5.3 AST Changes

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

Considering Aetherflow restores 1000 MP every 60 seconds, I think simply activating "Draw" should restore 500 mp on self.

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Aetherflow is only a part of the SCH kit for restoring Mp though. They also use Energy Drain and Dissipation to leverage control over their healing resources, which helps manage their mana when used correctly. Personally, I don't think 500 MP per Draw is going to cut the need to have a lot of extra piety in AST's gear, but I'll just have to try it out and see.

Honestly I don't think it's going to be enough to link mana to draw because we also lose the 1/2 mana cost of lightspeed.

On top of lucid,
WHM has assize, thin air
SCH has aetherflow, energy drain and can dissipate to do more energy drains
AST will have draw

The issue here was that the other healers have two ways of regaining mana and I fear they've missed the point entirely again if they do that.

By removing the time extend on celestial opposition they really nerfed AST's ability to extend lucid and regain enough mana reliably. Just changing the source of mana won't stop the fact that we'll still be worse off than the other two in terms of mana recovery. Probably more than now, but still less.

Or they'll give us too much mana per draw and the other two healers will complain that they're buffing the already top performing healer and it'll be stormblood sch/ast meta all over again.

If we kept lightspeed's mana reduction and gained a second source we would be on par, but we're losing that. We would have more mana overall, but no where near as much as the others.

I'm curious to see what they're going to do.

To be honest I'm rather surprised that AST is the target of buffs. Maybe it's not fully realized with AST being the least popular healer, but it's currently the strongest by a mile. It has amazing tax-free heal power, mobility, weave windows, raid buffs ...everything the other two lack. If they give it mana regen and lower APM on top of that, it'll be almost flawless from a performance perspective.
If you look at the top clears for Savage, they're almost all AST + Other. This isn't min-maxing, it's simply because AST works far better with WhM or ScH. AST has the heal power to take the bulk of raid healing with free oGcd's, which mitigates WhM/ScH's need to pay heal taxes and clunkiness. A WhM/ScH can take a bulk of healing too, but unlike AST the more they take the more damage it costs. With a WhM+ScH comp, someone has to pay the cost to keep the raid alive. In particular AST works well with WhM because it allows them to use lilies as a movement/weave tool, demonstrating how badly WhM needs this.

It seems AST isn't unpopular due to power, but more to gameplay and the changes, so that should really be their main focus.

Also WhM seems to be the most popular healer by a good bit and there's something in that. I'm not sure just because it's easy (more despite that), but because it functions more straightforward. ScH especially is like a WhM with half your oGcd's tied to a clunky, glitchy mechanic that switches itself off for 30 second windows. The pet in its current form is more hindrance than identity and hurts what should be an amazing toolkit.

I'd like to see them address ScH's pet and WhM's weaving first, but for some reason it's buffing and reworking the top healer in the wrong way. It's a bad sign if they're still this out of touch after all these months of feedback.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

If they give it mana regen and lower APM on top of that, it'll be almost flawless from a performance perspective.

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It seems AST isn't unpopular due to power, but more to gameplay and the changes, so that should really be their main focus.

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I'd like to see them address ScH's pet and WhM's weaving first, but for some reason it's buffing and reworking the top healer in the wrong way. It's a bad sign if they're still this out of touch after all these months of feedback.

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Shouldn't we want all healers to be like that though? Seems unfair to not want flawless performance ability from a job.

That's what they're doing. Sleeve draw is a pain in terms of gameplay and they're changing it. Though I dislike the minor arcana "fix" even more because if you'd gotten around the targeting with macros, the minor arcana/play mashup brings back the original issue.

And the mana "buff" is because it's the only healer that requires more piety than the others. Like I said in the post above, it's the only healer that only has one source of mana regeneration (apart from lucid). You could argue that it's a trade-off because it can perform so well but it never had this issue before. I think it's a weird nerf and I'm glad they're working to fix it.

Absolutely AST is unpopular due to gameplay. They've destroyed the comfortable home that many many ASTs had built and gotten used to over the years and transformed it into a camping tent. Some people like the camping tent, and that's fine. But some of us want our home back.


I think we should all want ALL healers to be able to perform flawlessly. I absolutely want SCH to not be clunky, and I would love WHM to be able to hold its own against a sch/ast team. That's what the "balancing" should've been about.

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Originally Posted by Sabrenn

Shouldn't we want all healers to be like that though? Seems unfair to not want flawless performance ability from a job.

That's what they're doing. Sleeve draw is a pain in terms of gameplay and they're changing it. Though I dislike the minor arcana "fix" even more because if you'd gotten around the targeting with macros, the minor arcana/play mashup brings back the original issue.

And the mana "buff" is because it's the only healer that requires more piety than the others. Like I said in the post above, it's the only healer that only has one source of mana regeneration (apart from lucid). You could argue that it's a trade-off because it can perform so well but it never had this issue before. I think it's a weird nerf and I'm glad they're working to fix it.

Absolutely AST is unpopular due to gameplay. They've destroyed the comfortable home that many many ASTs had built and gotten used to over the years and transformed it into a camping tent. Some people like the camping tent, and that's fine. But some of us want our home back.


I think we should all want ALL healers to be able to perform flawlessly. I absolutely want SCH to not be clunky, and I would love WHM to be able to hold its own against a sch/ast team. That's what the "balancing" should've been about.

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For me I only have astro to base my opinions on. When I got WHM to 55-56 the lilies are insanely good to use on a quick one button heal along with an already strong healing kit. Until I get thin air I have been bashed for using Cure I over Cure II. I have been constantly told to use cure II with Lucid. I have tried this and constantly run out of MP. Utterly useless advice until I get thin air. I rarely ever have lilies capped...EVER. That leaves more room for Holy, Stone, and Aero.

So for me as an astro healer...I don't understand this logic to gives MP at all turns. I mean I rarely run out of MP on Astro...like ever....and I DPS my face off. Maybe it's because I run Diurnal for the HOT's to do most of the work for me which gives me time for cards and DPS windows. I have light-speed on cooldown almost the whole time. It has just become part of my opener to pop: Sleeve -> divination -> neutral sect -> light-speed -> aspected helios -> aspected benefic -> combust -> malefic/gravity x4 -> Celestial -> aspected helios -> aspected benefic -> lucid and then into cards again... the rest is CD management and using them ASAP. I hardly ever run out of MP and i'm mostly on the crit side of stats because I spam malefic constantly.

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Originally Posted by Sqwall

Until I get thin air I have been bashed for using Cure I over Cure II. I have been constantly told to use cure II with Lucid. I have tried this and constantly run out of MP. Utterly useless advice until I get thin air.

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You're playing WhM wrong then, most likely spamming Cure II too much and overhealing. Regen should cover a lot and Cure II when your tank drops low. You should only be running out of MP if the tank is made of paper and you need to spam heal, in which case Cure I was never going to keep up. At 56 you have Solace, Asylum, Assize which are all 0 mp or a gain, so Cure I shouldn't even be looked at.

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Originally Posted by Sabrenn

Absolutely AST is unpopular due to gameplay. They've destroyed the comfortable home that many many ASTs had built and gotten used to over the years and transformed it into a camping tent. Some people like the camping tent, and that's fine. But some of us want our home back.

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Exactly correct. As usual, Squeenix is fixing a busted leaking pipe by installing new ceiling fans. They look pretty, but don't address the actual issue. MP is more of a challenge with AST than with other healers, but it can be worked around by being vigilant with Lucid (most people don't hit Lucid until they're low MP... instead of simply clicking it every time its cooldown is up).

The biggest issues with AST, which have haunted us since 5.0, are the loss of variety with card buffs, the loss of card dual purpose and buff extension via RR, and to lesser extent, the loss of "time mage" abilities like Time Dilution and Celestial Opposition. Until those issues are addressed, the job will not be as popular because most people care less about meta, and more about job satisfaction.

AST is not in the lead “by a mile”.

AST pushes only slightly ahead of WHM in terms of total DPS contribution. Also, WHM intentionally has very few weaving slots, as it has the least amount of oGCDs. Movement is designed to hurt WHM, and movement is currently the only weakness the job faces. That should remain, otherwise WHM would be even more ridiculous than it already is.

I will agree that SCH should have received priority with damage and pet changes, but the MP issues on AST took precedence to make the job a little more appealing.

You're looking at it purely from a dps perspective. AST, while doing huge raid healing, can put out numbers that are slightly ahead of WhM who is barely healing at all. If that same WhM tried to take a bulk of the raid healing, they'd drop significantly. AST simply contributes more because it can deal high damage and high healing thanks to it's mobility, weaving and toolkit. WhM/ScH you have to pick one.

You say WhM having a fraction the mobility of a BLM and so few weave windows it has some mandatory clipping is good class design and intentional weakness, yet AST having MP management as it's only weakness is an "issue" that needs to be fixed?

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Originally Posted by Sabrenn

Shouldn't we want all healers to be like that though? Seems unfair to not want flawless performance ability from a job.

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Depends on the definition of flawless. If you mean no weaknesses at all, they risk becoming copies of each other that do everything perfectly. If you mean smooth enjoyable gameplay with a unique toolkit able to handle any situation, with each bringing something to the table then I'd definitely agree. It's gameplay and ironing out clunkiness they should be working on, rather than throwing buffs and simplification at everything that doesn't have a high enough participation rate.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

You say WhM having a fraction the mobility of a BLM and so few weave windows it has some mandatory clipping is good class design and intentional weakness, yet AST having MP management as it's only weakness is an "issue" that needs to be fixed?.

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I'm gently asking (just in case you might think it could be an aggresive question). Did you truly experienced yourself AST and its mana managment on different content?

Currently, AST mana is not just a weakness, it's a chore, an issue and it needeed some help.
It's fine that AST is a bit behind somewhere, I'll agree with you on that point, it doesn't have to be the best on every level.
However consider this. Despite its awesome healing toolkit with a lot of free heals, it still struggle with its mana.
The main draining ressources here are Malefic with the same MP cost as the other healer while having less mana recovery tools but casting it more often than the other thanks to the 1,5s cast time.
It's even worse on nocturnal with Aspected Helios if you have to mitigate damage since you lack of regen.

Once a battle starts, except if there are transition, you have to realise that your mana will keep sinking and lightspeed and lucid just push the moment you'll end up dry, instead of being a real mana refresh.
Cause that's the reality of it, even with some piety. Sure, there's a lot of optimisation that comes with it to prevent this.
I didn't even mention raising. Raising is the ultimate ennemy of AST mp regen. It's such a huge gap and you'll mostly never going to close it.

I'm not entirely talking about savage experience alone because, except Ramuh and Shiva's second part which kinda long and more healing demanding, there are a lot of transition (thankfully).
But for progging, pugging, EX trial, r24, its a chore really. And having to stack up load of piety doesn't always feels..right.

I think it's more a nocturnal problem than a diurnal which performs better, but overall, long fights and pug/prog scenario already put a pressure on your mp managment even if you achieve to master it with an excellent oGCD usage.
(assuming your party agrees to help on the mitigation part of course)

Personnaly, I don't really like that I'll have to "stop casting" and watch the fight, hoping that i'll regen enough for the next set of mechanic, or being "afraid" of casting some unpredicted spell because of that.

And here, I mostly talked about AST experience if you managed to have a great or excellent oGCD usage. This is indeed one of AST strengh to master, but for average player, it could feel really worse.

AST mana managment doesn't have to be like WHM, but currently, it really need a bit of help because of that constent drought fear. It sure is interesting from an optimizagin point of view, indeed, but a bit less pressure on my MP would be great.
Its efficiency also vary with players experience in the party. Less mitigation might mean more healing, so eventually some mp in spell...
Having to rely on your own knowledge and experience is something you can work on, but depending on your party is another, and AST really suffers from that, and since as healers, that's what we're also here fo well.

There's not always the perfect scenario with the very best player in an encounter.

I guarantee you, this choice is probably for the best.