Making the AST's abilities less situational

[RichardButte]

The key issue I see with most of the AST's abilities is that they're too situational, and that includes many of the healing options and nearly all of the card buffs.

I'd suggest making the following changes:

Bole: Make the buff last 1 minute and have X charges, where the target takes 10% damage less from the next X hits until the buff expires or runs out of charges.

Spear: Make it reduce cooldowns that are already ticking instead of just ones activated while under the effect of Spear. I pretty much always RR this card because of how massively situational it is. Even if I DO have voice chat, interrupting the party to ask, "Hey, does anyone have a cooldown they're about to use?" is crazy, especially since DPS don't usually hold onto cooldowns and even when they do, you have no idea when you're going to draw the Spear.

Balance: 10% more damage AND healing would be nice, here.

Arrow: Fine as is.

Ewer/Spire: Instead of reducing the T/MP spent for 20 seconds, just have the card restore X% of T/MP over 20 seconds instead. There are just so many times when a player either:

A) Won't notice the Ewer/Spire is on them.

B) Won't be in a position to actually use their abilities due to raid mechanics singling them out.

C) Won't be in any danger of running out of T/MP (and we cannot even see TP bars).

If these cards restored X% over 20 seconds, then A and B will no longer matter, if they're near full and spending T/MP, it'll get restored as they spend it. If they're NOT spending it, it'll be restored if they have it missing, and while they may not notice that the buff is on them, they'll DEFINITELY notice that they have more T/MP when they glance down at their bars.

Collective Unconscious: It seems odd that a healer with a lot of mobility has a channeled ability like this. Instead of making it placeable like other healer bubbles, let us run around while channeling it. That would actually make the AST unique in their ability to reposition a healer bubble while casting it and make it less situational as you don't have to worry about having to run out of AoE a moment after you use it.

Disable: Make it not proc on auto attacks, only actual abilities. Bosses apparently auto attack while casting things, meaning that your attempt to weaken their next attack will likely fail.

Luminiferous Aether: I'd reduce the cooldown to 90 seconds instead of 120. AST already suffer hugely with mana management, especially if the DPS take avoidable damage.

Synastry: Possibly the most situational ability in the AST's toolkit. Only really useful if you intend to throw it on a tank and then single target heal other party members. What if, instead of doing this, it either smart healed the nearest injured party member for 50% of the healing you do on the target, or did some kind of AoE heal for X% the healing you do around the target? AST suffers from a lack of emergency options as it is, and this would give them some way to heal the rest of the group while focus healing a tank.

Lightspeed: For a 150 second cooldown, does it really need the 25% reduced potency?

I think the AST suffers mostly from a lack of emergency options, and if they're going to be queuing as healers via the DF, they're going to need to do a bit better in handling parties where players get hit a lot.

[Hereweareagain]

That all sounds fantastic. I especially agree with the Ewer/Spire redesign. As it is, those cards are pretty much automatic Royal Road fodder.

[Nyghtmarerobu]

Astro can't be the best healer in the game. While I agree that some skills need changes, others, just don't need it..

Bole is fine as is.
Spear defintly needs a rework.
Balance is fine as is.
I'd love to see Ewer and spire get their respective regens on them.
There are places for collective unconsious, you are most likely using it wrong.
Disable Should be reworked. It shouldn't be as good as virus, but it needs love.
I'm on the fence about Liminiferous.
Lightspeed is fine, the instant cast makes up for the lost potency.

[RichardButte]

Astro can't be the best healer in the game. While I agree that some skills need changes, others, just don't need it..

Even with all of these changes, AST still isn't going to outdo SCH/WHM.

I dual main SCH and AST at 60 and SCH just has WORLDS better emergency healing and safety nets.

Not that I expect them to implement any of it, mind you...

Lightspeed is fine, the instant cast makes up for the lost potency.

Sadly, with the GCD factored in, you gain little to no benefit from it, not unless you're moving.

Also, 150 seconds on the CD means it really doesn't need the potency reduction.

[RichardButte]

Thanks so much for the AST buffs. LS is now a REAL emergency button and the Spire/Ewer changes are a big improvement! That said, here are my thoughts on potential future tweaks...

-Spear still needs to cool down abilities already on cooldown. If it were to take a decrease as a tradeoff (like 12-15% instead of 20), I'd personally be fine with that. Any party without voice chat is still going to get very little out of Spear (unless you expanded RR it on spread before a fight, I guess...)

-At this point, you should probably do something else with RRing Bole and Balance. For one, it's a net loss of benefit, as you're trading 200% worth of cards for 150% worth of return. Secondly, when will that net loss ever be worth frontloading a buff THAT badly?

Considering you're condensing two cards into the time span of ONE card, this should be closer to a 250% buff in potency, seeing as how you've got a smaller window in which your target can be using the buff than if you extended it instead. As I've mentioned in the past, we have to assume that the smaller the window in which to use something, the greater chance that it'll be wasted.

Either that or figure out something else to do with it entirely, maybe making the next card heal for a % of HP over the duration of the card in Diur and put on a shield in Noct or something along those lines, thus also giving the AST a bit more healing potency, although it'll be up to RNG.

I still stand by the idea that Collective Unconscious should be mobile while channeling. This would give it a unique flavor AND ensure that it's not ruined by an AoE that you need to move out of. It also makes the AST the one "herding" the party in times of movement, which could be neat in itself.

Noct stance still needs help. It's just not worth the current tradeoff. If the shields could crit for double like SCH's, it'd likely be a lot better.

Still, liking where the class is heading. A few more tweaks and I'd call it right where it needs to be. Thanks for working on it!

[Blazeblast4]

What I would like to see is a deck system where either you have all 6 cards at the start and each time you draw one, it's gone, either till you use all the others, on a timed cooldown, or gone for a few draw/shuffle casts. Also, since it's a buff class, on Nocturnal Sect, instead of double shield crits, I'd like to see them get either stronger shields on card buffed targets, slightly extend card buffs (crit extends more or only crits extend), or crits to grant slight damage reduction while the shield is up. The reason I don't like the double shield crit is due to it being just a carbon copy of a Scholar ability while not offering anything thematic or unique, and still being weaker than the Scholar version. I like the idea of Astrologian being a buff focused class and having more manageable buffs plus a buff focused Sect as an off healer seems right to me, though I'm still relatively new to this game so I'm not sure how well this would work.