5.3 COMPLETE patch notes

[Kolsykol]

Nascent Flash No longer requires a target party member to execute.

Might level my Warrior now, I never liked the idea of having to press a party member like that.

[SenorPatty]

Nascent Flash No longer requires a target party member to execute.

Preach to the choir!

Also, one unsung qol that I will laud: Enmity reset on training dummies. It's been one of my biggest requested qols and I'm so glad to see finally here. The next step is being able to reset your cds when engaged with a training dummy, thus making rotation training a snap.

Also very happy with the recipe lookup via mats. It always felt bad for me to have to either alt tab or dedicate my second monitor just to google recipe search via mats.

[MoonPhaseAlpha]

Flying in ARR... I can now go back into those zones and do beast tribe quests without getting annoyed that I can't fly... Yes, first world problems.

Oh, and the Puppets' Bunker. If it's anything like Copied Factory, let the fun times begin!

[Lium]

For AST. Sleeve Draw now only draws one card but is guaranteed to be a different seal. That sounds great but how does that work for Divination now? Typically on boss fights, I open up with Sleeve Draw, then make my way around the group handing out the appropriate card buffs, then activate Divination. With this change, it sounds like you only get one card per cooldown? Or does it stack three times similar to Redraw?

If it's the former, then what's the purpose of Draw? Other then its MP reduction. I guess for the Lord/Lady buff?

Neutral Sect. I use this on big pulls while under Diurnal Sect. But with this change and being able to stack HoTs while under Nocturnal Sect, will this be the preferred sect to use now in all group content?

LOVE the change to Horoscope. I hate it when it runs out because I mistimed its use.

[Ilenya]

I feel like, if it doesn't have charges it probably should be a slightly lower cooldown (ie, still greater than 90 seconds to not replace every third draw for a complete set, but still have it be slightly more available), but I admit I am not an AST main and the inner workings of AST still throw me off.

[Amnmaat]

Monk change to Form shift is great but I just want Greased Lightning gone in 5.4 already. If they manage to make it a "trait" like they said, and make it passive like WHM lillies that would fix so many of Monk's problems.

Other than that I'll be honest, this patch looks pretty empty. It won't last beyond the first week. One of the changes I'm hoping for in fanfest is this announcement:
-Relic quests will start at the beginning of every patch starting with 6.1.

[Esmoire]

My take on the Storm's Eye thing:

I did feel it should be changed so it has a max length longer than what the actual Storm's Eye combo gave you. As it is now, sometimes it was better to let the buff go down for a GCD (as long as you were not spending gauge), because whenever you do the combo, you don't have 30 sec of time added; it is set to 30 sec, and you want to avoid "wasting" the time added by maximizing Storm's Path usage instead. I get the nuance of the optimization has appeal, but just from a game design perspective, it feels better if you want to keep the buff up all the time.

I would have settled for 40 sec max duration (still 30/10 sec from your combos). 60 sec is a lot, and going to be interesting. I don't really care too much about what raiders want out of it and think more about what your everyday WAR wants; doing their trash pulls and stuff, WAR more often will be inclined to max out their timer since they will be able to refresh it at the start of the next pull with their AOE more often, which is good. Will feel a lot better.

Having it extended by 15 sec on IR... Well, okay. Feels excessive but for all in all inoffensive.

[Rilifane]

I'm not, merely working on the assumption that outside of savage the mere thought of waiting 30 seconds to pull will never happen.

I agree it doesn't cripple AST in the high end (though not being able to layer lord/lady with div will be bad) but it will make playing it in DF content even more of a chore. No other job feels so extra bad without an opener, sleeve draw mitigated that enough for me to AST some casual stuff but no longer.

Outside of savage, raidbuffs are all over the place anyway so I doubt people care too much about how it affects any non-endgame content.
Even if a tank pulls right as the barriers drops, if you Draw right as you zone in, first Divination is a bit delayed but will most likely realign later unless everyone keeps everything perfectly on CD regardless of mechanics. Only few people do a proper raid opener in normal content because they either don't even know their opener or there's simply no time with a tank pulling any second. Even precasting on BLM or RdM is hit and miss.
For savage, it's a not an issue. Wether you wait 30s or 15s between pulls hardly makes a difference for 9min+ fights.

I certainly won't care about a slightly misaligned Divination in casual content. What I don't like, however, is the fact that they simplified something that only affected the skill ceiling while people not liking it or not wanting to go through the trouble of optimizing it never had to. Using Sleeve properly is incredibly low on the AST priority list, optimizing it an endgame content-only thing.
Balance discord was on fire the whole day because of it.
I just hope that SE changes it again to something that offers more than basically an additional Draw on 180s cooldown. That's about as underwhelming as Impro from DNC in a fight without downtime and really lackluster for the 70 capstone ability.
Outside opener Divination, you always had plenty of time to fish for seals so the guaranteed seal is nice for opener but unlikely to make a difference for subsequent Divinations.

[Ilenya]

I certainly won't care about a slightly misaligned Divination in casual content. What I don't like, however, is the fact that they simplified something that only affected the skill ceiling while people not liking it or not wanting to go through the trouble of optimizing it never had to. Using Sleeve properly is incredibly low on the AST priority list, optimizing it an endgame content-only thing.

This makes it sound like every other healer change the past two expansions.

[Infindox]

Other than that I'll be honest, this patch looks pretty empty. It won't last beyond the first week.

This is a "catch-up" and QoL patch. There will be a big influx of new people playing because of the trial game including HW as well as just general changes to ARR (I have so many people going to start tomorrow because they were waiting on the ARR fix). They also added a weekly in the Unreal fight and a daily that'll last for a least a few weeks with Dwarves.