AST Adjustments 6.2

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Originally Posted by QooEr

this was, again, not even fixed by square enix. it was fixed by fflogs introducing rdps and thus killing padding almost entirely.

if fflogs had stayed the same we would still have asts padding players by giving them crappy 6% balances all run long.

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Forgive me; maybe my wires are crossing in a weird way, but I'm pretty sure that's quite literally all we can do now, at least with the cards. That or 3%.
To be honest, I don't think fflogs really fixed anything (specifically for AST), nor would it have fixed anything if the cards never changed, simply because the game is entirely focused upon DPS. The crowd who fished, would continue to fish, and efficiency is always chased.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

this was, again, not even fixed by square enix. it was fixed by fflogs introducing rdps and thus killing padding almost entirely.

if fflogs had stayed the same we would still have asts padding players by giving them crappy 6% balances all run long.

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We had that at the start of ShB, before they introduced rDPS and probably the main reason for doing so, where it was basically mandatory even for tanks and healers to get dance partner if they wanted a good parse on the ex trials.

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Originally Posted by MintnHoney

Forgive me; maybe my wires are crossing in a weird way, but I'm pretty sure that's quite literally all we can do now, at least with the cards. That or 3%.
To be honest, I don't think fflogs really fixed anything (specifically for AST), nor would it have fixed anything if the cards never changed, simply because the game is entirely focused upon DPS. The crowd who fished, would continue to fish, and efficiency is always chased.

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im a bit confused myself about what youre trying to tell me, so im just going to list how the conversation went (and is going)
1 person A said they ruined ast because of players complaining
2 person B refutes by saying that player feedback didnt ruin ast
3 person C says "actually, it was DPS player feedback that they listened to because DPS players wanted to pad their logs more". to me this makes the implication that since we dont do balance feeding to pad parses anymore, the issue of log padding is somewhat fixed.
4 i tell person D that log padding was only fixed because of a change in fflogs itself, and not because of any change they made to ast. if fflogs had stayed the same asts would be using "crappy 6% balances" (aka the cards we have now) to pad a single player nonstop.
5 your reply

yes we would still had been balance fishing if we had rdps back in stormblood because given a choice between support or dps in a game where dps is all that ultimately matters, the decision is obvious.
that said i dont agree with what they did to cards, theres better and more creative ways to decouple support from offense and to give more reliability to RNG cards.

i hope this clears it up

Thanks to the homogenization of the skillsets, you can't really scrap any ability that the other twinjob has as well (ie all the bubbles, intersection/benison etc) so basically the only buttons they can drop are job identity ones sadly...

That aside, I think the PvP versions of the jobs are versions how the devs would envision how the job flavour would be if they had less restrictions.
In ASTs case it seems to be centered around fast casting and support/buff oriented.


Tons of text incoming ;)

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I'd scrap
- play (merged into draw)
- crown play (minor arcana draw now plays the minor arcana version of the current card again)
- undraw (that's what minor arcana will be for again)
- redraw (removes endless drawing and fishing for the "statistically best" cards - this job has rng as identity)
- astrodyne (that one skill why button bloat became so apparent and "replaced" again with divination)

New buttons:
- double cast (new core mechanic derived from the pvp identity)
- sleeve draw (the infamous skill now will let you select 1 card of your choice)


Core mechanic reworks:

Double Cast:

adds double cast as a job core system --> casts a slightly alternate version of the previous casted spell as ability for 0 mp cost
Up to 2 charges and the effect changes as soon as you cast any of the other eligable spells that would trigger double cast

--> benefic (instant, cleanses one debuff, deletes all your mp why are you double casting this? - )
--> benefic II (instant, restores critical HP)
--> asp benefic (triggers the nocturnal version of it instead of regen)
--> helios (instant)
--> asp helios (triggers the nocturnal version instead)
--> malefic (instant, reduces recast time of the next double cast)
--> gravity (instant, 10s generic slow debuff on all enemies)
--> macrocosmos (triggers the current healing effect of microcosmos without spending it, halves recast time)


Card Draw System:

Cards gain their unique flavour back with now all of them being aoe centered around the target. This will reduce target switching when the party isn't too spread out.
Redraw gets removed in favour of the minor arcana system to keep button bloat low.
Played cards grant a seal for divination - Unwanted cards can be turned into minor arcana. Draw will not repeat cards until all 6 cards were played at least once or if divination was used. If all cards were drawn without using divination, the pool resets and shuffles again.

Balance: Increases determination - flat damage up buffs would probably be too powerful otherwise. In flavour of the duality of the DET stat
Bole: Decreases damage recieved - adds a defensive option and good minor arcana option if not needed at that given time

Arrow: Increases movement speed - we all got a taste through SCH how good this is can be, I think spell/skillspeed buffs would mess rotations
Spear: Increases critical hit rate - many will probably would want to get this one but it's less impactful as you cannot get dupes within 2mins

Ewer: Refreshes HP and MP - I think only MP would be basically useless so it'll be a good additional healing option of things go south
Spire: Increases direct hit rate - this would round up the last of the 3 dps increasing cards


Minor Arcana system:

This is mostly used to turn the current drawn card into the opposite card of the pairing, albeit weaker version of that said card, in favour to the situation you're currently facing:
- The old pairings apply (balance/bole, arrow/spear, ewer/spire)
- You'll have a support or damage up version if RNG was not in favour of your current needs.
- Played minor arcana will not grant an arcana seal for divination!


Sleeve Draw:

Turns 6 spells into their respective cards that can be played by pressing the card you want to have on demand.
Kind of like the PvP three Mudra skill that lets you choose 1 card you immediately want to play. This will guarantee you at least 1 party damage buff every 120s for openers or on demand utility.


Divination and the Seal System:

--> every 2 minutes triggers the effects of up to 3 seals (this will add the flavour of the oracle side of this job instead of generic damage up which you'll be guaranteed to get thanks to sleeve draw). Does not require 3 seals so can be used with sleeve draw in openers for a solar seal divination. Resets the draw card pool so if you want to use up your draw pool, you can delay this ability if you still haven't played your desired card.
Ideally you'd want to play at least 3 cards with 3 different seals as same seals will not stack (think of as the bard's new codas).

- solar seal (balance/bole) - grants damage up
- lunar seal (arrow/spear) - grants cast time down (gcd remains unaffected)
- celestial seal (ewer/spire) - grants defense up


Synastry:

that one button everyone forgets will now grant a buff like "dance partner" that will also trigger any played card around that player as well. This will ensure you'll be able to cover distant targets as well since cards are aoe around the target now


Overall you'll have 3 buttons less to worry about (2 if you slotted in undraw before) and bring back some of the old AST identity with just enough tools to fight RNG.

i like your card system. sleeve draw and forcing all cards to appear in sets does wonders for the reliability issue that old cards had.

Your Minor Arcana has me on the fence. letting people burn support cards for dps doesnt sit right iwth me. I do acknowledge one key thing that could make it work though: when farming, the support doesnt matter; and when progging, the dps doesnt matter. theres also divination making it perhaps not worth it to burn boles for dps, so yeah, good job. i stil dont fully like the idea of MA letting you discard support for dps though...

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Originally Posted by Shikiseki

Double Cast:

adds double cast as a job core system --> casts a slightly alternate version of the previous casted spell as ability for 0 mp cost
Up to 2 charges and the effect changes as soon as you cast any of the other eligable spells that would trigger double cast

--> benefic (instant, cleanses one debuff, deletes all your mp why are you double casting this? - )
--> benefic II (instant, restores critical HP)
--> asp benefic (triggers the nocturnal version of it instead of regen)
--> helios (instant)
--> asp helios (triggers the nocturnal version instead)
--> malefic (instant, reduces recast time of the next double cast)
--> gravity (instant, 10s generic slow debuff on all enemies)
--> macrocosmos (triggers the current healing effect of microcosmos without spending it, halves recast time)

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i think it would be better if malefic didnt work with double cast. to me it would be more interesting to use asp bene/helios and then be able to "hold" that double cast for when it has maximum value. if malefic overwrites double cast youre pressured to use it right away after healing cuz otherwise you lose the cool nocturnal effect. not to mention it would create a dominant strategy in which double-cast malefics mean more double-casts which means its a compounded dps loss to not use double cast on malefic, and we already rarely use gcd heals as-is to begin with.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

i think it would be better if malefic didnt work with double cast. to me it would be more interesting to use asp bene/helios and then be able to "hold" that double cast for when it has maximum value. if malefic overwrites double cast youre pressured to use it right away after healing cuz otherwise you lose the cool nocturnal effect. not to mention it would create a dominant strategy in which double-cast malefics mean more double-casts which means its a compounded dps loss to not use double cast on malefic, and we already rarely use gcd heals as-is to begin with.

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I think it should, I love Malefic reducing the cool-down of double cast by 7.5 seconds how it is in PvP, it would greatly help out in Dungeons and Solo content, I personally think just in raids they need to create more ongoing consistent damage to the players so you need to then think, “do I squeeze an extra Malefic or a Benefic II” the option should be available. And not to mention help out overall with our dps considering AST is bottom of the healers in that department.

Also I’d also like to say, how many people really do cast Synastry end game or in dungeons?, I feel like it’s honestly not even needed with the array of abilities we have already at our disposal perhaps that skill should just be flat out removed and switched for double cast?. Like I literally just cast it for the sake of casting it cause it’s on my hotbar.

While I havnt played the old AST, I honestly wish I had, I’ve read AST use to be able to switch from Regen to Shield healing, I’d love to get that back, it would really make AST have a uniqueness being able to mesh with any co-healer, you got a SGE healing switch to regen, got a WHM go shields. From Google I’ve read it’s Nocturnal Sect/Diurnal Sect, they can just make it one button that switch’s to the other option that you have to cast before combat. I’d love to see this return.

About Cards, Draw/Play like in PvP, I’m not to fussed what they do with cards, I’ve become use to both how they work in PvE and PvP, while use PvE it becomes a pain selecting who to play the card on the switch back to target the enemy to dps but you get use to it, PvP is much simpler, draw the card play it, goes AoE to everyone around you, which I like aswell. My one wish if they do choose to make cards more complex I pray they add some sort of mouse over function, healing in WoW with mouse overs is a huge quality of life which I’d love to see in FF.

But im very excited and nervous about what’s happening in 6.2 to AST, I fell in love with the job and hopefully with this overhaul it continues to flourish.

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Originally Posted by Pepino

[...]Also I’d also like to say, how many people really do cast Synastry end game or in dungeons? I feel like it’s honestly not even needed with the array of abilities we have already at our disposal perhaps that skill should just be flat out removed and switched for double cast? Like I literally just cast it for the sake of casting it cause it’s on my hotbar.

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Synastry would be fine if only they interact more beyond than just their 3 single target GCD healing spells that they almost never need to use outside dealing with clown fiesta or paper tank. You can delete it from your hotbar and very little would change.

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Originally Posted by Pepino

But im very excited and nervous about what’s happening in 6.2 to AST, I fell in love with the job and hopefully with this overhaul it continues to flourish.

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In the light of most recent WHM's changes, there's that slight semblance of hope regained that they might do things right. But once again my low expectation kept me grounded, reminding me that they also have a good chance to find some silly excuses as to why X ability need to be removed when nobody ever ask for its removal.

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Originally Posted by Shikiseki

Ewer: Refreshes HP and MP - I think only MP would be basically useless so it'll be a good additional healing option of things go south

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You should leave Ewer as MP only, throwing healing on top of it would lead to them having to make both effects weak. Meanwhile leaving it as MP only brings back how useful it was in all content before, acting as a lucid dreaming you can throw on yourself, your co-healer, or RDM. Especially in Alliance Raid content where there are generally lots of deaths from clipping which means MP recovery is all the more important for healers.

I would say on your idea for Spire you should swap the movement speed to Spire from Arrow and put Arrow as Direct Hit. Thematically (in HW/SB) Spire was all about invigoration of the body (hence why Spire restored TP) which fits movement speed or increased healing received effects, while Arrow thematically was all about swiftness and accuracy.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Synastry would be fine if only they interact more beyond than just their 3 single target GCD healing spells that they almost never need to use outside dealing with clown fiesta or paper tank. You can delete it from your hotbar and very little would change.

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In a vacuum, it's a great skill with a unique concept. But single target healing in general is rarely needed and as you said, the action doesn't interact with anything but AST's last ditch effort for survival. It can be put on the target of your healing and they'll receive the additional 40% even when they're the target, but it's incredibly niche. I could see it gaining more value when Criterion dungeons come out as single target inherently has more value in light parties. It's just hard to justify single target actions in 8-man groups unless one person specifically is being targeted for heavy damage while no one else is being attacked.

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Originally Posted by Pepino

I think it should, I love Malefic reducing the cool-down of double cast by 7.5 seconds how it is in PvP, it would greatly help out in Dungeons and Solo content, I personally think just in raids they need to create more ongoing consistent damage to the players so you need to then think, “do I squeeze an extra Malefic or a Benefic II” the option should be available.

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it works in pvp because you legitimately might need the extra healing so theres actual risk involved, and gravity being stronger than malefic means you dont want to blow all your charges willy nilly.

in pve, even in ultimates you rarely cast gcd heals. in my last uwu clear i casted in total 38 gcd heals and 178 malefics. and of those gcd heals, almost all of them were casted when the boss wasnt targettable. the answer to "do i squeeze an extra Malefic or a Benefic II” is almost unequivocally malefic. a double cast malefic will be even a bigger dps loss than hardcasting malefic too because of the compounding effect of reducing the cd of double cast, so if anything, it would be better to cast gcds and use double cast exclusively on malefic if you need that healing.

conversely, i find it a lot more interesting to cast aspected helios, and then hold onto that double cast to use a nocturnal asp helios later into the fight to get the most value out of it. its just more strategic

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Originally Posted by Pepino

Also I’d also like to say, how many people really do cast Synastry end game or in dungeons?,

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i feel like synastry is pretty useful, but only in savage/ulti prog when people are dying and need to be healed to full health immediately. thanks to synastry, i managed to save a few pulls in ucob during adds phase when my cohealer had died.

but outside of that its kind of superfluous