Balance was balanced

[Starflake]

I don't know if people didn't realize this but we HAD two DPS improvement cards before, or did Arrow just stop existing?

Balance got a significant nerf and as was mentioned in numerous threads, a DPS increase trumps everything else. Balance will probably still be king of the cards.

But was it fun gameplay for AST to have 6 cards and only care about 1 or maybe 2 depending on how many casters you had? That's why it got nerfed. Balance was too strong comparatively.

I also have to appreciate the guy who said he wasn't gonna talk about something off topic coming in and complaining about Scholar.

You now have three useful DPS cards. Even though Balance is nerfed, it's pretty clear to me that it may just end up in an actual increase. Crit synergized incredibly well with a lot of classes in raids too.

[Elamys]

You now have three useful DPS cards. Even though Balance is nerfed, it's pretty clear to me that it may just end up in an actual increase. Crit synergized incredibly well with a lot of classes in raids too.

And how many other classes bring a crit increase? You don't have to bring an AST because you want a crit buff.

[Katlyna]

Its an interesting change... the net is less RNG for viable cards. None the less I worry that the effects of the cards given two card setups is too low.

If you math things out and say you're throwing AE Balance every time... now you would only be putting up a 5% buff for 30 seconds every 60 seconds... or a 2.5% buff to overall party damage if the star aligned over and over.

If that's our "best" then honestly its pretty sad panda IMO. This is part of the reason they buffed the skill in the past to begin with. Because when we throw a card it should have some impact on the battle. With such a small slice our impact has been lessened.

---

Now I agree part of the problem with all of this is that Throwing a 10% AE buff to the whole party for 30 seconds was very respectable... but as everyone knows. This two card alignment simply didn't come up consistently. So its weird to say the overall change is probably neutral in our effectiveness. Our biggest tide turner was heavily nerfed, and one of our throw away cards was made viable.

So they fixed our RNG to some extent which is good... I'm just not sure if Astro's RNG utility will be felt with these smaller numbers.

[Fernosaur]

My only fear is that, given how much weaker our DPS abilities are, the 5% nerf in party DPS may hurt. I'm too lazy to crunch numbers right now, though.

On average, AST still gives more raid DPS% than WHM and SCH through personal contribution and AoE balance, but the margin of difference is much, much lower. Where AST was providing more raid DPS than WHM or SCH by thousands, it only now does so by some hundreds. AST is still an incredibly powerful offensive buff machine, even more so now that they have three cards in total that supplement raid DPS instead of the "fish for Balance or bust" meta, so their lower personal numbers are still justified.

It's a great change, in my opinion. It definitely helps a LOT with two things that were terrible concerning AST's position in the game as whole.

The first is that healer balance overall is actually pretty okay now thanks to this change. I still think AST+SCH is still optimal for speedkills and whatnot, but I think AST is no longer absolutely and completely necessary, even if it's still the healer that offers more utility and potential raid DPS.

The second is that the AST meta itself FINALLY gets a change. Every card has a good use now that you don't want to miss out on, so the card mini game is actually complete and fun to play now.

I think the 4.05 changes brought a lot of health to the state of game's balance, specially in the areas that were so lacking, ie. Healer and Tank balance.

[HyoMinPark]

I don't know about the 10sec duration nerf. At least it will make the Bole more interesting!

Where are you seeing this at? I've looked over the Patch Notes and, unless I'm blind, not seeing anything talking about card duration nerfs anywhere in there.

[Starflake]

And how many other classes bring a crit increase? You don't have to bring an AST because you want a crit buff.

How is this even an argument and accepted by some people. Let me just sum it up. Astrologians can give raw extra damage, raw extra crit, raw extra skill and spell speed, can give thirty second damage reductions on tanks for 20% and it has like 200 less overall DPS than other healers. Which other healer can do that? It has stronger medicas, it has stronger shields. How is it not overpowered, really? It's not that Astrologion bringing crit is a bad thing. It's that is brings it on top of all the other utility you seem to forget other classes don't have.

[Deox]

And how many other classes bring a crit increase? You don't have to bring an AST because you want a crit buff.

I do now I find it pretty awesome tbh

[Cyrocco]

/Snip

It really seems like the Card buffs were needed when Astrologian didn't really meet par in regards to healing potencies, since AST was originally designed to be a Sub-WHM, Sub-SCH, but also had great buffing capablity. But with all the healing buffs and with more skills centered solely around raw healing power, the cards are kind of becoming a bonus.

It's basically turned into "You get a SCH and Buffs!" or "You get a WHM and Buffs!", if you add in how the RNG system isn't punishing at all, they really had to decide between nerfing potencies or nerfing cards, I guess they went with cards.

[Novak_04]

Where are you seeing this at? I've looked over the Patch Notes and, unless I'm blind, not seeing anything talking about card duration nerfs anywhere in there.

On the patch notes, it says:

The effect of this ability has been changed from "Reduces ability recast time for a party member or self by 20% for 20 seconds" to "Increases the critical hit rate for a party member or self by 10% for 20 seconds."

I think that's what he's referring to. Still unknown if this holds true for all of the cards.

[Elamys]

How is this even an argument and accepted by some people. Let me just sum it up. Astrologians can give raw extra damage, raw extra crit, raw extra skill and spell speed, can give thirty second damage reductions on tanks for 20% and it has like 200 less overall DPS than other healers. Which other healer can do that? It has stronger medicas, it has stronger shields. How is it not overpowered, really? It's not that Astrologion bringing crit is a bad thing. It's that is brings it on top of all the other utility you seem to forget other classes don't have.

Did Chain Stratagem get deleted from the game? Can AST just use all their cards whenever they want without having to Draw for them and get their Royal Road buff in place? Are all of AST's heals off the GCD now? Does AST have infinite MP? Can AST now regen and shield at the same time?

AST CANNOT do everything at once, but people act like they can, and it's so, so tiring to hear about.