AST Celestial Opposition

[Eloah]

I feel a lot of people who are questioning this change don't play AST in Nocturnal that often.

As a SCH, I get shields, so when I do play AST, I play on Nocturnal Sect as often as I can. Curse you dual AST/SCH making me go on Diurnal. Anyways, back in HW and SB, it was quite common for Diurnal to be the primary for trash, and possibly switch to Nocturnal for bosses. But now with the changes SE has made, both Sects are equally as viable, and they did it in a way that doesnt make SCH shields feel incredibly weak overall.

The biggest change that SE has made is the ability to stack shields. Something SCHs have asked for since the anticipation of new skills for HW. Don't get me wrong, SE should definitely play up the whole dual aspect angle on AST. But finally having stackable shields is a major improvement for both SCH and AST, especially since regens could always stack. Although, SCH could use a better secondary shield compared to Seraph, she's not as consistent as people might think. She's not bad, but but every SCH capstone skill starting at 60 is meh. Compared to the other two, I think just reducing her CD to 90s would make her more usable, but that's just me.

Neutral Sect is a really strong CD but dont you think it is too strong?
We have access to both sect effect in full potency with +20% additonal healing buff for 15 sec.
I keep thingking will it be okay to reduce the potency of opposite sect effect maybe the potency is like 60-70% from the original?

In term of balancing healer, we can add an additional party shield for WHM that cost 2 Lily (afflatus veil?).
With this all healer will have access to shield and regen effect.

EDIT: added in the quote, since bringing up Neutral Sect was "odd" apparently.

Also on the topic of Neutral Sect. ASTs definitely drew the long straw for that buff, but I can't say it's as OP as it might look, mostly cause I don't use it that often. If anything, I'd say just reduce the increase from 20% to 10%. But then again WHM's buff is similar with a boost in healing and damage reduction.

Something similar should happen for Dissipation as well, the worst of the buff skills, though I can't simply say just increase the percentage. Maybe allow for Aetherflow skills to be used without charges, but even that seems bad since only Lustrate would become spammable. It does need something to make it more of a healing tool instead of a DPS tool. Also I hope in 6.0 they shuffle the 60/70/80 skills around for SCH and fix their odd lockouts. The Fey Gauge should be available a lot sooner than 70.

SE does seem to have a habit of introducing something, but only giving us one outlet for it. At that point, why not just give it to us as a CD? A gauge needs 3 skills minimum to make sense, otherwise it's just a glorified CD.

[Side-Eye]

snip

Interesting. In replying to an idea for improving a specific AST ability, you suggest nerfing an AST ability that wasn't even in the topic, then you suggest improving a SCH shield and/or pet, improving a SCH buff skill, re-ordering SCH 60/70/80 skills, fix SCH lockouts, lower the level on SCH guage.... are we missing anything? Did you, oh I dunno, maybe wanna start an SCH thread?

[Eloah]

Interesting. In replying to an idea for improving a specific AST ability, you suggest nerfing an AST ability that wasn't even in the topic, then you suggest improving a SCH shield and/or pet, improving a SCH buff skill, re-ordering SCH 60/70/80 skills, fix SCH lockouts, lower the level on SCH guage.... are we missing anything? Did you, oh I dunno, maybe wanna start an SCH thread?

Did you, oh I dunno, read the comment above mine where Neutral Sect was mentioned. And how dare I use one skill discussed on AST to present an inverted solution to a comparable skill on one of the other healers. Because nothing like that has ever been done before.

And of course I mention SCH a bunch, if I'm referencing a Nocturnal aspected AST; SCH is after all the baseline for shields. That was the whole point of what I said. Not many people view Nocturnal Sect as a possible default for AST. But for someone like me, who mains a SCH, Nocturnal Sect feels more natural. And I stated that that is thanks to SEs change on shielding skills.

The above post also mentioned a WHM skill should he go to a WHM thread?

On a more AST specific topic, to show I do know the job, somewhat. The major issue most people have with them right now is the whole card system, which has both pros and cons in this new iteration as well as the old one. As a whole their skills are laid out in a cohesive manor I guess. But SE does need to fix the issue with when you get Diurnal Sect and when you get Aspected Benefic. If Diurnal still had a passive it might make sense but right now it's just odd. You might be able to say the same thing about Nocturnal Sect too. Mostly because suddenly your expected to know how shields function as a fresh 50. You should be able to choose from 30, like SCH or WHM. In fact I bet if both sects were available at roughly the same time, more people would feel comfortable as a Nocturnal AST.