Yet another "AST Tweaks" Thread

Because I'm bored at work and bandwagons are fun [plz dont shoot me]

To be honest I'm completely fine with AST as is, I'm not wanting for any changes really; the class works, its competetive, its potent, it has its own little things, the tool kit is fun and its a great healer to learn and play.

But of course p.much everyone always can think of something to edit or change on a class, and AST is no different even after the general buffs ages ago. I quite enjoy reading every thread about buffs/nerf/QOL changes etc and I'd be lying if I never thought about throwing my lil ideas up so here we go.


1. Obligitory swap of Gravity and Combust 2.
We all know why people want this. sycned to 50 SCH can bane dots, and WHM can holy, while the extent of AST aoe is manual multi-dotting which is just, why. Will this ever happen, probably not, but we can dream.

1.5. Gravity applies a Heavy affect.
Makes logical sense right? how useful is this exactly? PVE not hugely i guess, PVP... well idk since i dont pvp and im not going to pretend i have a clue, so if anyone wants to chime in on how big or small this would be in pvp plz do. Still, Gravity really should apply something.

2. Obligitory Spear affects all CD's even ones used change.
However i think the way i would want this change is slightly different from most.
As we all know it currently works like; Draw > Spear > use on target > target uses CD > CD gains reduced cooldown time even after spear falls off until the CD has reset.
And what i assume most people want is; Target uses CD > Draw > Spear > use on target > CD gains reduced cooldown time even after spear falls off until the CD has reset.
which ya know would be simple and nice.
-I don't like simple and nice-
I personally would find that change rather dull, imo it would turn Spear into a "just throw it on the tank and forget about it" kinda deal, minimal thought.
What I would change it to is; Target uses CD > Draw > Spear > use on target > CD gains reduced cooldown time while spear is in effect, however CD's used before Spear go back to normal cooldown rate after spear has worn off. CD's used during spear retain the current reduced cooldown effect even after spear drops.

IMO this would strike a balance between the desired "Spear affects used CD's" while not making it a run and gun card thrown about; it would also promote more use of RR effects ON Spear, do you enhance Spear for even faster CD times, do you extend it for more effect, do you also blow a time dialte on it, CO?
I like my complexity of AST which is why i personally would want the change to work like this, but i do completely understand the desire for the run-n-gun change.

3. Collective Unconscious.
I often see alot of people wanting changes to this skill. I honestly don't know why, i find it rather powerful and chock full of nice things. but eh i guess its use is still limited to certain scenarios; mostly raid wide damage where you can group up; or as a potent Diurnal A.Helios+A.Bene+CU = 3k+ HP regen ticks on your tank = DPS time max.
So I had a thought and i realised, sure, i can come up with something nice.
-While channeling CU, the caster gains the effects of Luminiferous Aether; this effect does NOT stay after CU is finished or cancled like the current buffs.
As it stands i rarely see CU actually channeled, its more used like a flick of a light bulb for the buffs and then dropped. gaining mana regen while you channel it for as long as you channel it? ho boy now im more tempted to HoT up my tank and sit next to the boss so i dont get cleaved but still channel heal him nicely while regaining MP.


And thats pretty much it.
Like I said I'm not wanting for changes/buffs, i dont want these changes, but i wouldnt complain about them if they happened ya know? these are just lil ideas i had and figured why not clutter up the forum with them and see what people think.
If something isnt clear just say and ill try explain better.

Anyway, ty for reading my bandwagon post, i look forward to comments.

These ideas seem really nice. I actually do like the complexity you added to spear. Now I actually want that implemented though :/

Agreed on the Spear changes. I'd always hoped it would be a +20% cooldown rate during duration + all abilities used during the cooldown require 20% less time to recharge. That way it favors neither long nor short cooldowns, exactly, and has ideal usage, but never no use.

Had always hoped that Gravity would draw enemies affected towards the target over a second, to be honest, slowing movement during the draw. AoE radius increased slightly, and damage based on range from the target. Various players pull adds towards the gather point, Gravity the first to arrive, pulling all into place, stun via CO, and tank has everything ready for their AoEs and dense placement. That said, I'd hate to lose Combust II during 50-sync fights even more than I'd like to have access to Gravity.

Apart from that, Shuffle's already seeing changes, so I'm happy.


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I mean, if I were to go further, I suppose I'd just adjust a few more of the cards:

- While active, Bole reduces damage taken by 10% and duplicates 15% off all periodic healing received. (Does not need to have been active when the HoT was applied, but the benefit will die off with the card's duration.)
:: Now useful for recovery magic and useful in combination with HoTs, rather than only seeing significance as a last resort. (Slightly favors Diurnal; shield duplication not included since that would be much more usable than the naturally limited periodic heal ticks.)

- Ewer reduces mana costs by 20% while regenerating mana. Ewer automatically fades after having saved a maximum of 20% of base MP worth of mana. (~2275 MP) [Value TBD]
:: Same max mana returns for both healers and BLMs. Ewer's maximum MP returns have been increased. Now useful on BLMs as well.
:: Now actually provides enough mana to allow an extra Fire IV and Blizzard 3 on BLMs. Side-note: affects Flare. (Spending more than 1325 mana on a flare will leave you enough mana to Blizzard 3.)

- Spire reduces TP costs by 20% while regenerating TP, to a maximum of 250 TP. (Value TBR)
:: Ideally used before AoE spams to maximize the amount of TP saved. Now ~40% more effective if maxed out. Side-note: affects sprint.

These changes mostly just give additional roundness and more ideal usage situations and targets for the other three less desirable cards.

Edit:

Actually one more thing...
- Royal Road: Expand should should always equal approximately 200% of the total effect (as a sum of affected party members) of the card. The reduction of the card's effectiveness now depends on the number of players being affected.
2 players:100%. 3 players: 66%. 4+ players: 50%

Err, two more...
- Sects are now abilities and may be swapped in combat, but when swapped in combat prevents spells for 5 seconds. This penalty is reduced over time since the last cast, becoming entirely free over two minutes (only one GCD lost after 1 minute, etc.)
- Or some similar limitation while still allowing in combat swaps.

Three...
- Diurnal Sect also reduces MP costs by 5%.
- Nocturnal Sect also increases all potency done (not just healing potency) by 5%.

Welp, that's way too much, but at least it's all out of my head now.

I like these ideas especially the Collective Unconscious idea. And I really like the animation too CU so its a plus for me. :D

I really like your ideas but I would add another one:

While channeling Collective Unconscious you lose aggro.

That would help a lot with the enmity caused by Collective Unconscious

ty for responces so far.

I try to stay away from changes that would be big and/or larger scale bufs vs minor ones since it would then raise the "wheres my whm/sch buffs" but anyway, time to dive my 2cents on other ideas;

@Shurrikhan I've seen that idea for Gravity before, would be rather cool tbh. although i think personally id prefer such an effect on a new skill, akin to a time rift/black hole. new skill at 70? :D
Also i i feel on loosing combust 2 sub 50, its a real 50/50 on AOE vs more ST DoTs
Card ideas oh i love reading these.
Bole is interesting, though personally id rather not have more than 1 affect per card, and i really wouldnt like a technical buff to heals gated to rng draws. still, interesting.
Ewer is interesting but sadly, wont work. Card buffs have to synergise with all RR effects; how would Ewer work with Extended if it auto drops after 20%? Enhanced would raise the cap to 30% while expanded would take it to 10% but AoE. Extended becomes null.
thats the big issue with card changes, they have to work with all RR buffs and if we make a move to add 2 or more effects per thing it could get hopelessly convulted. i once toyed with the idea of making ewer/spire work like invigorate giving a instant flat return but again, doesnt work with extended.
same with your spire idea; both are interesting but would require a rework of extended which in turn would be balance issues galore.
still thank you for the ideas and im glad you got them out :)

oh extras
i assume you mean RR:Expand and reduction to potency not duration :P again interesting but working off 200% is a bit cheaty in dual play, 100% for 2 targets is the same as using 2 cards. OP PLZ NERF.
A sect change is interesting and its probed alot, and there would have to be some drawback yes, thought what who knows. maybe this will be something in 4.0
Diurnal, 95% sure it did this in 3.0 before they outright ruduced AST MP costs by 5% anyway. so a 10% overall reduction vs others for same potency healing? might be a bit much.
I like the Noct idea though, its small enough a change its not bordering OP but good enough it may warrant more Noct play if you like to DPS.

still, ty for all this, its interesting to see ideas.

@AlphaSonic
I considered an agro dump, but imo adding such a thing onto CU is giving 1 skill A LOT of stuff.
Maybe add an agro dump onto CO though....
25% chopped off sounds good [since we have the reduced effect from LA, if we had much more than 25% WHM would scream about enroaching on Shroud to much]

actually yeah, 25% emnity dump added to CO would be good...

Obligatory question about Gravity from me: would you prefer Gravity to have slow at the cost of 25% more MP? Right now Gravity gets the added effect of costing 20% less MP compared to Holy and I imagine you'd end up losing it when you add a heavy effect to Gravity. Thematically it makes sense but would you be willing to take the MP cut for balance sake?

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

Obligatory question about Gravity from me: would you prefer Gravity to have slow at the cost of 25% more MP? Right now Gravity gets the added effect of costing 20% less MP compared to Holy and I imagine you'd end up losing it when you add a heavy effect to Gravity. Thematically it makes sense but would you be willing to take the MP cut for balance sake?

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Cue neglegence on my part, i honestly didnt look about MP cost vs Holy.

Honestly Grav is fine as is, it was just a thematical "surely it should do x"
from a balance point thought if they were to add heavy as an effect then id definately expect it to cost more MP. as to whether it would cost the same as Holy, not sure, personally i find Stun to be a more potent up front effect vs heavy, so maybe 5% less MP cost than Holy?

still, good call; if i ever make towards wanting AST changes ill make double sure to cross reference costs etc

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Originally Posted by LDR

@Shurrikhan I've seen that idea for Gravity before, would be rather cool tbh. although i think personally id prefer such an effect on a new skill, akin to a time rift/black hole. new skill at 70? :D
Also i i feel on loosing combust 2 sub 50, its a real 50/50 on AOE vs more ST DoTs
Card ideas oh i love reading these.
Bole is interesting, though personally id rather not have more than 1 affect per card, and i really wouldnt like a technical buff to heals gated to rng draws. still, interesting.
Ewer is interesting but sadly, wont work. Card buffs have to synergise with all RR effects; how would Ewer work with Extended if it auto drops after 20%? Enhanced would raise the cap to 30% while expanded would take it to 10% but AoE. Extended becomes null.
thats the big issue with card changes, they have to work with all RR buffs and if we make a move to add 2 or more effects per thing it could get hopelessly convulted. i once toyed with the idea of making ewer/spire work like invigorate giving a instant flat return but again, doesnt work with extended.
same with your spire idea; both are interesting but would require a rework of extended which in turn would be balance issues galore.
still thank you for the ideas and im glad you got them out :)

oh extras
i assume you mean RR:Expand and reduction to potency not duration :P again interesting but working off 200% is a bit cheaty in dual play, 100% for 2 targets is the same as using 2 cards. OP PLZ NERF.
A sect change is interesting and its probed alot, and there would have to be some drawback yes, thought what who knows. maybe this will be something in 4.0
Diurnal, 95% sure it did this in 3.0 before they outright reduced AST MP costs by 5% anyway. so a 10% overall reduction vs others for same potency healing? might be a bit much.
I like the Noct idea though, its small enough a change its not bordering OP but good enough it may warrant more Noct play if you like to DPS.

still, ty for all this, its interesting to see ideas.

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I'd imagine Extended Ewer/Spire would basically have to double the total MP gain possible as well as the duration, or, if Ewer appeared as two buffs (mana regen and mana cost reduction, seperately) drop only the mana cost reduction.

And yeah, I meant effectiveness, not duration, sorry.

Forgot that they reduced all mana costs by 5%. Thought Lightspeed's added MP cost reduction and changing Ewer to a MP refresh instead of a cost reduction was all they got. If that's the case though, I honestly would have preferred to see the default costs unchanged, and that reduction built into Diurnal instead, to keep mana efficiency equal across both Sects (especially give that Nocturnal would then also affect offensive casts, and would be more powerful for DoTs).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LDR

Cue neglegence on my part, i honestly didnt look about MP cost vs Holy.

Honestly Grav is fine as is, it was just a thematical "surely it should do x"
from a balance point thought if they were to add heavy as an effect then id definately expect it to cost more MP. as to whether it would cost the same as Holy, not sure, personally i find Stun to be a more potent up front effect vs heavy, so maybe 5% less MP cost than Holy?

still, good call; if i ever make towards wanting AST changes ill make double sure to cross reference costs etc

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All good :) just thought I'd ask since most players don't realize that subtle difference and you aren't the first and most certainly won't be the last~

I can go for the 5% reduction from bade Holy mp-cost for an en- effect if it were to happen.

@Shurrikhan
could work in that sense, plus it would affect the Enhanced = Power meta sorta. EP would be a 10% to all for 15s, EH would be 30% to 1 for 15s, EX would be 40% to 1 for 30s.
do you want 30% mana fast, or an extra 10% total but taking 15 seconds more. probably still falls into a mid-size buff category but damn if it wouldnt be nice.

also iirc they did the boardwide 5% off due to complaints about people OOM fast due to asts ability to speed heal vs others, thought now it may not be as much a problem.
that said if they reverted it and gave diurnal the 5% reduction along side the faster casts it currently has vs Noct, even with an all POT effect in Noct, Di would still lean heavy in favour.

still, maybe in future theyll think about applying game wide job buffs and consider these options

The 5% less cost of Gravity isn't because it has no effect, it's because AST spells are just cheaper from back when they had lower potency on their cures.

Benefic 1 and Cure 1 do the same healing, but AST is cheaper. There used to be reason for it being cheaper but 3.07 buffed the potencies without touching the MP cost

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

Obligatory question about Gravity from me: would you prefer Gravity to have slow at the cost of 25% more MP? Right now Gravity gets the added effect of costing 20% less MP compared to Holy and I imagine you'd end up losing it when you add a heavy effect to Gravity. Thematically it makes sense but would you be willing to take the MP cut for balance sake?

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Well, astrologian spells are just cheaper in general even when it's essentially (or exactly) the same in effect as the other healers' counterparts. Plus, heavy is nowhere near as useful in pve stuff as holy which is probably the only place where you'd spam either of these skills enough for mp cost to even matter and most enemies in your average dungeon run are outright immune to heavy anyway I believe.

An aoe heavy would be great for pvp, though in that situation mp is not a huge problem so far. Without cleric stance, there isn't much reason to spam holy, and there will be even less reason to spam gravity given that you're aiming to just inflict heavy on a bunch of people simultaneously. Not sure how it'll fare in the new mode coming out but my experience so far is that most fights don't last long enough for you to run dry especially given you get another skill to regain mp. And that's ignoring that fact that bard and machinist also got another pvp skill that instantly restores some mp to everyone in range; never seen anyone use that, never seen anyone have to.

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Originally Posted by Ashelia_Ferron

The 5% less cost of Gravity isn't because it has no effect, it's because AST spells are just cheaper from back when they had lower potency on their cures.

Benefic 1 and Cure 1 do the same healing, but AST is cheaper. There used to be reason for it being cheaper but 3.07 buffed the potencies without touching the MP cost

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I'd argue that this is in fact the reason why Gravity is cheaper. In the realm of ASTs (few) DPS spells, their potencies are in line with their MP costs relative to the other two healers. Malefic II is the same cost of Stone III/Broil. Combust II is stronger than Bio II and it has a higher cost than Bio II. Stella is the same cost of Miamsa but Stella is outside the normal damage rotation. The only odd one is Gravity.

Gravity has been the same since AST's launch but its mp cost is lower than Holy, It has the same potency of Holy but it is missing an effect therefore, a lower mp cost is justified. If they were to give Gravity like a Slow or Stun, I'm sure they'd raise the MP cost as well.

Just a small thing to add since MP cost is bring brought up a lot. Almost all the healing spells in the AST kit has a cheaper MP cost versus their equivalent. This MP cost reduction is usually 10% outside of a few exceptions. Benefic is actually 20% cheaper and Aspected Benefic is actually more expensive when compared to Regen in Diurnal (and much cheaper than Adlo when compared to Nocturnal).

The only outlier in the DPS skill tree that is present is Gravity for reasons stated above.

I feel the reason this happened initially was stated earlier - AST spells were generally 5% less potent at its launch and the mp cost reduction was to help balance that. Lower potency isn't the case any longer though.

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Originally Posted by MidnightTundra

Gravity has been the same since AST's launch but its mp cost is lower than Holy, It has the same potency of Holy but it is missing an effect therefore, a lower mp cost is justified. If they were to give Gravity like a Slow or Stun, I'm sure they'd raise the MP cost as well.

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I could understand a higher price point for an effect that was actually useful in most pve content like slow (attack speed debuff, that is) and stun, but not for gravity as OP suggested. Higher mp for a heavy effect would just be a nerf to gravity for the sake of formalities rather than a counterbalance to keep things in check. I'd honestly still take a heavy effect for higher mp cost because I just like the idea of a gravity based attack making things heavier that much, but I wouldn't agree with the thought that the mp price hike was needed.

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Originally Posted by Mutemutt

snip

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The slow I was speaking of was similar to Feint not the OP's suggestion to add heavy onto Gravity. I'd take an MP cost nerf if they threw Feint's effect on Gravity but I sort of agree with you; I don't feel like the MP cost should be nerfed. I just feel like if they were to do that, they'd most likely adjust the MP cost as well.

Outside of A3S, Pvp and the old T7, heavy is kind of useless tbh. I'm not sure why people want it on Gravity.

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Originally Posted by MidnightTundra

Stella is the same cost of Miamsa but Stella is outside the normal damage rotation.

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Yeah but if you compare to stone I, Stella is really bad.

Stone I : 353 mp 140 potency 40%slow 20sec +-same cd same range
Stella : 442 mp 100 potency 40% slow 20 sec +-same cd same range

For gravity, I would like a better radius

IF you compare with Holy.
You have 5 radius against 8.

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Originally Posted by NamoNanamo

For gravity, I would like a better radius

IF you compare with Holy.
You have 5 radius against 8.

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If they increased gravity's radius, do you think they'd also have to nerf its ranged aspect? I know with HOLY that I have to run into a pack of mobs to fire them off. Usually safe because of the stun so it seems fine, but I still have to consider whether or not its safe to leave the comfort of being at range.

Yes, we got range and it cost less mp but we don't have stun (that's why it cost lower imo).
My problem with Gravity is that you NEED to target to use the spell.

So you can't precast AND you lose some time :
- While you are trying to lock the good one cause your radius is small or you got too many ennemies.
- While you are casting gravity and the add die before you finish the cast. So you always need to switch and lose some time.
Imho, Holy is far better and mana efficient due to its radius/precast/no target mode.

And even if they nerf the range, it's a good trade. I don't really need 25 Y when most of the time, I'm 15y(or less) away from mate/ennemies.
Don't forget that Astro need to be close to allies if you want to buff them. (Helios/Aspected helios/CO/CU/AOE card)