Quote Originally Posted by Risvertasashi View Post
This is less an AST issue, and more a kind of "the concept of MP and resource management" issue. AST now won't care about piety, like the others healers.

MP management is tricky. I think I'm going to trend towards a rather radical stance: MP should probably be removed like TP, eventually. The real resource in FFXIV is time/GCDs. Any time MP stops someone from casting they are going to complain, because no one wants to be standing around doing nothing.
Well you say that, but then we've had excellent mp systems in the past before Sb and Shb that became another differentiating and fun part of the jobs. In some case it was a resource to manage, in others a fun differential part of the playstyle

Whm had naturally higher mp regen and self buffs designed to negate its mp costs so it was a slow burner, plus shroud of saints
Astro had luminerferous aether and ewer to regen mp
Sch had aetherflow and energy drain and had its entire gameplay loop based around juggling damage/healing bursts with aetherflow for mp and energy drain to regain stacks

Blm still has its ice/fire rotation and flare which removes all mp and plants the blm in fire stance with no mp regen, yet that still had a place
Smn also had the aetherflow rotation
Rdm doesn't, but that's its entire schtick. Rdm's don't have mp regen. Whereas whm's borrowed their mp from nature which explains their focus on efficiency, rdm's just use their own and so have no mp cost reduction or restoration. But they do use their accelerators in order to make small costs into more powerful spells

Drk also used to have mp rotation back in Hw. Using dark arts and mp attacks sparingly, then taking the time to regain mp from syphon strike, blood price, blood weapon etc.
Pld's have one too. Its just riot blade followed by their spell combo. But its something