SB AST just feels like a backwards step in terms of QOL to me. At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, some of these changes really demonstrate SE's lack of knowledge of endgame play with the various healer jobs. Yoshida would do well to persuade SE to let him hire a few choice people from the JP raiding scene imo.

Back on track, whilst AST is undeniably powerful, it's clunky to play now IMO with the new card UI being an awful case of form over function.

Not being able to macro off cards is fair enough, it was arguably a little unbalanced that I could do much of my card work whilst casting something else.

However I'm completely in agreement with the feeling that not being able to see a co healer's cards is just a big step backwards. It's not just other ASTs that are interested in an upcoming balance.

Another issue I don't see mentioned so much is the need to keep undraw hotkeyed alongside minor arcana for level synced content. This could have been handled better imo as we're just in needless button bloat territory again.

I'm also inclined to agree that not being able to click off Royal Road is another QOL regression, it significantly limits the appeal of Sleeve Draw to the extent that I only ever use it once I have my aoe RR pocketed. At that point it's little more than an extra shot at a balance every few minutes, I'm not really sure this is what SE had in mind when they put the ability in.

Earthly Star displaying as a dot/hot tick? This really makes the ability's power quite hard to judge and is just a lazy poorly thought out implementation if you ask me.

Seperating Synastry and Largesse/DS was a further example of needless bloat and arguably it's a buff that AST didn't really need nor deserve. How about adding a trait specific to each job for the ability, AST's would merge the Synastry effect back in, SCH could turn it into a flat 20% spell potency buff (So it buffs dots and broil) whilst WHM could boost the effect back up to 30% (I suspect a cooldown reduction would be a bit much given the extended duration).

Lastly, it's a personal preference but I can't say I'm hugely keen on the feel and lack of flow of AST's DPS now. One instant cast dot is a bit clunky IMO =/

Needless to say, I'm especially happy my group isn't pressuring me to play AST for this progression, WHM might not have balance but my god it's 10x more enjoyable to play IMHO. The downside is I'm having to work hard on my DPS to warrant the pick