Bring Back Sects

I like the new version of astrologian for the most part, but I miss sects! The shield/pure healer distinction in DT doesn't matter once again; let AST flex just like SCH and SGE can.

As long as SCH gets Selene back too.

I dont like current Astro but i agree with bringing back sects.

If you brought back Nocturnal Sect, you could actually play any healer composition. SGE/SCH is already a powerful combination, especially with even minimal communication. Right now you can't reasonably run WHM/AST together since Savage (and the entire end game frankly) has just become repeated mit checks with very little raw healing requirements. Noct Sect AST would pare nicely with WHM and be an incredibly unique shield healer.

I don't think I miss anything in this game more than I miss Nocturnal AST.

There are children who play this game, and I think it's for the best if they don't experience any classes that have sects.

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

There are children who play this game, and I think it's for the best if they don't experience any classes that have sects.

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What are you on about? We're talking about Diurnal and Noctural Sects for Astrologian. Something the class had until EW. Has nothing to do with adult stuff and everything to do with astrology.

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

Has nothing to do with adult stuff and everything to do with astrology.

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Totally meant as a joke, but it occurs to me that astrology is actually the same kind of adults-still-believing-in-santa stuff, anyways. Might as well make it an actual sect. ������

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

What are you on about? We're talking about Diurnal and Noctural Sects for Astrologian. Something the class had until EW. Has nothing to do with adult stuff and everything to do with astrology.

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Imagine being this dense.

I'll be honest, the last thing astrologian needs is more options. It already has the best healing kit by far. If you want sects back, thats fine but something has got to give. The job literally has a tool for every situation and Neutral Sect with sun sign is already among the strongest tools in the game as it is. Not to mention macro cosmos, one of the downsides about shield healers is that their burst HPS isn't as good as pure healers but that isn't true for noct ast because of neutral sect. noct ast could solo heal any content with barely any difficulty cause you shield anything that needed to be shielded with collective then heal up an damage with Macro, Earthly star and any other ogcds they might have.

I'm not saying they can't have it back but if they do get it, something in their kit has got to give. White Mage only has 2 benefits over Ast, it's easier to play and faster to unlock. lets not kill the job even more than already is especially since ast got the light speed mega buff.

Astro ShB almost a perfect healer job design

I wish that we can get to switch from healing and regen to sheild and mitigation every 120 second


I wish white mage can do that too but with mixing the elements


Water (healing/ regen) aero (shield) stone (mitigation)

Scholar can have that with pet switching

Sage can switch kardia from healing to shielding too
And switch there skills from sheild to heal

Man we need something like that for this rigid role

I mean, we have Astral and Umbral Draw now, if they wanted to go back to a "hybrid healer", and they want to add a cyclical nature as an extra spanner in the gears, it'd be easy to make it a 60s cycle and add it to that?

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Originally Posted by Carighan

I mean, we have Astral and Umbral Draw now, if they wanted to go back to a "hybrid healer", and they want to add a cyclical nature as an extra spanner in the gears, it'd be easy to make it a 60s cycle and add it to that?

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Unless my memory is way off, when we had sects we didn't have any timer imposed, we just had to be out of combat. The only timers that we had were those that applied to specific skills, to which the sects were applied. I would rather have that. I definitely would not want any "you can only switch every 120 seconds". I also don't see why this has to be applied to every job, there's nothing wrong with each job have it's own particular identity.

Well the thing is, they currently have two regen and two shield healers. It'd be weird to have 1 regen, 2 shield and 1 hybrid healer. But I feel if they make it cyclical and without choice, then it can be balanced to work out regardless. And that's what it'd be, every 60 seconds it flips as we use Draw.

And to be fair, that's a lot more flexible than "only between fights" which is effectively an infinite CD from the perspective of being in a fight.

But yeah we definitely need more of a unique identity for each job.

Right now they sort-of fit into a matrix. Which isn't bad, just not very interesting. Two healers are regen-based, two are shield based, two are raw-output, two are utility. So Astro is the utility regen healer, while Sage is the output shield healer, for example.

That "weirdness" is due to Square's own making. If we're discussing bring back sect's then that's what I want, I never asked for the "pure/barrier" split. If it had been a better design, by all means, maintain it, however I don't see that it enhanced healer design. It's also a very poorly defined matrix.

I would say that it should be allowed to be used even in combat. We could debate upon the length of the CD, make it a very short one (5 seconds for example) or a toggle like the current tank stances so it can't easily be accidently flipped. As I wouldn't tie it to cards I don't see the necessity nor the dependancy. I don't see how that it should be impossible to balance, skills still have CDs, somehow I've been in other games that had jobs with skills that I could with toggle on or off that would affect other skills, and the game designers were able to balance that job.

nobody asked for the regen/barrier split. CBU3 decided that because they wanted to feed us a slop job withs sage considering its just a reskin of SCH but easier.

The 'problem' never goes away. They just jump ship. That current ship is SGE.

Noct Sect is removed for absolutely no benefit but 'wooow hahahah pewpew lazoorr'-aesthetic.

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Originally Posted by Tizzy_Tormentor

Imagine being this dense.

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Eh, there was once a post by a guy about how he was quitting the game because he's Christian and objects to how Light and "angels" (I guess Sin Eaters) are depicted as the bad guys in ShB. How he got through Heavensward is a mystery to me.

So while yeah, I think this was a fairly obvious joke, there is a nonzero chance someone thinks something like this completely sincerely.

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Originally Posted by Ramiee

nobody asked for the regen/barrier split. CBU3 decided that because they wanted to feed us a slop job withs sage considering its just a reskin of SCH but easier.

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I can't wait to how they will try to justify this split when they add a fifth healer one day because then there will have to be 3 of one type.

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Originally Posted by PercibelTheren

I can't wait to how they will try to justify this split when they add a fifth healer one day because then there will have to be 3 of one type.

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Bold of you to assume we're ever getting another healer with how hung up on an ocean of identical DPS jobs they are...

Don't worry, that is when sects return to AST to keep the balance of having the same amount of pure/barrier healers, and perhaps then we would have to select our sects before queuing so that the system can put 1 pure and 1 barrier into a party.

When they decide to add the sixth healer, we will probably lose our sects again.

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Originally Posted by Chajii

Don't worry, that is when sects return to AST to keep the balance of having the same amount of pure/barrier healers, and perhaps then we would have to select our sects before queuing so that the system can put 1 pure and 1 barrier into a party.

When they decide to add the sixth healer, we will probably lose our sects again.

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2.5 years of fun is hard for me to swallow.. we used to get worst rework each expansion

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Originally Posted by Tunda

2.5 years of fun is hard for me to swallow.. we used to get worst rework each expansion

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I totally feel that, back in Stormblood I unlocked AST mostly because of the sects.It was a shock that when I found out I could no longer GCD shield with AST

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Originally Posted by Chajii

I totally feel that, back in Stormblood I unlocked AST mostly because of the sects.It was a shock that when I found out I could no longer GCD shield with AST

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Sects + Kardia + Selene

they should exist as switch button during the fight.. we need ShB AST flexibility for all healers

Please it made potd/hoh better is such trash tier now :/

How 'bout we just disregard ANY balance change we've got over 5 years and just go back to how job balance was in Stormblood? Hell, I'd be OK with TP coming back if it meant getting rid of this awful, neutered job rotations we have right now! I'll even go further beyond and say they should absolutely make bosses' hitboxes smaller, cast times faster and let the tank have to position them. Because holy bad word, am I tired of the same old bullcrap of the bosses just dashing back to the middle of the arena and doing their super duper yuge attack that has 5 or worse, 10 second to cast raid wide because Square Enix has to let people Feint!

This game needs a LOT to recover and be interesting again and you know it, I know it, everybody knows it.

I guess a two-stance mode that is inherently different for everyone would be interesting as a baseline thing?

AST could add (weak) regens or (weak) shields to ~all their skills. To not lead to the same balance issues as before the actual effect would need to be tiiiiny though, in return the base healing is buffed I guess?
SCH gets Selene back, obvs. Now since ~all about fairies changed she needs a new role, she nukes stuff and fairy link is now a damaging effect!
SGE essentially gets Philosophia baked in, Kardia swaps between being on one target, or spreading the healing evenly to targets around the sage. Not more healing though, so like with AST, really weak effect overall.
WHM gets their beloved Cleric Stance back, but different? It augments all effects but burns extra mana for every spell cast, and its a flat amount so it's "costliest" on nukes and stuff that are usually cheap, and worst on otherwise free effects (yes, it affects everything).

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Originally Posted by Carighan

I guess a two-stance mode that is inherently different for everyone would be interesting as a baseline thing?

AST could add (weak) regens or (weak) shields to ~all their skills. To not lead to the same balance issues as before the actual effect would need to be tiiiiny though, in return the base healing is buffed I guess?
SCH gets Selene back, obvs. Now since ~all about fairies changed she needs a new role, she nukes stuff and fairy link is now a damaging effect!
SGE essentially gets Philosophia baked in, Kardia swaps between being on one target, or spreading the healing evenly to targets around the sage. Not more healing though, so like with AST, really weak effect overall.
WHM gets their beloved Cleric Stance back, but different? It augments all effects but burns extra mana for every spell cast, and its a flat amount so it's "costliest" on nukes and stuff that are usually cheap, and worst on otherwise free effects (yes, it affects everything).

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AST- no-why would that sound interesting? I would much rather have skills that require some thought, rather than some next to useless effects scattered throughout. That's not the best solution to the "same balance issues as before"- you don't refer to a specific expansion, however ASTs were reworked so many times, at one point ASTs were at a real disadvantage, I'd rather not introduce that again.

Given SGE some "really weak effect" on what is supposed to be a DPS healer, and one which is at a disadvantage to SCH, also doesn't make sense to me. Nor do the kardia changes- that is more of a question- do you see that as being a toggle , that you would switch from single target to AOE?

I have a few questionss regarding the CS approach however as I don't play WH enough perhaps I should leave well enough alone

That’s 100% what SGE needs more of………AOE regens

At this point the balance isn’t even shield/regen it’s the age old question of “who’s SCH’s partner?” And the correct answer to that is always AST

I like the idea, since it would kill regen/barrier healer as a thing. It just makes healer slots harder to fill.

I'm not dealing with that garbage again, join a party as a different healer and the AST inside is always like "sry, I only play diurnal, can u swap?" or "nocturnal only, can u swap off sch and play whm?". SE gave AST 2 stances and people would outright refuse to use one of them and just pose as a prettier SCH/WHM, when they had far more flexibility than a WHM or SCH. While I don't oppose its return, I dread the thought that there would be a return of AST posers who are just people that didn't want to play WHM/SCH due to aesthetics.

Shoutout to the ones who actually used both sects though, you were so lovely to play with.

If they refuse to switch to a different sect, then don't give them a commend. I would say kick them, too, but idk if SE would approve. But any content you'd find a random party for won't break you if you have double "pure" or double "shield" healers, so it won't matter. If it's on PF for ex or savage, well the party will simply remove them like they do anyone else who isn't performing. Just because there are some bad apples does not mean you deny the whole group of their fun.

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Originally Posted by Sunhwapark

While I don't oppose its return, I dread the thought that there would be a return of AST posers who are just people that didn't want to play WHM/SCH due to aesthetics.

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I'd imagine there's some overlap between these people and those who didn't want to deal with the card system too

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Originally Posted by Wayfinder3

I'll be honest, the last thing astrologian needs is more options. It already has the best healing kit by far. If you want sects back, thats fine but something has got to give. The job literally has a tool for every situation and Neutral Sect with sun sign is already among the strongest tools in the game as it is. Not to mention macro cosmos, one of the downsides about shield healers is that their burst HPS isn't as good as pure healers but that isn't true for noct ast because of neutral sect. noct ast could solo heal any content with barely any difficulty cause you shield anything that needed to be shielded with collective then heal up an damage with Macro, Earthly star and any other ogcds they might have.

I'm not saying they can't have it back but if they do get it, something in their kit has got to give. White Mage only has 2 benefits over Ast, it's easier to play and faster to unlock. lets not kill the job even more than already is especially since ast got the light speed mega buff.

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I'll be honest, all jobs need more options, because they're bland right now. AST and pretty much every other job. There is almost no way to distinguish them from one another. Sects was the way AST stood out, just like SCH's fairy choices and WHM's raw healing power and regen. SE needs to give back several elements they removed from jobs between ShB and now, because they haven't replaced those with anything decent.