4 Paired Threads: AST - How do you feel about it?

Do you ____ it?
(love, like, neutral, dislike, hate)

What do you like about it?

What do you dislike about it?

What would you like changed about it?

EDIT:

WHM thread: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-feel-about-it

SCH thread: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-feel-about-it

SGE thread: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-feel-about-it

Artificial button bloat isn’t a job design

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

Likes:

1. APM, card weaving
2. Tarot/Stars aesthetic
3. Macrocosmos, Exaltation, Horoscope, Earthly Star/delayed heals

Dislikes:

• Earthly Star/Collective Unconcious's radius
• Lord/Lady of Crowns (would be better if I could choose to sacrifice a card to become one of them instead)
• Synastry being purposefully useless. Let it work on oGCD single target heals.
• Neutral Sect and removal of Nocturnal Sect. Because AST could have been a stance dancer but no, because SE.
• Being a WHM clone. What? We couldn't be a stance dancer or a regen/delayed healer sub-50?

Hates:

• Astrodyne. It wasn't good when it was Divination and its worse somehow now.
• Undraw. Still. EXISTS.
• All six cards are basically the same buff. Why have 6 cards then? And why consider us the buffing class when we only give one (1) buff?
• AST is by far the worst class in the game to solo in a game where the devs are pushing for it to have a solo experience.

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What would I like changed? Almost everything?

Either bring back Noct Sect and make AST a stance dancer in combat (link half the cards if you want), or make it a regen/delayed healer. (remove Neutral Sect while your at it for either)
Update Synastry or remove it. It doesn't belong in the current era of this game.
Remove Undraw we have no need of it.
Bring back Time Dilation for HoTs/DoTs and compiles (Exalt/ES/Macrocosmos) ONLY no buffs.
Add in a Reverse of Time Dilation for a potential burst option (if going regen/delayed healer AST)
For the love of Nymeia give me another attack. AST is painful to do anything solo.
Allow us to sacrifice our unneeded cards to the graveyard (or w/e the hells the YGO term is) for a Lord/Lady so we can pick which one.

And of course: GIVE US BACK OUR TWELVESDAMNED CARDS.

I'd go more in depth, but honestly that would look like a mock up page for a class skill kit.

Pretty spells, good mobility, use to be bullied by people as the copied wannabe whm/sch but now that its just a copied whm as sage is the copied sch its been out of the bully state. Good mobility and way too many powerful heals of half of them not being used.

I hate that its not what it use to be in stormblood, it feels so watered down and boring and only barely more acceptable than whm and tbh I just didnt really mess with it in ew I played it like maybe a rare 3% if I feel to just do something over sage. Its personal dps always being so low to solo things as a healer will always be an issue. It lost its lore badly and just feels all over the place with boring cards and lost stances. Still will have a place in my heart. I am curious if they even change the story which I havent had an answer to because it lost its dual stance and hw=was dirunal and stormblood was =noct using for story battle purposes.

What do you like about it?
- Aesthetics
- The idea of being a buffer

What do you dislike about it?
- The insane amount to target cycling required to perform your tasks, egregious especially during burst windows
- The cards buffs being generic dps boosts
- Minor Arcana heal versus dps being problematic

What would you like changed about it?
- Play being turned into a GCD, Draw could still be oGCD. Or the other way around.
- Cards having secondary utility effects tied to the dps bonus.
- Card pairs being sorted between Tanks / Healers / DPS instead of card triples being Ranged / melee.
- Lightspeed being converted into an actual movement utility tool rather than a burst weaving component.
- Minor Arcana completely overhauled into anything other than the undesired situation that Lords is always better and Lady isn't drawn when it's actually needed.

Do you ____ it? : Love
(love, like, neutral, dislike, hate)

What do you like about it?

• Infinite mana between Lucid, Card Drawing and Astrodyne
• Less death penalty (keeps Astrodyne charges on death)
• Cards to keep busy from the DoT/Nuke/Nuke monotony during boss battles or when tank isn't tanking.
• Faster cast timers for GCD heals to allow for better glidecasting

What do you dislike about it?

• Weaker potency on DPS spells compared to other healers.
• RNG on Redraw getting the same role card (I'm the only ranged in my group along with the other healer and get ranged and then ranged again).
• Minor Arcana not having a redraw option.

What would you like changed about it?

• Get rid of Undraw!!!
• Add back 2nd charge to redraw or have redraw also change role of card along with sign
• Have Synastry be affected by oGCD spells.

Ast main since HW:

Very much like:
APM, Target switching, Fast GCD, lots of ogcd heals

Delayed heals, Star, Horoscope, Macro, Flashing collective pre-buff in just the right spot to hit everyone

Very strong recovery toolkit. If your shield healer dies you can burn neutral to live a mechanic that requires shields. Best MP economy + Lightspeed resses + Most damage comes from buffs = you are punished the least for chain ressing half your party.

What I miss:
Old celestial opposition/time dilatation, this could be brought back to extend all non damage related buffs. Need a longer 10%? use it on collective. Need macro to hit more things? use it on macro. Just want a super regen? go for it. Stack all 3 and cash in for some big value. Make it a 2-3, maybe even 4 minute cooldown.

Having more control over the RNG of seals like in shadowbringers. With sleeve draw and the charge system on redraw, you could always get 3 seals. Now it just feels far too much up to chance. Bring sleeve draw back.

QOL fixes:
Please add a timer on minor arcana when you are holding a lord or lady similar to how soul slice looks when you are holding one charge. We need that orange wheel to see when our next chance at a lord is coming if we are holding a lady just in case we need some extra adjust healing. Better yet, split it into 2 buttons that each have a 2 minute cooldown so ladies stop feeling so bad to draw and you always draw lords when you need the emergency heal.


Silly things I miss:
Old luminiferous aether animation (it was so pretty)

Like:

Super pretty visual effects and sound effects.

Dislike:

The cards. Draw, Astrodyne, Minor Arcana... these are all buttons without flavor. Oh noes, another tiny damage-up buff on someone... If only I cared about spreadsheets and colored numbers. :rolleyes:

What I'd change:

Is this a job that's supposed to manipulate fate (rng)? time? I have no idea, and I'm not sure I care either way. Pick one, and embrace it.

I like where AST is right now, but definitely feels a bit weaker compared to how they were back in ShB. Definitely needs to be buffed more since every healer got a 1.5 cast time now for their GCD spells, and the buffs they give out doesn't cover they silent nerf it got. Right now the only thing that separates AST to WHM is that it has a bunch of MP Regen which is nice, but WHM seems like it does what AST do in less buttons.

What do you like about it?
I like the new heals and visual effects and new skills added on with EW. I like the Mana Regen and the job mechanics, it's busy and keeps me pressing different buttons.

What do you dislike about it?
I dislike how we have to do so much more in order to keep up with WHM who does less, in terms of healing and contributing to damage.

What would you like changed about it?
I'd like to bring back Old Celestial Opposition and Time Dilation for more regen and such as well as increasing buff times for mitigations like CU and Exaltation. Lord and Lady are fine but needing a heal and then getting a DPS instead feels bad at times

Some changes needed or would be good to see:
[Section Not Exclusive to AST]
- The unnecessary healing bloat in the healer skills
- Useless skills that don't contribute to anything other than boosting healing or could be upgrades to available skills [Benefic I, Horoscope, Helios in this example] (You can combine the potency of what Horoscope would offer into the other skills)
- Change or delete Repose

[AST only]
- Remove the RNG between Lords and Ladies (Suggestions below)
- Remove Undraw or change it. (Suggestions below)
- Remove Synastry or change it. (Suggestions below)
- Remove Redraw (Unneeded in a system where every card would be good).
- Remove Play (Just have Draw handle everything)
- Draw should have at least three possible draws. Damage, maybe Critical and Direct Hit for the other two.)
- Astrodyne needs to be changed from symbols to just when you play three cards. (Or changed to some burst phase for AST.)
- Combine Celestial Intersection and Exaltation effects but only keep one button with both effects.

[Suggestions with De-homogenizing]
- Return Spread but make it so that the target you use it on, spreads the card effect applied on that target. (Makes it more logical given the name)
- Have Malefic prock Draw at a percent instead of being on a cooldown. [Anti 2 minute meta]
- Combine Draw, Play, and Minor Arcana into one button, so every time you play a card you have a chance to prock a Lord and have the ability to repress the draw button to execute.
- Change Undraw so when when you discard a card you prock Lady. (This removes RNG of getting Lady and makes it so you basically can always do it if needed)
- Synastry to heal 40% on any spell or to make it a pairing skill like Dancer where any card drawn has its effect applied to the target while not consuming the card (let's you put on two instead of one)

[Add More Skills From the Series]
- Add Astra, it fits the nomenclature, but give it a new effect. (Or keep it the same although would be a niche use case)
- Add Meteor, it fits the aesthetic and would be an additional damaging skill (perhaps a finisher to some burst window) [I understand it exists in blm LB but they could rename that to maybe something like Astral Flare lel.]

Doing these would remove unnecessary bloat and create a more unique AST. With lots of button space available for unique buttons for the future. For reference this would at minimum remove 7 buttons at maximum remove 9 buttons (Almost half the buttons lel, not even changing the job structure when it comes to healing, and also allowing a more unique AST experience when it comes to damage provided either through combo or effects).

☆Like:
- Strong HoT Healing.
- Strong Burst Healing.
- Versitile Toolkit.
- Buffs (Cards).
- Don't have to worry about MP.
- Aesthetics

☆Dislike:
- Minor Arcana
- The Astro-sign buff effects(Astrodyne)

☆ I'm for the most part quite content with how job work atm.
I just hope they dont ruin the job in 7.0...

AST is my secondary go-to healer if my raid partner progs on a shield healer.

AST iconic card system takes advantage of my natural talent of pattern recognition for associating ranged vs melee cards quickly. Recollecting who on the team has received cards, paired with distributing cards in between GCDs weaves while dodging mechanics makes for a very active gameplay experience both physically and mentally.

My only complaint is not so much the card system, but rather the secondary seal system associated with playing the right variety of ‘Oops, all Balance Effect’ cards.

Applying and utilizing the full Astrodyne benefit is simply not as rewarding for the effort and RNG required to obtain all three different seals. The self DPS increase is a drop in the bucket with ‘Fall Malefic’ having the lowest offensive GCD spell potency across all healer jobs. As for the +5% Healing potency, the remaining healer jobs can apply the same effect but with higher bonus and not have to rely on RNG drawing and redrawing three different cards to apply. Neutral Sect alone completely renders the passive healing bonus moot.

I am glad that as of EW, ‘Divination’ is no longer tied to drawing three different seals for best results, but now there really is no benefit to the seal system except if you are in a pinch for MP or if you have at least two-of-a-kind to use for marginally shorter GCDs during raid buff windows.

Now is when I’ll make a mental note of “careful what you wish for” as we await AST likely card and seal system redesign for the upcoming Dawntrail expansion.

As an AST main ride or die, this is what I enjoy & am looking for.

The Theme
I like their association with time, space, fate, and all sorts of celestial stuff. The visuals are all some sort of artist's revelation of astrophysics. I like the glitter and glam, it's the most visually appealing class in my honest opinion. It has the history and world building of the class imbued in the appearance of the abilities. It's full of cosmic looking animations and that's my aesthetic forever.

The Gameplay

Current version of AST

Delayed Activation!!
I like how, consistent with the time motif, they have certain abilities that you can set up in advance to activate or leave until the duration expires. It is perhaps my favorite aspect of playing this class. I would love for AST to be the time bomb healer. In this group you have:

1. The ICONIC Heal Bomb: Earthly Star
2. The Healer Down Insurance Policy: Horoscope
3. The "What Damage?" button: Macrocosmos

You wouldn't believe how often these have come in clutch. It's like having a bomb that heals. I think the mechanic is so unique and satisfying because it feels very strategic and prudent. This is thematically consistent because you have to predict situations, part of me is like I ~ called it! Sometimes the spell just naturally goes off when I need it. I would absolutely LOVE more of this.

I think something that'd be cool would be echo effects added to spells. Something that happens again 5-10 seconds later without cast time. Stuff that explodes later. You give me more things to emphasize delayed activation of heals or damage and I'd lick it off the ground. It would fill a unique strategic niche as something to make use of empty time to consolidate cast time in a before period, or during more idle moments, to useful maneuvers that can allow for more urgent repositioning while also healing. There is so much possibility here.

Past Versions of AST

Celestial intersection and time dilation used to increase the duration of buffs and regens for like 10 extra seconds. That was JUICY. I MISS that so much. I would be happy if that were to be introduced as an offensive mechanic. Say if it were somehow tied in to uses of malefic or gravity. A proc based partial buff refresh would keep things lively.

Things that I think need improvement:

Haste AKA Spell Speed/Skill Speed I wish it affected DoT & HoT tick rate.

I miss CC. Nowadays it's not used as much, which sucks because it used to be a vital part of kiting and survivability. A moment's reprieve from an onslaught. But tanks take all the aggro these days and if they die, too bad you're F***ed, start over. Emergency versatility is part of adventuring, right? NOPE it's barely a thing. Wouldn't wanna subtract from the identity of other classes after all. No slows, or roots, or stuns, or knockbacks, or stops, just eating hits.

What do you like about it?

At the moment ast is my favourite healing job for just how busy it is. The healing feels most of the time nice.


What do you dislike about it?

Unnecessarily simplified minor arcana. Damage too low. Few of the actions are weirdly still on the kit.

What would you like changed about it?

Kind of missing nocturnal sect. More variety to the minor arcana cards so I might care what I draw.
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All in all good job. I'm a bit scared of the rework and how much Square is changing the job. The cards must stay just change what they do!

Likes

• Novel non-healing agency.
• Feels at least a bit busier than the rest, making it (at lower levels, especially) a bit less painful to play in content that isn't especially healing intense and/or has already been mapped out.
• Rewards knowledge and tracking of (expected/optimal and actual/likely) party actions.

Dislikes

• Especially filler-spammy.
• Redraw being only 1 attempt per Draw, instead of having multiple charges, unnecessarily limits agency.
• The Card system itself feels underwhelming and underutilized.
• Some actions (e.g., Horoscope, Celestial Intersection, Neutral Sect, Exaltation) feel pretty uninteresting or just barely too redundant. I wouldn't want to outright trim any of them, but I'd gladly replace for something better.
• More generally: AST feels a bit bloated with separate actions where fewer actions, used more integrally/interactively, could have offered more enjoyable gameplay (related to the two prior comments).

Desired Changes

• One or two more considerations/optimizations available to AST's offensive loop, ideally without requiring any new buttons.
• Replace the buttons currently spent on some of the, imo, least interesting actions with a rebalanced and repolished version of the Stormblood-era Cards system that carries over the Seal system in order to further incentivize the use of situational cards (Bole, Ewer, etc.).
• Gamewide: MP actually mattering due to abilities variably costing MP, accordant revisions to GCD MP costs and greater availability of certain weaker oGCD actions to help take up slack, MP ticking per GCD and at a higher amount but with Lucid Dreaming pruned, and MP no longer being so bimodal (rather than enough MP to cast X or not enough to cast X at all)... and Healers' Maim and Mend trait removed (attack potencies increased directly, instead of relying on its +30% damage and healing buff) so that they'd actually have to GCD heal sometimes.

What you like
- Supporting party with cards
- Flashy heal aesthetics
- Delay / Time theme for healing gives it’s healing kit a bit more flavour than the other jobs
- Healing skills are interesting in that they require forward thinking, like placing Earthly Star to time the second detonation with an AoE, or accounting for phases with high / persistent damage with Macrocosmos

What you dislike
- Supporting party with cards ends up being boring because they’re all the same card
- Divination is just there lol, it’s one of those 120s cool downs that may well be a passive trait
- No interactions with buffs, i.e duration extension, consume buff for X effect, potency scaling based on buffs applied etc
- Cards are oGCD which means ultimately they’re just something you slot between Malefic casts and not an actually interesting aspect of the job.
- Astrodyne. A job designed to fulfill the ‘support’ role should not have their sole job mechanic revolve around personal dps , it’s so weird lol


What you want to see changed
- Cards having varied and interesting Support effects. In an ideal world cards would be GCDs with no cool-down but I don’t imagine that would ever actually happen.
- I think making cards AoE by default like PvP would facilitate giving them varied effects, as you’d no longer have to play favourites with cards.
- Divination to feel less like it’s an auto-buff
- Remove or Adjust Astrodyne, maybe make it instead give it’s effects based on buffs applies to the party
- Lord and Lady changed to give damage increase to melee or ranged respectively, so Astrologians can always contribute to dps regardless of draw luck (assuming cards have differing effects)
- Disable, deals damage over time and reduces enemy strength by 10%. Gives Astrologian another damage spell whilst still feeding into the ‘support’ role concept
- Stella, single-target attack that deals less damage to the enemy than Malefic but inflicts Slow. It’s weird that the Time Mages of FFXIV can’t use Slow lol (or Haste)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

[*]Some actions (e.g., Horoscope, Celestial Intersection, Neutral Sect, Exaltation) feel pretty uninteresting or just barely too redundant. I wouldn't want to outright trim any of them, but I'd gladly replace for something better.

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I've refrained from commenting in these threads, because I really just want them to be collections of what people think, but I really want to ask about this one.

How do you find those abilities uninteresting?

Neutral Sect is, to me, one of the most powerful and most interesting abilities in the game because of how it works by altering some of your GCDs and giving you distinct functionality. It would be akin to if a DPS like MNK or DRG had an ability that let them be an off-tank or off-caster for 20 seconds or so. It basically lets AST be an "off-barrier healer", and it's one of AST's coolest abilities to me.

Exaltation is a better Taurochole, and I like how it works and what it does a lot, especially when considering it doesn't require being used on a tank but can be used on anyone you need to survive a hit. It also doesn't work like any other ability in the kit.

Intersection I'm a bit more mixed on - the barrier is smaller than Benison and the heal much smaller than Dignity - but I feel like being a hybrid barrier/heal makes it interesting. Much more interesting than stuff like Celestial Opposition or Essential Dignity itself.

And Horoscope feels interesting to me as a party heal that can be stocked for use at the most opportune time. It's a far more interesting variation on Plenary (though perhaps that's not saying much...), and it can be used to first heal (with one of the Helioses) then stock the second heal for after a following attack with a 30 second window to do so. It's like Earthly Star but with more direct involvement and even more control. And like Neutral Sect, it effectively modifies GCD heals.

In general, I like stuff like that (I like things like Emergency Tactics because they give you different ways to use various tools), and so Neutral and Horoscope I find very interesting.

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So I'm not being antagonistic or saying you're wrong, I'm just curious why you find what I feel are some of the most interesting buttons AST has to be "uninteresting". Or, rather, trying to understand what you find uninteresting about them. Especially when AST has abilities like Celestial Opposition and Essential Dignity which are much less interesting to me (not uninteresting - I find them to be interesting, too - just LESS so.)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Renathras

I've refrained from commenting in these threads, because I really just want them to be collections of what people think, but I really want to ask about this one.

How do you find those abilities uninteresting?

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Not the same person but here's why I personally don't:

Celestial Intersection stopped being interesting when Nocturnal Sect was removed. Its a shield now. Hooray. It doesn't interact with any other part of AST's kit (Neutral/Synastry) and got straight up replaced by a better and more thematic version of itself in EW (Exaltation). I personally would not mind for its removal. Its quite literally Divine Bension now. I'd rather it not be.

Neutral Sect not only invalidates AST lore (having to chose between each Sect as befits the job by combining the two) they also didn't think to make it work on the oGCDs that Nocturnal Sect changed once the sect was removed. Nocturnal worked on Celestial Intersection by making it a HoT instead of a shield (since all your buttons would be shields). Celestial Opposition would also be a shield. Collective Unconciousness also worked differently but the differences were so miniscule to me that it felt unchanged (it'd have made sense if Diurnal was HoT only and Noct was Mit only but CU ended up having both in both stances so... ???) And yet Neutral doesn't work in this way. Neutral I'm just infuriated by. Of the abilities I'd remove from AST in a heart beat this is first in line after Undraw and Astrodyne. I'd rather have a stance dancer healer than this cop out of an ability.


I want to like Horoscope but it feels like a wasted slot on my bars. I can run most content without it. Anything I would use it for Macrocosmos, Earthly Star, Collective and Opposition are right there. I'd find the skill more interesting if, like Synastry, it worked with more than just 2 buttons on my kit that I rarely use outside this one instance.

Exaltation I like, but I can see why it feels redundant (see Celestial Intersection). We don't need both. And of the two, I'd rather have this one (please for the love of Nymeia keep it at 60 seconds and no charges).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

Not the same person but here's why I personally don't:

Celestial Intersection stopped being interesting when Nocturnal Sect was removed. Its a shield now. Hooray. It doesn't interact with any other part of AST's kit (Neutral/Synastry) and got straight up replaced by a better and more thematic version of itself in EW (Exaltation). I personally would not mind for its removal. Its quite literally Divine Bension now. I'd rather it not be.

Neutral Sect not only invalidates AST lore (having to chose between each Sect as befits the job by combining the two) they also didn't think to make it work on the oGCDs that Nocturnal Sect changed once the sect was removed. Nocturnal worked on Celestial Intersection by making it a HoT instead of a shield (since all your buttons would be shields). Celestial Opposition would also be a shield. Collective Unconciousness also worked differently but the differences were so miniscule to me that it felt unchanged (it'd have made sense if Diurnal was HoT only and Noct was Mit only but CU ended up having both in both stances so... ???) And yet Neutral doesn't work in this way. Neutral I'm just infuriated by. Of the abilities I'd remove from AST in a heart beat this is first in line after Undraw and Astrodyne. I'd rather have a stance dancer healer than this cop out of an ability.


I want to like Horoscope but it feels like a wasted slot on my bars. I can run most content without it. Anything I would use it for Macrocosmos, Earthly Star, Collective and Opposition are right there. I'd find the skill more interesting if, like Synastry, it worked with more than just 2 buttons on my kit that I rarely use outside this one instance.

Exaltation I like, but I can see why it feels redundant (see Celestial Intersection). We don't need both. And of the two, I'd rather have this one (please for the love of Nymeia keep it at 60 seconds and no charges).

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Honestly while it would further invalidate WHM in mitigationwalker I agree when when nocturnal was deleted they should have changed neutral to affect oGCD’s rather than GCD’s or even do like a charge system like new thin air where neutral affects the next eligible oGCD

Neutral makes no sense at all anymore but if they insist on keeping it I would much prefer it affect oGCD’s, I also agree exaltation should just supersede celestial intersection

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

...

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Hm...not trying to put words in your mouth, just trying to clarify:

It sounds like you are (jaded?) strongly opposed to Neutral Sect not because it's a bad ability itself, but because you're upset about what AST used to be vs what it now is and are angry at the ability as almost sorta mocking that in some way?

For lack of a better way to put it, that is.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Hm...not trying to put words in your mouth, just trying to clarify:

It sounds like you are (jaded?) strongly opposed to Neutral Sect not because it's a bad ability itself, but because you're upset about what AST used to be vs what it now is and are angry at the ability as almost sorta mocking that in some way?

For lack of a better way to put it, that is.

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Neutral Sect isn't a good ability either. Not without changes. And honestly I'd rather not have those changes over two better versions of AST (a full regen/delayed healer with 0 shields or a hybrid stance dancer).

I quite literally called it remaining as a way for the devs to say "you still have Noct sect without having Noct sect, don't worry as we remove yet another piece of your lore and kit".

I see nothing good from an ability that helped ripped apart another piece of a class, and quite literally had no reason to exist if they just changed Diurnal and Nocturnal to where you could switch between them in combat.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Renathras

So I'm not being antagonistic or saying you're wrong, I'm just curious why you find what I feel are some of the most interesting buttons AST has to be "uninteresting".

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No, no, that's a fair question. Admittedly, my rationale is a little idiosyncratic.

To be clear, I don't give a damn how AST's analogs compare to other healers. The fact that a direct comparison is even possible already sours any merit they'd have by having a more "interesting" version of copy-pasta. If that "interest" comes from simply being more "functional" (e.g., less integral, more straightforward, more foolproof) or "powerful", I'd probably give negative damns.

That said, I can be a bit harsh to abilities that take up a space that I think would otherwise be, or previously was, taken up by more interesting alternatives. Which can be a bit hard to follow, as I'm then not critiquing the skill itself so much as the use of design space. That's largely the case with Horoscope, Celestial Intersection, Neutral Sect, and Exaltation.

Add to that some space-leaving for returned functionality to currently gutted abilities, rather than just judging them per their current forms, and I could see why my answer would seem contradictory. Current Celestial Opposition, for instance, is as dull as can be. And, of course, there are duller abilities, like Essential Dignity, that I just don't judge as harshly because I simply consider them, in turn, in regard to their available design space and needs they'd have to fulfill. We do need simple slack via responsive abilities at least somewhere in the kit, after all.

In more detail, though:

Let's start with Neutral Sect. Yes, it allows you to barrier heal, but because the effect is purely additive, it in no way feels like you are temporarily "swapping" roles. It just feels like the devs gave up on trying to make Synastry useful or integral and were tired of hearing AST veterans complain about losing Nocturnal Sect, and this two-for-one crapshoot was the result. Now, admittedly, with Kardia having so much more room to be fleshed out on Sage, I'm not fixated on AST uniquely holding down a 2-target burst sustain niche, but I feel like Synastry at least has more of interest fundamentally going for it as an action than "Now have shields too!" Neutral Sect. I don't doubt Neutral Sect, too, could be more interesting, but its taking that space means, also, that there's then little room to do anything more integral (not CD limited) with the Sects themselves.

That complaint largely repeats for Celestial Intersection, though I'd probably be more fine with it if it just wasn't such a basic damned CD, if it had more of a shared opportunity cost, or at least interacted with something else.

Horoscope, meanwhile, actually seems less interesting to me for being able to plop down a buff in advance to be used later; while that does fit with the Time Mage theme to some tiny, tiny degree, it really just means that there's that much less need to think ahead since you can just hit it on CD and make use of it later. It's basically just "hit on CD so long as I may have a decent chance to use Aspected Helios sometime in the next 30 whole seconds." Since there's very little content that'd fall between 'don't need Horoscope at all' and 'yeah, you'll definitely have opportunity to throw out at AH once per minute', it just doesn't feel like it's doing much, tactically speaking, beyond adding 1 APM in what little content wouldn't thereby cause overhealing.

I have no idea why you say that Exaltation uniquely allows it to be used on non-tanks. The healing is done at the end of the duration, so it's not going to serve as an emergency heal. For the purpose you've stated, your conclusion is backward. Taurochole, not Exaltation, is the better heal to use on non-tanks. It's more potency, and it's immediate, meaning that it can actually make synergetic use of that added eHP... and it's a shorter CD. Exaltation's only decent use case is on the tank. At which point... Exaltation's just Aquaveil but with a 500p delayed heal in place of 5% mitigation. Aquaveil's larger %mit at least synergizes with pumped HPS --if we could finally actually get a use case for really pumping HPS!!-- but Exaltation just feels disconnected and fully meh. At best it can claim that delayed healing is an AST thing (despite also being on SCH and GNB)?? Idk. It just feels utterly unimaginative to me. I'd sooner have it than not have it, but I'd rather have, say, Spread and old Bole than Exaltation.

Shorter Version: I find them comparatively uninteresting because they replace, rather than synergize with, (A) Sect-switching and (B) deeper and more varied and integral use of Cards, each of which (and especially if together) I'd consider more interesting than these discrete skills that replaced them.

skills and nocturnal sect

Neutral Sect's continued existence singlehandedly puts the lie to the 'pure/barrier split'. It should affect OGCDs as Nocturnal used to. It doesn't, because the job would be 'the best healer for everything full stop' even more so than it arguably is right now. WHM would be in the grave forever if it happened. I don't know if sect-swapping is the solution, it might be just too much APM for the devs to consider it, with the cards included still. If they were to add sectswapping I'd assume that another lobotomization for the cards is in the works.

Horoscope is like Plenary, more than some might realize. It's like OLD Plenary from SB, but worse in some regards, because at least that applied the buff automatically. This requires you to press a button, then use a healing GCD (and only healing GCDs work, pls let COpp/CU/Star healing trigger the empowering) within 10 SECONDS, then you can detonate it within 30s for... 400p. Or, worded differently, a 200p gain over it's base form. It's just a weird skill. You'll trigger it with Asp.Helios every time, because if you're burning a GCD to trigger it, you might as well choose the one with more total healing attached. Asp.Helios heals for a total of 1000 over it's duration, so by the time it's finished ticking up, that extra 400 is often going to end up as overheal. It'd be an interesting skill if either A: OGCD healing powered it up (so you'd want to line up Star's empowerment window with using Horoscope), or it was useable more often. I end up just throwing it out alongside CU for the 200p most of the time. Bland skill

Exaltation is interesting because of it's auto-heal effect. Celestial Intersection is the boring one. It was less boring when it could be a regen in Noct Sect but they got rid of that. It and Benison are just out of place, being barriers on a 'pure healer'. Combine it with Exaltation or Essential Dignity or do something with it

Oh and while we're on about it, Celestial Opposition is boring now that it's basically just 'Aspected Helios, but weaker, but OGCD'. At one point, the balance lined up such that it was literally 'OGCD A.Helios'. The skill was interesting when Noct Sect was a thing, because 'OGCD A.Helios' meant that AST could apply shields OGCD on a 60s CD, where SCH had to wait 2min to use Seraph for it. Stance dance gameplay would absolutely make AST interesting, choosing from moment to moment if the Diurnal or Nocturnal version of each skill would be more useful at that moment. But again, the APM and mental load required for that plus the cards would be too high, and the devs would counteract it by making the cards even more braindead (somehow). Maybe they'd remove all the melee/ranged split effects and the seals, and every card would be literally identical, idk

cards and APM

I stand with everyone saying that AST's APM should not be lowered, but instead just redistributed. The issue isn't that it takes higher APM than other healers. It's that all of it's APM is crammed into one tiny 15s window. Look back to Stormblood, we had to play a card every 30s, be that actually 'Play' or 'Royal Road', and that includes Redrawing it to try and get the fabled Balance. Because it was every 30s we did this, the APM complaints were not as high. There were some issues at the time of course, Sleeve Draw functioned as our 2min and should have been reworked to be less janky (sure love getting Spire in my Spread thanks Yoshi). But the general idea, of playing a card every 30s instead of pooling everything for the 2min window, feels like the obvious solution. Additionally, I'd like to see Minor Arcana be, ironically, a more major part of the rotation instead of just being a coinflip of 'OGCD Malefic' or 'OGCD Helios'. It feels bad when you get the heal and don't need it, it feels bad when you get the damage and you're struggling for your life in a HPS check. We always go on about how the most important aspect of healer tools is 'reliability', that they'll be there at the same time every time, that they'll have the same effect every time. And this 'tool' fails that.

Add some more potency to other healing tools to compensate, then remove the current form of Minor Arcana, and make it more interesting. I want to see it use the full deck of Sixty, with something akin to the Darkmoon Decks. You'd only need 6 effects, one for each suit. Then you can make those effects have a base potency slightly above Malefic (to make you actually use the cards), and a bonus based on the Face Value of the card to preserve the RNG aspects of the class. For example if Malefic 6 does 270p, have the Minor Arcana's effect total to 275, plus (Y x the Face Value), so there's some RNG involved in the class still, but not enough for it to have an impact on whether you clear or not. I don't know if the engine can handle potency values that are not a multiple of 5, but if it can, you can have Y be something as low as like, 2, so the difference between drawing a 1 and a 9 (or Lady) would be 16 total potency

Personally I used to play AST quite exclusively, back in HW, with the occasional SCH run. Now I play WHM, not because I like WHM more than AST, but because AST's APM required for it's 2min window is too much strain for my old wrists. To avoid this I play the old way, playing a card every 30s instead of pooling them for the 2min window. This is hilariously suboptimal in the current 2min meta, but I do not particularly care about what is 'optimal' when playing in the 'optimal manner' puts physical strain on the body. If SE reworked the cards such that the 2min window wasn't the be all end all, and made it so that cards were more spread out over each 2min block akin to older incarnations, I'd probably go back to AST more

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

No, no, that's a fair question.

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Thank you for the reply, appreciate it.

Not trying to cut it short, it does seem you and ASkellington's dislike of some abilities seems to be far less on the abilities themselves being good or bad and more...let's call it frustration?...with what AST was/could be to you. I think you kind of say that here as well. So that makes sense to me. Sort of a "I don't hate you for anything you did personally, I just resent you due to what I associate with you" kind of a thing?

Taurochole heals up front, meaning if a person is at or near full health, the heal isn't as useful. Exaltation reduces damage taken and then heals on the back end. And due specifically to AST's kit, if the target is low health initially, you can weave an Essential Dignity into an Exaltation and first top the person off, then have them survive the hit, then heal on the back end. If you want to go ham, you can also give them an Intersection to top off their health if Dignity didn't and give them a bit more protection for the attack.

I dunno, I guess I take them in the context of the whole kits and Exaltation feels more generally useful to me, though it depends a lot on the specific situation going on.

.

But again, not challenging your views, just trying to understand them. I can't imagine them ever giving AST "in combat sect swapping", even if they did return Noct (old AST never had it, either), since then it would just stomp all over other healer Jobs (even more than it already does). So I don't really see Neutral being due to that, and Neutral was added before sects were removed, so I don't think it was due to players complaining about that.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Not trying to cut it short, it does seem you and ASkellington's dislike of some abilities seems to be far less on the abilities themselves being good or bad and more...let's call it frustration?...with what AST was/could be to you. I think you kind of say that here as well. So that makes sense to me. Sort of a "I don't hate you for anything you did personally, I just resent you due to what I associate with you" kind of a thing?

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Kind of. But that wouldn't be the case if their presence didn't also stymy/preclude a return to or revitalization of the things I preferred over them.

E.g.
Maybe someone else stole my shit and you're just standing with your stuff blocking my only way to follow, but given that you uniquely prevent my trying to get my shit, I'm going to be annoyed that you're blocking the path for an extended time if/when you didn't to even if you did not personally steal my shit. Or, say, we lost a uniquely vital worker because we refused to give her benefits despite working her over 40 hours per week, and now we're saddled with a clueless intern who we're told will work just as well but has turned out to be mostly incapable of effort or learning, and any push to hire her back is met with "But we have Timmy now!"

That's about how I feel about Celestial Intersection, Neutral Sect, Exaltation, etc., replacing and precluding a more fleshed out Card system and Sect-swapping.

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

What would I like changed? Almost everything?

Either bring back Noct Sect and make AST a stance dancer in combat (link half the cards if you want), or make it a regen/delayed healer. (remove Neutral Sect while your at it for either)
Update Synastry or remove it. It doesn't belong in the current era of this game.
Remove Undraw we have no need of it.
Bring back Time Dilation for HoTs/DoTs and compiles (Exalt/ES/Macrocosmos) ONLY no buffs.
Add in a Reverse of Time Dilation for a potential burst option (if going regen/delayed healer AST)
For the love of Nymeia give me another attack. AST is painful to do anything solo.
Allow us to sacrifice our unneeded cards to the graveyard (or w/e the hells the YGO term is) for a Lord/Lady so we can pick which one.

And of course: GIVE US BACK OUR TWELVESDAMNED CARDS.

I'd go more in depth, but honestly that would look like a mock up page for a class skill kit.

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The irony is that you asked for 4.0 AST. It literally solved everything (other than potency and card balancing). Just some examples of what 4.0 AST did right:

-Minor Arcana replaced Undraw because it was a 1 sec recast, active when Draw was used, gave access to lady/lord by "discarding" a card you didn't want.
-Royal Road put Draw on a 1 min timer. You had to RR a card first (assuming you didn't MA) then the next draw you would use the effect (assuming you got the card you want)

A compromise to the cards would have been to just limit it to three effects, melee/ranged for a total of 6 cards. Increase Crit, direct hit, defense. This would allow them to still keep RR in the game while making sure all card usage was beneficial. Imo they should remove the dmg increase and simply have it affect sub stats so AST dmg doesn't have to be balanced around the fact it can aoe dmg up as a healer.

It was also a missed opportunity for AST and SCH to be dual stance healers, with the former having the sects and the latter having faeries. They can even give Neutral Sect a buff that allows you to change to a different sect during battle, if you chose to. It would avoid the toxicity that is double shield helaers in DF. Nothing is more annoying that putting up shields as SGE to proc addersting but then a SCH overwrites it. WHM should have been the "pure" healer and SGE the "shield" healer while AST and SCH can simply complement them both or each other.

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Originally Posted by Marxam

The irony is that you asked for 4.0 AST. It literally solved everything (other than potency and card balancing). Just some examples of what 4.0 AST did right:

-Minor Arcana replaced Undraw because it was a 1 sec recast, active when Draw was used, gave access to lady/lord by "discarding" a card you didn't want.
-Royal Road put Draw on a 1 min timer. You had to RR a card first (assuming you didn't MA) then the next draw you would use the effect (assuming you got the card you want)

A compromise to the cards would have been to just limit it to three effects, melee/ranged for a total of 6 cards. Increase Crit, direct hit, defense. This would allow them to still keep RR in the game while making sure all card usage was beneficial. Imo they should remove the dmg increase and simply have it affect sub stats so AST dmg doesn't have to be balanced around the fact it can aoe dmg up as a healer.

It was also a missed opportunity for AST and SCH to be dual stance healers, with the former having the sects and the latter having faeries. They can even give Neutral Sect a buff that allows you to change to a different sect during battle, if you chose to. It would avoid the toxicity that is double shield helaers in DF. Nothing is more annoying that putting up shields as SGE to proc addersting but then a SCH overwrites it. WHM should have been the "pure" healer and SGE the "shield" healer while AST and SCH can simply complement them both or each other.

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God it turns me off when I get another sge/sch as more co healer when am sge specially double sage, I hate doing a big crit E diag and the other sage presses that icky pepsis button u.u That is one thing for sure that I love with ast having two stances, but honestly when its whm/ast lol ast are still going dirunal with whm so (I always go noct when is a whm) cause Idk why we need 10k regens at once vs some slight migitation. Honestly I do secretly wish that normal raids/alliance raids just make sure that its 1 shield healer and 1 pure healer unless for some strange reason say some how slight low change its a 6 pure healer/shield healer party cause god its annoying seeing one party alliance with 2 pures and the other with 2 shields, least pure healers can stack though.

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Originally Posted by IceBlueNinja

the other sage presses that icky pepsis button u.u That is one thing for sure that I love with ast having two stances, but honestly when its whm/ast lol ast are still going dirunal with whm so (I always go noct when is a whm) cause Idk why we need 10k regens at once vs some slight migitation. Honestly I do secretly wish that normal raids/alliance raids just make sure that its 1 shield healer and 1 pure healer unless for some strange reason say some how slight low change its a 6 pure healer/shield healer party cause god its annoying seeing one party alliance with 2 pures and the other with 2 shields, least pure healers can stack though.

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I don’t think Pepsis works with shields that were formed by another party member, only the user’s. Otherwise as you say Sages really could troll each other the entire fight lol. I hope it doesn’t work like that

Totally agree with the rest, its probably confirmation bias but in my experiences there’s a significant amount of shield healers compared to pure healers in normal content. It’s always goddamn Sages lol, and they always spam Eukrasian Prognosis like The Final Days is about to drop a second time. As a Scholar I just don’t even bother trying to shield anymore with a Sage in the party; it’s almost guaranteed to be overwritten. So basically despite being a shield healer, every fight I do I end up having to pure heal the entire time. Great dichotomy SE, nice job lol. I feel more like a shield healer playing Astrologian at this point lol. Neutral Sect and Celestial Intersection stack with all other shields, so it’s less hassle with constantly having them overwritten. At least there’s still Seraph, I guess (lol).

Like I get that Scholar and Sage couldn’t stack shields because it’d break the game, but the current situation isn’t much better lol. Not sure how Astrologian’s being able to shield stack doesn’t break the game lol, Neutral Sect has the same cool-down as Deployment doesn’t it? It just takes away some of the small fun that’s left on Scholar. All the divide has done is made every healer suffer (in different amounts lol)

Lastly I want to give a shout out to my main man Sleeve Draw. I loved being able to produce a bunch of cards for ‘burst support’ in addition to the consistent support from standard Draw. It was a huge pain because of APM (I think?) but I miss having additional draw options. Though, it wouldn’t be very useful now considering it’s all the same lol. Maybe they could have it draw like a ‘more powerful buff’ on a 120 cd. Or throw out a card that affects all party members. I want to throw cards at people more Yoshi

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Originally Posted by Connor

I don’t think Pepsis works with shields that were formed by another party member, only the user’s. Otherwise as you say Sages really could troll each other the entire fight lol. I hope it doesn’t work like that

Totally agree with the rest, its probably confirmation bias but in my experiences there’s a significant amount of shield healers compared to pure healers in normal content. It’s always goddamn Sages lol, and they always spam Eukrasian Prognosis like The Final Days is about to drop a second time. As a Scholar I just don’t even bother trying to shield anymore with a Sage in the party; it’s almost guaranteed to be overwritten. So basically despite being a shield healer, every fight I do I end up having to pure heal the entire time. Great dichotomy SE, nice job lol. I feel more like a shield healer playing Astrologian at this point lol. Neutral Sect and Celestial Intersection stack with all other shields, so it’s less hassle with constantly having them overwritten. At least there’s still Seraph, I guess (lol).

Like I get that Scholar and Sage couldn’t stack shields because it’d break the game, but the current situation isn’t much better lol. Not sure how Astrologian’s being able to shield stack doesn’t break the game lol, Neutral Sect has the same cool-down as Deployment doesn’t it? It just takes away some of the small fun that’s left on Scholar. All the divide has done is made every healer suffer (in different amounts lol)

Lastly I want to give a shout out to my main man Sleeve Draw. I loved being able to produce a bunch of cards for ‘burst support’ in addition to the consistent support from standard Draw. It was a huge pain because of APM (I think?) but I miss having additional draw options. Though, it wouldn’t be very useful now considering it’s all the same lol. Maybe they could have it draw like a ‘more powerful buff’ on a 120 cd. Or throw out a card that affects all party members. I want to throw cards at people more Yoshi

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Stormblood ast=best ast forever ;)

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Originally Posted by Connor

Like I get that Scholar and Sage couldn’t stack shields because it’d break the game, but the current situation isn’t much better lol. Not sure how Astrologian’s being able to shield stack doesn’t break the game lol, Neutral Sect has the same cool-down as Deployment doesn’t it? It just takes away some of the small fun that’s left on Scholar. All the divide has done is made every healer suffer (in different amounts lol)

Lastly I want to give a shout out to my main man Sleeve Draw. I loved being able to produce a bunch of cards for ‘burst support’ in addition to the consistent support from standard Draw. It was a huge pain because of APM (I think?) but I miss having additional draw options. Though, it wouldn’t be very useful now considering it’s all the same lol. Maybe they could have it draw like a ‘more powerful buff’ on a 120 cd. Or throw out a card that affects all party members. I want to throw cards at people more Yoshi

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I'm not entirely sure it would break the game, to be honest. Having two stacking shields on demand would trivialize mitigation checks, yes, but it comes at the cost of throughput from easily accessible, zero CD Regen effects, and the pure throughput of something like Cure3. If those things that you're losing out on, are not enough to cause issues by being missing (or, the SCH/SGE combo can handle 'pure healing checks' just fine with their own kits), then that's not 'shields stacking would be OP', thats 'the devs did not design the fights to actually test the pure healing output enough'. It's part of the evidence of why the split is a failure in it's current state. SCH SGE can heal everything still, WHM AST can't do jack in raids until they vastly overgear it to make up for the missing mitigations.

I also miss Sleeve Draw. I'd bring it back in an AST rework too, as a button to 'force the RNG to favor you' in regards to the strength of the card effects. After all, if it's named after the idea of having an 'ace up your sleeve', I think that it'd be fairly fitting for it's effect to be 'sneakily swap out your weaker 'dud' card for the cheaty Ace you sleeved earlier' right? This does require that cards have an actual hierarchy to them (ie, you are able to draw any of 54 cards from the deck of 60, not just Lord/Lady of Crowns), but that's for SE to work on with their 'sorry we had to delay the rework' rework

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

I'm not entirely sure it would break the game, to be honest. Having two stacking shields on demand would trivialize mitigation checks, yes, but it comes at the cost of throughput from easily accessible, zero CD Regen effects, and the pure throughput of something like Cure3. If those things that you're losing out on, are not enough to cause issues by being missing (or, the SCH/SGE combo can handle 'pure healing checks' just fine with their own kits), then that's not 'shields stacking would be OP', thats 'the devs did not design the fights to actually test the pure healing output enough'. It's part of the evidence of why the split is a failure in it's current state. SCH SGE can heal everything still, WHM AST can't do jack in raids until they vastly overgear it to make up for the missing mitigations.

I also miss Sleeve Draw. I'd bring it back in an AST rework too, as a button to 'force the RNG to favor you' in regards to the strength of the card effects. After all, if it's named after the idea of having an 'ace up your sleeve', I think that it'd be fairly fitting for it's effect to be 'sneakily swap out your weaker 'dud' card for the cheaty Ace you sleeved earlier' right? This does require that cards have an actual hierarchy to them (ie, you are able to draw any of 54 cards from the deck of 60, not just Lord/Lady of Crowns), but that's for SE to work on with their 'sorry we had to delay the rework' rework

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You know it makes me wonder if its a bad thing to consider that they should reduce the ogcs potencies of sage/sch because they are literally as or more powerful than the pure healers gcd heals, its really strange, since sge/sch is to be proactive and ast/whm reactive, so whatever damage is left over to heal would be on the pure healer part after shield ones apply as must mit they can push out.

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Originally Posted by IceBlueNinja

You know it makes me wonder if its a bad thing to consider that they should reduce the ogcs potencies of sage/sch because they are literally as or more powerful than the pure healers gcd heals, its really strange, since sge/sch is to be proactive and ast/whm reactive, so whatever damage is left over to heal would be on the pure healer part after shield ones apply as must mit they can push out.

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You know, maybe that's the issue that's causing the feeling of 'we don't have enough to heal', it's cos we're getting the 'leftovers', the 'crumbs' that fall from the barrier healer's table /s

Well, mostly /s, but if you look at logs now that the site considers mitigated damage as 'effective HPS' on the meters, you'll often see the shield healer doing way more 'healing' than the pure healer

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

You know, maybe that's the issue that's causing the feeling of 'we don't have enough to heal', it's cos we're getting the 'leftovers', the 'crumbs' that fall from the barrier healer's table /s

Well, mostly /s, but if you look at logs now that the site considers mitigated damage as 'effective HPS' on the meters, you'll often see the shield healer doing way more 'healing' than the pure healer

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This indeed. Sheesh FFXIV healers in a nutshell

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

I stand with everyone saying that AST's APM should not be lowered, but instead just redistributed. The issue isn't that it takes higher APM than other healers. It's that all of it's APM is crammed into one tiny 15s window. Look back to Stormblood, we had to play a card every 30s, be that actually 'Play' or 'Royal Road', and that includes Redrawing it to try and get the fabled Balance. Because it was every 30s we did this, the APM complaints were not as high. There were some issues at the time of course, Sleeve Draw functioned as our 2min and should have been reworked to be less janky (sure love getting Spire in my Spread thanks Yoshi). But the general idea, of playing a card every 30s instead of pooling everything for the 2min window, feels like the obvious solution.

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Interesting, I think you made me realize that my dissatisfaction with AST's apm is not the ethos of a busy apm job, but a busy job in a tight space of time. That by itself wouldn't really be a problem, because I have funp playing DNC and NIN, two jobs with really busy 2min burst windows. I think that becomes egregious for AST because this apm is stacked with the fact that the game offers no mouseover funcionality, adding to the stress of target swapping. That adds also with looking at the screen to figure out mechanics and actual healing, in case damage goes out during the burst phase.

I hope they do strike it there with the rework. I really think pressing cards as they come by is insanely more fun than hoarding the charges for the 2min window, that goes so fast and makes the 'oomph' of using a card at the right target really not noticeable.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

I'm not entirely sure it would break the game, to be honest. Having two stacking shields on demand would trivialize mitigation checks.

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Random thought:

...What if barriers simply degraded linearly over 30 seconds? Throw up a barrier 15s before it's actually needed and it'd be half gone. (Or soften it so they drain by just X% per second or so.) Might help against pure heals feeling quite so scrap-eater, at least.

Meanwhile, maybe we allow any number of barriers to stack as long as there's (A) only one of each type or even (B) only one of each type per healer, but only one barrier is used per attack against the target, with the largest of course being consumed first. (The remaining damage goes through, rather than being met by the next barrier, making stacked barriers less able to cheese OHKO eHP checks.)

(If NPC multi-hit attacks like Dream Within a Dream ever come into play [again], could go either way with having them all snapshot against the same barrier only or can be checked individually so that stacked barriers have a comparative advantage against them.)

I still say it was a missed opportunity for AST/SCH to be dual stance healers while WHM and SGE represented the opposite ends of the spectrum.

With regards to barrier heals, I think they missed an opportunity with SGE to be either a shield barrier like TBN with no heal or just a standard heal. Eukrasian Diagnosis should have just been like a 15% HP barrier. You can just use ogcds to supplement actual healing. Eukrasia could have been the "heal or shield" button. Standard Diagnosis is just a potency cure. It was honestly an easy way to simulate dual stance healing while not actually stance dancing. It would also allow it to stack with SCH who would still function as it currently does. However, I feel this would make SGE op in a burst mitigation meta where you only need to mitigate the raid wides. Unless HH is more common.