AST buffs in 3.4 Changes to Barries and Cards.

[Docteur_Fluttershy]

I agree to the boost of the shield and nocturnal sect, they might come near the OPness of the scholar, but what do we have to compare to the diurnal AST as WHM now? the more the boost, the more the whm is getting lowered.

AST and WHM have nearly the same healing ability, but they keep enhancing the support side of diurnal AST, while all we had were nerf of all our support ability T_T

[Rennies]

You still have Cure III and a better Medica II, and the Mind bonus.

...And Eye for an Eye, I guess. Yeah, Square Enix isn't known for their impeccable balance.

[Nekotee]

Hum... Whm support ability ?
Excuse me but what ?
Which one ?

I fail to see one...

With that boost... Sorry (not really) to say but whm can now go sulk in the corner XD

[Atoli]

So, patch notes are out, and as expected, I will probably drop AST now since the class changed into something horrible that I hate.

Yeah yeah the buffs to the buffs are nice and all. Noct shields are just too OP now, no more reason to ever play this class in Diurnal again.
Also, the only thing that ever made AST fun to play was that it was a SPEEDY healer. Now they take that away to give us...crit? 15% crit is the chance I have with every normal cast anyway >.>
Now we'll be just as slow as any other healer and maybe get a big heal from time to time that will take ages to cast by which time the tank will be dead anyway already.

I can't even put into words how pissed I am about these changes....

[Docteur_Fluttershy]

well, back in my days we had something called stoneskin, but it was considered too OP at 18% hp, so it got nerfed to the ground .

[Starkbeaumont]

So, patch notes are out, and as expected, I will probably drop AST now since the class changed into something horrible that I hate.

Yeah yeah the buffs to the buffs are nice and all. Noct shields are just too OP now, no more reason to ever play this class in Diurnal again.
Also, the only thing that ever made AST fun to play was that it was a SPEEDY healer. Now they take that away to give us...crit? 15% crit is the chance I have with every normal cast anyway >.>
Now we'll be just as slow as any other healer and maybe get a big heal from time to time that will take ages to cast by which time the tank will be dead anyway already.

I can't even put into words how pissed I am about these changes....

if you are serious, you might want to read over the changes again, since there is some misunderstanding on your side. also remember sch and ast shield's don't stack

[Rennies]

So, patch notes are out, and as expected, I will probably drop AST now since the class changed into something horrible that I hate.

Yeah yeah the buffs to the buffs are nice and all. Noct shields are just too OP now, no more reason to ever play this class in Diurnal again.
Also, the only thing that ever made AST fun to play was that it was a SPEEDY healer. Now they take that away to give us...crit? 15% crit is the chance I have with every normal cast anyway >.>
Now we'll be just as slow as any other healer and maybe get a big heal from time to time that will take ages to cast by which time the tank will be dead anyway already.

..

Oh god, you liked the insta cast bene2? Sorry to say, but pretty much every competitive healer agreed that it was crap.

By the way, Diurnal is still the primary mode IMO, it'll still give you the attack speed boost and you still have higher potency on Aspected spells. Where do you see it being taken away? I'll probably try out Nocturnal in more content, but I see nothing that points to Diurnal being removed.

[ChiiSoSeriouz]

So, patch notes are out, and as expected, I will probably drop AST now since the class changed into something horrible that I hate.

Yeah yeah the buffs to the buffs are nice and all. Noct shields are just too OP now, no more reason to ever play this class in Diurnal again.
Also, the only thing that ever made AST fun to play was that it was a SPEEDY healer. Now they take that away to give us...crit? 15% crit is the chance I have with every normal cast anyway >.>
Now we'll be just as slow as any other healer and maybe get a big heal from time to time that will take ages to cast by which time the tank will be dead anyway already.

B2 proc is an obvious improvement. Spell speed is the same, as diurnal still has it's passive attack speed boost. You kind of have it backwards, cause the instant cast was the useless trait. Overall the changes are ridic how good they are.

[Nekotee]

Agreed

Insta benefic II was cool on paper but on use, it also pump out mana (less a problem now)

And honestly the ast stay a speed healer
I mean just lightspeed + CO will be huge !

[Atoli]

Oh god, you liked the insta cast bene2? Sorry to say, but pretty much every competitive healer agreed that it was crap.

Yes, I loved it. I played AST 50% for the buffs and 50% for the instant second-tier heal. And sorry to disappoint you but I did competitive content as AST, so appearently I am not part of those "pretty much everyone".
I'm more surprised all those competitive healers appearently didn't know how to utilize the instant cast..^^°

Noct AST's shields are a lot more potent than SCH now, although ofc SCH still brings other things to the table that make it viable in a way, but combined with the heavy buffs to the cards, I can totally see SCH getting replaced by Noct AST.
Personally, I hate shielding. I do it if I have to because it's part of the class and I couldn't call myself a good healer if I wasn't able to do it, but I still don't like it.
My hope was that they'd just get rid of Noct entirely (and make the new 4.0 healer fight with SCH for a space) instead of boosting it to oblivion and making Diurnal useless in the process. Yes, it still lets you cast a tiny bit faster. But Noct lets you stay in CS longer, first with the strong shields, then because you can let the tank drop lower because of the strong healing boost.

I currently can see no reason to keep playing Diurnal AST. And if all I'm allowed to play as is Noct AST again, I might as well stop playing it since I do not enjoy shielding.
Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I won't try and stop you if you enjoy the changes, but I certainly don't, because they take everything I love about the class away and replace it with things I hate.