5.3 changes

[Risvertasashi]

And this right there is my problem.
I don't see anything wrong with some healers needing to closely watch their MP while others don't. Not to the extend that it's pretty much impossible to take a raise or recover from a death unless you're running extremely high Piety, that's overdoing it. But having at least one healer with the added layer of keeping a close eye on their MP and MP tools isn't inherently wrong.
Healers having different strengths and weaknesses isn't a bad thing.

Well, to be fair - We all do have to watch MP like this. Regardless of what healer you (theoretical 'you') might play, you have to pop lucid on CD, and your other MP button (Aetherflow/Thin Air/Draw). If you stop paying attention to that, you will run out in any decent length boss fight where healing isn't completely nonexistent.

The real problem is that it's hard to add dimensions to it beyond "use this tool whenever you can".

Also, on the DPS side, casters are the same way. Well, BLM and PLD use it differently - they have "build and spend" mechanics. But RDM and SMN just don't care about MP, unless rezzes start happening. Pop lucid, and forget about MP is their modus operandi too.

[Recon1o6]

This is less an AST issue, and more a kind of "the concept of MP and resource management" issue. AST now won't care about piety, like the others healers.

MP management is tricky. I think I'm going to trend towards a rather radical stance: MP should probably be removed like TP, eventually. The real resource in FFXIV is time/GCDs. Any time MP stops someone from casting they are going to complain, because no one wants to be standing around doing nothing.

Well you say that, but then we've had excellent mp systems in the past before Sb and Shb that became another differentiating and fun part of the jobs. In some case it was a resource to manage, in others a fun differential part of the playstyle

Whm had naturally higher mp regen and self buffs designed to negate its mp costs so it was a slow burner, plus shroud of saints
Astro had luminerferous aether and ewer to regen mp
Sch had aetherflow and energy drain and had its entire gameplay loop based around juggling damage/healing bursts with aetherflow for mp and energy drain to regain stacks

Blm still has its ice/fire rotation and flare which removes all mp and plants the blm in fire stance with no mp regen, yet that still had a place
Smn also had the aetherflow rotation
Rdm doesn't, but that's its entire schtick. Rdm's don't have mp regen. Whereas whm's borrowed their mp from nature which explains their focus on efficiency, rdm's just use their own and so have no mp cost reduction or restoration. But they do use their accelerators in order to make small costs into more powerful spells

Drk also used to have mp rotation back in Hw. Using dark arts and mp attacks sparingly, then taking the time to regain mp from syphon strike, blood price, blood weapon etc.
Pld's have one too. Its just riot blade followed by their spell combo. But its something

[LariaKirin]

TL;DR

AST new BIS is 0 piety and your MP regen will be better than any high-piety set pre-patch.
ASTs running speedkill (low-piety) sets are malding because of the rdps loss from Sleeve Draw.
If you were running high-piety before, your new secondary stats will almost negate the aforementioned rdps loss.

MP management is dead.

[Saefinn]

Hmm, what if they just reduced the recast on sleeve draw? Less urgency with constant target swapping, but keeping a higher frequency of cards?

[Maltothoris]

Whm had naturally higher mp regen and self buffs designed to negate its mp costs so it was a slow burner, plus shroud of saints

I'm not sure about the higher mp regen given how whm had the worst mp economy back in heavensward. Also the proc changes for their mp costs were too low for it really make a difference. They were 15% for both free cure and overcure and then 20 percent for esuna and medica (the medica one being really low cause helios naturally would be more mp efficient than it when it was mapped out).

However the changes to mp for astro, I wonder if they'll make any changes to piety in the future to try to make it useful outside of prog but given how things are, it will most likely go the war of tenacity.

[Crushnight]

My concern is how it will affect the consistency of divination in ast's opener.

Because of how you can't gain a seal unless you or your target has already hit something, if the game fails to register that first seal, div will be off kilter from the rest of the parties buff window for the entirety of a fight. (unless you hold it til the next window which is equally terrible)

On top of that, to have div ready for your opener, the party would need to wait to let ast's draw come off cd, which isn't very common outside of an organised party

As far as controller issues, I can't say much. I'ma controller user (play on console), but i've never personally felt taxed by Sleeve draw

With 1 card from Sleeve Draw, organised parties with an Ast are going to want 20s-25s pull timers so Draw is reset before bursts happen and can use Sleeve Draw, the chance to not get 2 different seals before needing Sleeve Draw for last one is very low with 3x Redraw, it makes the Ast 3 seal Divination opener a lot more consistent.

However this all came at the cost of 2 Lord/Lady cards, so 2x 8% on highest burst Dps during the opener for a nearly 100% 6% Divination on everyone.

This loss repeats for every 6 mins into a fight.

So something like Shiva Savage you lost 6x 8% dmg up on your best Dps players for a 6% Divination opener and less target swapping issues.

Is that worth it, nope, at least for PC players, but for controller players, possibly, but that be based on the individual, but most controller players were complaining about Sleeve Draw's target switching when they were trying to play optimal(Doing Malefic, card, Malefic, card, Malefic, card, Malefic, card in a 8 man party)

[Crushnight]

Forgot to mention the other times sleeve Draw comes off CD so extra 2xcards loss in between those 6 mins losses (it varies how much based on your seals could be 2x 6%, 1x6%+1x8% or 2x8% loss)

[Aomine1992]

I’m happy with the mp changes, it was a chore managing AST MP if things went bad in a raid, you would get stuck doing nothing at some point and heavily relied to much on light speed windows. I play on controller so I’m okay with sleeve draw changes because my openers were just too hectic with the cycling of theee extra cards on top of two regular draw cards.

I welcome the changes, because I was definitely sick of piety builds.....

[elioaiko]

I'm overall happy with the changes. MP management is rather shallow anyway.

Some may argue that it's something to manage or keeps AST in check.

Idk that doesn't seem right to me. It's arbitrary because the other healers do not suffer from the drawbacks.

It's either you meld piety or don't. Simple and if you're an omnihealer, it's just frustrating to have to remeld.

Also both WHM and SCH still have 2 ways of MP recovery, AST didn't and now they do.

As someone who plays on controller, I might even pick up AST again since Sleeve Draw was revamped.

[Synaesthesia]

One draw at a time could be sort of boring but I feel like taking care of usability issues is important.. If it turns out to be really boring, I'll just switch to Scholar for the next tier ^^;