Quote Originally Posted by Brandedblade View Post
I personally feel like the AF mechanics are an afterthought on ACN/SMN then they are on SCH tbh. While I will agree that making AF a dps cooldown that you have to use to access your healing toolkit would be an interesting design choice. Aetherflow on ACN/SMN feels utterly disconnected from the systems of commanding your pet and alternating between Demi summons and Trances. At least with SCH it is a core component of your healing/dps/mana management.
AF was for sure a core component of SCH healing back in SB, but as I've mentioned in that other thread that took several hits in ShB (Seraph, Fey Blessing, Recitation). The important part that tied (and still ties) everything together was ED. Otherwise AF tools had no cost, and were basically WHM Lilies with a different charge mechanism and no Misery payoff.

As for SMN I have to admit I've never played the job. To me it seemed like AF was the starting point of the whole summoning loop: use AF abilities and trances to unlock Bahamut and then Phoenix. In that light making ED give AF makes perfect sense.

I personally believe making AF a DPS CD to unlock your healing abilities would be a bad idea, but we are in agreement that AF healing/DPS management should absolutely be a key part of the core SCH loop. New AF-based DoTs would be really nice, for instance.