AST's nerf goes too far.

I know, I know, wait until the nerf is actually implemented to see how it works, but still.


I think we could all argue that something could have been done about Aspected Benefic in Nocturnal Sect. It made ASTs utterly annoying to deal with, sure, but they could still be countered and kill.

They were not infallible, nor were they unkillable. Merely a nuisance that required more co-ordination to down, same as all healers.

So, the shield nerf doesn't surprise me. What does is the potency. Cutting it by half. On all accounts, that's ridiculously harsh, especially since PvP was the only place where you could use Nocturnal Sect with it actually being better than Diurnal.

We could argue all day over whether Astro deserved the nerf, but we can all probably agree on is the fact that the nerf is HARSH. Too harsh.

Not harsh I would say

You know how aspected benefic currently gives 130% shield? Why could they have not just started by reducing it to 100%?

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Originally Posted by Renault

You know how aspected benefic currently gives 130% shield? Why could they have not just started by reducing it to 100%?

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Because then every Astro in the game would still just 1 button PvP. This is necessary, and I suspect the adjustment will be rough for most who have not PvP'd without it. Most DC's have friday night den - queue up and start relying less on the 1-button-wonder now so that you are prepared when the patch hits. It'll be more productive than this.

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Originally Posted by TheWaywardWind

especially since PvP was the only place where you could use Nocturnal Sect with it actually being better than Diurnal.

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Honestly, I don't think Nocturnal should ever have been an Adloquium clone in the first place, it made more sense to me for it to be closer to Phalanx in XI; An effect which reduces damage taken by a value (rather than a percentage, which is what we have with tank skills). A shield simply never correlated well with abilities like Time Dilation and I've always discredited Nocturnal on that fact alone. Diurnal gives Regen, and extending the duration of Regen is extra HP restored. Were Nocturnal closer to Phalanx, I'm not sure how it would balance compared to Regen, but it would at least benefit from increasing the duration, not to mention stack nicely with Stoneskin/Adloquium.

Lets say, on average (in PvE), you'd take 10 hits in 30 seconds while taking (pulling that out my rear for simplicities sake). Currently a ~2,000HP Aspected Benefic will shield ~2,600HP. Lets instead make it like Phalanx, and it now mitigates ~260HP per hit over its 30 second duration. Since you're taking 10 hits over that time, it mitigates 2,600HP, but now Time Dilation can extend its duration. If someone is going to take more than 10 hits in those 30 seconds (which seems fairly relevant to PvP), it is technically doing more for you. They can even make Aspected Benefic and Aspected Helios stack for Nocturnal Sect in that regard.

It wouldn't be particularly hard to balance, and it would be far more interesting than effectively cloning Scholars thing. As far as PvP goes, it wouldn't be stupidly overpowered as is currently the case, instead it could potentially be a fairly useful status effect to have. Sort of like another form of Testudo, but not percentage based. Every hit you take it would be mitigating some damage, when people are running into a group that would be fairly nice. Only issue I can perhaps think of is auto-attack damage perhaps being entirely mitigated by a Phalanx style effect, though even that isn't too hard to balance out.

And now they've made Nocturnal Sect useless in PVP, the one place it shined. I'll say it's good for balancing PVP but now Noct has been knocked down another peg... >w>()

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Originally Posted by TheWaywardWind

We could argue all day over whether Astro deserved the nerf, but we can all probably agree on is the fact that the nerf is HARSH. Too harsh.

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Actually, I'm not so sure it's too harsh. Going to have to play around with it but, if I'm reading the numbers right, this puts the effective healing power of aspected benefic a little above the standard benefic/cure/physick heal. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to cast physick or cure when it has the same cast time as adlo and cure 2 but aspected benefic is still instant and essentially free; from my eyeballed-numbers math in level 60 pvp, the total heal shrinks by about 1k but that could still be pretty useful to cast while kiting or swiftcasting blizzard 2 and whatnot.

Still think it'll be more useful than diurnal in pvp though, to be honest. Even then, I still feel like it needs to be tested up against the damage in lvl60 4v4.

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Originally Posted by Mutemutt

if I'm reading the numbers right, this puts the effective healing power of aspected benefic a little above the standard benefic/cure/physick heal. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to cast physick or cure when it has the same cast time as adlo and cure 2 but aspected benefic is still instant and essentially free

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You're not reading the numbers right. The cost of the spell is 707 MP. That's nearly as much as Cure 2 which is double the potency. It is an extremely expensive, cost-inefficient heal. In organized PVP, Astro was fine. It has its strengths and weaknesses, just as the other healers. Unfortunately, one of its strengths is being invincible to bad players. I just hope that once the Feast comes out they receive more feedback and can hopefully alleviate this change for more balanced Ranked play.

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Originally Posted by Koltik

Because then every Astro in the game would still just 1 button PvP. This is necessary, and I suspect the adjustment will be rough for most who have not PvP'd without it. Most DC's have friday night den - queue up and start relying less on the 1-button-wonder now so that you are prepared when the patch hits. It'll be more productive than this.

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It is not "1 button PVP" at all. I have 44 hotkeys that I use for AST pvp, not including food, pots, mount and target macros. I also use nearly all of those in any given match, except those over level 50. Come The Feast, I guarantee I will be using all of them.

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Originally Posted by Renault

You're not reading the numbers right. The cost of the spell is 707 MP. That's nearly as much as Cure 2 which is double the potency. It is an extremely expensive, cost-inefficient heal. In organized PVP, Astro was fine. It has its strengths and weaknesses, just as the other healers. Unfortunately, one of its strengths is being invincible to bad players. I just hope that once the Feast comes out they receive more feedback and can hopefully alleviate this change for more balanced Ranked play.

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Mp cost was hardly an issue I think. I've spammed that spell for days on end it feels like and every once in a while it reminds me that I forgot to use LA and then I just mana draw. The numbers that really matter are how much it heals for.