Suggested changes to AST Design to bring it in line with WHM/SCH

[Miscreant]

The responses in this thread are amazing... how can anyone not think Ast is still underpowered? I would much rather be paired with a Whm any day, whenever I'm pared with an Ast I find my self covering for their healing. Obviously it's amazing in PVP and has cool animations, but no ones going to be using it for early progression with how it is now. Lower healing output = lower healer dps = harder longer kills.

Got to say my favourite part of this thread was when someone told the OP why his group took a Drk instead of Pld for A3 & 4, I guess no one told him during those hours of progression.

For me I think one of Ast's biggest weakness is topping up raid wide damage fast, Whm can Divine Seal Medica/Medica 2/ Cure 3. Scholar can Emergency Tactics + Succor, Indom or Fey Illumination. Ast doesn't really have a CD that can give them that single burst raid wide AOE heal, it always takes a couple of GCDs which isn't really ideal.

[TatoRazzino]

The responses in this thread are amazing... how can anyone not think Ast is still underpowered? I would much rather be paired with a Whm any day, whenever I'm pared with an Ast I find my self covering for their healing. Obviously it's amazing in PVP and has cool animations, but no ones going to be using it for early progression with how it is now. Lower healing output = lower healer dps = harder longer kills.

Got to say my favourite part of this thread was when someone told the OP why his group took a Drk instead of Pld for A3 & 4, I guess no one told him during those hours of progression.

For me I think one of Ast's biggest weakness is topping up raid wide damage fast, Whm can Divine Seal Medica/Medica 2/ Cure 3. Scholar can Emergency Tactics + Succor, Indom or Fey Illumination. Ast doesn't really have a CD that can give them that single burst raid wide AOE heal, it always takes a couple of GCDs which isn't really ideal.

Funny thing, my SCH partner says he'd rather heal with AST during progression raiding, and I do most of the healing and I cover him up most of the time whenever we have to do split healing. Another thing: Fey Illumination affects everyone in range of the fairy, which means the AST would also be affected by it. Emergency Tactics + Succor adds up to 300 potency, which is as strong as a Medica or Helios, and the burst of Medica II and Diurnal Aspected Helios is the same. 20% of extra healing from Synastry raises it to 240 and raises each tick to 48; Divine Seal raises Medica II's burst to 260 and each tick would heal for 65 instead of 50. The difference is not that high in the long run, so there's no need to say that this would hurt healer DPS. A Balance or an Arrow in any part of the fight would make up for the healer DPS you're supposedly losing. Also, if you're stacking for Cure III it means you can stack for Collective Unconscious, which reduces damage taken by 10% and adds a regen tick to the group that keeps being refreshed if they stay under the bubble and that stays with them when they walk out. Another thing: for big hits that would require Cure III, AST can use Disable (which stacks with Virus) to reduce the damage even further. And finally, Celestial Opposition can add 5 more seconds to all of these regens.

[Valesti_Peleiades]

Another thing: Fey Illumination affects everyone in range of the fairy, which means the AST would also be affected by it.

Right, I forgot that WHM isn't affected by Fey Illumination; Eos hates WHMs.

How silly of me.

[TatoRazzino]

Right, I forgot that WHM isn't affected by Fey Illumination; Eos hates WHMs.

How silly of me.

People were claiming that SCH being able to use Fey Illumination would be a setback to AST. I was reminding them that it isn't a self-buff, but a party buff. Some people in this forum tend to forget that ASTs are part of the party and get the benefit from everything that is going on there. If you want to compare Eos's skill, you could mention that an AST can't buff the healing potency of the other party members; that is correct, but WHMs can't do it either, they can only buff themselves. Well, ASTs also have a self-healing buff, so what's your point exactly? That the fact that a WHM has to burn 3 cooldowns to do something that an AST can do easily by using Synastry is ok, but when an AST has to burn 3 cooldowns to do something a WHM can also easily do with Assize it's "OMG JOB IS BROKEN, IT NEEDS BUFFS". It is perfectly ok for a SCH to burn a cooldown to get a 300 potency AoE which AST/WHM has by default, but god forbid an AST having to do anything remotely like that. Again I ask: what's your point exactly?

[Starbirth]

SE did a good job at addressing AST's faults in terms of its healing potency on skills and the problems with its CDs like Lightspeed. The problems that still plague AST come from its card mechanics that suffer due to rng and fiddling with trying to get the best possible outcome with the cards you get during fights. The rng can completely screw you over and cause your value as a healer/support to become lower than WHM/SCH. During dungeons this isnt a big deal but on difficult 8 man encounters the skill cap for AST shoots through the roof compared to easier instanced content while your trying to weave cards into healing.

My advice to SE would be to change it so that AST can focus on healing during encounters more by making the cards permanent buffs. Obviously there would need to be changes to the potency of individual cards and there would need to be a cap on how many cards you can put out but redesigning a mechanic based on 4 skills is easier than redesigning an entire class.

I imagine it would look like this

Draw = same


Spread = Add the currently drawn card to your spread. You can permanently affix the card to a party member that stays until you die. Max cards in spread: 3


Royal Road = Cast on a party member that is under the effect of a card in your spread. The effect is based on which card they are under. CD = 300 seconds.

Bole/Balance: 400% potency for 10 seconds
Arrow/Spear: Gain The Arrow if under The Spear and The Spear if under The Arrow for 15 seconds. This affects all party members under either card.
Ewer/Spire: Spread The Ewer or The Spire to all party members for 20 seconds.


Shuffle = same but with a 10s CD.

Balance changes. The upside is they stack with all other effects that are similar.

Bole = 5% damage reduction
Balance = 5% damage increase
Arrow = 10% skill/spell speed
Spear = 10% skill/spell recharge
Ewer = 10 mp refresh
Spire = 10 tp per second

[TatoRazzino]

My advice to SE would be to change it so that AST can focus on healing during encounters more by making the cards permanent buffs. Obviously there would need to be changes to the potency of individual cards and there would need to be a cap on how many cards you can put out but redesigning a mechanic based on 4 skills is easier than redesigning an entire class.

The problem with your design is that it wouldn't solve the problem. Adding a permanent 5% damage buff to a MNK and a 5% speed to a BLM would raise overall DPS performance so much that it would defeat the purpose of having multiple jobs. AST would become mandatory and WHM would be left out in the current meta.

[Starbirth]

Honestly I never liked Balance or Arrow just because they are the cards you hope for due to their importance in the dps meta. I would gladly see them changed to something else.

[Valesti_Peleiades]

The sentence I quoted came DIRECTLY AFTER a sentence where you said that your SCH co-healer preferred healing with AST. Since you didn't separate the 2 statements with a paragraph or some other contrastive phrasing, the rules of logic required me to interpret the two statements as related. And you QUOTED a post directly comparing WHM to AST and responded that AST benefits from FI. So your response appeared to claim that your SCH co healer preferred an AST partner *as opposed to WHM* because AST receives the FI buff. Which is obviously absurd, hence my snarky remark.

[TatoRazzino]

The sentence I quoted came DIRECTLY AFTER a sentence where you said that your SCH co-healer preferred healing with AST. Since you didn't separate the 2 statements with a paragraph or some other contrastive phrasing, the rules of logic required me to interpret the two statements as related. And you QUOTED a post directly comparing WHM to AST and responded that AST benefits from FI. So your response appeared to claim that your SCH co healer preferred an AST partner *as opposed to WHM* because AST receives the FI buff. Which is obviously absurd, hence my snarky remark.

The "Another thing:" is a contrastive phrasing in that kind of context. Are you sure you're going to try to use linguistics/grammar to bullshit your way out of a post in which you were a jerk?

[AzureFlare]

Scholar can Emergency Tactics + Succor.
Ast doesn't really have a CD that can give them that single burst raid wide AOE heal.

Are you.. even trying?