5.0 AST is a failure

[SweetPete]

My suggestions
The cards: Remove the annoying melee/range mess.
Arrow- 10% damage and 5% attack speed/recast
Bole- 10% damage and 10% damage mitigation
Spear- 10% damage and 5% critical hit
Spire- 10% damage and 5% direct hit
Ewer- 10% damage and mana regen
Balance- 10% damage and 5% increase to all main stats.
Lord: 10% damage and applies damage over time on enemy hit
Lady: 10% damage and applies regen for duration
Sleeve draw: Should not have a time duration.
Divination: Should not have a cool down. Once we have 3 seals it should be available to use.

Seals: We should have different combinations.
1 of each seal should stay the same. Gives damage buff.
3 celestial seals: attack speed buff
3 lunar seals: critical hit buff
3 solar seals: damage mitigation buff
2 solars and 1 lunar: direct hit buff
2 lunars and 1 solar: aoe regen
The combinations are endless. Square can totally milk this specific gameplay so well if they wanted too. Since we can’t aoe cards anymore. They should be more powerful on single targets.

Healing potencies are fine to me but nocturnal sect is so bad right now. Why don’t they just remove the sects and make neutral sect the standard. Just lower the potencies or the shield and regen and remove the 20% healing buff. Also the shields won’t stack when you have another ast but the regents will. Just my suggestions.

[xDaemianx]

My suggestions
Seals: We should have different combinations.
1 of each seal should stay the same. Gives damage buff.
3 celestial seals: attack speed buff
3 lunar seals: critical hit buff
3 solar seals: damage mitigation buff
2 solars and 1 lunar: direct hit buff
2 lunars and 1 solar: aoe regen
The combinations are endless. Square can totally milk this specific gameplay so well if they wanted too. Since we can’t aoe cards anymore. They should be more powerful on single targets.

Healing potencies are fine to me but nocturnal sect is so bad right now. Why don’t they just remove the sects and make neutral sect the standard. Just lower the potencies or the shield and regen and remove the 20% healing buff. Also the shields won’t stack when you have another ast but the regents will. Just my suggestions.

The problem with this is that it's too intricate. I wouldn't mind all these as it would truly push the damage or other stats but I'd have to remember ALL the combinations to know what I want to do or am doing. And part of the identity of the healer is to preserve the sects. Otherwise you're just OPing it even though you lower the healing potency of the spells. That or you're just giving it the best of both worlds but truly condemning it to a world of not being able to heal/mitigate enough.

Spire- 10% damage and 5% direct hit

I'd change one of those stats (DH) for Determination. Some classes do not benefit from it but DET does affect most classes.

[nordiclania]

My suggestions
The cards: Remove the annoying melee/range mess.
Arrow- 10% damage and 5% attack speed/recast
Bole- 10% damage and 10% damage mitigation
Spear- 10% damage and 5% critical hit
Spire- 10% damage and 5% direct hit
Ewer- 10% damage and mana regen
Balance- 10% damage and 5% increase to all main stats.
Lord: 10% damage and applies damage over time on enemy hit
Lady: 10% damage and applies regen for duration
Sleeve draw: Should not have a time duration.
Divination: Should not have a cool down. Once we have 3 seals it should be available to use.

Seals: We should have different combinations.
1 of each seal should stay the same. Gives damage buff.
3 celestial seals: attack speed buff
3 lunar seals: critical hit buff
3 solar seals: damage mitigation buff
2 solars and 1 lunar: direct hit buff
2 lunars and 1 solar: aoe regen
The combinations are endless. Square can totally milk this specific gameplay so well if they wanted too. Since we can’t aoe cards anymore. They should be more powerful on single targets.

Healing potencies are fine to me but nocturnal sect is so bad right now. Why don’t they just remove the sects and make neutral sect the standard. Just lower the potencies or the shield and regen and remove the 20% healing buff. Also the shields won’t stack when you have another ast but the regents will. Just my suggestions.

I like the way you think! -applause- I agree that Divination should proc as soon as you have three seals, seeing as we still have 30 seconds cooldown for Draw and 180 seconds for Sleeve Draw.

As an Astro main for the past 1-2 years, in ShB, I first felt like I didn't do nearly enough healing like I used to. I almost switched to WHM, but then decided to stick it out. I don't dislike Astro, but in the new raid content Eden, I am now having a hard time giving my team mates that 15 second extra damage buff, be it through a single card or through Divination. I just don't feel like I have the time, cause I have to spam my heals to keep up, as well as juggle Horoscope and keeping a close eye on its timer.

I still think the job is fun, and I enjoy it (maybe because it is quite tricky to master now, even though it always was in a way) but if suggestions like these came to fruition, I think it would be an absolute blast.

[lordcruxis]

I like the way you think! -applause- I agree that Divination should proc as soon as you have three seals, seeing as we still have 30 seconds cooldown for Draw and 180 seconds for Sleeve Draw.

As an Astro main for the past 1-2 years, in ShB, I first felt like I didn't do nearly enough healing like I used to. I almost switched to WHM, but then decided to stick it out. I don't dislike Astro, but in the new raid content Eden, I am now having a hard time giving my team mates that 15 second extra damage buff, be it through a single card or through Divination. I just don't feel like I have the time, cause I have to spam my heals to keep up, as well as juggle Horoscope and keeping a close eye on its timer.

I still think the job is fun, and I enjoy it (maybe because it is quite tricky to master now, even though it always was in a way) but if suggestions like these came to fruition, I think it would be an absolute blast.

That suggestion isn't even remotely within the realm of balance, AST would be 100% required, probably 2 ASTs considering how much of a damage boost 5% main stats would be. Would still be play balance, redraw if not balance. None of the divination effects compare to just throwing Balances out

well... you all know that they will give the excuse "dont have time now for major reworks, wait till its too late for it, please look forward to it" or something... so the most viable changes would be numerical values and some other little extra things until they find "time" again to do it wrong, because they cant bother asking for their players input, even tho there are some amazing ideas in this thread.

They seem to be wanting ast to be focused more on healing with gcds and the extra bit with ogcds, so i am just going all in into it, make their dps average, but give them decent buffing capabilities.

-for small lazy changes, just bump all base cards damage % to 8% and 4%. for the minor arcana 10% or 0% (yes, you either play this right, or get nothing, this would at least make people think to use it instead of rushing to put it on someone since it would be a dps bonus anyway)

- Essential dinigty: just give it some charges, ideally 4, but 3 could be decent.

- Divination: like it was mentioned in this thread, just make it useable everytime the seals are ready, if in the end ast is still lacking, buff this to 10%

- Collective unconscious: this is terrible now, just revert to the way it was before. or at least, buff that healing potency.

- Celestial opposition: even worse D: why the hell the cd of this is so long? whm assize is so good and it is only 45s. increase the range of this to be like assize and buff the potencies all around, and of course the cd should be between 45 and 30s like whms and schs (having stun back would be nice).

- Earthly star: every placed support action from the healers do something extra now, but not asts... well it should... can be whatever, regen, dmg reduction, whatever, but just give it another thing for while it is cooking in the ground.

- Sleeve draw: y u do? just make it give stacks that grants X uses of draw with no time on it to use, or at least not a short time.

- Celestial intersection: its cool, but still could do with a small buff. (maybe if the whole kit is buffed this might not need a buff?)

- Horoscope: why is this a heal? ok, it can be a heal, but it has to do something else besides just healing, otherwise is just a copy of whms plenary. make it buff the heal of the aspected helios yes, but also buff the shield and regen effect they have. Restoring a bit of mp as well helps if the gcd healing is the goal.
Arent horoscopes usually used by people as some sort of basic guidance? tbh this ability should be renamed and then, for future expansions, use the horoscope and zodiac theme to create new actions, maybe upgrade the cards to the zodiac system.

- Neutral sect: first of all, this should have been called eclipse sect, would have been so much cooler. Second, some effects dont stack with other healers (shield), so, either make so they can stack on the same target, or double down on the sect they are.

ED having 3 charges would be really pushing it, 4 would be way too much, Earthly Star isn't a defensive spell like Asylum or Sacred Soil, it shouldn't have a secondary effect, they just need to bring CU up to par.

[LukaRoselia]

My suggestions
The cards: Remove the annoying melee/range mess.
Arrow- 10% damage and 5% attack speed/recast
Bole- 10% damage and 10% damage mitigation
Spear- 10% damage and 5% critical hit
Spire- 10% damage and 5% direct hit
Ewer- 10% damage and mana regen
Balance- 10% damage and 5% increase to all main stats.
Lord: 10% damage and applies damage over time on enemy hit
Lady: 10% damage and applies regen for duration
Sleeve draw: Should not have a time duration.
Divination: Should not have a cool down. Once we have 3 seals it should be available to use.

Seals: We should have different combinations.
1 of each seal should stay the same. Gives damage buff.
3 celestial seals: attack speed buff
3 lunar seals: critical hit buff
3 solar seals: damage mitigation buff
2 solars and 1 lunar: direct hit buff
2 lunars and 1 solar: aoe regen
The combinations are endless. Square can totally milk this specific gameplay so well if they wanted too. Since we can’t aoe cards anymore. They should be more powerful on single targets.

Healing potencies are fine to me but nocturnal sect is so bad right now. Why don’t they just remove the sects and make neutral sect the standard. Just lower the potencies or the shield and regen and remove the 20% healing buff. Also the shields won’t stack when you have another ast but the regents will. Just my suggestions.

You've just given an absolutely perfect fix in my opinion because that sounds fantastic.