Do AST really need this Buff?

[SuzakuCMX]

The cards as is are useful. I've had great use out of all of them ._.

I don't think royal roading Spear counts.

[RichardButte]

The cards as is are useful. I've had great use out of all of them ._.

It's not bad to use them or anything like that, but the question that needs to be asked is how much of an impact are cards actually having on a fight? And more to the point, do ASTs get enough value out of their cards to justify using AST over other healers?

Right now, I feel like the answer is "yes", but not due to the value of the cards themselves but because AST's healing is strong enough that it's either comparable or possibly better than that of other healers.

I can find the post if needed, but someone had mathed out the value of Spear on a NIN, a class with lots of short CDs that benefit from it, and discovered that even 100% Spear uptime didn't increase DPS as much as Balance does.

I feel like they kind of gave up on the cards and instead just gave AST healing comparable to the other healers, opting to just leave the cards as flavor more than anything.

I guess it works, but it's far from ideal. Maybe they'll do a proper rework later on?

[Verdan]

Ast is fundamentally flawed, and will break the healer balance forever until they make it a different type of healer instead of a copy of a white mage that can also use the scholar shielding tools. There's just no way for it to ever be balanced when it does the same things the other healers do and has cards.

Maybe in the expansion where we go into space and they decide to make a new tank and healer to get DPS balance right things will get fixed. But healers are gonna be in a weird place forever until things change on a fundamental level.

[Metsonm]

So I guess I'll just copy over my thoughts on the job guide that was just posted:

"AST is the best reading ever. Bare in mind people in all 3 of the healing jobs have already been saying Astrologian is overpowered compared to the other healers.

Essential Dignity- Recast time reduced from 60 to 40 seconds.

Diurnal Sect- Effect changed from "Reduces spell cast time and recast time, and auto-attack delay by 5%" to "Increases healing magic potency by 10%."

Aspected Benefic- Cure potency increased from 190 to 200.
Nocturnal Sect cure potency has been removed.
Nocturnal Sect effect changed from "Erects a magicked barrier which nullifies damage equaling 130% the amount of HP restored" to "Erects a magicked barrier which nullifies damage equaling 250% the amount of HP restored."

Combust II- Cast time has been made instant.
Potency increased from 45 to 50.
MP cost has been reduced.

Nocturnal Sect- The effect increasing healing magic potency has been changed from 10% to 15%.

Synastry- The effect increasing spell-based HP restoration by 20% has been removed. (HOLY HELLBALLS IS THAT A NERF?)

Malefic II- Potency reduced from 200 to 180.
MP cost has been reduced. (WE BALANCED NOW, LADS!)

Collective Unconscious- Unchanged (thanks for the update, SE)

Those were not cherry picked. Those are all the adjustments made. One nerf and one potential nerf that gets replaced 10 levels later anyway. Not even counting the new stuff.

What even is AST now?"

[RichardButte]

Ast is fundamentally flawed, and will break the healer balance forever until they make it a different type of healer instead of a copy of a white mage that can also use the scholar shielding tools. There's just no way for it to ever be balanced when it does the same things the other healers do and has cards.

Maybe in the expansion where we go into space and they decide to make a new tank and healer to get DPS balance right things will get fixed. But healers are gonna be in a weird place forever until things change on a fundamental level.

Hypothetically, if they can make the value of the cards beneficial enough that they're worth bringing a healer with a lower overall healing potency, it could work.

But seeing as how there's so much RNG involved, they'd either need to buff the crap out of the cards or rework them entirely.

With RNG, it would be a razor thin line between "OP" and "not worth using, ever".

[Divine_Ultima]

Why are people acting like essential dignity recast being 40 secs is new? Its always been like that with the trait. They got rid of the trait and built it into the spell itself (like they did with a lot of trait/spells).

[Rivxkobe]

With RNG, it would be a razor thin line between "OP" and "not worth using, ever".

Balance is "OP" and Spear is "not worth using ever". The rest are alright, but so long as Balance increases damage output its always going to be the best choice.

Also please no more AST buffs.

Why are people acting like essential dignity recast being 40 secs is new? Its always been like that with the trait. They got rid of the trait and built it into the spell itself (like they did with a lot of trait/spells).

Yeah, I dunno why people keep mentioning it.

But, like, dude its totally a buff when you are below level 28.

[NorthernLadMSP]

Why are people acting like essential dignity recast being 40 secs is new? Its always been like that with the trait. They got rid of the trait and built it into the spell itself (like they did with a lot of trait/spells).

I was thinking the same thing. Either they didn't play AST and didn't know, or they're trying to label it an AST buff to try and add more fuel to the WHM fire.

[Verdan]

Hypothetically, if they can make the value of the cards beneficial enough that they're worth bringing a healer with a lower overall healing potency, it could work.

But seeing as how there's so much RNG involved, they'd either need to buff the crap out of the cards or rework them entirely.

With RNG, it would be a razor thin line between "OP" and "not worth using, ever".

If each card was a spell you could cast, you could be a bad white mage with weak shields and still be an interesting healer. With them being a draw, there's just no way. They'd either be too powerful or be useless because you'd never get the power you need. The class needs to be a totally different type of healer for things to ever really fall into the right place. Maybe a HoT healer so that you'll have time to mess with cards? As it stands, it'll be doing a swing from "weak and bad" to "waaay too powerful" forever, because the design is just flawed.

Also my bad on the 40 seconds thing, I didn't play an Ast long enough to get the trait. It got less interesting for me when I could light cards on fire and most cards then became a 'nope, light it on fire'

[Maku]

Someone who is more intune with game math please correct me if I am wrong but:

SCH shield is doubled when a crit happens. Doubling would equal 200% shield.
AST shields are 250% no matter what. 250>200 yes?

To through numbers out there: lets say I crit on SCH for 5500 heal. That gives the person I healed a 11k shield.
lets say I crit on AST for 5500 heal. That gives the person I healed a 13,750 shield.

So, now AST crit shields are also better than SCH shields who is supposed to be the "shielding" healer. Plus, AST shield is an instant cast.

Is my math wrong? If it isn't, than SE really needs to hire new people to do the number balancing. How can you give a healer who is supposed to be a substitute for either WHM or SCH all around better moves than the jobs they are supposed to be able to fill in for? IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE!!!