AST Wishlist for 5.0

[Sebazy]

As someone with perhaps more experience than many on this subject. Everquest had a crippling problem balancing Slow beyond it's first expansion. Unslowed bosses were effectively unhealable for more than a few seconds with more resilient bosses often warranting a literal meat pile of suicide tanks whilst it was slowed. Even higher level trash mobs could often be brutally dangerous without slow.

There's no denying that EQ went in with values that were far too high with the ability ending up like a bad drug addiction, but MMOs have steered well clear of that ever since. It's a shame as Everquest's debuff and CC game was actually one of the most interesting aspects of it's combat. But I highly doubt SE want to open that can of worms on EX/Savage content.

TLDR for this 2am ramble = Don't put any stock in getting a maintainable PvE slow.

[Seraphor]

My suggestions have literally nothing to do with making them like WHM. In fact, it's to make AST a lot less like WHM (and SCH) by removing the copy and paste regens and shields and give them a focus on quick succession direct heals (which also satisfies the whole Lightspeed/quick element people like about AST). Not only that, but my suggestion also included a sect change that allowed the AST to focus more on card play. But, then again I don't care what your wants are. This thread is asking what people want and I provided my own personal wishes (not that any of them will ever happen).

It's not 'having regens' that makes WHM suck, its having nothing but pure heals besides those two regens.
ASTs diurnal spells are also nothing like WHMs regens, they come with from loaded heals, which gives you two functions in one GCD and gives you the time to both manage cards and dps.

The ability to change sects between regen and shields is something I love about AST, being able to fit with any other healer.
It's also integral to it's lore, as several quests have you errecting barriers with Aspected Benefic.

These suggestions would completely destroy what AST currently is, and seem more suited for theory crafting an entirely new healer job.

I'd much rather AST stayed roughly how it is, then made the new healer a pure-healer with buffs.
Make the buffs better than ASTs, then AST maintains its position as the jack of all trades healer, but working around three philosophies instead of two.

[Gemina]

If you take away shields you'll break the viability of WHM/AST groups on a lot of Savage content (which is already a rare combo, but is totally viable) and you'll make ultimate basically impossible since the boss will just kill everyone without heavy party mitigation management, which pugs will be really hard pressed to handle. Having cards handle debuffs is not gonna help because it's RNG.

Mitigation doesn't always have to come via shields. Both AST and WHM can be given abilities that weaken the boss to reduce their outgoing damage for lethal AoE, and also increase the physical/magical defense of the raid for the coming attack. This in turn allows these mitigation tools to be stacked on top of SCH shields, or each other in the case of AST/WHM. I would imagine mitigation coming from two sources would be heavily favored for EX, Savage and Ultimate.

All jobs themselves can also be given tools to mitigate their own damage as a third source to reduce damage even further, and many already do to my knowledge. I feel that mitigation should definitely be a team effort, and the devs should come up with more way than just shields to achieve it.

[KDSilver]

Mitigation doesn't always have to come via shields. Both AST and WHM can be given abilities that weaken the boss to reduce their outgoing damage for lethal AoE.

They used to have some.
Disable for AST and the unenhanced version of Virus, but they took it away from healers...

[Sebazy]

Hopefully this is a change that they reverse for 5.0.

Healer gameplay is shallow enough as it is.

[Connor]

No specific ability effects in mind but I really hope Astrologian gets more unique utility/buff interaction abilities like Celestial Opposition and Time Dilation.


I’ve seen suggestions before about a ‘reverse arcana’ type ability that I think would be pretty cool. It’d give debuffs to the enemy that are opposite to what the buffs would be. Like Bole increasing damage vulnerability, Balance lowering enemy attack strength, etc. It’d probably have to have an extremely long cooldown to even start thinking of being balanced though lol.

I always imagined when Astrologian would release that it would be a much more heal/support oriented job than the heavy DPS that White Mage and Scholar offer. I’d love to see them double down on that idea too, if not only because it makes Astrologian actually feel like a different job and not just a ‘lightly buff-flavoured green DPS that spams the exact same DPS filler button as the other two but a little bit faster’

[Gemina]

The ability to change sects between regen and shields is something I love about AST, being able to fit with any other healer.
It's also integral to it's lore, as several quests have you errecting barriers with Aspected Benefic.

It's not a roadblock and adjustments can be made to the questline if they went this route. They don't have to get rid of Aspected Benefict, only the shield it provides. It's understandable that if the devs did redo AST, that it would upset those who enjoy how it currently plays. But try to remember that this is a wish list thread, and nothing official. I doubt the devs will rework AST to this point. Though not a guarantee, if they say current AST has a problem or acknowledged that the majority of the playerbase feels it does, they would probably say something along the lines of, "We're currently looking at AST." Either way, I doubt they would blindside us until May to reveal a rework.

These suggestions would completely destroy what AST currently is, and seem more suited for theory crafting an entirely new healer job.

That's the idea. Theory crafting is fine in a suggestions/wish list thread. I can only speak personally, but it would seem many of my thoughts about AST are shared; much to my surprise. If I only played AST, I would probably love it. But because I play and love both WHM and SCH, AST just leaves a bad taste in my mouth with their copy and paste abilities. #killAST

I'd much rather AST stayed roughly how it is, then made the new healer a pure-healer with buffs.
Make the buffs better than ASTs, then AST maintains its position as the jack of all trades healer, but working around three philosophies instead of two.

The suggestions to redo the job is not because it doesn't work in PvE, but rather its lack of identity. For those who feel AST is this jack of all trades healer, then by definition it should not be able to do anything better than the other two healers. Their shields and regens shouldn't be anywhere near the level of SCH and WHM, and they make up for it with their other utility. But they do both of these just as good, if not better; have higher rDPS than a WHM, AND STILLhave all that utility. That's not what I would call, "Jack of all trades." That's what I call OP, or cheese.

[loreleidiangelo]

If I only played AST, I would probably love it. But because I play and love both WHM and SCH, AST just leaves a bad taste in my mouth with their copy and paste abilities.

I've mained it since it came out in HW, and even I hate how pasteded-on it feels. Honestly? I miss back when it was designed to have weaker heals in return for its card buffs. The problem is that HW AST had godawful card management and all the cards have gotten buffs since then (original Balance was 5% AOE for like 15 seconds or something lol?), so it was a problem of those buffs not being worth the reduced healing...not that the reduced healing itself was a problem. I thought it was unique, and I enjoyed the extra challenge. When Square buffed AST's healing instead of their cards, I knew we were gonna be in for a bumpy ride when it came to future healing design, and so far I've kind of been right (they even later buffed AST's cards, making it even more lulzy!).

[NorthernLadMSP]

I've mained it since it came out in HW, and even I hate how pasteded-on it feels. Honestly? I miss back when it was designed to have weaker heals in return for its card buffs. The problem is that HW AST had godawful card management and all the cards have gotten buffs since then (original Balance was 5% AOE for like 15 seconds or something lol?), so it was a problem of those buffs not being worth the reduced healing...not that the reduced healing itself was a problem. I thought it was unique, and I enjoyed the extra challenge. When Square buffed AST's healing instead of their cards, I knew we were gonna be in for a bumpy ride when it came to future healing design, and so far I've kind of been right (they even later buffed AST's cards, making it even more lulzy!).

Completely agree. All they needed was some card buffs/changes. Instead, we got card buffs, healing buffs and DPS buff. Now, they're LOL OP but heaven forbid we scale them back to normal levels.

[CorbinDallas]

Delete the sects and double down on Astrologians actual unique gameplay hook, cards and buff manipulation.

Hybrids that fulfil more than a single type of gameplay can never be balanced and only narrow the design space for future jobs. With AST existing in it's current state, that of a "WHM/SCH with cards", Dancer has no chance of being remotely unique with it's own healing niche. It will need to have shields or regens to be viable.

The PvP version of Astrologian is my dream. The rapid casting, buffing machine. It doesn't need to take from the other 2 healers to be unique, the cards already do that.