What does everyone think about those AST buffs?

[Sylentmana]

I don't know what people are complaining about. AST no longer feels like fighting an uphill battle. Besides, a true healer levels all three Jobs.

[Rewind]

Healed A1s and A2s tonight. AST/SCH combo.

Everything went fine - though we didn't clear A2 after having it on farm, it was due to a new tank rather than any HPS concerns. Some attempts were smoother because of the heart of the cards was on my side.



Will be interesting to see A3s as this will be 'progression' in the sense of our team hasn't got this on farm or seen past A3 hand split.

[Elth]

Pretty much the same experience on A1S and A2S with a WHM/AST Nocturnal. The shields even gave enough breathing room for the WHM to let me DPS quite a lot.

[Dicejss]

Congrats to being a true healer now instead of making the other whm or sch carry your weight. Truly that is good for your healing. But your cards are still garbage for potency. They could last for a min a piece and still be garbage. It's like having a longer butter knife to cut a steak, it's not solving the issue of getting the job done.

[Rewind]

This is too salty to read.

I think you need to take a chill pill.

Pretty much the same experience on A1S and A2S with a WHM/AST Nocturnal. The shields even gave enough breathing room for the WHM to let me DPS quite a lot.

That's good to hear. Did you push A3 with the comp at all?

[Lastelli]

Congrats to being a true healer now instead of making the other whm or sch carry your weight. Truly that is good for your healing. But your cards are still garbage for potency. They could last for a min a piece and still be garbage. It's like having a longer butter knife to cut a steak, it's not solving the issue of getting the job done.

Well, a little too harsh, but you're right. Unfortunately if AST cards system remains as it is, WHM/SCH will always be a better option mainly because of DPS. Devs can either:
1) Tweak AST dps skills so that they can be halfway between SCH and WHM dps in practical use; or
2) Give AST more control over their cards, since with bad luck you can REALLY wipe to enrage because you didn't draw a balance when you needed it.
I'd like them to go with the second option. Fix shuffle so that it can't give the same card, make it so that you won't draw the same card in your spread and the same card you've just burned for Royal Road. This way there will still be a lot of rng, but you can effectively control it to some extent. Then analyze the data and, if needed, further increase cards buffs (like adjust balance/arrow to 15% increased damage/speed). This would justify AST weak dps capabilities and cards rng. Right now they're still too unreliable and even with perfect luck (meaning keep drawing spire-balance for expanded damage up) a SCH dps will still be higher than the increase in raid dps thanks to balances.

That's good to hear. Did you push A3 with the comp at all?

I believe AST will be very useful in A3S (assuming you have very good dps), I mean CU is just perfect to counter cascade and such a small arena allows you to safely cast expanded buffs without having to worry too much if they'll get to all your party members. Also synastry should work like a charm for double hand phase. I can see SCH/AST being the best combo there, though I can be wrong since I have no direct experience in that fight. Sorry for intruding into your conversation :P

[Soyre_Monre]

I believe AST will be very useful in A3S (assuming you have very good dps), I mean CU is just perfect to counter cascade and such a small arena allows you to safely cast expanded buffs without having to worry too much if they'll get to all your party members. Also synastry should work like a charm for double hand phase. I can see SCH/AST being the best combo there, though I can be wrong since I have no direct experience in that fight. Sorry for intruding into your conversation :P

Sadly, a lot of discussions in this thread is about sch being replaced by astros, but in the end Astro is more viable when handling whm job with a scholar co-healer :<

[Elth]

That's good to hear. Did you push A3 with the comp at all?

Tonight, with the same WHM/NocAST comp. I'll edit or reply here to report how things went. A1S/A2S were walks in a park, but that could be (probably is) because everyone got some additionnal gear this week.

It's hard to determine the exact weight my cards brought to the field. I parsed between 350 and 600 DPS just for myself, engaged pretty much all the fights with AoE Spear (reducing every DPS' cooldowns en engage is nice but a pain to theorycraft) and got quite a lot of decent card draws.
So yeah, not a SCH, but more that decent when it comes to "added benefits" not counting healing pawa
Healing wise, Synastry alone felt kinda godlike, being able to heal both tanks + one prey (the other prey being my cohealer who took care of himself) on Oppressor or again, handle both tanks on the last widow phase in A2 to let my WHM get some MP back.
Additionnaly, while NoctBene is not Adlo, it was more than enough to keep the BLM alive if he was Converting during the first prey.

[Eudyptes]

Well, a little too harsh, but you're right. Unfortunately if AST cards remain as it is, WHM/SCH will always be a better option mainly because of DPS. Devs can either:
1) Tweak AST dps skills so that they can be halfway between SCH and WHM dps in practical use; or
2) Give AST more control over their cards, since with bad luck you can REALLY wipe to enrage because you didn't draw a balance when you needed it.
I'd like them to go with the second option. Fix shuffle so that it can't give the same card, make it so that you won't draw the same card in your spread and the same card you've just burned for Royal Road. This way there will still be a lot of rng, but you can effectively control it to some extent. Then analyze the data and, if needed, further increase cards buffs (like adjust balance/arrow to 15% increased damage/speed). This would justify AST weak dps capabilities and cards rng. Right now they're still too unreliable and even with perfect luck (meaning keep drawing spire-balance for expanded damage up) a SCH dps will still be higher than the increase in raid dps thanks to balances.

I came here to say something similar to this. After playing ast all day yesterday, my final opinion is that whm/sch are still better, but ast is damn close now. The only thing holding ast back from being exactly on par with the others is their rng/overall dps output (and group mnd bonus). I know I mentioned rng earlier and it seemed I was the unpopular opinion, but it's really true. Sch can fey wind and SS, and keep those buffs up consistently on CD while dpsing. Ast has to rely on luck, which may cause them to never even pull an arrow/balance, and this really is an issue.

I know others in the thread liked to say I'm shit at the class if I can't adapt to the cards I draw. Well not only is that not true, but it's completely missing the point. If you're on a raid boss, and that said raid boss is a dps check, why would your raid bring a class that might boost dps well, but also might not at all? Well, they wouldn't. They would bring the ones that can consistently bring higher dps. And atm that's whm and sch combo. Since the whm/sch combo can still heal better overall than ast/anything combos too, that still leaves ast on the sidelines for any group that's min/maxing in progression.

With that said, I'm not saying the sky is falling for ast, or that it's a joke and will never get used. These buffs made ast a good class. It's just that any group that says "we should take the classes that are best suited for the job" will rarely ever pick ast until they either remove the rng aspect, or somehow make the cards more homogeneous (which I would hate to see the latter).

[AlexanderThorolund]

Very happy with the buffs after a lot of testing. Noticed an easier flow into delivering more DPS during dungeons thanks to richer heals. And a return to longer balance duration is bliss.