Concerns with Astrologian in Endwalker

[Silver-Strider]

SCH and AST have more oGCDS and a higher APM because of their respective mechanics. WHM doesn't have anything close to cards or oGCD spenders tied to fairy and aetherflow skills, and the skills tied to its job gauge are all on the GCD. In terms of MP economy, it isn't about who has more oGCDs; it's all about who has more free healing, and literally all of WHM healing save for Regen is free

Medica 2 and Cure 3 say otherwise. They're the most expensive healing spells in the game so no, not all WHM healing is free. Secondly, oGCDs are free heals because come at the opportunity cost of wasting your GCD to heal and can instead focus on job mechanics and/or DPSing more. Yes, the fairy abilities are clunky to use but are still offering free healing and I fail to see why you're bring AST cards into the discussion about oGCD heals when the only card applicable for discussion is Lady of Crowns. I'm talking about Lustrate, Indom, Essential Dignity, Celestial Opposition, etc that are available to SCH and AST that are free to cast heals that SCH and AST can weave in between their GCD skills to prevent them from needing to use GCDs to heal with, something WHM is very far behind on because they need to use their GCD to heal more often than those other classes.

Even the Solace skills which cost the GCD still have a good portion of that damage returned. Albeit not 1:1, but it still leads to a stronger MP economy than SCH and AST whom need to use their MP replenish skills on CD, whereas WHM can let Thin Air drift.

WHM is using Assize on CD just like SCH is keeping Aetherflow on CD and AST is keeping Draw on CD so this is a poor argument to make, especially when you consider that of those 3 skills, Assize returns the least amount of MP at 5%, Aetherflow restores 10% and Draw restores 8%.

I am also not quite sure where you are getting at with what WHM brings to a group. Does Thin Air, the ability in question, and the greater MP economy of WHM somehow grant them advantages over SCH and AST in a raid setting?

YES!!! Because of WHM's lack of oGCD heals, WHM need to use its GCD heals more often, Medica 2 and Cure 3 being prime examples. Thin Air allows WHM to offset the cost of those skills when continuous raid wide damage is occurring that the WHM needs to use these skills repeatedly to compensate for the incoming damage, while AST and SCH are able to plan out their oGCD usage in such a way that they don't need to expend their MP in a similar harsh fashion. Not only that but because SCH and AST have skills like Chain Stratagem and Divination, the lower potency of their attacks in comparison to WHM is offset by the party making up for that damage difference and every time the WHM has to stop and use their GCD to heal, it means that their only contribution to finishing an encounter, their higher damaging spells, isn't being utilized, drawing out encounters and putting more strain on the MP economies of healers, which WHM can currently power thru because of its superior MP economy.

In terms of the issues healers have, there are much bigger fish to fry than the hit to WHM MP. It is still a hit, so I am not disregarding that fact; but it's not one that is going to handicap WHM. If the devs don't want WHM to take another backseat, they should probably start thinking about giving WHM some usable utility in a raid setting.

The Devs have ignored Healer issues for years and have stated they don't want to give WHM raid utility because they have higher potency spells. It's very much handicapping WHM because they can't sustain themselves in fights longer than 7 minutes and that's assuming there isn't any deaths or issues that require the WHM to heal more than Lilies/oGCDs can alleviate. Damage means nothing if I'm OOM though so it needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.