A3S (AST Solo Heal)

[TatoRazzino]

Wow i never new AST was disliked like this. I thought there heals were at a good point but they're not? I never noticed. Though i say this, i never even set foot in savage
(づ⸌_⸍)づ

They are. When savage was launched AST was nerfed (still viable, but not as strong), but now it's fine. AST is better than WHM in A1S and A2S imo, because Synastry and cards are valuable in there. In A3S and A4S WHM is better than AST. SCH remains the best off-healer in any savage floor.

[WolfKid]

They are. When savage was launched AST was nerfed

WAIT IT WAS NERFED?! ⸮ʘᗝʘ? What part of it was was nerfed, cause i must've seriously missed it in the patch notes...

[DarkmoonVael]

WAIT IT WAS NERFED?! ⸮ʘᗝʘ? What part of it was was nerfed, cause i must've seriously missed it in the patch notes...

I think they mean pre-buffed. Can kind of slightly be described as nerfed, as the devs said they were concerned about releasing a powerful healer so they tempered its power at release.

[TatoRazzino]

WAIT IT WAS NERFED?! ⸮ʘᗝʘ? What part of it was was nerfed, cause i must've seriously missed it in the patch notes...

For future reference, since there are new players that started playing AST after the 3.07 adjustments and have no idea what the discussion is about:

Overall potency adjustments:

1) Benefic was 380 potency instead of 400;
2) Benefic II was 620 potency instead of 650;
3) Helios was 290 potency instead of 300;
4) Aspected Helios was 140 potency potency with ten 50 potency ticks (640 combined potency) in Diurnal instead of 200 potency with ten 40 potency ticks (600 combined potency);
5) Aspected Benefic's regen effect in Diurnal was 100 potency instead of 140;
6) Aspected Benefic's shield effect in Nocturnal was 100% instead of 130%;
7) Collective Unconscious ticks were 200 potency instead of 150 when in Diurnal (but it didn't apply the damage reduction buff);

Cooldown changes

1) Synastry didn't give a healing buff potency and the heals cast on yourself wouldn't heal the person with Synastry on. The cooldown was 120s instead of 90s. The healing the target received was 50% of the main heal value instead of 40%;
2) Celestial Opposition had a longer cooldown;
3) Collective Unconscious had different effects according to the Sect: Regen in Diurnal, Damage Reduction in Nocturnal. They combined the effect in 3.07 and added the sustained regen effect when people leave the bubble.

Card buffs

1) The Bole, The Balance and The Arrow lasted for 15s instead of 30s.

[TatoRazzino]

And yes, it was launched in a nerfed state. AST's toolkit can outclass the other two healers if left unchecked, so they launched it with lower potencies and long cooldowns to see its behavior in actual gaming scenarios. With the data they got from its usage in Savage, which cooldowns were used and which were ignored etc., they adjusted it. They're still watching it and will adjust it even more if they have to, but they're being pretty careful with the balance.

[AzureFlare]

Stuff

That, to be honest, is the sad part, and what you said about AST is completely true in regards of how hard stuff can be to utilize given how the class innately works. Once you optimize and get a group that can work around the optimization, it works wonders. You named Collective yourself, and that is one of the offenders that shows a great example: It can definitely outdo Asylum and I'd argue in an organised group it will be better than Asylum. A 750 potency regen that can be extended, including the defense component (because lolinvisibletimers, extendable even if only for a short time) that needs a maximum of 3 seconds to be applied compared to a 800 regen that needs 24 seconds of your time? That's a pretty good case of 'where context really matters', but a lot of people flat out disregard CU and the power it can bring. The only thing easier about blind AST I'd argue is dancing while healing single target or dual target, for Diurnal anyway, and a more frequent but less powerful 'oh shit' (though WHM has a small one and a big one for that).
At the same time I'd also argue there's nothing wrong with playing a job that isn't capable of world's first because of its innate unsafety, but is capable of doing content at same ilvls depending on the structure of the fight.

A note to the pro-ASTs posting here - the amount of toxicity a few of you are spewing does much disservice to your argument. If you want to encourage healthy and forward thinking discussion to push healers towards your side, you'll need to do so with calm discussion and logic - not anger and wild emotions. You are showing you are no different from the toxic and baseless comments some anti-AST posters have shown in the past and thus should not be taken seriously. Just some food for thought.

Some posts aren't meant to be taken seriously, and some are. I'm all up for playing nice really, but if even math is being senselessly bashed by some people, threads being removed/buried while there is some real food for thought going on and little, petty rules being applied to AST without applying them to WHM/SCH, at the very least the ''pro-ASTs' should be able to make a joke once in a while. Tossing around the word toxicity so quickly is arguably even more offensive, 'holier than thou'. But fine, if you insist the words used are too spicy or people come across as too heated to the point you'd mark them toxic, I'll oblige and simmer down, since it was hardly the intent. Some calming green tea and rice cakes for everyone and back to the real discussions now (no sarcasm)?

[technole]

That's not true at all. I've been accused of hacking the game (just look at the forums and you'll find it) when I said I used Synastry to heal the prey mechanic in A1S pre-AST buff. Reason and logic only work to a certain extent, and group hysteria ignores all logic. I repeat: people cleared the fights with AST pre-buff, but it wasn't considered viable for Savage. I'm not even mentioning world first race, I'm saying that people considered a clear impossible with AST. Even with video proof of the clears. Logic has no place in any argument in here, and the multiple threads about the same thing show that. I'm sorry, but the "toxicity" pro-ASTs are showing is not toxicity at all, but irony. There's no way to convince anyone about anything. Yhisa, for exampl, said that it was impossible for an AST/AST combo to clear A3S. Now an AST solo healed it, and Yhisa came here saying "ofc they're overgeared". There's always going to be an excuse. People will see what they want to see, and irony is the only way to respond to that.

Yep, I was in the same boat too in this forum. I defended AST in A1S during the first days along with several others, going line-by-line how we handle the major stuff. Mentioning how our skills were pretty much on-par despite the potency differences and being arguably better than WHM in some of the mechanics during the i185+ pre-buff times. Things that still cannot be disputed today like Synastry for the double prey, nor can White Mage disable/weak-virus their oppressor, or lightspeed being able to practically make one set of entire double prey/buster mechanic almost completely trivial. Out of the gate, healers that never cleared the early floors judging my knowledge of the AST job that came straight from the floor. I wasn't being toxic either, it's just us defending how the job is fit for savage from first-person experience. It wasn't a "AST needs no buffs" statement, it was just being realistic. Maybe some people probably thought that any veil of success of the AST job in savage would probably give the developers hints not to buff the job too much or something.

[Mibgestalt]

CU + world firsts

CU is situationally extremely powerful. Asylum is effective in more situations. I agree that if people try to compare them directly they're not going to see how good CU can be.

Part of the reason I think is, yes with group organization CU could be absurdly good, but with the current "gotta deeps fast" meta, catering to the AST's toolkit even among expert teams doesn't seem to be the top priority. And especially for players that do more party finder type experiences, AST's toolkit looks (and probably is) a fair deal harder to use than WHM's.

As for balance debates, part of the reason I think the scrutiny and emotions get so high in this case is because the AST/WHM spot is high pressure job, and unlike a comparison between say BRD/MCH where there are 3 other role spots to make up for slight imbalances, AST and WHM differences are more in a vacuum, even if they aren't gigantic.

Some calming green tea and rice cakes for everyone and back to the real discussions now (no sarcasm)?

People get way too worked up on both sides of this argument, honestly. It's not really my business if people want to hold grudges towards other long-term members here, but when a newer player enters the discussion and voices their concerns about the AST and is immediately met with some variation of "Ugh, ANOTHER thread about this? AST is fine" and "Git gud", it's not really doing a lot for the class.
I think no matter what side of the fence you are on, you can agree that the general public stigma towards the class combined with the difference in playstyle compared to WHM and relative complexity of interaction between abilities is a barrier that's doing no favors on either side. Unless for whatever reason you prefer the class be played less, which will result in less people discovering how to play it effectively and maybe come up with new strategies, which is bad.

[Ghishlain]

Some posts aren't meant to be taken seriously, and some are. I'm all up for playing nice really, but if even math is being senselessly bashed by some people, threads being removed/buried while there is some real food for thought going on and little, petty rules being applied to AST without applying them to WHM/SCH, at the very least the ''pro-ASTs' should be able to make a joke once in a while. Tossing around the word toxicity so quickly is arguably even more offensive, 'holier than thou'. But fine, if you insist the words used are too spicy or people come across as too heated to the point you'd mark them toxic, I'll oblige and simmer down, since it was hardly the intent. Some calming green tea and rice cakes for everyone and back to the real discussions now (no sarcasm)?

Funny enough, it's not your posts I was referring too in this capacity. I like the way you present your arguments. And to be fair, yes, it's not just the pro-AST side, so I do apologize for isolating that side. There are quite a few extreme, asinine, and belligerent posters on both sides of the fence that do need to simmer down.

[TatoRazzino]

KIf the community can't handle advanced and more complex jobs, then the design possibilities for this game are going to be drastically reduced. The biggest problem is not even the new players coming to voice their concerns, but the follow up. In a thread about how to properly play the job, people would come bashing at any strategy posted in there. There's absolutely no way to respond nicely to that, when people put a lot of effort in destroying threads because they believe that the job sucks. Call me paranoid, but that's what I see happening in most of the threads in the forum. I love the job, I love how complex it is and I love how they could add identity and variation while using similar spells. I also love how simple and powerful WHM is and how smart you have to be to manage your stacks and pet as SCH. I want the next healer to be complex as well, not simpler. There is one simple healer already. And I actually don't mind few people being able to master the job and I don't mind if people prefer the other two; I would be sad if WHM or SCH were getting hate. I just wish people would invest more time actually learning the job, you know? Since it was launched I did a lot of math, a lot of theorycrafting, I tested a lot of stuff and read guides to every single job in the game to learn how to use AST's toolkit. I came to the forum to see people sharing experiences and all I got was bashing and being called a liar. I left the forum after getting banned for a heated discussion, and I decided to come back to see if there were any posts about Diadem gear. I wanted to see what people were getting to figure out stats caps and stuff like that. Then what did I see? The same bashing and crying and being called a liar and having my personal experiences as AST being discarded. This is tiring. I only keep coming back to see AzureFlare's posts, because I learm from them. So I'm sorry if I'm beligerant, but there's no other way to respond ignorant people who make an effort not only to stay ignorant, but to prevent other people from learning something a lot of people (me included) are trying to teach.