What does everyone think about those AST buffs?

[tjw]

I woke up to get a drink in the middle of the night and saw these changes, and now I am too excited to sleep because our healing kit is ridiculous with these changes. OMG.

I'm sure its not ridiculous as you think. Outside of the potency increases for certain skills (and a decrease in one particular skill) we only really essentially received one extra tool to our healing kit (Synastry). The cards are still locked behind RNG, but now the pay-off is worth it. CO, Disable and CU don't directly increase healing, but the first two are now more viable and not as useless, whereas CU can be used in many scenarios now (especially in Noc, giving Noc Sect some form of passive healing). Generally good buffs across, but not changed so much as to replace WHM and SCH. AST is now more viable while still retaining some of its weaknesses, which are now better able to be justified given the strongest base potencies of the healers now (Nocturnal) and if good fortune smiles on you, noticeable buffs.

As someone mentioned earlier, this is definitely a required balancing of AST. AST still needs to contend with less off-GCD heals, sub-par mana management, sub-par DPS, longer cooldowns on buffs and RNG cards, but its healing throughput has been increased enough now to hopefully be competitive with WHM and SCH.

Potency changes

Benefic
Before Patch: 380 (Diurnal), 399 (Nocturnal).
After Patch: 400 (Diurnal), 420 (Nocturnal).

Benefic II
Before Patch: 620 (Diurnal), 651 (Nocturnal)
After Patch: 650 (Diurnal), 683 (Nocturnal)

Helios
Before Patch: 290 (Diurnal), 305 (Nocturnal)
After Patch: 300 (Diurnal), 315 (Nocturnal)

Aspected B.
Before Patch: 790 (Diurnal), 525 (Nocturnal)
After Patch: 1030 (Diurnal), 604 (Nocturnal)

Aspected H.
Before Patch: 640 (Diurnal), 294 (Nocturnal)
After Patch: 600 (Diurnal), 315 (Nocturnal)

[Selli]

No improvements to their Mana Regen... >.> Doesn't help that Shuffle will still probably give you the same card again.

[Mog77]

snip.

It's not hard to make something nasty happen with all of those buffs, it would be hard for any game developer to predict how that sort of thing would affect the balance of content. AST groups have the potential to put out some serious dps now with sustainable buffs like this. I think it will be okay now though. They managed to get all of the math they needed from the actual playerbase which is kind of silly given how we all basically beta tested this class, but look at the results! We're totally competitive now!

[Cupcakesu]

No improvements to their Mana Regen... >.> Doesn't help that Shuffle will still probably give you the same card again.

To be fair, CO's reduced cooldown means it can be used consistently with Luminiferous Aether. They both share 120s CD.

[CottonMacabre]

Just thought that we can now possibly get 1minute buffs with Extended Royal road?

[Cupcakesu]

Just thought that we can now possibly get 1minute buffs with Extended Royal road?

Assuming it's still 2x duration and not 15s, yes. 60s long buffs. :P
Add in Time Dilation and you'll have a total of 75s. CO makes it 80s.

[Pomelo]

Just thought that we can now possibly get 1minute buffs with Extended Royal road?

You can get mega long buffs with enhanced too now...CO/TD on top of enhanced arrow/balance is some serious dps. (and serious tp burn for physical jobs lol)

[CottonMacabre]

Along with Time dilation HEHEHEH
Also patch now states you can see party member's TP so we can now use spire effectively!!!

[Remilia_Nightfall]

I think SE was drunk.

Inb4 AST nerfs.

[CottonMacabre]

WHM and SCH would sooner get nerfed