5.3 A response to the AST "balance" changes

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Originally Posted by Crushnight

They revert the change, controller issues come back in full force making anyone on controller hate Ast when trying to optimise it(it is the target system's fault but they ain't changing that anytime soon), they keep the change you get the issue you outlined, somebody is getting screwed and quite frankly controller issues are more severe than misaligned Divination due to early pulls/deaths both get mitigated heavily in organised play.

So I say deal with it, if we gotta deal with this new card system because people only wanted balance, people can deal with misaligned Divinations in pug groups.

Chain pulling is different because you aren't going for Dps your going for mechanics, everyone is misaligned under that circumstance.

It absolutely sucks for PC players/Keyboard and mouse players but controller issues needed to be addressed since 5.0 and they finally done something about it(not the best way possible but it is something) that it is a hill I'll gladly shout from not to revert the change to Sleeve Draw(Also be funny seeing the same skill reworked for a 3rd time in 1 expansion, really highlighting how bad healers are at times)

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You can work around playing AST on controller, there are people that play AST on controller and are very good on it. You deal with it. If you truly care about optimizing AST then you will find ways to work around it when playing it with controller (like making DPS at the bottom of your list so you can cycle to them faster. I've played on controller for a year before getting a PC, don't tell me that there aren't work arounds).

The most concerning thing about the sleeve draw change is not the sleeve draw change itself, but it's the fact that with everything they removed from the skill SE replaced with precisely nothing. They didn't compensate for anything. You know what could've fixed it? Having a card ready to Play the moment you queue into an instance, or switch to the job. It would be a middle ground that helps controller players that, understandably, cannot deal with working around Sleeve Draw in the opener while balancing it properly for all players, but they didn't do that. They gave us a half-assed change that punishes all aspects of play (Hard-core, mid-core, and casual) and did nothing to compensate for that change.

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Originally Posted by EONX_

You can work around playing AST on controller, there are people that play AST on controller and are very good on it. You deal with it. If you truly care about optimizing AST then you will find ways to work around it when playing it with controller (like making DPS at the bottom of your list so you can cycle to them faster. I've played on controller for a year before getting a PC, don't tell me that there aren't work arounds).

The most concerning thing about the sleeve draw change is not the sleeve draw change itself, but it's the fact that with everything they removed from the skill SE replaced with precisely nothing. They didn't compensate for anything. You know what could've fixed it? Having a card ready to Play the moment you queue into an instance, or switch to the job. It would be a middle ground that helps controller players that, understandably, cannot deal with working around Sleeve Draw in the opener while balancing it properly for all players, but they didn't do that. They gave us a half-assed change that punishes all aspects of play (Hard-core, mid-core, and casual) and did nothing to compensate for that change.

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Oh for sure there are work arounds, I make it so melee Dps are at the top of my party list while Ranged Dps are at the bottom to lower the amount of button presses as much as possible. But just because there are work arounds doesn't mean I have to like the skill that forces me to do that.

Sleeve Draw was bad from 5.0 got worse in 5.05 and is now going to be tolerable in 5.3, at least for me.

Also need to stop being disingenuous about the change, it is taking away a lot more than it is giving back, but it is giving back something it gives a guaranteed seal that you don't have something many people have wanted albeit probably on a new skill, it also gives back 800mp, again useful just not as much as what was lost, 2x Lord/Lady cards in opener and everytime it comes off CD.

Again it sucks massively especially for the people that were not affected by the issue Sleeve Draw caused, but enough people were complaining about it, and Ast numbers remained as the lowest played healer despite being the most powerful for a reason that SE decided to rework the skill a 2nd time in the same expansion (technically 3rd if count 5.0 version but I see .0 stuff as soft reset.)

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Originally Posted by Crushnight

Sleeve Draw was bad from 5.0 got worse in 5.05 and is now going to be tolerable in 5.3, at least for me.

Also need to stop being disingenuous about the change, it is taking away a lot more than it is giving back, but it is giving back something it gives a guaranteed seal that you don't have something many people have wanted albeit probably on a new skill, it also gives back 800mp, again useful just not as much as what was lost, 2x Lord/Lady cards in opener and everytime it comes off CD.

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Seconding this- I personally sort of like the change, in a begrudging way. I'll miss having the extra two cards, but I also think this system is here to stay for another year, so... I'd rather just honestly not have to think too much about how bland and samey the cards are, and the forced correct seal helps that.


Again, the two extra cards will be missed, but this is nowhere near as bad as SCH losing energy drain. I don't mean to say this to discourage discussion- the more backlash they get for the negative parts of healer changes as a whole, the better. I'm glad to see a spike in people speaking up about how blind to actual healer feedback the battle team seems to be. MP costs, for example: they WAY overshot their goal. Anybody who plays even a casual amount of AST seems to be in unanimous agreement that they completely missed their target, this time in the opposite direction. It's been nothing but failure after failure, with this patch being no exception- whatever method they use to approach healers is awful and produces consistently bad results, and I'm just... continuing to hang out on this forum and talk about how there's problems until there's enough of us that this particular camel overreaches its maximum straw capacity. Conserve your salty energy, basically, is what I mean, 'cause we might be here a while.

I am not a super experienced AST aspect of the change that confuses me and maybe I misunderstood the patch notes. Though won't this change in theory nerf our rDPS?

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Originally Posted by Awha

I am not a super experienced AST aspect of the change that confuses me and maybe I misunderstood the patch notes. Though won't this change in theory nerf our rDPS?

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It is effectively 2 less cards every 3 minutes, with roughly 8-9 minutes per Savage fight, you're missing out on 4-6 cards if used off cooldown, generally Redraw allows you to get the seals you need without overlap, and if you do overlap you generally Lady/Lord the card, which is 8% damage buff on target for 15s.

In the opener you can generally get 2 Lord/Lady's out WITH Divination buff, with this change you will be limited to only getting the Divination off and no additional Lord/Lady.

I'd be okay with that if there were potency buffs on Combust/Malefic, but without that yes, it is straight rDPS loss.

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Originally Posted by Awha

I am not a super experienced AST aspect of the change that confuses me and maybe I misunderstood the patch notes. Though won't this change in theory nerf our rDPS?

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Oh if it is one card(most people assume it is since not worded have 3 cards so assume the worst scenario applies here) absolutely will lower rDps but by how much, we will have to wait and see since now any piety meld is going to another secondary stat which lessen the blow a little

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Originally Posted by Crushnight

Also need to stop being disingenuous about the change, it is taking away a lot more than it is giving back, but it is giving back something it gives a guaranteed seal that you don't have something many people have wanted albeit probably on a new skill, it also gives back 800mp, again useful just not as much as what was lost, 2x Lord/Lady cards in opener and everytime it comes off CD.

Again it sucks massively especially for the people that were not affected by the issue Sleeve Draw caused, but enough people were complaining about it, and Ast numbers remained as the lowest played healer despite being the most powerful for a reason that SE decided to rework the skill a 2nd time in the same expansion (technically 3rd if count 5.0 version but I see .0 stuff as soft reset.)

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The QoL added with Sleeve Draw is nice and all, but it doesn't come close to outweighing what we lost. I don't mind losing two cards from Sleeve Draw (I don't like it because that'd be more boring for me personally) if they at least give us something to compensate so we don't automatically get screwed over during chain-pulling or insta-pulling, but SE didn't do that. To be brutally honest, they gave us a half-assed Sleeve Draw change and seemingly didn't think about how it would affect the job. I will continue to question who would believe it is acceptable to nerf a skill that is ESSENTIAL for an opener without giving something to compensate for it. They should've at least given us a card upon entering an instance or changing to the job that we can play right away, that would fix the issue. My issue is not with the change specifically, but how it affects the job and how there was no compensating for how it was affected.
WHM and SCH are played more often because they are mostly brainless to play and can offer similar DPS. AST actually makes you work, that's why there's a major difference. It's as simple as that.

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Originally Posted by Awha

I am not a super experienced AST aspect of the change that confuses me and maybe I misunderstood the patch notes. Though won't this change in theory nerf our rDPS?

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Yes, this is a nerf to rDPS. If they wanted to nerf rDPS, they should've targeted divination specifically and made it 180s instead of 120s. That would make the most sense anyways since it would align with Sleeve Draw.

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Originally Posted by NozomiHoshiaki

Out of curiosity, are any of you that are saying optimizing pre 5.3 AST gameplay on controller, actually playing on controller with AST? I played all of Eden's Gate tier with AST Controller and got good enough that the opener was able to be done without clipping GCDs, all it takes is practice, and for me these changes to Sleeve Draw really, really stink. I will admit that it wasn't easy to play on controller at first but it was doable, changes are justifiable but also not at all what I was hoping to see happen.

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While I don't, a friend of mine does. She's complained constantly over how irritating and cumbersome soft targeting through the party list as frequently as Astro required. She managed it just fine but never liked the system. Practice does not necessarily mean you'll grow to enjoy something. You may just tolerate it enough it doesn't make you want to quit entirely.

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Originally Posted by EONX_

You can work around playing AST on controller, there are people that play AST on controller and are very good on it. You deal with it. If you truly care about optimizing AST then you will find ways to work around it when playing it with controller (like making DPS at the bottom of your list so you can cycle to them faster. I've played on controller for a year before getting a PC, don't tell me that there aren't work arounds).

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"You deal with it" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement. If people are forced to tolerate something they dislike on a job they otherwise would enjoy, it'll naturally be something they criticise. Hence why this changed occurred.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

While I don't, a friend of mine does. She's complained constantly over how irritating and cumbersome soft targeting through the party list as frequently as Astro required. She managed it just fine but never liked the system. Practice does not necessarily mean you'll grow to enjoy something. You may just tolerate it enough it doesn't make you want to quit entirely.

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I will agree the soft targeting system could use some work, it is bad, but no where near as bad as hard targeting would be on controller. I have issues with soft targeting on almost all of the classes, DRG Dragon Sight, BLM Aetherial Manipulation, WHM/SCH weaves, the list goes on and on, which is an issue with the targeting system and the way GCDs/OGCDs work, I found it easier on AST because of the amount of targeting required allowed for way more practice than those other classes, along with always having a weave window every GCD it just felt better than the others.

My opinion is of course my own, other people experience it differently.

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Originally Posted by EONX_

The most concerning thing about the sleeve draw change is not the sleeve draw change itself, but it's the fact that with everything they removed from the skill SE replaced with precisely nothing.

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This is the biggest problem. They didn't rebalance Sleeve Draw to make it easier to use. They just straight up nerfed it instead. (see also, the entire 5.0 card redesign)