Is there a reason Ast cant have the sects?

the Ast pure-healer rework didn't really do anything. The sects were removed and we're in perma-diruna stance. Why? Why can't Ast have the sects? Is being able to switch to a shield healer for utility that good? Is it for the sake of this 2 pure healer 2 shield healer ideal? I just fail to see why they took away a fun tool.

Yeah, SE wants to have 2 pure Healers and 2 Barrier healers. I feel like the only reason AST had the sects in the first place was because there were only 3 healers and it would've been too awkward to have either 2 Pure healers 1 Barrier healer or 1 Pure Healer and 2 Barrier healers. Having the 3rd healer be able to be either was probably just for that reason. Also since AST and SCH were paired together most of the time anyway, AST already kinda was Perma Diurnal. This isn't really a rework just reducing 2 buttons and making the tooltips easier to read.

Because the people on these forums don't seem to think it can be balanced or done in a meaningful way and have decided that AST with sects was the devil and the reason why healing is the worst role in this game, meanwhile Squeen can't be bothered to think on what to do to improve healing for more than 10 minutes and resorts to potency bloat in order to establish a sort of balance between the healers while they promise to spend more time "fixing" the "state of healers" (which most players interpret and hope to mean that they'll adjust the game to fit their preferred style of healing, only to be further disappointed when it doesn't or when they go in the opposite direction).

Hyperbole aside, Squeen had issues trying to balance the different stances while also balancing ASTs utility and personal agency. Diurnal was the one sect that was used most often and decried the least, so that's likely where the decision to scrap Nocturnal over Diurnal came from, when they decided they wanted to have 2 styles of healer.

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Originally Posted by MintnHoney

Because the people on these forums don't seem to think it can be balanced or done in a meaningful way and have decided that AST with sects was the devil and the reason why healing is the worst role in this game, meanwhile Squeen can't be bothered to think on what to do to improve healing for more than 10 minutes and resorts to potency bloat in order to establish a sort of balance between the healers while they promise to spend more time "fixing" the "state of healers" (which most players interpret and hope to mean that they'll adjust the game to fit their preferred style of healing, only to be further disappointed when it doesn't or when they go in the opposite direction).

Hyperbole aside, Squeen had issues trying to balance the different stances while also balancing ASTs utility and personal agency. Diurnal was the one sect that was used most often and decried the least, so that's likely where the decision to scrap Nocturnal over Diurnal came from, when they decided they wanted to have 2 styles of healer.

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Why are you using the abbreviation “Squeen?”

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Is there a reason Ast can't have the sects?

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Because they took an oath of celibacy?

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Originally Posted by MintnHoney

Because the people on these forums don't seem to think it can be balanced or done in a meaningful way and have decided that AST with sects was the devil and the reason why healing is the worst role in this game, meanwhile Squeen can't be bothered to think on what to do to improve healing for more than 10 minutes and resorts to potency bloat in order to establish a sort of balance between the healers while they promise to spend more time "fixing" the "state of healers" (which most players interpret and hope to mean that they'll adjust the game to fit their preferred style of healing, only to be further disappointed when it doesn't or when they go in the opposite direction).

Hyperbole aside, Squeen had issues trying to balance the different stances while also balancing ASTs utility and personal agency. Diurnal was the one sect that was used most often and decried the least, so that's likely where the decision to scrap Nocturnal over Diurnal came from, when they decided they wanted to have 2 styles of healer.

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Noct just plain sucked even if you understood how to use it properly. Take every one of AST’s problems and then remove the one on-demand tool that proactively helped with said problems (Diurnal Benefic) for a tool that does the same thing as Benefic II. All it really proved is why SCH was good to begin with. That’s why Sage borrows more from Aetherflow and the Fairy than it does Tactics and Shields.

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Originally Posted by Grimoire-M

Noct just plain sucked even if you understood how to use it properly. Take every one of AST’s problems and then remove the one on-demand tool that proactively helped with said problems (Diurnal Benefic) for a tool that does the same thing as Benefic II. All it really proved is why SCH was good to begin with. That’s why Sage borrows more from Aetherflow and the Fairy than it does Tactics and Shields.

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Agreed. Since day 1, Diurnal has forever been superior both in potency and in kit functionality. Back when AST could extend their buff durations, what good was extending the duration of a transient barrier that was only useful if it broke anyway? Meanwhile extending regens just make them flat out stronger. Beyond that, the main influence of the sects wasn't even the main focal point of AST's playstyle. I realize there's a small collection of Nocturnal enthusiasts, but really, what defined AST was never the sects, but the cards, and now more than ever, their delayed healing.

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

Because they took an oath of celibacy?

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They do not know about the Dwarven Decking.

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Originally Posted by SiriusBreeze

the Ast pure-healer rework didn't really do anything. The sects were removed and we're in perma-diruna stance. Why? Why can't Ast have the sects? Is being able to switch to a shield healer for utility that good? Is it for the sake of this 2 pure healer 2 shield healer ideal? I just fail to see why they took away a fun tool.

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Straight answer.

If you really want Nocturnal sect 2.0

Roll Sage.

As much I missed certain things about nocturnal. I'm 100% glad it's gone.

For one, the devs had to design AST as both a mimic to WHM or SCH, meaning it can never be truly unique because it needed to fill the base requirement of a regen and shield healer. Their skills are designed that can accommodate these changes leaving AST as a knock-off of either, thus limiting the potential of their kit.

Now that we have SGE, AST can be what it's always been good at, being a regen healer. Instead of designing AST to fit two roles, it can thrive in one without its kit being held back.

Just because Diu has always been superior, doesn´t mean that the devs should take us something away, again. It´s about such minor options, which is something like a skilltree, which lets the gameplay shine way more and everyone has a choice.

Noc was definately not useless and i´ve seen more than enough WHM + Noc-AST combos, which worked fine. It´s definately a huge mistake and a step back gameplay-wise that SE got ride of the Noc stance. All this "a class needs to be put 100% in a role to shine... with a perfect rotation and only 100% useful spells without variety" is bs. Homogenization and strict gameplay is nothing but boring and wasted efford. Uniqueness, variety and decision-making playersided is way better. Those who just stuck on the meta can always play meta. But others should have a choice.

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Originally Posted by JanVanding

Straight answer.

If you really want Nocturnal sect 2.0

Roll Sage.

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Sage IS NOT Noc-AST. Next to the standard healer-syndromes, SGE plays different. It´s way easier, you´re mobile af and even the damage-output is on top. AST on the other hand has to play around cards to gain a decent DPS. And he doesn´t have like 10 big major insta cooldowns for any heal. You still have to work around stuff and / or cast here and there. SGE is easy mode compared to any other heal, if not kinda broken imo.

Seriously this so called regen/barrier split is a farce. Unless I'm miscounting then Sage has 3 regens and 4 barriers.

I've been wondering that myself. Like everything with healers, noct sect was worse than diurnal because SE never made an effort to make it equal to diurnal

-higher mp costs for no reason
-no shield stacking with itself (diurnal could stack)
-no stacking shields with sch (diurnal could stack with another ast and whm)
-Weaker potencies

the lot of you have got it wrong. SE should never have taken away noct sect, they should have IMPROVED it, for they haven't replaced it with anything meaningful.

We need to have more diversity in the kits. Sage is pretty much equal regen/barrier since eukrasian diagnosis is never used, and the crit mechanic is what you dont want in order to get toxikon.

I can understand in their decision to split between "shield" and "pure" healer that Noct Sect had to go and I think with AST they've been playing a game of trying to fill a gap. Diurnal and Nocturnal existed because in 2.0 there was a great dichotomy between SCH and WHM and in adding a 3rd healer it needed to fit so they made it so they can fit both niches...but Nocturnal has always suffered and I think it would be better if they focused a lot more on making AST it's own thing. They probably could have made Nocturnal Sect better and distinct. I feel like 5.0 was meant as the start of phasing Nocturnal Sect out by giving it to us in the form of Neutral Sect so when they did remove it, it was less painful, because if we need shields? We got shields.

However, it is looking like at the moment that this split is "meh". But the potential advantage if they balance this right is that SCH and SGE only need to be balanced against each other and WHM and AST only need to be balanced against each other. But then I read posts like how good a SCH/SGE set up can be it shows it's not really working and that ends up seeming as though losing Noct was a waste because we don't have the benefit we were supposed to.

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

Seriously this so called regen/barrier split is a farce. Unless I'm miscounting then Sage has 3 regens and 4 barriers.

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This is a serious joke yeah. Imo playing Sage and i rarely use the buffed skills, maybe in downtimes or when things went nuts for whatever reason. All i use are the insta-heals and damage-reductions. A tank will get the x5 solo-barrier for big pulls or just on CD in raids. The x5 groupbarrier is safed for multistacks.
Sage is NO barrierheal. It´s just more of the same with less stuff to care about. The healer-categories are nonsense and there is no befenit to go with 1x regen / 1x barrier-healer, since the content doesn´t force us to heal that much, or to bring a barrier at all.

The nukedown on AST, the addition from SGE and the split into categories is just less work for SE. Ppl cried "We need a 4th healer." for whatever reason, as they cry that we need x other classes. But we don´t need them, we need improvements. Homogenization is the game-killer, not that we´ve not enough classes. But instead of improvements, SE copied & pasted the "original" healer design once again and made it even more forgivable and easy to play, meanwhile the playerbase lost more unique features on other classes. Low efford design = easy balance = less work... that´s all what SE wants.

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Originally Posted by ssunny2008

This is a serious joke yeah. Imo playing Sage and i rarely use the buffed skills, maybe in downtimes or when things went nuts for whatever reason. All i use are the insta-heals and damage-reductions. A tank will get the x5 solo-barrier for big pulls or just on CD in raids. The x5 groupbarrier is safed for multistacks.
Sage is NO barrierheal. It´s just more of the same with less stuff to care about. The healer-categories are nonsense and there is no befenit to go with 1x regen / 1x barrier-healer, since the content doesn´t force us to heal that much, or to bring a barrier at all.

The nukedown on AST, the addition from SGE and the split into categories is just less work for SE. Ppl cried "We need a 4th healer." for whatever reason, as they cry that we need x other classes. But we don´t need them, we need improvements. Homogenization is the game-killer, not that we´ve not enough classes. But instead of improvements, SE copied & pasted the "original" healer design once again and made it even more forgivable and easy to play, meanwhile the playerbase lost more unique features on other classes. Low efford design = easy balance = less work... that´s all what SE wants.

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*Clap* this is 100000% how I see it. They have taken away alot from WHM, SCH and AST and it hasn't been to all players advantage. There is an interesting thread over in the tanks group about tank and sustaining themselves with heals some thoughts around healer redundancy. Anyway i really played sage and found it quite similar to scholar, so scholar I will remain as I dont like the asethetic of sage personally.

Getting back to AST you guys every expansion have had an overhaul it is quite unfair and it wasn't until scholar was gutted that I had some understanding how you all felt. I think Noct could have been kept and tweaked but anyway it sucks things were taken away.

Remember noct shielding before the tank pulled stuff? And then going Diurnal before things were actually aggro'd?

I do! And it was really fun ^^

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

and the crit mechanic is what you dont want in order to get toxikon.

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Toxicon giving barrier pops before crit barrier.

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Originally Posted by SiriusBreeze

the Ast pure-healer rework didn't really do anything. The sects were removed and we're in perma-diruna stance. Why? Why can't Ast have the sects? Is being able to switch to a shield healer for utility that good? Is it for the sake of this 2 pure healer 2 shield healer ideal? I just fail to see why they took away a fun tool.

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its most likely to do with balance. Though it was a missed opportunity to turn AST/SCH into dual healers. Imagine summoning Eos and your tool kit alters to regens and HoTs, then swapping to Selene and getting shields with Seraph combining the best of both. WHM and SGE could have been their respective extremes, with WHM being a pure healer and SGE being a barrier.

Because it was a nightmare to balance.

They were either the jack of all trades and masters of none with cards to augment that.

or

They could do anything both WHM and SCH could do with cards to back that up.

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

Seriously this so called regen/barrier split is a farce. Unless I'm miscounting then Sage has 3 regens and 4 barriers.

I've been wondering that myself. Like everything with healers, noct sect was worse than diurnal because SE never made an effort to make it equal to diurnal

-higher mp costs for no reason
-no shield stacking with itself (diurnal could stack)
-no stacking shields with sch (diurnal could stack with another ast and whm)
-Weaker potencies

the lot of you have got it wrong. SE should never have taken away noct sect, they should have IMPROVED it, for they haven't replaced it with anything meaningful.

We need to have more diversity in the kits. Sage is pretty much equal regen/barrier since eukrasian diagnosis is never used, and the crit mechanic is what you dont want in order to get toxikon.

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It's funny you bring this up because this was a direct result of the 2nd pass at AST. They were average when they were released, and on their first pass they were buffed considerably.

This caused them to effectively replace SCH's in raids because their barriers were:

1) Stronger than SCH's.
2) Less MP than SCH's.
3) Were instant cast.

They were then adjusted down

Because the dev team has no vision when it comes to healers. AST could've been a stance dancer and I don't know why it wasn't. Why not have us switch between regen/shields on the fly in combat?

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

Seriously this so called regen/barrier split is a farce.

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This regen/barrier split needs to go. AST and SGE are straight up clones of WHM and SCH for no reason. And all the healers (in terms of healing abilities only, so ignoring buffs and the like) play the same. They all have shields, they all have regens. W H Y?!

AST is in the PERFECT position to be a regen healer. That style of healing we can see in the game and it fits its original theme of a time based healer just fine.

WHM can stay the burst style healer of on demand heals.

SCH... I'd love to keep as a barrier healer... actually no I'm not going to say it can't. It was the original barrier healer, it gets to stay.

SGE on the other hand can be what it was "advertised" as - a healer who can heal by doing damage.

There 4 unique healing styles on paper and ready to be designed. I don't think its that hard.

They wanna split healers they same way they are grouping Tanks into Main Tank and Off Tank (even though i'm not sure that one is really working out for them) as frustrating as it is. So there gotta be 2 pure Healers and 2 Barrier healers even if their respective identities are pretty terrible since 70% of their toolkit is identical and they could do a lot to reduce button bloat and introduce unique aspects to every one of the healers. But instead they'd rather give WHM a worse Panhaima. Or AST a stronger Aquaveil. With their insistence on giving each healer the same tools but with different animations I do have to wonder why Esuna was made a role action and we couldn't just keep Leeches & w/e Astro's Esuna equivalent was. Or why each healer gets a unique Rez when it'd be far less work to make it a role action. I know i'm rambling at this point but these inconsistencies are frustrating.
The Healer homogenization of SHB really sapped a lot of uniqueness out of each healer and instead of giving us uniqueness back in ENW they just double down on it. At the very least they could figure out different DPS rotations, after all DRK is very similar to WAR but plays very differently and neither PLD nor GNB share any similarities with the other 2 unless referring to their mitigation toolkit. On Healers its the same 1 button spam gameplay and 1 DoT to upkeep. Why can't we have a DoT-less healer for example?
The most Unique aspect of the healers are the gauges but WHM wants to use its as little as possible since its a DPS negative, AST's cards are probably in their worst iteration ever right now, Aetherflow & Addersgall feel like carbon copies of each other, one is just automatic and the other requires a button press And the Fey gauge is basically just Fey union fuel and nothing more at this point.