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

[RichardButte]

If you throw one or two spires on the Ninja during the raid, it circumvents the odd 30s that he's out of TP waiting for an Invig (assuming 100% uptime on boss/adds). He saves around ~120 TP in the base duration of spire. Spire is also useful for DRK and PLD because they run out of TP much quicker than Melee DPS and warrior. Spire aids the tank's tp issues until the bard or mch has to play tp song or tp promote.

Except that you cannot reliably expect to A) draw the card in the first place and B) draw the card when it's actually needed (ie when this rotation is happening) and putting a spire on spread would be a crime...

Ewer is useful for SMNs and AST (again poor mana sustain).

On AST, sure, because the mana sucks, but I play my L60 SMN a great deal and we NEVER run out of mana unless we're spamming Ruin III without DWT active or we're ressing people.

Spear is useful for Bard/MCH/NIN. They have many oGCD abilities on relatively short cooldowns.

And if they happen to not blow a cooldown for whatever reason (evading, AoE, crowd control, etc.), the buff is completely wasted.

...Which is why Spear needs to reduce the cooldown time of abilities that are already on cooldown when used on the target in addition to reducing the cooldown when someone uses an ability while under the effect.

Then, you could make it useful without needing voice chat to determine who is about to blow a big CD.

SCHs aetherflow charges do not directly affect party DPS.

Sure they do: they allow a savvy SCH to spend more time in CS because they know they can drop it an throw some big emergency heals in a heartbeat. Plus, the fairy is always helping as well.

Really, I DPS as much as I do as a SCH because I know that, even if everything suddenly goes to hell in the 5 seconds after I hit CS and cannot turn it off, I can seriously dole out the heals as soon as I CAN turn it off. AST just doesn't have that kind of saving power.

Expanded RR is effectively Quadrupling the card's effect in an 8man group. It's why I think Enhanced should be 250% potency bump (similar to what the op stated). Giving up Balance for something effectively weaker is bad.

It's actually only double, since you're giving a 40% increase using 2 cards which could've been 20% total output when cast individually, but it's still the best deal the AST gets, yes.

You have a 10.8% chance of landing your Expanded Balance/Arrow combo in a minute's time and as of now, it is currently weaker than Fey Wind (unless you Celestial Opposition). If the cards were buffed by 1.5x or had duration increases, it would fix this "issue" we're having.

Again, factor in RNG and they need to be stronger than that, even.

The chance that an AST won't be able to put that combo together for an entire encounter means that it needs to do oh so much more when the AST DOES get it going.

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.

That would be nice, yes.

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.

While none of the cards are detrimental, many of them offer negligible benefit or are too situational to be useful most of the time.

And again, just having an AST along is technically damaging the party's survivability already.

It'd be VERY interesting to see the class brought up to being on par with WHM/SCH in healing and emergency buttons, but have the cards actually have a chance of hurting the party in addition to helping, heh...

[MidnightTundra]

snip

- Assuming 100% uptime, the SMN ooms around 4 minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FV-5V58Vo8

- Again, assuming 100% uptime (I stated this in my original post), spire is a means to save tp. If you throw it on the ninja between the 3min and 30s (7 draws and 2 shuffles, odds are you're going to get a spire) of the encounter starting you will help them bypass the odd timing of invig.

- Healing to generate more DPS uptime is apart of what I said earlier. It is indirect. You do not directly boost damage by healing. Fey Wind is a direct boost in Party DPS. Also, AST isn't far behind in Personal DPS but we have terrible mana sustain while SCH, with oGCD healing and very good mana sustain, can keep up the DPS. If we had better mana sustain, I'd be able to do so much more with this class.

- Spear is also one of the skills that I think needs a duration increase. While retroactively reducing CDs would be nice, I'm under the assumption that SE doesn't want to do it due to technical reasons. So the next best thing is to increase the window of opportunity. Resets are another story.

- Keep in mind that we have Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition. You're asking for a healer to have the chance of giving a DPS a 30% damage increase for potentially 45~50s. That's pretty damn strong man.

- Expanded RR is effectively quadrupling the effect (because if you take time and chance into the consideration, It's potentially lower than 20%). I did not account for time and chance.

I'm extremely curious as well on how they'll handle the AST buffs. I really want Light Speed to reduce the GCD. Thematically, it fits the class but it's really sad that it's practically useless aside from raising people and SS. A mana sustain buff and a slight buff to cards would put the class in the right direction. Maybe Spire could be TP regain and Bole could be stronger by default.

[Tyla_Esmeraude]

One thing that definetly needs to get fixed is Spread. It being usable only during battle is very limiting and doesn't allow for strategy before a fight. I don't see any reason for this restriction. It certainly wouldn't be OP if we could use it out of battle. Not like we would spend 30 mins before a fight trying to get the perfect buffed card combo... and it's also annoying when a fight ends as soon as you try to Spread a card. Card lost and wasted.

[Rajeme]

One thing that definetly needs to get fixed is Spread. It being usable only during battle is very limiting and doesn't allow for strategy before a fight. I don't see any reason for this restriction. It certainly wouldn't be OP if we could use it out of battle. Not like we would spend 30 mins before a fight trying to get the perfect buffed card combo... and it's also annoying when a fight ends as soon as you try to Spread a card. Card lost and wasted.

From the latest live letter, this has been addressed and they will probably be adjusted soon.

[Atlantasia]

I don't have my SCH at 60 yet, but I have both AST and my main WHM at 60 now. From running content, even if an AST is a skilled healer, they're just not a stable healer for progression, which is the point of all of these threads wanting change on AST. They're not stable, and the cards don't make up for that.

If I go into A4 on WHM with an AST, the probability of wiping is much higher than if I go in with a SCH. That's a problem right there, a BIG one. Because frankly, when learning content, stability and emergency heals are HUGE. AST as it stands is a class that is best when EVERYONE knows a fight and is at farm status, otherwise, when problems happen, there's just no way of recovering, where the other two healers can.

Collective Unconscious is pretty much useless compared to the WHM and SCH's alternatives. Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition are only okay at best with Diurnal Sect. Bottom line, why take an AST when you can have a WHM and SCH combo?

[YuiSasaki]

As many said before:


AST might need some tweaks. The changes you recommend, would make AST broken as fuck..

- Healing while moving? Yes, of course, cuz it's that hard to avoid stuff on the ground and heal the current content...
- Double or even TRIPLE the buffs? Yes, sure 45% damage increase for 15secs, 60-90% cd reduce, sure go ahead...
- I might agree on increasing the damage on the abilities by a BIT, but not much.
- Versatility is not created by simply adding a HoT or a shield to a card for the duration...

- Yet i agree, the Draw CD is too long, reducing it by approx. 10sec would make the Card-Drawing more fluid and the buffs more present on the party.
Whilst I'd add that an AE RR would stack, so that if you have two ASTs in your party both could AE RR without overwriting their buffs (yet, I'd limit it to stacking DIFFERENT buffs)
- I also agree with you that RR is somewhat not worth it in terms of Enhanced RR.

I am wondering though, what do you mean by trippling the duration of the Ewer/Spire RR? Do you want to triple the time of a single buff duration, or do you want to triple the increased duration which is currently achieved by RR these cards?

[Yumi_umi]

Imo ast is the type of class that rewards the party if the party is awesome and top notch. A paty that executes mechanics almost if nt perfectly, dps is amazing and the co healer is smart.
Ur cards etc will be like gravy on top which will " make the run go even faster ".
But it punishes parties that r bad and r struggling with mechanics lol. Low healing potency & weak shields. Card buffs r often used on urself or co healer cuz ur mp is strained etc = 0 buffs to party.
So atm theres really no middle ground for the average ast.

[RichardButte]

- Assuming 100% uptime, the SMN ooms around 4 minutes

Yes, but there's no such thing as a fight with 4 minutes of straight uptime. You're guaranteed to spend some time dodging AoE, changing phases, etc., and I've never had mana issues as a result.

And really, that's the problem with AST's buffs in general: they're so incredibly situational that they're typically going to come up completely useless or of next to no value to the overall course of the fight.

- Keep in mind that we have Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition. You're asking for a healer to have the chance of giving a DPS a 30% damage increase for potentially 45~50s. That's pretty damn strong man.

I just spent most of a Bismark hard run drawing completely worthless cards that did absolutely nothing of any real value most of the time. The few times where I was able to set up an expanded RR with an Arrow or a Balance for when the carapace came up were helpful, but they were hardly worth it for the sheer number of spires, ewers, etc. I drew.

Yes, I know it's strong, and the key reason it HAS to be strong is because of the odds against it happening.

When things go wrong for an AST, they bring absolutely nothing to a fight the other healers cannot do WORLDS better, and their lack of emergency options are a liability.

As we've already said, even when things go RIGHT, they're still only marginally better than what other healers bring to the fight.

If the buffs are going to revolve around RNG, they need to be AMAZING when you get the right ones.

And they just aren't.

- Healing while moving? Yes, of course, cuz it's that hard to avoid stuff on the ground and heal the current content...

A) They're still releasing content and B) there are fights in dungeons right now that require lots and lots of movement, and it doesn't take many DPS blunders while dodging AoE before you won't have the chance to stop and cast to save them.

- Double or even TRIPLE the buffs? Yes, sure 45% damage increase for 15secs, 60-90% cd reduce, sure go ahead...

The potency of the good buffs has to be strong enough to justify the chance of not getting them.

In a best case scenario, you can give a DPS 10% extra damage for 15 seconds every 30 seconds. But there's only a 17% chance of that happening, or 1 in 6.

So look at it this way: once every 3 minutes, we can average out 10% extra damage for 1:30 seconds (if you use Arrow and Balance), and that's assuming we'll draw one of every card and not the same worthless cards over and over and over again.

Meanwhile, we lack good emergency options that can save the raid from a wipe.

Unless the buffs are going to be AMAZING, ASTs just aren't worth bringing to progression content. A hybrid that cannot actually deliver on increasing the DPS of the raid proportionate to the increased risk they bring is a terrible hybrid.

And yes, if the party is amazing and never gets hit (which isn't an option in many fights) an AST can suffice, but the problem is that ASTs queue as healers and are expected by the DF to perform the role of one, and you have to expect that you're going to be dropped into parties that get hit by everything and you won't have the emergency heals to deal with those situations.

I've already found myself struggling as an AST in situations where my SCH would have NO issue whatsoever because SCH has tools for handling incoming spike damage, never mind the fact that AST goes OOM way too quickly when a lot of damage is being done.

I am wondering though, what do you mean by trippling the duration of the Ewer/Spire RR? Do you want to triple the time of a single buff duration, or do you want to triple the increased duration which is currently achieved by RR these cards?

Right now it doubles the duration, which is a net loss of efficiency because you have to wait 30 seconds before using it. Instead of 15 seconds, it would be 45.

[RichardButte]

Another idea:

7. Make the Cards Less Situational by Giving the buffs a 1 minute duration and a number of charges (after you've cast them on a target, I mean)

Instead of throwing a TP reducer on a party member and hoping that they needed it for the next 20 seconds (when you have no idea if they actually will due to the randomness of boss mechanics), how about you throw it on a party member and the next 10 abilities they use will have their TP reduced by 20%?

Bole: 10% less damage taken from the next 10 hits

Spear: 20% faster cooldown on the next 3 CDs used.

Arrow: 10% faster cast time/GCD recovery time on the next 10 abilties/spells used.

Balance: 10% more damage done on the next 10 attacks (doesn't include auto attacks or DoTs already ticking)

This would ensure that buffs don't get so easily wasted as the player can use the buffs when they have a chance.

[Triaste]

They're so incredibly situational that they're typically going to come up completely useless or of next to no value to the overall course of the fight.

And that is the problem. But not the only one.
AST is litteraly a nightmare to balance, i feel for the developers here.

And no, AST is not hard to use by any means. The class has the basic things +1 cooldown. Its literally the easiest class to use for "pure" healing, due to the lack of options. Its basically: Heal target with single target healing spell, heal group with multi target spell, target is near death->ED->repeat basic healing for 40 seconds (Not most effective mind you).
There is no secret to using AST effectively healing wise, as long as you keep unnecessary healing low.
And no, time dilation on a tank with hots wont make or break an encounter.

A "weaker" healer with more support just doesn't work in an enforced party environment.
The fights are simply not designed this way, and they pretty much cant be designed like that, as things are now.
Right now, AST is enough for everything, no discussion about that. But what are WHM and SCH supposed to do with all their shiny new healing skills?
If a (slightly) weaker basic set hast to be enough to win an encounter, you pretty much make all the "non-basic" skills the other healers get redundant.
If the basic set is not enough where does that leave AST?

Cards are the same:
The DPS have their fixed rotation, with fixed costs, the fights are designed with this in mind. Reducing the costs of a DPS classes will do next to nothing. If it would be designed like this that would make AST, as well as drawing those cards, mandatory.
This is also not something that can be fixed on AST, since most classes lack ways to do more damage outside of their best rotation with higher cost.

Balance can't be accounted for as well, if there are burn phases whre it would be needed, an AST would pretty much have to get AoE Royal Road, Spread Balance. Stop drawing cards until burn phase, to ENSURE he has those cards at an appropriate time.
(And cards come as random as it is, I actually had a DPS complain about running out of tp - because I threw 6 arrows in succession at him) - Also the thing about AST being mandatory again.

Arrow is nice, but the effect is not overwhelming in the grand scheme of things. Even in solo play, much less in compositions of 4 or 8 players (if not AoE'd).

Spear likewise. Also I don't get the people who say "use" it for LA. I mean I DO use it if I happen to get it (and actually need it - usually not the case, but its nice if you died midfight). But it furhter reduces your ability to support the team, and you actually have to get it, or spread it and hold for your next LA. And there are better cards to hold on to.
-
Hybrids are always a problem to design around.
Its like creating a DPS, that can both melee and ranged, both worse than non hybrids, but as a class function it gets the ability to support heal for 250-500 ... sometimes.

Thats why in my opinion, the baseline for AST is to heal as well as the others. (You can still make that different from, the other two)
If the healing is taken care of, start adding gimmicks to further differentiate the healers.

That said, im super interested where the developers intend to take this.

Another idea:

7. Make the Cards Less Situational by Giving them Unlimited Duration (or a 2 minute duration) and a number of charges

You might want to add "in-fight" in there, just to avoid the waiting game of giving everyone balance at the start of a fight. I already hated that with 8xStoneskin, imagine 8xBalance O_O