Quote Originally Posted by Teraluna View Post
The issue with where AST fits in was there from its introduction due to copy pasting whm abilities. Since then it’s been an ongoing task to separate it.
I think it made some sense in 3.0, at least I could understand their reasoning, where prior to AST, SCH and WHM worked almost in perfect harmony of each other and AST had to find its way into the relationship, but I think the decision to make it a hybrid was what ended up dooming things in the long run. Plus I think the added effect is that it just felt like AST stepped on WHM's and SCH's toes a bit rather than feeling like a third healer to complement the other two.

Hence I was kinda hoping for a new healer, because how they do a new healer could help balance things with a 2 and 2 approach.

Maybe two healers that favour buffs to help keep parties from taking damage with heals to top them off and two healers that are about power of heals.

So instead of 3 healers competing for balance, it's two healers competing for balance for each side, each with their own flavours. In 2.0 I heard the term "proactive" and "reactive" healers used to describe SCH & WHM (and what I used when I wrote my now incredibly out dated SCH guide) and I really liked those terms. I think it's those terms that helped define how 2.0 healing worked and why SCH and WHM complimented each other so well. Keeping an even number of healers I think could be a way of balancing that approach. And as a SCH I don't mind taking nerfs if it means bringing that back, because I loved it as a SCH in 2.0.