Changelist for ast ^_^

[Ghishlain]

Also I did some math, Aspected Helios on Synastry will shield equivalent as Deployment Tactics. Can't use the Deployment Tactics argument anymore healer forums, I know thats your favorite.

It's still relevant as deployed Adlo in bleeding edge progression will allow low ilvl parties to survive that raid buster mechanic where as Aspected Helios won't do the trick. This is because Adlo synergizes excessively well with a WAR who's under Defiance and Convalescence. To put that into perspective:

Adlo base shield = 300p * Defiance (1.2) * Conv (1.2) = 432p
Aspected Helios = 150p * Noct Sect (1.1) * Shield Bonus (1.5) = 247p

Mantra ignored since it benefits both Adlo and Helios equally in this scenario. Additionally, Fey Illumination and Synastry are both ignored as well since they give the same bonus and chances are if you're an AST partnered with a SCH you aren't in Noct.

Adlo is still 74% stronger in this scenario.

You can make the argument that Disable can mitigate another 10% on top of Soil / CU that Supervirus can't if it's Darkness damage but I'll save judgement on that until one sees the type of raid that's released in 3.4.

What Noct gives now is consistent mitigation versus SCHs more raid buster stopping CDs (this is only from a mitigation standpoint though, don't really want to delve into what the rest of the SCH kit gives them).

The changes won't be a substitute to SCH for bleeding edge progression but it'll certainly be much more viable to run WHM/AST if so desired for the non-bleeding edge progression groups. [EDIT] I'm actually going to renag on this comment. Depending on how the fights are designed the consistency of Aspected Helios may overwrite the necessity of Deployed Adlo depending on the fight designs and just when/where the raid busters occur / how often then occur. But if there's a massive raid buster that can only be survived with a fully buffed Adlo going out, well, you know what that'll mean for Noct vs SCH in that scenario.

[Fyce]

Potency change:
Nocturnal Aspected Benefic
Before 3.4: Healing potency 262,5 (250 base + 5% N.sect), Barrier potency 341,25 (130%)
After 3.4: Healing potency 275 (250 base + 10% N.sect), Barrier potency 467,5 (170%)
Difference: Heal +12,5 potency, Barrier +126,25 potency

Nocturnal Aspected Helios
Before 3.4: Healing potency 157,5 (150 base + 5% N.sect), Barrier potency 189 (120%)
After 3.4: Healing potency 165 (150 base + 10% N.sect), Barrier potency 247,5 (150%)
Difference: Heal +7,5 potency, Barrier +58,5 potency

If you want to compare it to SCH's mitigation, N.A.Benefic has a ~50% more effective barrier than Adlo (non-crit), and N.A.Helios' barrier is close to be as powerful as Adlo+Deployment Tactics (non-crit).
The difference between N.AST and SCH is now really obvious: raw skills are sufficient for N.AST, whereas the SCH will keep using its plentyful cooldowns toolkit to mitigate. Both play differently, have their strenghts and weaknesses, but the end result will now be really close.


Card changes:
- Draw duration at 30s has almost no impact whatsoever. With the new changes, you'll never wait with a card in hand anyway.
- Redraw now sync with each Draw, meaning that you can change once every card you draw. This lower the "bad RNG" quite a lot as you will no longer be stuck every two cards with something you don't want but can't Redraw yet. Now you will be able to.
- Balance at 20%. I really didn't expect them to go that high. So, not only the changes to Redraw will make it more easy to get a Balance, but it'll also make the AST's indirect DPS spike like crazy for 30-40 sec (depending on CO's availability). This is nuts, but that was needed to make N.AST close the gap in DPS between him and SCH. The gap is still not closed, but it's now way closer. The only issue with that change is that now more than before, you want Balance. Balance is love, Balance is life. Balance is your only objective. All the other cards are even more useless than before, they are here only to get in your way of getting Balance. (Except Ewer and Spire, you guys are Royal Road material... FOR BALANCE).
- Bole at 20%. Useless in raiding scenarios. Why? Because since you can Redraw, you'll want your Group Royal Road or your Balance anyway, so Bole, in raid, will be Redraw material almost all the time. Don't get me wrong, the effect is extremely powerful, but since the meta revolves around party DPS and that fluff damage is still negligible on the tank, Bole doesn't have a lot of incentive to be used. However, it's extremely useful in 4-man content for big pulls, as Balance is less impactful.
- Royal Road group (Ewer+Spire) from 15 to 20y. Good QoL thing, your BLM will now stop complaining because he wasn't in range during the pull.

Other changes:
- Crit proc on Benefic II instead of instant cast. Best change they could make to that proc. It's way better than what Cure II has. When you see your little Benefic II skill icon with the dashed yellow outline, you know you'll heal for 10k+. Very, very good proc.
- Celectial opposition: 5 more seconds is 3 guaranteed ticks on LA (+10s total), 5 more seconds on Synastry, and around 2 more GCD for people under Balance (remember: Balance is love, Balance is life. You only want Balance). Still useless for Nocturnal Sect, but heh... good enough.

In conclusion:
They went above my expectations for Barriers. The card changes are one sided towards Balance, which makes Balance OP, but other cards completly worthless now. Redraw makes RNG more friendly. The misc changes are nice, especially Benefic II proc.

Nocturnal AST is now completly capable of taking the off-heal spot depending on your party composition and DPS.
Diurnal AST is way more effective than WHM when it comes to giving more DPS to the overal party. Still lacks tools like Cure III and Asize, but it still make WHM barely able to maintain its place relevant.

In short terms: AST can now do whatever the f**k they want and replace either of the two other healers.
We might even see AST/AST combos in order to make fflogs explode, in scenarios where the Limit Break reduction doesn't matter.

P.S. Nocturnal Aspected Benefic is now officially my favourite skill in the game.

[zuzu-bq]

Adlo is still 74% stronger in this scenario.

For this scenario yes. And my scenario isn't that one, is it?
Also you can't compare Synastry with Fey Illumination, the two buffs work differently.

We might even see AST/AST combos in order to make fflogs explode, in scenarios where the Limit Break reduction doesn't matter.

Sadly enough, people already do that.

[Fevelle]

R.I.P White Mage

[Nekotee]

Well yes, but mind potions are not job specific.

On the bright side, Nocturnal Astrologian will now have the indisputable advantage of higher raid DPs through this disgustingly good balance card.

Diurnal AST has always better dps than nocturnal due to the speedcast buff
And card are not sect specific

[Parawill]

For this scenario yes. And my scenario isn't that one, is it?
Also you can't compare Synastry with Fey Illumination, the two buffs work differently.

The 20% works the same though, and that is what effects shield mitigation whereas the other effect of Synastry doesn't.

R.I.P White Mage

AST still has no form of off-GCD AoE Healing, thus they AoE heal in set intervals (even with Lightspeed) because that's how GCD works. If anything, this just balances between the three healers, especially since they pigeon holed themselves in this situation (prior to the release of 3.4 buffs) to a great mitigation healer + great HPS healer based off the requirements in this tier's savage. Next tier is open to discussion, but since it's not live yet, we'd just be speculating.

[Ghishlain]

For this scenario yes. And my scenario isn't that one, is it?

I'm not sure, you didn't specific any singular scenario in your post, so perhaps you could elaborate? I was just stating how inaccurate your statement and number is when looking at it from a raid buster scenario that absolutely needs to be survived to progress. If a 432 potency shield allows raid to survive a raid buster and a 247 potency shield doesn't, who do you think will be taken into progression raiding? Thus Deployed Adlo is still a thing if it nets your raid the necessary eHP to survive the encounter. Of course this is dependent on fight design and ilvl of the raid, etc.

As it stands right now, you're generally using Aspected Helios for a different scenario than you would Deployed Adlo just because of the Deployed's two minute CD. When you consider if in that context this is something SCH does excessively well (block one singular massive hit to the raid) compared to AST. AST handles repeated AoE damage better (Brute Justice spamming needles) than SCH would.

Also you can't compare Synastry with Fey Illumination, the two buffs work differently.

They work differently but for the context of the discussion they both provide a 20% increase to healing power thus netting the same bonus and thus negating each other.

[zferolie]

I only just unlocked 3.0 content and Astro last night, though for the past 8 months I have been really excited to getting them. Though I main Ninja and Warrior I have been looking for a Healer I really like, and White mage seemed ok to me, and while I love the fairies I was worried using a controler on the PC would make it harder for me to effectivly use them right.

Seems like I unlocked the Astros at the best time haha. How much better does this make them? I watched an hour video on how to use the Astros during work today(Slow day) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewhmTya4k8g plus a few more videos like this one video compairing the 3 healing roles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGfzeBmCsPQ , and I am wondering how much this patch will make these videos obsolete? Will we be using the Noc stance more now? How about prioritzing cards and how to royal road them now with some of these big buffs?

[Deceptistar]

too bad they didnt add anything special for the Diurnal Sect :<
Noct got a decent boost

[Fyce]

too bad they didnt add anything special for the Diurnal Sect :<
Noct got a decent boost

Celestial Opposition got buffed by doubling its effect. This is a direct buff to Diurnal.