To Swing a Pendulum - An Astrologian Retooled

[Ghishlain]

While the current iteration of AST does require a bit more polish, it is safe to say that AST is currently a competitive force within the healing circle. With that being said, from a design perspective, AST unfortunately needs a significant retooling due to two reasons:

1. AST will always be competing with itself. Due to their existing design, AST will always be competing with itself. It will always be Diurnal > Nocturnal or Nocturnal > Diurnal. This makes balancing AST a nightmare and designing any future abilities equally as nightmarish in terms of balancing.
2. By design, AST is either a faux-WHM or faux-SCH. If AST were ever to overcome the limitations of either of these classes, there would be a large outcry from the healer population about this. It is difficult for AST to grow and develop if they are constantly being placed in the shadow of their healing compatriots.

What kind retooling? We need to rework and rebuild AST’s identity while maintain some of their core attributes that defined them. As such, I am proposing the following changes in an attempt to bring AST to a different identity that is both unique and competitive in the healing circle.

A lot of the suggestions below are not only my own thoughts, but ideas taken from other posters of the healer forum who have given ideas and suggestions on how to change AST over the course of its inception. Some ideas I shook my head at while others piqued my curiosity.

Here we go:

To Swing a Pendulum - An Astrologian Retooled

The key theme I’ll be attempting to build in this overhaul is using both sects efficiently and effectively while diverging from the fact AST is either faux-WHM or faux-SCH. In order to facilitate this, we’re going to incorporate a sect-dance mechanic into the mix – something on a decent cooldown that Yoshi-P discussed while AST was in early development but was eventually dropped. We can accomplish this via use of what many consider to be a fairly lacklustre ability and modifying it to suit our needs – Celestial Opposition.

Celestial Opposition – Ability
Recast: 30s
Effect: If Nocturnal Sect is active, cancel Nocturnal Sect and activate Diurnal Sect. If Diurnal Sect is active, cancel Diurnal Sect and activate Nocturnal Sect. Restore 2% of own MP.

What better way to signify the changing from the “daylight” sect and the “moonlight” spec than the opposition of Sun and Moon? The 2% MP restore is just a smaller adjustment to (1) encourage sect switching and (2) coincide with other changes that will be listed below.

And with that, we can now begin our retooling process.

The first thing we need to do is give each sect a distinct style that are distinct yet effective. As Diurnal Sect was primarily about healing over time and faster casts via sect bonus, we will maintain a time / patience theme with Diurnal. Likewise, since Nocturnal Sect was about power via healing bonus on sects and instant healing and mitigation via Aspected Benefic, we will maintain a theme of impact / power with Nocturnal Sect.

With that in mind, I will now split up the following sections into Diurnal Sect and Nocturnal Sect and modify specific abilities to suit these themes:

Diurnal Sect

Diurnal Sect - Ability
Increases attack speed by 5% while adding a Regen effect to certain actions.
Cannot be used with Nocturnal Sect.
Shares a recast timer with Nocturnal Sect.
Effect cannot be removed during battle.
Effect ends upon reuse.

Yep, I am removing the persistent buff on Diurnal. The goal is to remove the passive sect bonus and instead focus more on the tools and how they are affected by the individual Sects.


==========

Aspected Benefic - Spell
MP: 707
Cure Potency: 190
Regen Cure Potency: 140 Duration: 18s

No change here, it’s a very good HoT and I have no intention to change it. Listing this here to indicate that it is affected by a Sect bonus.


==========

Enhanced Benefic - Trait
Grants a 15% chance that your next Benefic II will have no cast time.
Adds a healing over time effect to target
Cure Potency: 50 Duration: 12s

A small HoT effect tacked onto Enhanced Benefic to make it more appealing to use and fit with the “time” theme.


==========

Aspected Helios - Magic Ability
Range 0y Radius 15y
Recast: 60s
Reset the recast time of Aspected Helios when Celestial Opposition is used.
Cure Potency: 150
Additional Effect: Extend the duration of all beneficial Astrologian effects you cast on self and party members by 5 seconds

A fairly substantial change here. Converting Aspected Helios into an ability that assists in extending buffs and providing a small heal fits well with the theme. The goal is to make one use of Aspect Helios with each Sect change and should be used in a fairly liberal way to augment the AST’s HoT and buffing game.


==========

Enhanced Disable - Trait
Reduces Recast of Disable by 30s

A simple change. Allow Disable to be used more often in Diurnal to fit with a “time” theme.


==========

Time Dilation - Ability
Recast: 90s
Extends the duration of beneficial effects you cast on a target by 15 seconds.

No change here, though there will be a change in Nocturnal that is specific to Time Dilation. Again, listing this here to indicate that it is affected by Sect.

Nocturnal Sect

Nocturnal Sect - Ability
Increases healing magic potency by 5% while adding a damage nullifying barrier to certain actions.
Cannot be used with Diurnal Sect.
Shares a recast timer with Diurnal Sect.
Effect cannot be removed during battle.
Effect ends upon reuse.

Once again, removing the persistent sect bonus and focussing more on the toolkit and abilities it provides. For Nocturnal Sect the goal isn’t about mitigation anymore as we’re not trying to make a faux-SCH; it’s now about direct impact healing.


==========

Aspected Benefic - Spell
MP: 707
Cure Potency: 450

Instant, slightly more powerful Benefic at the cost of terrible potency/MP efficiency. Designed to provide instant healing if required either as a “o snap” or to stack to heals fast.


==========

Enhanced Benefic - Trait
Grants a 15% chance that your next Benefic II will have no cast time.
Resets the recast time of Draw

Due note that Draw is reset when Benefic II is cast while the trait is active. This is to prevent massive Draw reshuffle abuse or to encourage a risk/reward factor by spamming Benefic for a proc. Also, the implication of this particular change will become more apparent later.


==========

Aspected Helios - Magic Ability
Range 0y Radius 15y
Recast: 60s
Reset the recast time of Aspected Helios when Celestial Opposition is used.
Cure Potency: 300

Like in the Diurnal section, keeping it as an ability to be used quite liberally. A simple instant-Helios button to be used on command. Nothing special or serious.


==========

Enhanced Disable - Trait
Increases Disable damage reduction to 10%.

Keeping the same thing as it was before. Just slotting this here to show that it’s affected by Sects.


==========

Time Dilation - Ability
Recast: 90s
Extends the duration of beneficial effects you cast on a target by 5 seconds. Any card effect you cast that was extended by Time Dilation has its potency increased by 150%.

Continuing with the theme of impact / power, making card buffs much more potent and yes, does stack with Enhance with Royal Road. It’s gonna get a little crazy with some buffs but I don’t think it’ll be completely over the top either.

Cards

Finally, to both make a suitable theme for our Sect division above we will be splitting the six cards into two sections of three and have it so each Sect has access to those three cards that are suitable for their theme. This has a double benefit of reducing RNGesus effects as the potential pool is now half the size. I have also modified a few of the effects to suit the theme a bit more and adjusted Royal Road so that there’s an Extend, Enhance, and Expand effect per Sect.

Royal Road - Ability
Return the currently drawn arcanum back to your deck to enhance the effect of the next card.
Bole Spire and Balance: 150% potency
Arrow and Spear: Doubled duration
Ewer and Spire Bole: 50% potency, extends effect to nearby targets

Diurnal Sect Cards

Ewer - Ability
Increases HP recovery via healing over time magic by 20% for a party member or self.
Duration: 15s

We adjust Ewer to be more HoT friendly. Bear in mind that this does effect all HoT spells so there are times where a WHM and SCH will be able to make use of this too.


---

Spear - Ability
Reduces the next ability recast time for a party member or self by 20% when ability is activated. Consumes a Spear Reduction stack.
Additional Effect: Spear Reduction II Duration: Infinite

Basically, instead of making Spear timing based, we make it so it provides the target with a permanent buff that is consumed each time an ability is activated. Once activated, that ability will have its recast reduced by 20%. Stack lasts for an indefinite amount of time or until overridden with another card buff. This makes Spear much more controllable in some respects.


---

Spire - Ability
Refreshes TP of a party member or self.
Refreshes MP of a party member or self.
Potency: 30 Duration: 15s

As many have suggested in the past, combine both Spire and Ewer effect into a single card for omni-purposes restoration on a single target. Fits well with the restoration over time theme that Diurnal encompasses.



Nocturnal Sect Cards

Arrow - Ability
Increases attack speed for a party member or self by 10%.
Duration: 30s

Balance - Ability
Increases damage dealt by a party member or self by 10%.
Duration: 30s

Bole - Ability
Reduces damage taken by a party member or self by 10%.
Duration: 30s

No change in any of these. Due take into account that with these proposed changes, every time you use Benefic II with the Enhanced trait active it’ll reset Draw recast. That means there is potential to get a few chains of heavy party augmentation via MP burn if required. Again, the goal of the change with Enhanced Benefic in Nocturnal is to encourage some risk versus reward and try to push cards that directly influence the fight.


==========


Here is the list of spells that are minorly changed under my proposed retooling:

Benefic - Spell
MP: 442

Benefic II - Spell
MP: 884

Helios - Spell
MP: 1238

There’s no point in keeping AST’s lower MP costs on spells if we’re retooling the entire kit. The only reason it existed in the first place, in my opinion, is because AST potencies were weaker than normal. Since this is no longer the case, we might as well revert these spells to their “base” value too.


==========


Here is the list of spells and abilities that won’t be changed under my proposed retooling:

• Ascend & Enhanced Ascension
• Collective Unconscious
• Combust
• Combust II
• Disable
• Draw
• Essential Dignity & Enhanced Essential Dignity
• Exalted Detriment
• Gravity
• Light Speed
• Luminiferous Aether & Enhanced Luminiferous Aether
• Malefic
• Malefic II
• Shuffle
• Spread
• Stella
• Synastry

==========


And that is the end of my AST retooling. Again, to reiterate the goal is to change AST and provide it a unique identity and shift it away from being a faux-WHM or faux-SCH. This will allow AST to be balanced and developed for future patches without stepping on the toes of their existing healing brethren.

To incorporate this change, we will be providing a sect change mechanic and a theme for each sect. Diurnal is for patience / time and Nocturnal is for power / impact. Sect bonuses were removed and many more of the spells and abilities in the AST toolkit were modified to suit these changes and encourage Sect dancing. My overarching goal was to provide a new healer identity that was fairly technical to play and encourage heavy foresight and planning and less about tactics that is SCH and raw power healing that is WHM.

I appreciate any comments made for this proposal. Thank you for reading.

[Ashelia_Ferron]

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.

[AzureFlare]

What I don't get:
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).
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?
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).
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.
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.

Other stuff to argue, but more balance-wise:
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.
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.
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).
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.

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.

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

[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.

[Yhisa]

Theres a simple fix... Focus the cards and all aspect spells as well as cooldowns for AST... Turn diurnal into healer stance + 4 healer specific cards. And turn nocturnal into cleric stance+ 4 support specific cards... And remove the regen +shield ... Instead have a buff which cause all damage taken from the last 5 seconds to restore a portion of the damage delt at the time

Example u cast aspect benefic on tank and he recieve 10000 damage spike within 5 seconds ur aspect benefic will heal for a portion of that damage afterwards like 35-45% of the damage recieve in 5 seconds so the tank will get healed for 3500 or 4500 (example numbers this may need adjusting)

[Eisenhower]

The concept was fun to read about (and feels somewhat sound lore-wise), but it also leaves me confused.

Whilst I don't fully agree with SE's decision to make AST half WHM half SCH (just as I don't fully agree with their raid design philosophy), it makes the class able to substitute for both roles to a certain extent. From what I can see the changes suggested would make WHM/AST fail as soon as a heavy raid-wide blast hits (such as an unfortunate Thordan EX Ultimate End or the later Perpetual Revolutions from A4S) since the CU-bubble would be insufficient to mitigate such a heavy hit and drawing a Bole in Nocturnal isn't reliable (just as fishing for one and saving it would neuter the ASTs ability to buff up until the point the Bole is used) as compared to CU + Nocturnal shields.

[AzureFlare]

The concept was fun to read about (and feels somewhat sound lore-wise), but it also leaves me confused.

Whilst I don't fully agree with SE's decision to make AST half WHM half SCH (just as I don't fully agree with their raid design philosophy), it makes the class able to substitute for both roles to a certain extent. From what I can see the changes suggested would make WHM/AST fail as soon as a heavy raid-wide blast hits (such as an unfortunate Thordan EX Ultimate End or the later Perpetual Revolutions from A4S) since the CO-bubble would be insufficient to mitigate such a heavy hit and drawing a Bole in Nocturnal isn't reliable (just as fishing for one and saving it would neuter the ASTs ability to buff up until the point the Bole is used) as compared to CO + Nocturnal shields.

Think you mean CU, not CO. And yeah, I agree with this sentiment, we shouldn't overlook this or simply put trust in SE as to not make huge busting abilities.

Anyway. I did not think of comboing LA + AH (in your rework) would be possible. In that case, it would definitely change and I think AST would be ahead in terms of mana (as long as a SCH can't just lolspam Energy Drain). Going to skip pure balance things for now though.

The lower manacosts were there because SE thought cards would make up for lower potencies, but then they forgot we miss cooldowns ('cause RR/Spread/Shuffle/Sects take up action slots) and actual effective traits like Freecure, Critlo, you name it. The sect bonus for Diurnal I never really understood, I guess it was to emphasize the spothealing powers of AST and make them save mana on chain-casting Benefics but in the current meta you're never in such a situation anyway. The sect bonus for Nocturnal was mostly fairy-compensation, and a low one at that. With your changes, yeah, you could simply ditch the decreased mana costs.

About N.Aspected Benefic: The way I see it, you either want it to be less potent but more mana-efficient than Benefic 2 (with the opposite compared to Benefic), or you want it to do something special that neither Benefics will achieve for you. Right now I believe Aspected Benefic achieves both those effects (live).

If you change Ewer and Bole to those effects, you'd honestly tackle enough. Bole becomes less useless in down-time (still wouldn't really want to use it without taking damage though) and Ewer becomes a really potent Regen card. Arguably too potent but again, let's skip absolute numbers.
As much as I love Arrow, the backlash is what keeps me from wanting it to be buffed further or used more (except for a BLM). The key part is that as long as TP-management should not be a problem in fights (or it seems that way if I look at SE's design), Spire's TP component won't see the light of day unless you overuse Arrow. I'd just tack on an MP/TP consumption reduction on Arrow and call it at that if anything, no need to make the small things too complex when the focus is on switching sects and card draws.
Spear is a bit of a pickle, especially knowing the weird limitations (hurr PS3) SE puts on what can and can't be done. Personally, I'd make spear do both the duration and the stack component with a twist: if no (x amount of) cooldowns are used in the duration of spear, you get a (x amount of) stack(s) of Spear to reduce cooldowns as you use them.

Could your changes work? Yeah, definitely, but it would make the job really beginner-unfriendly.

[Mhyr]

Why everyone is dreaming of AST changes since there are no clues that anything is coming ?

[Ghishlain]

~Snip~

Yeah, it's a bit of a pickle to balance admittedly and there are way too many branches to balance in one sitting.

• What I was aiming for in my revised Aspected Benefic (Nocturnal) was making it more plain and the bread and butter for Benefic so it was up to the AST to determine if they want to use the more efficient heal or start hitting Benefics and fish for a trait proc to reset Draw. It might actually do me a bit more good if I tuned Nocturnal Aspected Benefic to have something like a 500 potency and change the MP cost in this Sect to be slightly more MP efficient than Benefic. This should make up to some extent not having access to any HoTs while still encouraging that design choice.
  
• I don't think we'll ever see the TP regenerating Spire be anything significant until we start hitting massive up time fights like T8 Avatar and T11 Kaliyah. Additionally, in any long uptime fight, you'll generally have your BRD / MCH popping TP regeneration for the raid as a whole. It almost makes me think Spire should be a TP regeneration card that acts like an aura around the buffed player.
  
• I could definitely see your Spear change working out well since I could see it working some what similarly to Berserk leading into Pacify style buff transfer and I think I like it more. I'd probably limit Spear to a single stack though in that case.
  
• I still stand by my statement that I feel we need to give AST a more unique identity than make is a shade of both healing jobs and giving it "here's a random mitigation shield tool to make you more SCH like". I do think S-E needs to start changing the raid meta to be more suitable to a non-mitigation standpoint even if it risks putting SCH on a pedestal for raid healing. If they don't, they'll just be pushing SCH or AST + w/e partner harder and harder and push away other healing combinations. Or if they continue to give the future healers similar mitigation tools, it'll leave WHM on a low rung on the healing spectrum.

In terms of complexity, it is indeed complex. It could probably be retooled somewhat to not have so many "and do this if you have this" procs and still retain the core of the design. I feel shifting Nocturnal into the level 40 job slot and CO in the level 50 job slot may help alleviate some of those learning curve issues, especially if we tone down some of the mechanics I threw out there for AST.

Why everyone is dreaming of AST changes since there are no clues that anything is coming ?

I'll just re-quote this in response.

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.

Regardless if you agree with my retooling or not, I will continue to be a proponent of AST redesign because I don't want a job that will always be balanced between being a WHM and SCH with some card mechanic tacked on. While healing classes will always have some overlap, I always feel they should at least have a unique style associated with them. Right now, AST lacks any semblance of style and will thus always be designed into a small column between the two jobs they are trying to represent.

[Vlady]

I have a huge respect for you Ghislain and your push to see that balance is maintained across all healers which few people seem to think about when they post on these forums but saying that the astro is just a ghost of a white mage is something I would not have thought would come from you. We are on par with white mages for the most part minus having the highest burst heal potential single target and very competitive aoe healing at a lesser rate then the white mage. I agree the astro needs identity but what it needs is something unique that does not take away from the other two healers but makes it a choice that raids would value and have to carefully consider during each phase of a raid mechanic. Tacking on abilities that extend our buff our heals from the cards is not the right approach. I agree that we should stance dance as our approach but I want to see noc be the offensive stance that gives us a unique mechanic for the astro.

I am afraid that there will always be a debate of which job will be benched for the aspect of raid cohesion but I think maybe SE can give astrologian's a unique mechanic like a reverse shield that heals a % of damage received in noc stance while letting astro's have a potency increase in noc stance without having healing penalties like cleric stance has. That could be imo a slightly less needed overhaul of the astro which SE will not do until 4.0 and would let astro's be a semi offensive healer that is not as strong as the scholar offensively but let them weave spells in more easily and maybe give the astro an identity as the buffer+offensive healer that is the best choice for maybe tank healing.

Give white mage's back the top aoe dps burst and aoe healing somehow with protection having the magic defense tacted on.