AST proposal: An idea revisited

[Renathras]

But yeah, long story short -- using flat potency bonuses would be absurdly imbalanced. +% Damage is literally already the most balanced buff possible.

Fair enough.

I don't recall...in how it's skills operate

In simple terms "at least one staying for people who enjoy healing right now". Note that AST plays the least like the other three, and is either the least played or second least played (depending on which metric you use), and the least liked (or second least liked) in most polls. I don't think most people who enjoy healing as it is now would enjoy AST as it is now, given that AST is arguably the least played healer Job. So it doesn't really meet the requirement unless it were changed to be more like the other healers.

Indeed, most of the people who play AST now here freely say it's because it doesn't play like the other healers...and are the players asking for more damage buttons and more kit in general, meaning AST doesn't appeal to the same audience that the "one for people who like healers today" needs to appeal to. Hence why it would require changes. Indeed, WHM, SCH, and SGE could probably be left EXACTLY as they are now with no issue, but AST couldn't be for that reason.

EDIT:

To make more sense of it - suppose 80% of healers right now don't play AST (AST is played by something like 15-low-20s% of the healer playerbase). Meaning people that like healing right now largely aren't playing AST. Meaning that AST doesn't appeal to them...otherwise, presumably, they'd be playing it.

So, a healer Job that appeals to them wouldn't be AST as it is right now. Again, the people who most like AST as it is right now...are the people asking for the changes you want to be made to the role and Jobs. The people who like healing right now are mostly playing the other healer Jobs. And most of the people who are playing AST right now seem to want to go back to the SB incarnation of it anyway. Granted, we don't have metrics on THAT that we can truly trust, but we have long had metrics indicating AST is the least played.

Meaning, to people who find healing enjoyable right now, AST doesn't suit them in its current form. That's why it would have to be changed for that to work.

Again, something untrue of the other three.