Quote Originally Posted by Ilenya View Post
If Balance is the only thing that makes people want to bring AST, then AST by definition is not balanced and would need to be adjusted, so Balance would have to be nerfed to even out the power of the job.
It's like people forget that Astrologian had an entire history of issues that made it undesirable for raids, and not just "omg we couldn't get Balance a lot so that makes our state now completely justified". To wit, the problems with 3.0 AST were as follows:

-Noct Sect was garbage, and could in no way compete with SCH. I'd argue that it was because SCH was also a little OP and needed some nerfs, but some might say it was just that Noct Sect needed a buff. Either way, upon AST's inception it was a terrible stance that pretty much no one used except out of dual AST parties in DF where one had to begrudgingly take it because AST regens didn't stack.

-Initial heal potencies were about 20 lower across the board. Their MP costs were lower to compensate, and truth be told I never actually felt like the BASE heal potencies were an issue, but this really stuck in people's craw for some reason and led to a perception of the job being weak. (I think had they kept the base heals the same and fixed some of the other issues below they probably would have been fine. Just me, though.)

-They didn't have a throughput cooldown. Seriously, do people forget about this? They didn't have a 30% healing throughput increase like Divine Seal or Fey Illumination at their launch, which meant they really lacked healing "oomph" in cases where their cohealer or party weren't up to par.

-Lightspeed used to reduce the potency of healing magic too. Somebody at SE goofed HARD on that. IIRC it was one of the first aspects of AST that was adjusted.

-Balance was only 10% potency and lasted for 15 seconds. Now before you go, "aha! see! balance HAS to be OP or else we're useless!" bear in mind that this was ALSO in conjunction with the rest of the AST issues I listed above. There are a few other caveats to the card system too which I'll list below that made obtaining and using AOE Balance pretty difficult, if not nigh on impossible for AST at first. So in my opinion the actual STRENGTH of the Balance card wasn't an issue, but its infrequency and AST's lackluster performance in the healing department really didn't make that 5% extra DPS boost worth it for most raid groups. (And since those issues are clearly fixed now, THAT is why I think Balance needs a reduction in its power once more, if not just taken out completely.)

-Shuffle was on a 120 second cooldown, and could give you the SAME card you were trying to get rid of. Compare it to now, where it's basically on the same cooldown as Draw and won't give you the same card anymore (and was hence renamed "Redraw" to reflect that). This gives you essentially a 20% chance of drawing Balance now if you didn't get it on you first draw. It also allows you to SUPER easily get a Spire or Ewer for the AOE Royal Road effect (40% chance to get either of those if you don't get one on the first draw).

-Spread was on a 180 second cooldown. So once you had that almighty Balance, and used it, if you drew another one right after you had to use it on single target. Obviously it was better than getting jack squat, or endless Spears, but you couldn't reliably chain AOE Balance back-to-back like it's theoretically possible to do now. Spread is now on a thirty-second cooldown like Draw, so once you use your Balance from Spread by the time Draw is up again (assuming you drew right as you used the Balance AOE), then you can instantly store another one with a very minor (we're talking 1 second here) delay.

-Collective Unconscious only gave the 10% damage down in Nocturnal, and the regen in Diurnal. Not 100% sure on this but I think the regen was wussier too. So on top of it being stupidly restrictive with the no-movement nonsense, it also didn't do anything special that Asylum or Sacred Soil couldn't do (with less drawbacks). The regen would also cancel when you canceled the Collective effect, so that was a further kick in the teeth.


It's all that COMPOUND crap that made ASTs an undesirable choice for raiding during Gordias, not just the weaker strength of the Balance card at their launch. SE in their infinite wisdom took the buff bat and pretty much launched all of those issues into the stratosphere, INCLUDING buffing the hell out of Balance (now it's 20% damage up and lasts for THIRTY SECONDS WTF), as well as buffing Lumi Aether so that it was miles ahead of Shroud of Saints and upping their base heal potencies to be equal of that of WHM/SCH. Fixing a FEW of the issues (mostly the card stuff and Lightspeed/healing throughput cooldown) would have been enough to make them competitive IMO, but they went completely overboard and now that people are so used to AST's ridiculous ease of use and power the idea of nerfs makes them extremely uncomfortable for whatever reason, instead of determined to increase their personal ability and deal with any adjustments that might come.