative to SCH before the soft nerf of better gear in those instances even without crit deploy and a fairy.