The problem with Aetherflow Logic....

Look, anyone who says Aetherflow battle locking was because they wanted to eliminate pre-pull conditions is in denial that it was anything other than poor planning.

AST is not battle locked on drawing cards, so obviously pre-pull conditions wasn't that big of a deal eh?

Glad I got that off my chest.

AST pulling card in nor pre-battle locked, but obtaining seals from our cards is. The functionality is pretty different. I do agree I think it's silly for either of them to be battle locked however, still trying to understand that change myself.

The change to OOB Aetherflow has been so confusing to me, and similarly (even to a bigger extent) the change to cards OOB. For AF, it just essentially means we need to overrwite stacks at the end of an encounter (applicable for dungeon pulls) so we don't waste the AF cooldown between pulls. In boss fights, it just means we have an extra thing to weave at the beginning of battle.

It's especially weird considering we're holding onto stacks more than ever before now, since there's no Aetherflow dump, so having the extra 3 stacks before combat starts would not even provide an advantage now, aside from using an oGCD weave to get it on cooldown.

For Astro, the fact that you can draw cards outside of battle, but don't get seals from using them in battle seems like a poor design choice, I feel it especially when slinging cards at the start of a battle and get confused as to why a seal wasn't applied. This happens more so in dungeons between/at the start of pulls, but is equally annoying in boss fights as well.

It wasn't as much of an issue for SCH, but more for SMN who would pop Aetherflow and then need about a minute to reset the cooldown for an optimal DPS opener. SCH could abuse pre-stacks as well for three free energy drains or whatever at the start, but with the aetherflow cooldown trait it wasn't as long a wait. Granted now that SMN doesn't even have aetherflow anymore and SCHs can't Energy Drain to save their sanity none of that matters, so there's not really any good reason to keep this change. What are we going to do, overheal with more lustrates at the start? Savage would need to start with multi tank-busters right from the get-go.

But that's why they did it; to stop opener waiting. It wouldn't be so bad really, except everything else they did exacerbated it.

Yeah, the only reason was to try and prevent opener waiting. Unfortunately they really didn't think about just how clunky it makes Aetherflow management in Dungeons. Having to burn a worthless heal on a tank or a random DOT just to get into combat never feels very good. Again though, they clearly prioritized reducing drama between Healers and other roles over Healer engagement with all of these changes so maybe it's not too surprising....

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Originally Posted by Tygiuu

Look, anyone who says Aetherflow battle locking was because they wanted to eliminate pre-pull conditions is in denial that it was anything other than poor planning.

AST is not battle locked on drawing cards, so obviously pre-pull conditions wasn't that big of a deal eh?

Glad I got that off my chest.

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Don't worry they planned for this by making sure nobody would play AST. /s

Its like they are punishing people for playing a healer. Hey grab a book and play wack-a-mole and then hit 2 keys for the next min for dps. Cause yeah that’s fun.

yeah u just wanna cast your aetherflow just in the end of a trash fight to get enough stacks for next fight.

but on trials u always start with 0. I guess it's to balance us with how lillies work. but it does feel so strange indeed.

anyhow the faery gauge doesn't increase if we use aetherflow outside of combat ? don't remember and haven't tried

The absolute, 100% worst thing about Aetherflow having to be used in combat is often it takes a server tick to recognize you're in combat. That can be up to 3 seconds of the tank getting mauled in dungeons

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Originally Posted by nalol

anyhow the faery gauge doesn't increase if we use aetherflow outside of combat ? don't remember and haven't tried

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It's been that way since Fey Union was put in.

You can't obtain seals out of combat, you can't generate lilies out of combat. I think it's just more of a "balance the healers-thing" going on.

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Originally Posted by RayThrust

You can't obtain seals out of combat, you can't generate lilies out of combat. I think it's just more of a "balance the healers-thing" going on.

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The thing being though is you still don't generate fey gauge out of it but as far as I know (cause I haven't played the other 2), their better heals aren't locked behind limited access resources since I always hear "physick is garbage, needs a buff", so I don't get where the balance is there where the whm can still cast a benediction and ast can just pop (malefic? benison?) and its only limited via cooldown like Illuminosity (when you don't have the skill name in front of you....), but scholar can't pop aether to put the "kick me" note [excog] on the tank pre-pull at the absolute minimum.

If fairy abilities gave out more and cost aether then I could understand, but as it is now, excog especially and through say potd and hoh when you end up stuck on traps, landmines, and explosive coffers but aren't "in combat", things like that are just infuriating when you can't fix it beyond spamming 4-6 physicks with embraces tossed in to fix that issue.

I don't do savage raids, but I figured this change happened because of a couple of reasons that coincide with each other. Going into a fight with 3 stacks plus aetherflow off of CD basically allowed SCHs to open with excog and two energy drains, and then immediately refresh their stacks. Because of this, I can definitely understand wanting the SCH to go into the fight with all six chambers loaded, so-to-speak. Thing is, for max level content a SCH can queue loaded up and would not lose their stacks, so I honestly don't even know why this in itself was an issue.

Without energy drain though, then the change isn't even necessary. I suppose there's slapping an excog on the tank pre-fight that they might have wanted us to get away from, but again, I don't really understand the reasoning behind the change. I can still resort to an excog before an adlo to save GCDs for damage.

In short, it's just a nuisance. I am willing to compromise though for the return on Energy Drain.