About Endwalkers AST changes

[Recon1o6]

The worst bit is, this is completely unneccessary. Its just another nail in the coffin of job identity.
We've seen most of sage's toolkit. Surprise, most of it is regens not shields. Despite being a "barrier" healer.

Right now japan has its definitions wrong. Pure healing is doing healing and nothing else. What japan calls pure healing is actually regenerative healing. Which all the healers have in bulk.

[Gemina]

Correction, Divination will still affects the whole party but no longer use Seals. Seals will be used for a new self-buff for AST.

I am not so sure. AST card system looks like it has been completely reworked, and we are going to have to wait to see all the new/updated tooltips. Going back to the video, I was quick to identify the skills, but then there was quite a bit of, "What the hell is happening? I don't know WTF is going on." I actually graded AST's ability trailer a solid A. It had everything an ability trailer should have.

According to the LL, the effects of Divination have been changed. It can be used in "normal circumstances", which I feel is a bit vague. That comment came after it was mentioned that the effects of Divination were luck of the draw; implying they wanted to get away from that. After scratching my head a bit, I just decided to look at the trailer and slow everything way down.

In the trailer, the animation for Divination not only did not require all three seals, it did not consume the seal they had. I have no idea what it did. However, in the LL it was said that based on the seal(s) acquired, it grants the AST a beneficial effect, so I think Ootarion was actually correct. It is possible that ASTs signature AoE Balance has been pruned.

As far as the seals go, when they do get consumed, it clearly does something to only the AST. I think this granted them the ability to use the Star Shower. I think the multiple Gravity spheres that came before it is likely an upgraded Gravity. They casted that, while the Star Shower was instant. We have to remember that AST is no longer switch hitter; it competes directly with WHM now, and since WHM has its feet firmly in the ground, AST is the job that will change.

[Gemina]

The worst bit is, this is completely unneccessary. Its just another nail in the coffin of job identity.
We've seen most of sage's toolkit. Surprise, most of it is regens not shields. Despite being a "barrier" healer.

Right now japan has its definitions wrong. Pure healing is doing healing and nothing else. What japan calls pure healing is actually regenerative healing. Which all the healers have in bulk.

Ignoring anyone's definition of pure healer and just going from observation, what defines a pure healer is that it isn't a barrier healer. If we were to go off of an ability to use HoTs, then you are correct because as you say, all the healers have this ability. But then the same could be said for shields and barrier healers, as even WHM has an ability to shield a ST including the self, and another to mitigate raid damage.

However, I believe what truly separates barrier and pure healers is their ability to use shields and HoTs on demand respectively. Currently, WHM and Diurnal AST can sustain their HoTs via the GCD; SCH and Noct AST can due this respectively with shields via the GCD. Of course, we could get into if sustained shields and HoTs are even necessary in most content, but that would be getting into encounter design. I just think that SE wants to sway away from forced comps, and to give flexibility to the Duty Finder to allow for two barrier or pure healers that way queue time doesn't go through the roof.

[Aelin_Ashryver]

"Removed Diurnal Sect/Nocturnal Sect. Heals will have old effects during Diurnal Sect built in."

Why? It was one of the things that makes the class appealing....please stop pandering to those with the cognitive skills of a rock by over simplifying the game. If someone cannot comprehend, then that is no excuse to ruin it for people who can :/

Nocturnal sect is hot garbage, they refused to make it decent for fear of it pushing scholar out of it's niche I suppose. It was also something that attracted me to the job but I quickly realised how poorly the sect performs. Go do Ucob in diurnal then in nocturnal stance. They are not "over simplifying" the game because people don't comprehend, people that play ast have been well aware just how much nocturnal sucks and had been asking for buffs for the stance, SE jus wouldn't make it on a par with diurnal. They rather remove it. I am salty they remove noct but more salty they didn't make it feel good to play in the first place.

[RyuDragnier]

Nocturnal sect is hot garbage, they refused to make it decent for fear of it pushing scholar out of it's niche I suppose. It was also something that attracted me to the job but I quickly realised how poorly the sect performs. Go do Ucob in diurnal then in nocturnal stance. They are not "over simplifying" the game because people don't comprehend, people that play ast have been well aware just how much nocturnal sucks and had been asking for buffs for the stance, SE jus wouldn't make it on a par with diurnal. They rather remove it. I am salty they remove noct but more salty they didn't make it feel good to play in the first place.

They've been unable to since HW. And since 4.0 I've been saying they needed to get rid of the Sects because the Sects were the thing holding the job back from being balanced and the best it can be. I'm upset it took SE this long to realize what I realized at Stormblood.

[Kabooa]

Please take in to consideration that this is all speculation, but hopefully it helps some of you put it all together.

Divination: No longer uses seals. Likely still a party buff.

Draw: Deals with the primary Arcana. Seals are gained from this.

Lady/Lord Draw: This is a supplemental draw. We do not know how it's gained, but likely just a separate ability. You will draw either Lord or Lady - Perhaps random, perhaps set.

Lord: Deals an OGCD AoE attack. Notice upon casting this action that the Bomb has the impact stagger of getting hit.

Lady: Deals an OGCD AoE party based action, likely a heal.

Seals: These are consumed to enhance the Astrologian in some way. *scrubbed*

Gravity upgrade may be related to the Seal buff, but not likely.

Starfall: This is a potential three part ability, likely enabled via the seals. It applies a buff to Allies (Notice the yellow buff application visual on the Reaper), strikes enemies (Again, notice the impact stagger on the bomb), and may potentially debuff them. (There's a blue purplish smoke vfx on the bomb - this may just be a generic damage marker though that's usually covered up by flash VFX).

Then a single target buff / barrier that all healers seem to get, and some sort of delayed heal akin to horoscope but faster.

[Boizinho]

Seals: These are consumed to enhance the Astrologian in some way. Expect this to replace Neutral sect.

Neutral Sect is staying, and still grants barriers. They say it early on in the AST slide.

[Muutaras]

"Removed Diurnal Sect/Nocturnal Sect. Heals will have old effects during Diurnal Sect built in."

Why? It was one of the things that makes the class appealing....please stop pandering to those with the cognitive skills of a rock by over simplifying the game. If someone cannot comprehend, then that is no excuse to ruin it for people who can :/

"we thought for a very long time whether to give the rest of the healers a stun like whm's Holy because it will kill the uniqueness of the class", but we kill the second uniqueness of the AST after we killed the first uniqueness system of cards in ShB

Duplicity and a casual system for those who do not ask for it, how it is, why it was necessary to remove the stun from the AST, no one knows, given that it was only one stun with a CD of 45 or 60 seconds. AST was a nice RNG playstyle with cards and variability, but now you can only have two choices, and it looks like it will be even worse further, but we are waiting for the release update for jobs page. Until the policy changes towards creating an interesting and sometimes complex game, you can not expect complex game mechanics in the works, especially on heals.

[Adrameliya]

Nocturnal Sect was the reason I loved AST, they completely ruined it for me

I’m just gonna switch to Sage like everyone else I guess

[Liam_Harper]

I'm glad they're keeping Neutral personally. I'm just curious to see what will happen with Collective Unconsciousness and if it will keep the 10% mitigation on channel/flash. Theoretically it should, being the Diurnal effect, but they might decide it's stepping too far into barrier territory.

Functionally, it's a 10% raid mitigation for raidwides with half the cooldown of Temperance. It's an extremely good ability for that reason.