Level-headed review of 5.0 AST

[Seraphor]

In terms of representation on Everyone’s Favorite Website to Hate, AST is noticeably behind the other two healers. And I mean by a very significant margin. As is NIN, too, actually. MNK almost has as much representation as NIN.

Over the last two weeks for the healers:

WHM: 187,342
SCH: 139,044
AST: 58,734

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Which indicates a balancing issue, precisely what patch 5.05 is meant to address.

[HyoMinPark]

Which indicates a balancing issue, precisely what patch 5.05 is meant to address.

It can also represent that players aren’t satisfied with the changes. There have been a fair share of complaints regarding not only the cards, but also the changes with regards to the removal of Time Mage-esque abilities, and to abilities like CU and the way Horoscope functions (i.e., a more clunky PI). Just because you’re satisfied doesn’t mean everyone is, and you cannot ignore the complaints AST has had lately with regard to everything—not just potencies.

[Deceptus]

Which indicates a balancing issue, precisely what patch 5.05 is meant to address.

Simple potency fixes don't fix core job mechanics issues.

[Sylve]

Simple potency fixes don't fix core job mechanics issues.

Pretty much everyone who has posted on AST has entirely missed what those core issues are.

Diurnal is intended to make AST more like WHM by copying Regen + Medica II but it falls flat because AST lacks all the other tools that makes WHM as powerful as it is.
Nocturnal is intended to make AST more like SCH by copying Adloqium + Succor but falls flat due to lacking all the tools SCH has to capitalize on those Shields.
It is, in my opinion absurdly simple to correct. Roll Diurnal into Nocturnal.
Make it so Regen ticks come with an equal sized shield application for its duration. They still wouldn't stack with Galvanize. Turn Neutral Sect into a cooldown that converts the total potency of the Shield+Regen on aspected spells into single bomb heals.

Beefing up potency is just a bandaid on the gaping wound caused by the Sects.

[HyoMinPark]

Pretty much everyone who has posted on AST has entirely missed what those core issues are.

Diurnal is intended to make AST more like WHM by copying Regen + Medica II but it falls flat because AST lacks all the other tools that makes WHM as powerful as it is.
Nocturnal is intended to make AST more like SCH by copying Adloqium + Succor but falls flat due to lacking all the tools SCH has to capitalize on those Shields.
It is, in my opinion absurdly simple to correct. Roll Diurnal into Nocturnal.
Make it so Regen ticks come with an equal sized shield application for its duration. They still wouldn't stack with Galvanize. Turn Neutral Sect into a cooldown that converts the total potency of the Shield+Regen on aspected spells into single bomb heals.

Beefing up potency is just a bandaid on the gaping wound caused by the Sects.

Care to explain why the sects are the problems and not things such as just clunky gameplay in general? Or neutered job mechanics? Or neutered abilities? Why is everyone else wrong with regards to their complaints, and why are yours correct?


EDIT: I’m out of posts and don’t feel like waiting for a new one, so here’s my reply to your response below. Not sure if you’ll see it because I’m adding it to this one, but here it is.

Raising the potency of things like Diurnal Helios isn't going to change the fact that a WHM, which is what Diurnal copies, has far more tools in its kit than the AST does. Therein lies the problem. Diurnal makes us a WHM with half the kit. Noct makes us a SCH with half the kit.

Except this wasn’t a problem for AST in Stormblood. At all. It could keep up easily with all healing requirements for Savage and Ultimate—WHM was just the safer option due to burst healing (especially for UCoB and Bahamut’s Seventh Umbral Era—AST could heal that, but WHM was just the safer option with Thin Air+Cure III spam AND WHM could heal through it without tank LB3, though tank LB3 was still generally preferred) and for its better MP economy. But, again, this didn’t make AST a “budget WHM”, nor did it stop them from being able to heal the content effectively.

AST being a “copy” of WHM didn’t hold it back at all, especially with SB Earthly Star being a godly tool that WHM didn’t have an answer to and SB Collective Unconscious being the strongest regen in the game at that time (that WHM also didn’t have an answer to). Now, AST suffers due only to potency inefficiencies when it comes to its healing—not really for lack of toolkit. It has more healing options now than it did back then; they’re just all weak.

The only argument you have really is for Nocturnal shields, which are not as effective as SCH shields despite Noct Aspected Helios being stronger than Succor in Stormblood (and I believe they still shield for more than Succor now). But Nocturnal in and of itself has always been the less efficient of the two sects in terms of MP due to the nature of regens just being worth more per the MP spent. Now so more than ever, since new Noct ups Aspected Benefic to 1,000 MP from Diurnal’s 500.
Noct AST was still the preferred healer for solo healing Savage and Ultimate though, so we have to at least give it that credit.

To throw an example of how that issue plays out in a real fight, take any raidwide burst of damage that brings people low like the Gravity in E1. AST in Diurnal casts AHelios for 100p and a 100p Regen. And then what? What else does the AST do to bring the party back up?

WHM can follow up with Rapture and Assize
SCH can follow up with Fey Blessing and Indom.
AST can follow up with … what exactly?

Well-timed Earthly Star and Horoscope. Are you forgetting about those two abilities? Earthly Star is all about its timings—you try to time its usage around raidwide AOEs, even sitting on it for a small bit if it means you can line it up with a raidwide and blow up for a 720 potency heal for all who stand in it. Horoscope is a clunkier version of WHM’s new Plenary Indulgence, in which a Helios/Aspected Helios can trigger a stronger oGCD heal the AST can weave. With some potency fixes, Horoscope has potential (and I honestly think they should change it to activate immediately after a heal or to detonate once the buff wears off a la Earthly Star). But, as of right now, it’s weaker than it should be (and a bit clunky to use).

Collective Unconscious and the new Celestial Opposition seeing some changes (either potency buffs, cooldown reductions, or a combination of both) could also help AST’s AOE healing toolkit. CU has already proven before that it can be strong and extremely valuable. I’d like to see that return instead of it being a borderline waste of hotbar space. If they want to keep the new COpp, it also needs to see some adjustments. Either bring the cooldown down to 60s, or adjust the potency so it’s worth the 120s cooldown as an oGCD AOE tool.

AST is perfectly capable of healing low HP mechanics—it did so just fine in Stormblood with Exdeath’s White Hole and God Kefka’s Heartless Archangel. But with its current potencies it is going to struggle more than it needs to, and have to dump more GCDs into resources than it should if one were to compare it to the other two. This is a known complaint that has nothing to do with the sects.

AST has the same problem with its non AoE kit too. WHM and SCH have a bunch of things they can do that are both impactful AND free that lets them capitalize on their Shields and Regens.

Just massively boosting the potencies of everything is not a fix. The problem is as it has always been, the Sects turn us into budget versions of the other 2 healers. So fix that.

You have an argument for “budget SCH”, but AST was never considered a “budget WHM” back in Stormblood. Especially after the 4.3 changes to Malefic’s recast and the 4.4 changes to CU: it actually replaced WHM as the prog healer for Final Omega because WHM suffered terribly from all the movement in there, and it became better in UwU after the CU change.

Again, I think with some potency adjustments, AST’s single-target healing kit can be manageable. The 2 charges on Essential Dignity is really nice—keep in mind that ED scales up to 1,000 potency, and it was actually better than Benediction and Tetra back in Stormblood due to its shorter cooldown and higher potency scaling. Sure, they don’t have Lilies, but ED is supposed to be the analog to WHM’s Tetra and SCH’s Lustrate. It effectively serves the same purpose as a single-target oGCD heal.

Celestial Intersection is also an analog for Divine Benison, and I find it the most useful of all the skills AST got this expansion aside from Neutral Sect.



I disagree that the issue lies primarily with the sects and not elsewhere. I think AST’s healing issues lie with weak potencies and underwhelming abilities: CU is a shadow of its former self—Asylum and Sacred Soil crap all over it—and COpp is much too weak for its current 120s cooldown. I think Noct could use some adjustments to be more viable and allow for WHM/Noct AST comps, primarily in MP values being adjusted. They’ve proven they can up the cost of MP in one sect; why not try bringing it down instead so that Noct isn’t just an MP bleed and to actually make it competitive with SCH shields.

None of this is getting into the other glaring issues, which have been repeatedly mentioned but include things such as the cards, Divination, and Sleeve Draw windows affecting gameplay. Not to mention, AST’s personal damage and raid damage—I’m fine with AST having lower personal damage, but it needs to have the raid damage to compete with WHM. As of right now, it has neither. There is honestly no competition between the two.

The sects are the least of AST’s problems.

[Sylve]

Care to explain why the sects are the problems and not things such as just clunky gameplay in general? Or neutered job mechanics? Or neutered abilities? Why is everyone else wrong with regards to their complaints, and why are yours correct?

… I literally outlined why the Sects are a problem.

Diurnal is intended to make AST more like WHM by copying Regen + Medica II but it falls flat because AST lacks all the other tools that makes WHM as powerful as it is.
Nocturnal is intended to make AST more like SCH by copying Adloqium + Succor but falls flat due to lacking all the tools SCH has to capitalize on those Shields.

Raising the potency of things like Diurnal Helios isn't going to change the fact that a WHM, which is what Diurnal copies, has far more tools in its kit than the AST does. Therein lies the problem. Diurnal makes us a WHM with half the kit. Noct makes us a SCH with half the kit.

To throw an example of how that issue plays out in a real fight, take any raidwide burst of damage that brings people low like the Gravity in E1. AST in Diurnal casts AHelios for 100p and a 100p Regen. And then what? What else does the AST do to bring the party back up?

WHM can follow up with Rapture and Assize
SCH can follow up with Fey Blessing and Indom.
AST can follow up with … what exactly?

AST has the same problem with its non AoE kit too. WHM and SCH have a bunch of things they can do that are both impactful AND free that lets them capitalize on their Shields and Regens.

Just massively boosting the potencies of everything is not a fix. The problem is as it has always been, the Sects turn us into budget versions of the other 2 healers. So fix that.

[Manuka]

To throw an example of how that issue plays out in a real fight, take any raidwide burst of damage that brings people low like the Gravity in E1. AST in Diurnal casts AHelios for 100p and a 100p Regen. And then what? What else does the AST do to bring the party back up?

Earthly Star? And once upon a time we had CU as well for a whopping 750pot regen, which could be further extended by an additional 450 if you catch it in a CO window (on top of w/e regens were already active). Ast has always been more gcd bound than the other two but what few oGCD heals they had were incredibly potent and their remaining CD's all improved their GCD gameplay if need be. Synastry improved single target heals, time extensions improved all active HoTs and Lightspeed insured that an Ast could utilize their gcd heals/dps during movement heavy sections. So while Diurnal Ast didn't have benediction or cure 3 what they had was sufficient in most situations and what shortcomings there were was worth having cards around, well, maybe not right now.

Now Noct tho, yeah it's always been trash except for one short moment during early Exdeath days and I don't see that changing anytime soon. As it stands nothing will ever replace the sheer gamut of oGCD heals Sch brings to the party and they doubled down on that design by removing the dps cost to AF heals while simultaneously improving said AF heals, questionable balance decision. And just to make Noct even more obsolete Diurnal now has access to CI and Neutral, which is more than enough shields for any future df content you get paired with a whm in. At this point they honestly should have just deleted Noct, made Diurn the default and maybe given Ast a version of Emergency Tactics that converts their HoT's to a shield on a 30sec CD or something.

[ForteNightshade]

… I literally outlined why the Sects are a problem.


Raising the potency of things like Diurnal Helios isn't going to change the fact that a WHM, which is what Diurnal copies, has far more tools in its kit than the AST does. Therein lies the problem. Diurnal makes us a WHM with half the kit. Noct makes us a SCH with half the kit.

To throw an example of how that issue plays out in a real fight, take any raidwide burst of damage that brings people low like the Gravity in E1. AST in Diurnal casts AHelios for 100p and a 100p Regen. And then what? What else does the AST do to bring the party back up?

WHM can follow up with Rapture and Assize
SCH can follow up with Fey Blessing and Indom.
AST can follow up with … what exactly?

AST has the same problem with its non AoE kit too. WHM and SCH have a bunch of things they can do that are both impactful AND free that lets them capitalize on their Shields and Regens.

Just massively boosting the potencies of everything is not a fix. The problem is as it has always been, the Sects turn us into budget versions of the other 2 healers. So fix that.

Earthly Star? Which has almost double the heal potency of Assize. They used to use Collective Unconscious, which boasted the single strongest regen in the entire game... until SE nerfed it into oblivion. Even with Astro's current kit, Horoscope and Celestial Opposition would be fine answers towards Rapture and Fey Blessing... if they were laughably weak. Celestial is a 100 potency heal with a 60 potency regen for a meager 16s. All on a 120s CD. Compare this with Rapture—a weaker spell in its own right if we're being honest. It heals for triple the potency and if weaved properly only causes minimal loses for the White Mage despite being on the GCD. This is what holds Astro back currently. The tools it does have at its disposal are horrendously imbalanced. Changing the Sects would address that unless you slap a ton of healing and regen/shield potencies on them—in which case, why not just buff the abilities themselves and achieve the exact same outcome?

Edit: I should also mention, Assize, outside of prog, should never be held for healing. You will inevitably loss a cast—potentially several—due to its short CD. Not only is this a sizable damage loss but you could have simply GCD healed and lost nothing. Even spamming Rapture is better than holding onto Assize. You press it for damage unless you know for absolute certainty there will be a raid wide aoe within maybe 3-4 seconds.

Just massively boosting the potencies of everything is not a fix. The problem is as it has always been, the Sects turn us into budget versions of the other 2 healers. So fix that.

If this was such a prevailing issue, why was Astro straight up better than White Mage from 4.3 and beyond? Cure III was literally all White Mage clung to however, most fights made it less and less valuable due to people spreading out. When Stormblood concluded, Astro was arguably the best healing in the game even if you ignored its utility. It had near free mobility, no clipping issues, the second strongest oGCD heal in Earthly Star (which was AoE compared to Excog being single target) and strongest regen through Collective. And some of these effects could all be extended. Not only did they nerf a significant portion of this, they removed extensions as a whole. This rendered Astro entirely neutered as a healer. Now that could have worked, maybe. But they also destroyed its utility and kept its damage abysmally low.

Put simply, the Sects never held Astro back before.

[Sylve]

EDIT: I’m out of posts and don’t feel like waiting for a new one, so here’s my reply to your response below. Not sure if you’ll see it because I’m adding it to this one, but here it is.

The sects are the least of AST’s problems.

Happens to a lot of discussions, so I tend to scroll up a bit when I refresh. Curse the post limit lol.


I didn't include Earthly Star or Horoscope because they each require a setup. Neither can be used reactively where WHM and SCH both have shorter recast oGCDs that are can be dropped instantly before an AST can place and pop a Star.
Not to mention the abysmal radius of Earthly Star …

The non AoE healing issues that ASTs lack of a toolkit causes is most evident in EX dungeon mass pulls.
Both WHM and SCH have powerful tools they can use to create windows for damage dealing even when the Tank is under heavy incoming damage that also don't cost them MP. AST does not.
The only time my AST feels as strong as WHM and SCH do all the time is under Neutral Sect.

Just plainly buffing potencies will 'help' but it will not solve the root of the issue. That being the toolkit itself is lacking. I don't have issues at all with how the cards function right now. If they need a percentile buff then they need a percentile buff. But since i'm not having trouble utilizing Div/SD/Draw/MA between Malefic casts, I don't see a need to speak on it.

AST was my first 80, followed by SCH and then WHM. I'm playing all 3 at the same time at i440 in EX dungeons and Eden. I'm not just basing my assertion on wistfully looking at what someone playing a WHM is doing and thinking the grass is greener on the other side.

You clearly see the Card system as the biggest hurdle AST has right now. I strongly disagree. Playing them all in the same content and working harder as an AST to do the things that WHM and SCH can do without breaking a sweat has me looking for the root of why that is.
I see the problem as the Sects, especially since Neutral Sect is what makes AST feel as strong as the other 2 in the same situations.
I'll absolutely not disagree with CO and CU being extremely weak for what they are. I just don't believe that beefing up their potencies and calling it a day is enough to close the gap between AST and the others.

On the Eden dummy:
AST - 5.21k
SCH - 6.18k
WHM - 6.86k

The gap between all 3 personal damages is pretty small. In dungeons and such, AST just has far fewer opportunity to just sit down and belt out some damage. Its kit doesn't let it. Cards can be manipulated entirely between Malefic casts
Counted the casts too .. Despite PoM used twice, only got 2 more Glare at 65 than I did Malefics at 63.

Long story short, WHM and SCH can both create damage windows using the strength of their whole kits. AST cannot do that even when using its whole kit. CO and CU wont be used for every trash pack due to recast. So even if we beefed their potencies .. yay, only half the dungeon feels crap to heal now?

Just make Neutral Sect the default state of Aspected casts. Give AST the identity of a Healer that uses shields and regens in equal measure.

[Azbroolah]

Happens to a lot of discussions, so I tend to scroll up a bit when I refresh. Curse the post limit lol.


I didn't include Earthly Star or Horoscope because they each require a setup. Neither can be used reactively where WHM and SCH both have shorter recast oGCDs that are can be dropped instantly before an AST can place and pop a Star.
Not to mention the abysmal radius of Earthly Star …

Not to interrupt the thread of conversation but that's not really a great advantage because of how scripted fights are FFXIV. Outside of early prog (where WHM has always been pretty good), there's very little occasion to get caught off-guard by big raidwide damage and it's always possible to prep Earthly Star beforehand.