General Community Resistant to Healer Damage?

[Seraphor]

You cannot make a blanket statement like old ast cannot be balanced like that.

FFS... I guess I am repeating myself then.


Bole - A 10% damage reduction ability that you only have access to 1/6th of the time. This means that the healer kits can't be balanced around having this type of single target damage reduction ability. It is either considered essential, which puts AST at a disadvantage 5/6th of the time, or it is considered useless.

Ewer - Crucial MP regeneration, that impacts the balance of MP maintenance. With it (again only 1/6th uptime and totally RNG) AST has too much MP, without it, not enough.

Arrow - Speed increase. Some jobs NEED this, some jobs have their rotation thrown off by it making it actually detrimental. Most jobs however simply do not feel the benefit of it at all. On paper you can math it out and say that it should be a ~12% DPS increase or whatever, but in practice, players clip their GCD's, and unless it results in getting a whole additional GCD in the 30s window that it has an effect on (which it doesn't) then it's useless.

Spear - Crit buff. Crit scales logarithmicly, making less effective at the start of an expac and more effective at the end, making it disproportionately effective for some classes than other, and completely screwed with Bards job mechanics pre-Shadowbringers to the point where it was proccing way more Bloodletters, etc. than the devs ever intended.

Spire - doesn't need mentioning.

Balance - ironically the only balanced card in the set.

The whole picture, has AST players either constantly fishing for expanded Balances (so the whole RNG thing is a waste of time) or having their core healer kit (Bole and Ewer) at the mercy of RNG (objectively detrimental to them as a Healer)


But no, I'm sure you enjoyed having such a janky RNG system to fight against. I'm sure it was a blast!
I'm sure Tanks would enjoy it if their cooldowns randomly disappeared form their hotbars as well, or perhaps Monk's had their stances randomly change instead of being on a rotation.
Or you know what, maybe Black Mages spells could either cast random fire or ice spells. Will it be Blizzard and regen MP, or will it be Fire and switch from UI to AF when you don't want to? Who knows!

[Halivel]

The fact that healer in need is almost constantly in effect shows SOMETHING is wrong and causing healers to not play as much as they used to.

I can't say for NA, but on my DC it's 50% Tank in need, 45% Healer in need and 5% DPS in need. Healers are surely are more often in need now than they were here, but very far from constantlly.

But no, I'm sure you enjoyed having such a janky RNG system to fight against. I'm sure it was a blast!
I'm sure Tanks would enjoy it if their cooldowns randomly disappeared form their hotbars as well, or perhaps Monk's had their stances randomly change instead of being on a rotation.
Or you know what, maybe Black Mages spells could either cast random fire or ice spells. Will it be Blizzard and regen MP, or will it be Fire and switch from UI to AF when you don't want to? Who knows!

I was screwed by RNG to the point of almost hating green color, that's how often I had Bole. I guess Tanks were happy though.

[ReiMakoto]

FFS... I guess I am repeating myself then.


Bole - A 10% damage reduction ability that you only have access to 1/6th of the time. This means that the healer kits can't be balanced around having this type of single target damage reduction ability. It is either considered essential, which puts AST at a disadvantage 5/6th of the time, or it is considered useless.

Ewer - Crucial MP regeneration, that impacts the balance of MP maintenance. With it (again only 1/6th uptime and totally RNG) AST has too much MP, without it, not enough.

Arrow - Speed increase. Some jobs NEED this, some jobs have their rotation thrown off by it making it actually detrimental. Most jobs however simply do not feel the benefit of it at all. On paper you can math it out and say that it should be a ~12% DPS increase or whatever, but in practice, players clip their GCD's, and unless it results in getting a whole additional GCD in the 30s window that it has an effect on (which it doesn't) then it's useless.

Spear - Crit buff. Crit scales logarithmicly, making less effective at the start of an expac and more effective at the end, making it disproportionately effective for some classes than other, and completely screwed with Bards job mechanics pre-Shadowbringers to the point where it was proccing way more Bloodletters, etc. than the devs ever intended.

Spire - doesn't need mentioning.

Balance - ironically the only balanced card in the set.

The whole picture, has AST players either constantly fishing for expanded Balances (so the whole RNG thing is a waste of time) or having their core healer kit (Bole and Ewer) at the mercy of RNG (objectively detrimental to them as a Healer)

ASTs kit was set up in such a way that you didn't need bole for mitigation in raid content, they had enough baked in mitigation, same with ewer it wasn't necessary if you were good.

Spear, Balance and arrow were all dps gains. The only job arrow majorly threw off was mch and that could be adjusted around if you noticed you had the buff, and this adds to what i was talking about earlier about balancing around the averages.
You weren't only fishing for expanded balance in normal play, you were fishing for expanded (damage buff) be that spear, balance or arrow which you had a very high chance of getting, sure balance was better but not all that much better than crit, and if arrow had been adjusted that could have been another desirable counterpart. Bole and Ewer and Spire weren't their core healer kit, using them for their play effects were an added bonus if you got them, not core to their kit, they were designed for burning and rng manipulation. The only way a good rng class works is by having a less desirable option that can turn up, and if the player adjusts around it they still get a gain out of it, just not a large one. Balance was was massively overhyped in SB as fflogs ranked off of DPS not RDPS, going for the damage buff every min approach would be a pretty desirable effect this expac. I aggree arrow was a tad weak, but they could have turned it into a dhit buff.

You're placing way too much emphasis on some parts of the kit and being overly reductive about others. Basically every card was useful before just to differing degrees, spire/ewer were royal road fodder, balance spear and arrow were damage buffs and bole could be adjusted around if you got it, but really was the most useless out of the pack.

[Crushnight]

See?

And I'm not going to bother repeating myself if this is the attitude I'm faced with.
Summary: AST old card effects cannot be balanced, period. That's objective.
The number of AST players, that's subjective. You can say "numbers are facts" but they only prove the subjective opinion of players. Objective reality isn't a democracy, don't use an argument of popularity to attempt to prove objectivity. Otherwise we'll be claiming Trump is objectively a good president...
More players may have enjoyed playing with a messier RNG system that held back healer balance and resulted in a stricter meta, but that doesn't mean it was a superior system.

Physical pain... give me a break. I play Ninja.

If current Ast can be balanced so too could the old, both are rng systems meaning you have to try to balance around the average that they give adjusting for if peaks get too high or valleys too low, so your wrong it is not Objectively impossible to balance the old card system, it is objectively harder to balance the old card system. That is the difference you are failing to crasp.

Did you read my last paragraph? I straight up say those facts show the subjective side of the playerbase but they are facts, and if shown those facts with no bias, you would think there was a problem with Ast yet it is not a number issue but something deeper.

Lastly I played nin (purple parse) throughout SB only reason I dropped was I went from EU servers to NA servers for raid group (while living in UK) yet I still did TEA prog on it got to half way through BJ+CC so a lot of reopeners when nin is at its busiest yet that never ever gave me the issue redoing optimal Ast's opener does in the same timeframe. I play exclusively on controller which is where most people who say they get pain from playing Ast comes from and it is unanimously Sleeve Draw and the targeting system that get cited for why.

High Apm is not an issue if spaced out well, nin is a good example of it, Ast is a good example when High Apm is not spaced out well.

[Seraphor]

ASTs kit was set up in such a way that you didn't need bole for mitigation in raid content, they had enough baked in mitigation, same with ewer it wasn't necessary if you were good.

SO they were all useless. Right. So you're not sad to see them go then.

Spear, Balance and arrow were all dps gains. The only job arrow majorly threw off was mch and that could be adjusted around if you noticed you had the buff, and this adds to what i was talking about earlier about balancing around the averages.

And Ninja, and in high level content, pretty much everyone with buff windows.
Expanded Arrow was a big no-no, but everyone still used it under the delusion that it was a DPS increase.

Bole and Ewer and Spire weren't their core healer kit, using them for their play effects were an added bonus if you got them, not core to their kit, they were designed for burning and rng manipulation.

That's what I'm saying. From a balancing perspective, they either become essential and puts AST at a huge healing disadvantage, OR (as was the case most of the time) they were useless, which means they were a bonus when you did get them, putting AST at an unfair advantage in some very select situations.
But because this is weighed against their DPS output, this actually put them at a disadvantage in the meta.
AST was only ever selected in high end content for their raid buffs, specifically Expanded-Balance, and if the rng didn't smile on them, they single handedly tanked the entire raid.
The rest of the party do not give a single shit what your other cards did, they only needed you for the Balance. Except Bards, the Crit junkies.

[Seraphor]

If current Ast can be balanced so too could the old, both are rng systems meaning you have to try to balance around the average that they give adjusting for if peaks get too high or valleys too low, so your wrong it is not Objectively impossible to balance the old card system, it is objectively harder to balance the old card system. That is the difference you are failing to crasp.

Did you read my last paragraph? I straight up say those facts show the subjective side of the playerbase but they are facts, and if shown those facts with no bias, you would think there was a problem with Ast yet it is not a number issue but something deeper.

Lastly I played nin (purple parse) throughout SB only reason I dropped was I went from EU servers to NA servers for raid group (while living in UK) yet I still did TEA prog on it got to half way through BJ+CC so a lot of reopeners when nin is at its busiest yet that never ever gave me the issue redoing optimal Ast's opener does in the same timeframe. I play exclusively on controller which is where most people who say they get pain from playing Ast comes from and it is unanimously Sleeve Draw and the targeting system that get cited for why.

High Apm is not an issue if spaced out well, nin is a good example of it, Ast is a good example when High Apm is not spaced out well.

The difference is the new RNG system has a single output, a direct DPS buff.
AST still have a RNG system to play around with, but the effect of this on the party is consistent, it becomes a job mechanic rather than a party mechanic.

The old system was an RNG system that impacted the entire party, which is why you were forced to fish for Balances to produce a consistent output.

The party do not care about your RNG minigame, they just want DPS.

And I'm not saying the new system is perfect. They most certainly can streamline the mechanics so that APM is spread out, but this can be done with the new superior card effects, and doesn't require the old RNG mess.

[ReiMakoto]

SO they were all useless. Right. So you're not sad to see them go then.

And Ninja, and in high level content, pretty much everyone with buff windows.
Expanded Arrow was a big no-no, but everyone still used it under the delusion that it was a DPS increase.


That's what I'm saying. From a balancing perspective, they either become essential and puts AST at a huge healing disadvantage, OR (is was the case most of the time) they were useless, which means they were a bonus when you did get them, putting AST at an unfair advantage in some very select situations.
But because this is weighed against their DPS output, this actually put them at a disadvantage in the meta.
AST was only ever selected in high end content for their raid buffs, specifically Expanded-Balance, and if the rng didn't smile on them, they single handedly tanked the entire raid.
The rest of the party do not give a single shit what your other cards did, they only needed you for the Balance. Except Bards, the Crit junkies.

You were raiding with some odd people if they didn't like getting expanded crit as well, free damage is free damage. If you even raid that is.

They weren't useless, if you read what I said their use was being royal roaded in the case of ewer, and bole could be used in niche circumstance, but was mostly used as a lesser option in the case of bad rng to give an enhanced card to a job. These are not being useless, they are the uses for the card, its just not as useful from its direct effect, and in the case of bole, the best thing imo about an rng class is having to adjust around bad rng as still make an "optimal" move, so if you adjusted correctly around a bole and threw out an enhanced card you were still being useful. AST was also selected because it was very good at solo healing iirc, most solo heals I saw used ast over the other 2. I raided all of SB with and without an AST at various times, people did give a shit about the other cards, getting expanded balance or crit under the trick+chain window was amazing, again arrow just needed adjustments maybe to being a dhit buff.

All of this is detracting from my initial point, that is you claiming it was objectively impossible to balance. It was not, it was just hard to balance. Every card had a use, just not necessarily all of their uses were to be played.

[Seraphor]

You were raiding with some odd people if they didn't like getting expanded crit as well, free damage is free damage. If you even raid that is.

Crit sure, is better than nothing, so sure it's not all or nothing, but it's still true that you priorities were Balance >>> Spear >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Arrow > Anything else.
That's a waste of an RNG system if there ever was one.

I raided towards the end of SB but never as AST because of how much hate it got.
All of my worst interactions in this game have, by far, been playing AST in SB.
Purely by way of using an undesirable card. Whether purely by accident, or because as a controller player it was usually easier to use the card to get rid of it than to click it off/undraw.
Would result in SO MUCH Salt from people who got "the wrong card". I was lectured for 5 minutes in the middle of a dungeon after using a Ewer on a DRK when I was simply getting rid of it. Yes, I knew Ewer was useless for DRK, I was just getting rid of the card and happened to have the DRK selected.
I was kicked, my only ever kick in my 3 years of playing this game, from Rabanastre when I 'got rid' of a Ewer by using it, when I mistakenly had an expanded RR up, and it wasn't even in a battle, it was while sliding down the sewers...

In comparison, Shadowbringers AST is an absolute JOY to play, simply because other players don't care what cards you use because as far as they're concerned you can't really go wrong, you always have either a ranged or a melee in the party. You just need to get those Divinations out and how you do that is your responsibility. Your job mechanic is YOUR mechanic, not everyone else's. And that's what makes this system objectively better.

[ReiMakoto]

Crit sure, is better than nothing, so sure it's not all or nothing, but it's still true that you priorities were Balance >>> Spear >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Arrow > Anything else.
That's a waste of an RNG system if there ever was one.

I raided towards the end of SB but never as AST because of how much hate it got.
All of my worst interactions in this game have, by far, been playing AST in SB.
Purely by way of using an undesirable card. Whether purely by accident, or because as a controller player it was usually easier to use the card to get rid of it than to click it off/undraw.
Would result in SO MUCH Salt from people who got "the wrong card". I was lectured for 5 minutes in the middle of a dungeon after using a Ewer on a DRK when I was simply getting rid of it. Yes, I knew Ewer was useless for DRK, I was just getting rid of the card and happened to have the DRK selected.
I was kicked, my only ever kick in my 3 years of playing this game, from Rabanastre when I 'got rid' of a Ewer by using it, when I mistakenly had an expanded RR up, and it wasn't even in a battle, it was while sliding down the sewers...

In comparison, Shadowbringers AST is an absolute JOY to play, simply because other players don't care what cards you use because as far as they're concerned you can't really go wrong, you always have either a ranged or a melee in the party. You just need to get those Divinations out and how you do that is your responsibility. Your job mechanic is YOUR mechanic, not everyone else's. And that's what makes this system objectively better.

Im not quite sure what you mean about the new system being "your mechanic", other players never effected what cards you got before. If youre saying what i think youre saying then what has changed is community perception regarding rdps, and overall its providing the same effect as the old system just in a more (subjectively boring) streamlined way. If anything with how new cards work you need to be more aware of other players than before to optimise your damage so that you give out your cards whilst people are in their burst windows rather than just having a fixed time to throw out your cards.

[Seraphor]

Im not quite sure what you mean about the new system being "your mechanic", other players never effected what cards you got before. If youre saying what i think youre saying then what has changed is community perception regarding rdps, and overall its providing the same effect as the old system just in a more (subjectively boring) streamlined way. If anything with how new cards work you need to be more aware of other players than before to optimise your damage so that you give out your cards whilst people are in their burst windows rather than just having a fixed time to throw out your cards.

Did you read the middle paragraph of my post?
Other players clearly considered AST cards as a part of their gameplay because they would analyse every card you used and judge you for it constantly, and get offended if you used a card they didn't want you to use.
Now, you are just trusted to perform your job optimally, just like every other job in the game.

I'm not saying the new system is easier, by many metrics it's harder to optimise, which if anything is more challenge, more skill, rather than just RNG.