How could you do this to AST?

[Luin]

They said we'd be "pure healers" in Shadowbringers, nothing changed. They're saying the exact same thing this expansion, and meaning something entirely different.

We've been shown nothing about our new skills, Sage's new skills, or what's being cut. This is a kneejerk reaction.

edit - And I see AST drama. Cards only ever increased damage, cards like Bole/Ewer while potentially strong were unreliable and couldn't be planned around. Getting anything that didnt increase damage was bad. Functionally, the cards have not changed.

When comparing healers, use combined Healer DPS metrics. AST+SCH's major strength is their ogcd healing. Just looking at AST's rDPS doesn't show AST's full strength. It has the most rDPS contribution, the most mobility, and the best healing kit. It's overpowered.

While its discouraged to have 2 phys R and 2 casters its not an actively bad choice.

The physical ranged role is literally only viable due to the 1% unique role bonus.

[Rilifane]

Something that might work is something like
- a card that gives a x % damage bonus fo the next x attacks with a potency of or above certain threshhold (e.g. 350 potency). Great for classes that have some hard-hitting skills outside their 2min burst phase like SAMs Midare and combo finishers, NINs combo finisher, DNC Standard & SD if it coincides with them having to dump Esprit, RDM melee combo and to a lesser extend DRG
- a card with longer/ shorter duration but weaker/stronger damage buff for classes that have less spiky dps of very short spikes
- a card that lets them use a skill without having it consume the special resource e.g. free Xeno, Midare, Shinten, Saber Dance, Bhava, Misery (yes, a card could actually be nice on a WhM), melee combo
- a card that gives x % damage bonus for every party member in a x yard radius, preferably with dynamic scaling checking with every server tick, making it stronger if the raid is (and stays) properly stacked and encourages rerolls when mechanics forced you to spread

There are more options but those are some from the top of my head that could work with properly adjusted numbers.

Freecure and Enhanced Benefic alter the next cast and it's possible to cast Cure II with Freecure below 1k mana, so it seems entirely possible with how combat and skills are coded to design buffs that enable the use of skills without having the required resources.
Not as easy to balance as flat damage increases because the cards have to be fairly close together in terms of rDPS if played correctly but ASTs would need to pay more attention to which card goes to who and where players are in their rotation. Higher skill ceiling than holding onto cards for as long as possible and then slapping them on the classic 90s/ 2min burst windows because they're a bit more situational and class-dependant.
Could also make for some fun combinations if you're lucky and cards with different effects stack like giving the resource-free skills card to someone with a damage boost for skills above x potency right after. Nukes go BRRRR.

[RyuDragnier]

For the cards, they could simply keep how they work currently (in terms of pulling, redrawing, using, and the seals), revert the old card effects back (while keeping current Minor Arcana), and make Minor Arcana only usable once every minute. This still allows that valued damage buff via Minor Arcana and Divination, but also allows them to bring back the old cards back into the equation while changing up Spire and Balance to be more in line with current game systems. Spire I feel would be best as a Direct Hit buff. Balance...that one is up in the air, but I'm thinking it giving the player hit an HP drain on their attacks would probably work.

[ForteNightshade]

For the cards, they could simply keep how they work currently (in terms of pulling, redrawing, using, and the seals), revert the old card effects back (while keeping current Minor Arcana), and make Minor Arcana only usable once every minute. This still allows that valued damage buff via Minor Arcana and Divination, but also allows them to bring back the old cards back into the equation while changing up Spire and Balance to be more in line with current game systems. Spire I feel would be best as a Direct Hit buff. Balance...that one is up in the air, but I'm thinking it giving the player hit an HP drain on their attacks would probably work.

Direct Hit is essentially weaker Crit. So that instantly slots Spear ahead of new Spire in every scenario.

As for new Balance. Do you mean the chosen target loses HP in exchange for increased damage? If so, that could cause some serious issues with raid wide AoEs. If the effect can more or less be negated with Bloodbath, it isn't much of a drawback. Conversely, were it to deal enough damage to be impactful. You're now forcing the selected target to stop attacking in order to survive. And they may still die if not thrown extra heals. Considering the dev team went out of their way to avoid HP drain effects on Dark Knight, a job whose entire history is surrounded those mechanics. There's no chance they would even consider putting such an effect on Astro's cards.

[Payadopa]

For the cards, they could simply keep how they work currently (in terms of pulling, redrawing, using, and the seals), revert the old card effects back (while keeping current Minor Arcana), and make Minor Arcana only usable once every minute. This still allows that valued damage buff via Minor Arcana and Divination, but also allows them to bring back the old cards back into the equation while changing up Spire and Balance to be more in line with current game systems. Spire I feel would be best as a Direct Hit buff. Balance...that one is up in the air, but I'm thinking it giving the player hit an HP drain on their attacks would probably work.

I like that idea. Best of both worlds and a nice compromise.

[Yuletide]

Ok. I really don't think it's a problem.

And if you and your friend want to play WHM & AST then just do it. Who cares if they are both main heal. If you are a true savage raider then you'd understand you can do savage content with basically any healer comp. Only the tank comp really matters. The fact that you have Bene from WHM is all you need for tank invul. Like what is the issue?

[HyoMinPark]

Then remind me why were the forums filled with WHM and AST topics during HW?

Because AST was bordering on unplayable at 3.0 launch. By 3.2, it was doing better, but still had a stigma attached to it that caused the developers to buff it once more in 3.3, and then we have the 20% Balance in 3.4 - which killed WHM completely.

As for WHM, WHM was the worst healer by the time Creator released. Couldn't compete with AST in utility, damage, and had terrible MP management (which AST was a god at managing their mana in HW). The forums had healer topics because one of them was underpowered or one was simply too strong. They were never balanced, and a lot of that was due to AST being broken.

No reasonable poster was fine with AST being as strong as it was. Especially WHM mains. And yet, you would rather them remain overpowered, as per your post that I replied to? That makes no sense.

Others did not feel like garbage at all. This is how people felt when their Job was not taken into speed kills and they did not see their favorite YouTuber/streamer playing their job.
I remember when someone asks which healer job should they pick, and the answers were mostly AST or SCH.

Were you intentionally trying to contradict yourself with this comment? You said that you think AST should have been "let be" and remained overpowered...but now you're saying that WHMs would feel bad when people would tell them to just play AST and not WHM because AST craps all over it? Was this intentional?

Even if you look at the number of clears on healers during HW. WHM had the least number of recorded clears. It did affect peoples' mentality.

And yet, you're still advocating for it to remain overpowered.

They should change AST cards & abilities to the way they were before.
Yes AST was OP, Let it be.

Again, were you willingly trying to contradict yourself here?

[IDontPetLalas]

Something that might work is something like
- a card that gives a x % damage bonus fo the next x attacks with a potency of or above certain threshhold (e.g. 350 potency). Great for classes that have some hard-hitting skills outside their 2min burst phase like SAMs Midare and combo finishers, NINs combo finisher, DNC Standard & SD if it coincides with them having to dump Esprit, RDM melee combo and to a lesser extend DRG
- a card with longer/ shorter duration but weaker/stronger damage buff for classes that have less spiky dps of very short spikes
- a card that lets them use a skill without having it consume the special resource e.g. free Xeno, Midare, Shinten, Saber Dance, Bhava, Misery (yes, a card could actually be nice on a WhM), melee combo
- a card that gives x % damage bonus for every party member in a x yard radius, preferably with dynamic scaling checking with every server tick, making it stronger if the raid is (and stays) properly stacked and encourages rerolls when mechanics forced you to spread

There are more options but those are some from the top of my head that could work with properly adjusted numbers.

Freecure and Enhanced Benefic alter the next cast and it's possible to cast Cure II with Freecure below 1k mana, so it seems entirely possible with how combat and skills are coded to design buffs that enable the use of skills without having the required resources.
Not as easy to balance as flat damage increases because the cards have to be fairly close together in terms of rDPS if played correctly but ASTs would need to pay more attention to which card goes to who and where players are in their rotation. Higher skill ceiling than holding onto cards for as long as possible and then slapping them on the classic 90s/ 2min burst windows because they're a bit more situational and class-dependant.
Could also make for some fun combinations if you're lucky and cards with different effects stack like giving the resource-free skills card to someone with a damage boost for skills above x potency right after. Nukes go BRRRR.

That sounds like a nightmare to manage, not to mention being lackluster at best when soloing. No thank you.

[RyuDragnier]

As for new Balance. Do you mean the chosen target loses HP in exchange for increased damage?

I mean it basically gives Bloodbath to a target, regardless if they're DPS, healer, or tank. So if you put it on a WHM, and they use Glare, they're healing for a percentage of the damage they dealt to a target. Same would go for anybody it's put on, including say, a DRK who just entered Walking Dead.

[Ultimatecalibur]

bardam mettle are one such few examples I love using, something about that dungeon put a major dent on tanks no matter how much you spam regens cause idk some of these dungeons seem a little too bad ilvl sync , while you have dungeons like the current matoya dungeon that the mobs feels they barely even do damage.

Bardam's Mettle's difficulty was due to a 27% spike in gear Def and M.Def from ilevel 270 to 276. Matoya's Relict feels weak because the average tank goes in with 20%(i500) to 45%(i530) more Vit and 7%(i500) to 14%(i530) more Def/M.Def than the dungeon is designed for (i470).