AST: What it means to be a "hybrid"...

[MidnightTundra]

I feel like people just want this class to be broken.

[Alahra]

I feel like people just want this class to be broken.

What I want is to feel like I don't need to pick up SCH again to be useful in my off-spec for my FC. I haven't done a large variety of content on AST yet, since I've only just about hit i170, but what I have done has made me really miss the strength that SCH had even at 50, even if we've been able to clear the content. Considering SCH only got significantly better (with their primary weaknesses mitigated and Selene significantly improved), AST definitely needs some tweaks. I can't speak as much to WHM since I rarely played it in the past, but it seems to have significant advantages over AST as well. It's okay for the healers to be different (and indeed, personally, I want them to be), but the differences don't need to result in only feeling disadvantaged in difficult content.

[MidnightTundra]

snip

I've been playing AST since it came out and what OP is suggesting is entirely unnecessary. Yes it does need tweeks but dramatically buffing the potencies of the cards by double or triple of their original potency is far too much. At most, they could use slight duration increases to mathematically beat out Selene's Fey Wind for a party-wide damage buff. Statistically, it'd would fall behind but that's why we have RNG in the first place. On our best days, our party buff should beat Selene but what we have now is ASTs DPS buffs just breaking even. If we double or triple the potency of the cards, we absolutely wipe the floor with Selene mathematically and statistically. I don't agree with that.

SCH is strong because of their overloaded kit. They have damn good mitigation, AoE healing, Personal DPS, Mana Sustain, Burst healing, etc. you name it. They also having healing oGCD at a constant rate but SCH only really excels in mitigation and mana sustain. They are the real Hybrid and AST is lurking the back but they aren't as far behind as people claim. ASTs personal DPS is actually pretty high but your weak mana sustain doesn't allow it like a SCHs can. Your mitigation pales in comparison to SCH but that's the point. You're not a SCH. Your sustained healing beats out SCHs unless they have Eos out (and they give up Selene to do that while we still have our cards.)

We don't need DPS spells that scale off of mind (Unless you remove CS all together and adjust other healers accordingly). We don't need double or triple the potency of our cards (1.5 at most or duration increases). We don't need to be able to cast everything while moving because mobility is incredibly powerful and it shouldn't be taken lightly. Cards do not need healing or shields.

The goal isn't to overpower the other healers. The goal is to be comparable with our unique strengths so buff what makes us unique but don't buff it so hard it overshadows the competition.

[Yhisa]

im sorry but AST is good but it does have flaws and quite a few

- Card system is good but it needs Tweaking
- MP is fine we just lack cooldowns to help with healing unlike our counterparts
- Some skills are just awkward to use or need slight changes

I love AST alot but it does have flaws but not major issues me personally want them to look at these skills

- Nocturnal Sect - Need rework
- Royal Road - Need rework especially with Draw/Spread.... make it only effect spread.... or rework entirely
- Draw - Need lower cooldown,,, due to cards being our core mechanic
- Spread - Need lower cooldown, Possible buff to group whilst holding card
- Shuffle - is nice but frustrating when u redraw the same card
- Disable - Auto attacks is a pain
- Lightspeed - Needs rework only useful for running and casting protect/stoneskin or to shorten cast time of Ascend
- Collective Unconscious - *You Shall Not Pass* need rework
- Celestial Opposition - *Disco Party* need rework

[Yhisa]

All other skills are fine maybe slight increase range on our AoE heals but other then that the class is fine we just lack cooldowns to boost our healing or ways to mitigate damage ... problem with AST is that when everything goes really bad it effect us in 2 ways...... 1 we turn into spam healers and burn through mp if there is ALOT of damage going out due to lack of cooldowns to help with healing.......... 2 whilst spam healing we dont have time to use our cards due being on global CD ... i have killed players b4 due to trying to draw a card whilst trying to rapidly heal everyone up due to high damage

[RichardButte]

On our best days, our party buff should beat Selene but what we have now is ASTs DPS buffs just breaking even. If we double or triple the potency of the cards, we absolutely wipe the floor with Selene mathematically and statistically. I don't agree with that.

But it SHOULD.

The AST trades reliable emergency healing and general healing throughput for card buffs, aka the ability to end an encounter more quickly.

If the stars align (pun intended), the best thing an AST can do is give a DPS 50 seconds of 10% damage increase. Is that worth giving up lustrates? Divine Seal? Amazing AoE coverage?

As I said, take ANY card buff and divide it by 6 and then you have the ACTUAL benefit of the card with RNG factored in, and those numbers suck.

I'm not sure why people cannot wrap their heads around the concept of "risk vs. reward" and, in order to justify the risk of an AST drawing 30 spires in a row, the reward for a Balance cannot be a piddly 10% damage increase for 15 seconds.

Even assuming you draw a balance every time (which you won't), that's 10% more damage for 15 seconds, or 2.5% more damage per minute, for ONE player. Compare that to Selene's 1.5% DPS/healing per minute for the whole party, 12% total benefit (assuming a full raid party).

And if you want to be honest about it, divide that 2.5% by 6 for the REAL number: an average of .42% per minute DPS increase.

We shouldn't just be BEATING Selene, we should be stomping her into the ground because we have to contend with the RNG while she doesn't.

[MidnightTundra]

snip

So you want us to replace SCH is every single fight that does not require their mitigation? Tripling the potency of the cards will do just that. I'm not sure why you can't grip the fact that there are 3 healers in this game where the standard is 2 healers in an 8-man. For the SCH to have out Selene. he is straight up giving up Eos' Regens, mitigation and healing buff. If he wants to switch pets, he has to blow Swiftcast on top of blowing 1600 mana. The pets also share cooldowns (Fey Illumination and Fey Wind share them for example.)

From my own activity with both SCH and AST, my AST beats out my SCH in HPS unless I am utilizing Eos. If I choose to utilize Selene, I lose a major chunk of my HPS in exchange for party DPS buffs. Stop acting like SCH doesn't have a trade off.

The cards don't need the absurd values you're trying to get across. They should be buffed by 1.5 at most.

[Alahra]

-snip-

I'm not necessarily on board with the changes in the OP, either. They're probably all too much, even individually. I don't think numerically doubling the cards would even really address the majority of issues anyway. The better solution, in my opinion, is to make all the cards worthwhile. Two of them are useful in nearly all situations, and this should be the case for all six of them.

Spire and Ewer are too limited in use. Unlike Balance and Arrow, they don't actually provide an increase in output for the target in most situations. No one is going to change their skill rotation because they are using less TP or MP now--they're already using their abilities in the most optimal way (or at least, they should be, in progression content). Ewer has some utility for healer mana conservation, but SCH and WHM have plenty of mana control. That leaves only AST that can really make use of Ewer for healing efficiency (but that's more of a problem of AST relative to the other two healers than it is a problem with Ewer).

Spear is only significantly impactful in coordinated burst situations for progression/static groups, when you can work out in advance when people will be using a large number of off-global cooldowns. Given that it requires planning to have a noticeable impact, it is thereby usually very difficult to use, since you can't often plan to have a Spear (unless you save it with Spread, anyway--but it's probably more efficient in most cases to save a Balance or Arrow for a burst phase).

Bole is middle-of-the-road. By itself, it does allow for more healer DPS, theoretically, since it should result in less healing needed on the tank. For ASTs, at least, though, I've never managed to get more than another cast or two out of it.

Of course, all four of the less useful cards can be used for Royal Road, though this runs the risk of actually reducing the impact your cards have over time even further, since you don't know if you'll get a Balance or Arrow on your next draw, and the only Royal Road option that actually makes cutting yourself from 2 cards a minute to 1 card a minute is Extended (since it doubles the effect). Expanded can double the effect in 8 man situations as well, if you can manage to catch all four DPS with it (which isn't easy given the 15y radius of the effect).

Given that you only have a 1/3 chance of drawing a card to use that Royal Road benefit on on your next card, though, tossing a card to Royal Road is generally only going to reduce your efficiency even further.

If every card draw had impact the way that say, SCH's 3 Aetherflow charges do (roughly one charge per 20 seconds, not incomparable), things would be a different story. That's not even including something like Fey Wind, which although weaker than individual card buffs, has the incredibly valuable strength of consistency on its side, something that's of great value especially in progression settings.

[RichardButte]

From my own activity with both SCH and AST, my AST beats out my SCH in HPS unless I am utilizing Eos. If I choose to utilize Selene, I lose a major chunk of my HPS in exchange for party DPS buffs. Stop acting like SCH doesn't have a trade off.

The healing throughput for SCH isn't the issue. It's the fact that SCH has reliable and versatile emergency buttons while AST doesn't.

When the shit hits the fan, the AST has no answer while the SCH has several (I have a 60 SCH as well).

The tradeoff has to be equal, or to put it numerically (even though it's difficult to measure), if the AST's poor emergency options leave the party with a 10% higher chance of wiping, then the AST's contribution has to end the encounter 10% faster to compensate, otherwise the AST is just an inferior healer.

And again, risk vs. reward dictates that the risk of an AST NOT being able to end the encounter more quickly due to RNG means that there has to also be a chance of the AST being able to end the encounter MUCH more quickly.

If SE were to remove the RNG element and allow ASTs to pick the card they wanted every time or cycle through all 6 in a set order, sure, the class would need minor buffs at most.

But with a 17% chance of getting the card you want, that card had better REALLY do some work when you actually manage to draw it...

The better solution, in my opinion, is to make all the cards worthwhile. Two of them are useful in nearly all situations, and this should be the case for all six of them.

I would honestly prefer this as well, as Ewer (which we use on ourselves most of the time anyway) and Spire are just awful, Bole only helps to make up for our weaker emergency options and Spear is stupidly situational.

But I doubt SE would be willing to go through and revamp all of the cards, hence why I suggest simple tweaks instead.

[MidnightTundra]

The healing throughput for SCH isn't the issue. It's the fact that SCH has reliable and versatile emergency buttons while AST doesn't.

When the shit hits the fan, the AST has no answer while the SCH has several (I have a 60 SCH as well).

And LightSpeed should be the CD that dramatically increases our HPS. If it just reduced the GCD to 1.5, we'd have something to work with. I agree with you here.

I also would agree with your cards being game-changing if we had the original concept of us having a bad card (We assumed Bole was the 10% increased damage taken from news sources pre-expac). None of our cards are "bad" but in this game, everyone just values "DPS boost" over everything. In the eyes of many players, all the cards aside from Balance and Arrow are bad. The only one I truly feel is iffy is Bole and even then, I find uses for it.