To Swing a Pendulum - An Astrologian Retooled

[Ghishlain]

@Azureflare - Thanks for the constructive feedback. I'll try to answer each of your points in a direct manner and I missed anything please let me know. Please note that this more or less an alpha build of an AST concept that I thought would intrigue the healer community and many of the values of this retooling can be adjusted to suit while maintaining the core I wished to encompass. I intentionally undertuned for now to see what the feedback would be like and will most likely change values as the discussion continues.

I'll answer the last point first since I feel it's an important discussion point and then kinda address you points in a order that flows into each other:

I do truly understand where you're coming from, but let's tackle QoL issues first before we make the job even more complex.

AST is in quite a good spot at this juncture and can deal with some QoL changes (specifically in Nocturnal) to make it how S-E envisioned they wanted. With that being said, the reason I added such changes is not for job complexity but for future balancing.

As it stands right now, AST's current iteration is a shade of WHM or a shade of SCH with card mechanics tacked on. It brings hardly anything unique to itself and lacks any identity that distinguishes itself from the other two healers. While QoL fixes at this juncture can address balancing, if S-E wants AST to grow in future patches and have expanded skill sets, they will need to provide AST a more unique identity. If AST were ever to surpass WHM and/or SCH in any respect, there would be incredible outcry from the healer community as a whole.

Effectively, S-E has designed themselves into a corner as not is AST always being compared to WHM and SCH by design, they will always be compared to itself due to the two sects mimicking the current healer counterparts. To get around this, I am encouraging a Sect changing mechanic that allows the two Sects to work in tandem together, and not against each other in balancing.

Why reduce the manacosts, take out the sect boni, and nerf CO manawise (returned 1414 on extending LA, a combo you should pretty much always use anyway, would need a 17k manapool to break even now) while encouraging the use of more mana single-target?

This is more of a personal opinion but I always felt the reason why AST had a lower potency on its inception was for one reasons - Sect bonus normalized the potency to match WHM and SCH. In order to assist in this endeavour as well, S-E also provided AST with a lower MP costs on their healing spells as a balancing measure as well.

Now that S-E has normalized Benefic, Benefic II, and Helios with their WHM and SCH equivalent, I also feel there is no reason to maintain the lower MP cost as well.

In terms of LA + CO combination, take into account that my modification for Aspected Helios (Diurnal) also extends buffs like CO did, so you should always have that option available to you.

Why make CO reset Aspected Helios. The encouragement is too strong in this case, since both sects save mana in different ways and you force AST to decide on what saves more mana by tieing in this bonus on top of the 2%. Let's cut down on the complexity for now when we're already struggling against two healers that are far more comfort-heavy. On top of that, there is a lot of doubt in my mind anyone would wait out the full 60 seconds for Aspected Helios when you can toss it before CO, CO and then have it available again.

You may find that as a negative, but my goal is to encourage Sect dancing as I indicate above and Aspected Benefic being reset upon CO use encourages that aspect. Give AST a unique healing structure and go with it. I will conceed that I may be trying to make AST a bit too technical, but I don't think that's at any detriment either. Highly rewarding play for the highly skilled was what I was aiming for and it certainly isn't for some players.

As a whole, the CO MP restoration value can be adjusted to something more suitable like 5% per use of CO. Even 10% may not be a far cry as that would match Aetherflow if you're using Co on CD and WHM would most likely still be advantageous on the MP department thanks to Freecure and more oGCD healing abilities.

Why encourage the use of Benefic 2, way more mana-inefficient than its little brother, when ASTs have been complaining about mana? (nocturnal, diurnal one would be just slightly less mana-efficient than Benefic, and possibly more efficient when coupled with extensions).

In my mind Enhanced Benefic trait always felt weak. By adding a little spice to it, I'm hoping to make it a more interesting tool to use. We could probably use a small bump to the HoT effect on Diurnal to make it more MP efficient than Benefic and encourage a more tactical use of it. I'd like to touch upon Nocturnal at the next point.

Why nerf Nocturnal Aspected Benefic that badly? You already shouldn't be using it over Benefic, you're already sacrificing the way more potent Diu. Aspected Benefic and 450 potency doesn't reflect the power element at all. At least make it 525 potency.

Originally, my thought was to make Aspected Benefic (Nocturnal) to just be a mp-inefficient heal that allowed the AST mobility options. However, upon reading this point and thinking on it more, I realize I don't mind making Aspected Benefic be fairly MP efficient ability in the grouping because the AST in this Sect would be encouraged to Benefic when able to for the trait-proc to get a free Draw. If I make Aspected Benefic the bread and butter of this sect, it'll be up to the AST to determine the best course of action.

Benefic = 400 Potency / 442MP = 0.90 Potency / MP
Aspected Benefic (Nocturnal) = 650 Potency / 707 MP = 0.92 Potency / MP

This may seem a little crazy but take into account that Nocturnal AST has no ability to HoT their target. One of the reasons Nocturnal isn't so great is it lacks any HoT ability to help normalize damage so they have to work harder and front load more to make up for that.

This value could be adjusted further and I would like some additional feedback on it, personally.

Why take away the shields when AST should be capable of pairing up with a WHM and you take out Diurnal's spellspeed bonus making Stoneskin even more obnoxious to use as an AST? We all know SE loves obscenely strong busters and the capability of giving yourself a little extra padding. You might actually risk making SCH more wanted with this change due to the way SCH is designed (retains a large chunk of AoE HPS but can boost eHP way further than WHM/AST already).

As I mentioned earlier, I'm simply trying to give AST a more unique identity. Leave the mass mitigation to SCH and give AST something new. Will this make SCH even more encouraged in groups? Perhaps, but it's something I'm willing to deal with at this juncture for a more unique development of AST down the road.

New spear trades in a lot of potential power for the sake of reliability, and no longer synergises with Extended Royal Road. It also synergises a lot less effectively with a properly-used Expanded Royal Road.

You are correct, this was a personal choice on my part to encourage reliability into Spear as it's difficult to make use of it at times, even for the most well played AST. I'd like to hear more of your thoughts and situation behind this and maybe we can find some in the middle.

Ewer is really, really niche. It would only affect Regen, Whispering Dawn, Aspected Benefic (Diu), Enhanced Benefic 2 (Diu) and Medica 2. If the goal is to increase healing, just make it flat-out increase all healing. Don't make it niche for the sake of making it niche.

I was trying to find something that resembled a time theme with Ewer and that was the best I was thinking of at the time.

I feel like I need to do something different:

Ewer - Grants a party member or self a healing over time effect. Potency: 100 Duration: 15

And then we can tack on a healing effect onto Bole:

Bole - Reduces damage taken by a party member or self by 10%. Increases HP recovery via healing magic by 10% for party member or self.

That may be more suitable as an augmentation.

For losing a second AoE on-demand and no disjointed AoE, the values for Aspected Helios (especially in Diurnal) feel really low, even with the CO reset (noted above why this might be too much).

It might benefit Aspected Helios (Diurnal) to have a HoT effect attached to it as well, though unaffected by the extended buff booster. That may balance it out better. The issue I have is I don't want Aspected Helios to do too much or else it'll start to step to heavily on other abilities like Indomitability and Assize.

Making nocturnal power-based is fine, but you'll increase the backlash from Arrow. Before you say it, no, playing a lot of Arrow shouldn't be a reason to making Spire's TP component or Spear more viable. It will make our synergy with Black Mage more apparent (possibly required) or shuffling Arrow away in favor of a super strong Balance/Bole.

Funny enough, I'm not actually trying to shoehorn in Spire or Spear with Arrow being in this sect. It just happened to fit the theme best. I personally absolutely love Arrow though the AST has to be mindful about it due to TP concerns. Still, I can't think of any adjustment here except for RR the crap outta Arrow if it becomes a detriment. I kinda wonder if I should make Enhanced Benefic reset Shuffle too.. /think

Like, I get where you are coming from. Nocturnal is about the power, fish for Enhanced Benefic 2, prepare a super strong Bole, put it on the tank for the buster, switch to Diurnal, put all HoTs on and AFK after the buster while the tank takes no damage. Extended burn phase, go Nocturnal for Arrow/Balance, spread it, draw Bole (hopefully) or Balance, RR, toss it, TD, shift to Diurnal, combo extends. However, it feels really over the top on adding complexity just for uniqueness/the sake of complexity. CO is already a level 60 ability and it would make it absurdly impactful yet also hard to use. Benefic 2 will still have the problem of being a little front-loaded brat while the trait is procced. Before level 60, an AST will have to actively switch sects to find out which benefits are the strongest (while you can't change during combat) and on level 60 you get the ability that makes you switch those benefits every 30 seconds, but you're already asking something that most people don't do (experimenting that heavily with their classes/jobs). You're balancing very closely around max potential while the complexity becomes way higher than it is now.

Yeah, one of the thoughts I had was the fact that the entire AST kit revolved around a level 60 ability. It almost feels like CO should be shifted to level 52 if this was to be implement as the "shift to something new" after hitting the AAR cap.

I also almost feel like I should remove the instant cast too, almost. Thoughts?

And yeah, I am balancing for maximum potential. As mentioned earlier, I wanted a highly technical kit for high reward. It perhaps is... too far overtuned in that respect, but not quite sure where I can peel back at this juncture.


Again, appreciate the feedback

No thanks.

The Aspected Helios change blows.

Nor do I want to stance dance constantly.

And the reduced MP cost is really nice on AST.

I don't see a need for some massive revamp.

You're entitled to your opinion. I would like to see why you feel this way. However, if you cannot provide anything constructive with your opinion to encourage discussion, than please refrain from making a comment that you cannot substantiate.

Thank you.