Quote Originally Posted by Jerbob View Post
I think part of the problem here is that AST is primarily a healer with added skills on top. You can choose the healer that boosts damage output, or the one that doesn't - there's a clear optimal choice. Replacing a damage dealing job with a support job is a different matter - you can choose the job that deals damage, or the job that boosts it. The end result is still just damage.
I'd say it's more that they tried to use the buffs as an incentive to bring the job, but because buffs easily fall into that trap of being either useless or overpowered, we have the current problem.

As much as some hated the buff overlaps in WoW, I do know why they went that direction. For example, priests had a raid buff that lasted 60 minutes that increased the max HP of everyone in the raid. Except priests aren't the only healers in the game (since at the time you had resto druids, resto shaman and holy paladins), so the devs gave warlocks an aura buff called Demonic Pact that gave the exact same effect to everyone in the raid when the warlock had their imp summoned (the effects, however, would not stack). So even if you didn't have any priest healers in your raid, you had a decent chance of having that buff covered if you brought a warlock with you.

To put it into the current context, imagine if the devs calculated average uptime/DPS increase of Balance and gave SMN an aura that increased damage dealt based on that data when they have Ifrit-egi active, but anyone under the aura's effect cannot receive the benefits of Balance (if AST were to use it, the target players would receive no effect). In theory, your raid is no longer forced to bring AST and you're not kicking WHM to the curb because your buff is covered if you have a SMN in the group. Some may bring up the snag in my suggestion since Balance comes about via RNG, but I'd smugly reply that that's why adding RNG mechanics of that nature is generally a bad idea.