5.3 AST Changes

So after reading the translated job changes for Astro it seems they are getting mp reductions which is definitely welcomed. Also sleeve draw is getting revamped/changed. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting anything card related until 6.0 but I know sleeve draw has been an huge issue. Having to use it with light speed in the opener and all the single target changes is rough especially for controller users. What do you guys think the change will be? I know some people say it might give all 3 seals automatically for easy divination but other than that I’m not sure what else it could be. Let’s speculate.

All 3 seals instantly wouldn't be too bad, but it would be a damage nerf. Whether this is offset with a Malefic buff or what, who knows.
Another option could be to just give 2 cards, less of a nerf, less of an improvement in terms of clunkiness, but still more manageable than what we have at least, and with your own regular draw you still have your three seals right away.

Considering that you brought up two of AST biggest issues, I'm quite sure the change is going to alleviate some the high APM, which in turn will also remedy the problem for controller users. If they want to get more players using AST, this would likely be the best route without reworking the cards entirely, which won't come until 6.0. Pairing two abilities isn't unheard of in this game, but this is intentional and light speed has other uses, so this really needs to be fixed.

As far as how they rework it, your guess is as good as mine. I don't raid with my AST, and it is this content where they will look at Sleeve Draw the most. There is also the issue that AST have no means to use Divination on-demand and the ability can drift. I would imagine that this can cause an issue with lining up with raid buffs, or other jobs have to hold onto their CDs waiting for the AST. I think this was the original intention with Sleeve Draw, so if I were to guess, Sleeve draw will now just grant you all three seals, but they will still be random.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

All 3 seals instantly wouldn't be too bad, but it would be a damage nerf. Whether this is offset with a Malefic buff or what, who knows.
Another option could be to just give 2 cards, less of a nerf, less of an improvement in terms of clunkiness, but still more manageable than what we have at least, and with your own regular draw you still have your three seals right away.

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There are cases where nerfing DPS is warranted, and I think this would be one of them. The true issue I see is that you have an ability that still drifts because Divination has its own CD. If Sleeve Draw were to reset the timer on it, then it would actually be a pretty big rDPS increase. I'm just thinking out loud though.

One issue we'd have with sleeve draw simply giving 3 seals is that we'd use much less minor divination.
With divination on a 2min cd that's only 1 card every 4 that would turn into a minor.

It Buggs me a little because it makes the skill almost pointless.

Another issue I see is the that this would basically kill the skill in itself.

They might as well remove it and simply grant us 3 seal out of combat and make us retain our seals upon death.

Anyway we'll see soon enough.

I agree with you guys that whatever this sleeve draw change is, it must be delicate or it will totally screw over divination. Hmm I’m excited for the patch notes to see what it will be revamped into. I play with controller and anything to help not give me wrist problems I’m for it lol. I do really like the granting of 3 seals but keeping it random will still not make it op. Or even if it resets the CD of divination that will be pretty neat too.

If it sleeve draw change makes it so you get 1 of each seal but random which card you get controller issues will remain as at most you elimated 3 button presses (redraw).

If sleeve draw changes gives seals themselves but random which ones, this will lighten the controller issues(3 lots of target switching), but give 1 new batch of rng, with only 2 cards and 3 redraws to correct divination to max potency.

Could change another way but these two seem most likely to happen.

Personally easiest solution to please as many as possible would be combination of the two where Sleeve Draw gives you 1 of each seal no card drawing, boring, yea, but consistent and lessen controller issue burden

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

So after reading the translated job changes for Astro it seems they are getting mp reductions which is definitely welcomed. Also sleeve draw is getting revamped/changed. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting anything card related until 6.0 but I know sleeve draw has been an huge issue. Having to use it with light speed in the opener and all the single target changes is rough especially for controller users. What do you guys think the change will be? I know some people say it might give all 3 seals automatically for easy divination but other than that I’m not sure what else it could be. Let’s speculate.

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You're probably right (3 seals automatically). but aside from the wrist strain of target switching, I'd also wish for Redraw to be coded to always provide a different seal than the one being re-drawn.

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Originally Posted by Side-Eye

You're probably right (3 seals automatically). but aside from the wrist strain of target switching, I'd also wish for Redraw to be coded to always provide a different seal than the one being re-drawn.

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If they start adding in ways to shave away RNG layers, then we start dealing with elements from the old card system that are only detrimental rather than beneficial. What actually has to happen in this regard is Divination values reworked. Two of one type of seal is the lowest common denominator, and should provide the least benefit. Getting three of one type of seal isn't any easier than getting three different types. It's just such a flawed system from the ground up

As far as Sleeve Draw, I was thinking that giving two random seals, and also drawing a card to be played might be possible. I also think they might do something with it way out of the box. I guess we just have to wait and see.

As long as it's something that makes me not having to switch targets as often as now it's fine with me.
Currently, healers are in a weird state, but still playable for me - aside from AST. I hate Sleeve Draw. It's annoying enough that I have to switch targets for every Draw ever since we lost Royal Road. It already makes me play AST way less than the other healers, and Sleeve Draw makes me play it almost never actually.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

If they start adding in ways to shave away RNG layers, then we start dealing with elements from the old card system that are only detrimental rather than beneficial. What actually has to happen in this regard is Divination values reworked. Two of one type of seal is the lowest common denominator, and should provide the least benefit. Getting three of one type of seal isn't any easier than getting three different types. It's just such a flawed system from the ground up

As far as Sleeve Draw, I was thinking that giving two random seals, and also drawing a card to be played might be possible. I also think they might do something with it way out of the box. I guess we just have to wait and see.

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Funny you should say that, because while seasoned AST players didn't mind RNG, it was primarily the DPS crowd who wanted *no* randomness and were primarily the reason that Squeenix killed the variety of buffs we used to have, in favor of a watered-down DPS buff for every card.

IMO, including RNG in the job's toolkit was what justified a few of those 'random' abilities to be powerful, was why there were tools to deal with the cards drawn which weren't useful at the moment, and ultimately, why astro could be so satisfying to play.

Would hate for sleeve draw to just give 3 seals. I understand the controller issues, but part of the fun of AST for me is the quick thinking and playing of cards. Would really hate for it to be watered down even more.

I'm really hoping with the mention of sleeve draw and MP off of lightspeed that we might see our MP regen tied to cards, making playing them feel much more rewarding for the astro.

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Originally Posted by Xiun

Would hate for sleeve draw to just give 3 seals. I understand the controller issues, but part of the fun of AST for me is the quick thinking and playing of cards. Would really hate for it to be watered down even more.

I'm really hoping with the mention of sleeve draw and MP off of lightspeed that we might see our MP regen tied to cards, making playing them feel much more rewarding for the astro.

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I’m with this guy, so far AST have been trivialized with this nerf it will sand off AST to its basic form. AST is already bogged down from 4.0. Is 6.0 just gonna do away with cards? Because it’s a few steps away from it

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Originally Posted by Jirah

I’m with this guy, so far AST have been trivialized with this nerf it will sand off AST to its basic form. AST is already bogged down from 4.0. Is 6.0 just gonna do away with cards? Because it’s a few steps away from it

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While I don't like watering down jobs further. Sleeve Draw is such a mess, I'd be fine with them simply making it give three seals and hopefully they can improve Astro as a whole come 6.0

The more that I use Sleeve Draw the more niche it feels. It's designed to give me 3 chances to build a max % buff seal for divination. For the opener it's great as usually not much is going on mechanics wise.

Fast Forward to the next sleeve draw and i'm dodging AOE, healing, DPSing, and probably selecting a party member to get rid of a minor arcana so that my sleeve draw isn't messed up. Just a lot going on usually.

Now with all that overlapping into my sleeve draw I sometimes have this flusterd moment where i'm like OMG is that melee or ranged?! Where is the damn ranged!? OMG there isn't any MELEE!??? *throws at tank*

The timer for sleeve draw is now ticking down and pushing my next divination further back. This must be the drift your talking about?

Sleeve draw needs to be a straight up 1 of each seal and change the CD to 240sec, so then you get 1 sleeve draw every other divination. Not to mention buff on demand for lining up with raid DPS better, just depends which end of the raid dps you want to stand on. Pop divination at the start for HIGH dps, or wait for the lower end to supplement for more even consistent DPS from start to finish.

This means your next manual build has to be RIGHT out of divination pop to line up the 120sec CD from manual build to sleeve draw.

Redraws I feel will just be the nature of the beast and balance out the class a little keeping that RNG feel.

Lately I have been using sleeve draw coupled with a manual built divination. This supplements the 6% with another 6% from minor arcana. So it goes like this: Manual build seals -> divination -> sleeve draw -> minor arcana to respective party members. It can be tricky to pull off but works great. Just wish I still had time dilation or celestial opposition still worked the same way. I used to do this in stormblood all the time. Then it changed. *kicks dirt* Loved seeing 1 min of uptime on my buffs lol although I can't remember if both skills worked for minor arcana.

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Originally Posted by Side-Eye

Funny you should say that, because while seasoned AST players didn't mind RNG, it was primarily the DPS crowd who wanted *no* randomness and were primarily the reason that Squeenix killed the variety of buffs we used to have, in favor of a watered-down DPS buff for every card.

IMO, including RNG in the job's toolkit was what justified a few of those 'random' abilities to be powerful, was why there were tools to deal with the cards drawn which weren't useful at the moment, and ultimately, why astro could be so satisfying to play.

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I honestly LOVED the RNG of Astro. When I picked it up it was my first healer, so i didn't have anything to base it off of. When I got spread and royal road it made "Fishing" for a card FUN! Nine times out of ten the party wanted spire/balance. But there were times when nobody cared. So I look at the party make up and bole/spear on a monk,nin,sam. Or balance/balance a dragoon or balance/bole a tank to give me a slight break in healing for more DPS.

I understand why they made everything the same, but at the same time it took away a lot of what made astro fun. And that was really coming up with fun and interesting ways to play your cards, with time dilation, and celestial opposition. I doubt they well ever go back to this in 6.0, if anything it will just become the next monk.

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

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Originally Posted by Side-Eye

Funny you should say that, because while seasoned AST players didn't mind RNG, it was primarily the DPS crowd who wanted *no* randomness and were primarily the reason that Squeenix killed the variety of buffs we used to have, in favor of a watered-down DPS buff for every card.

IMO, including RNG in the job's toolkit was what justified a few of those 'random' abilities to be powerful, was why there were tools to deal with the cards drawn which weren't useful at the moment, and ultimately, why astro could be so satisfying to play.

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AST mains constantly talk about this. While I am not being incredulous, it doesn't change that if you weren't fishing for Balance, you weren't playing the job correctly. I thought AST was pretty fun too back in those day, until I became painfully aware of this, which stripped the job of any enjoyment for me. Trust me, the only player in your party who cared about the other buffs was the AST. All in all, you are echoing what I've been saying, and the meta is to blame for the way things currently are.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

Considering that you brought up two of AST biggest issues, I'm quite sure the change is going to alleviate some the high APM, which in turn will also remedy the problem for controller users. If they want to get more players using AST, this would likely be the best route without reworking the cards entirely, which won't come until 6.0. Pairing two abilities isn't unheard of in this game, but this is intentional and light speed has other uses, so this really needs to be fixed.

As far as how they rework it, your guess is as good as mine. I don't raid with my AST, and it is this content where they will look at Sleeve Draw the most. There is also the issue that AST have no means to use Divination on-demand and the ability can drift. I would imagine that this can cause an issue with lining up with raid buffs, or other jobs have to hold onto their CDs waiting for the AST. I think this was the original intention with Sleeve Draw, so if I were to guess, Sleeve draw will now just grant you all three seals, but they will still be random.

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You get 4 cards between every divination. Your opener and using Sleeve Draw on cooldown gives you more seals as well. There's no reason why Divination should ever drift, it should be available on cooldown; if it isn't you aren't counting your cards properly or aren't using Draw on cooldown.

While the 3 instant seals are a more likely change, I'd laugh if the new Sleeve Draw is just not-Royal Road that makes the next card aoe.

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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.

-snip-

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

-snip-

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.

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Originally Posted by IllyaPrisma

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.

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I don't agree at all. With that same logic, why has BLM gotten much better at mobility and weaving over the years while WHM has not? Intentional or not, that's a really strict design choice and a frustrating one at that. If their GCD is the focus of their built, then BLM should also be forced to clip as well because it's powerful with few oGCDs right? That logic doesn't make sense with WHM and even SCH (even they have Ruin II but that's still a loss).

Tbh all healers should have gotten the reduced cast time treatment. It would make weaving less annoying than it is and would prevent less greeding as well. SCH and WHM like someone said is hard now because someone has to bite the bullet and take a loss because of their limited weaving window.

Maybe you and some others find it interesting to work around that, but I find it archaic and bad. The entire role faces a myriad of issues and problems and they choose to keep the clipping horror that is healers?

It kind of shows they don't look healers as much as they say they do. The only job they did it for is AST and that's because of the cards. And even after its iteration in HW, they only decided to fix it late SB.

Even if WHM/SCH has a reduced cast time like AST's, it will only beat it marginally or even the field out. AST is still very valuable because of its kit and buffs.

Looking at the changes lined up, it'll be interesting to see what the Sleeve Draw changes are, this may be a positive for controller users, although I've previously stated "but it is not an issue for me", but I wasn't really playing optimally and since improving my AST play, I have gradually found, yeah, it's a pain on controller. I will happily take that comment back.

With MP changes, I'm not sure what to feel, I like that I had to adapt based on the fact it is easier to run out of MP because MP feels like a resource I have to manage. So I kinda would prefer it to stay that way. It is another dimension to playing a healer and with how they all feel too efficient for most content, I liked having something that's not-so-efficient to compensate for.

But I expect for Savage and Ultimate, MP could be s hindrance for AST players? Not sure how much of a difference it makes there as not taken mine there.

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Originally Posted by Saefinn

But I expect for Savage and Ultimate, MP could be s hindrance for AST players? Not sure how much of a difference it makes there as not taken mine there.

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its pretty bad. if a fight drags on, or if you rez someone or god forbid you die for whatever reason youre pretty much screwed and will run out of mp at some point. the amount of super ethers ive burnt this expansion because lightspeed and lucid on cooldown wasnt enough is ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by Side-Eye

Exactly correct. As usual, Squeenix is fixing a busted leaking pipe by installing new ceiling fans.

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I about spit my coffee out...freaking hilarious.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

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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I don't play WHM anymore...it's kind of boring to me, but if I pick it up again i'll look into throttling my Cure II when the tank is at 50% HP. Thanks

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Originally Posted by QooEr

its pretty bad. if a fight drags on, or if you rez someone or god forbid you die for whatever reason youre pretty much screwed and will run out of mp at some point. the amount of super ethers ive burnt this expansion because lightspeed and lucid on cooldown wasnt enough is ridiculous.

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I am guessing given the part you quoted this is what it is like for Savage and Ultimate.

I am basing my experience on taking AST to Ruby Weapon EX and Memoria Misera as the highest content I've taken AST into.

At first I had MP problems, partially because I fell into the trap of thinking "my cohealer is WHM, let's go Noct", but once I adapted, I found with all the raise I was able to manage my MP.

And I liked that. But then I am not sure how they can bring the experience of MP management to more content without making tougher content a nightmare with MP.

This I guess is another supporting point for my idea to have a Raid specific build for balance, like we have with PvP. So job balance outside of raid can be made more interesting, whilst in raid more balanced.

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Originally Posted by KDSilver

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.

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Honestly, I don't mind admitting I haven't experienced AST enough to judge properly. I'm leveling one at the moment, even if I don't main it at endgame just to get a better insight on how my co-healers function. So no, I'm not disagreeing on that at all. Any discussion is a good chance to learn more so it's all an interesting read.

Don't get me wrong, I like AST's. I don't want nerfs and I'm all for them getting an MP bump and I really hope they get that gameplay fix that many seem to want. Similar to WhM's mobility and ScH's handicap ...I mean pet, there's a difference between weakness and crippling and if that's the case then give them more mana.
But it does still surprise me that that's their main focus, when AST is still the top endgame healer and the other 2 are riddled with issues and not even acknowledged. And that's not even getting started on the overall healer gameplay we've been discussing for months because I assume that's a 6.0 job.

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Originally Posted by elioaiko

Tbh all healers should have gotten the reduced cast time treatment. It would make weaving less annoying than it is and would prevent less greeding as well. SCH and WHM like someone said is hard now because someone has to bite the bullet and take a loss because of their limited weaving window.

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If WHM had the same mobility and weaving capability as AST, the balance of healers would be completely thrown out the window. There would need to be potency reductions across the board for WHM to even consider it.
You also can’t compare WHM and BLM, as Shadowbringers displayed clear DPS favoritism from a development perspective.

Take a step back and think about balance rationally, and not just what you personally think is best. It’s the community spouting ludicrous ideas like yours that got healers into the homogenized mess we are currently in.

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Originally Posted by IllyaPrisma

If WHM had the same mobility and weaving capability as AST, the balance of healers would be completely thrown out the window. There would need to be potency reductions across the board for WHM to even consider it.
You also can’t compare WHM and BLM, as Shadowbringers displayed clear DPS favoritism from a development perspective.

Take a step back and think about balance rationally, and not just what you personally think is best. It’s the community spouting ludicrous ideas like yours that got healers into the homogenized mess we are currently in.

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I've played ClipMage in dungeons. It flows like mud compared to classes that are actually designed with the weave space they need to use their abilities.

Maybe we could find a weakness for WHM that isn't "doesn't play smoothly".

And relative immobility is a pretty nasty weakness; it's why they added a bunch of movement tools to BLM. Almost every single mechanic at all levels of difficulty is passed through moving. It'd be nice if encounters occasionally traded around whose weaknesses they hammer at, but an immobile class will -always- have their weakness leaned on by basically every encounter in this game.

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Originally Posted by IllyaPrisma

If WHM had the same mobility and weaving capability as AST, the balance of healers would be completely thrown out the window. There would need to be potency reductions across the board for WHM to even consider it.
You also can’t compare WHM and BLM, as Shadowbringers displayed clear DPS favoritism from a development perspective.

Take a step back and think about balance rationally, and not just what you personally think is best. It’s the community spouting ludicrous ideas like yours that got healers into the homogenized mess we are currently in.

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While I understand the power balance would be different if both WHM and SCH got better weaving space, the increased power balance wouldn't be that bad. The only potential problem I could see is that SCH/AST would be strong but that's nothing new really. WHM wouldn't even need to be nerfed because they lack the oGCDs that SCH and AST do.

AST would still be king regardless because of their healing and while SCH would be a monster at healing again, that comes to show you how bad their SCH changes were. Taking away their DoTs to weave and the ability to cast fairy skills while casting severely hurt SCH's ability to heal optimally.

Like the other person said, immobility is a terrible design choice. If getting nerfed to be underneath AST/SCH's dominance for better movement and weaving, I would take that in a heartbeat. I'd rather have weaker DPS than to clip a million times and still lose DPS.

Also wanting better weaving space for two jobs that sorely need them does not correlate with why they homogenized the healers. They wanted an a cleaner focus on healing and they forced all the healers to have the same DPS kit and wanted more people to play the role.

The irony is that if they wanted people to play the role than they should have made them less clunkier. WHM clips and is a more a turret than BLM at this point. SCH's fairy ghosts and we had to beg for Energy Drain back. And on top of that, AST's cards got changed and Sleeve Draw is problematic.

I would say wanting less clipping would be the last reason people call healers dull.