About Endwalkers AST changes

[Muutaras]

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

For me AST will be like pure heal and Sage for shielding. Until then don't remove on WHM stun or will give this skill to others. I will continue to ignore this class.I don't like the "schoolboy" aesthetically, so only two adequate classes will be, let's see what happens in the end.

[EaMett]

Questions of identity and gameplay asside. It looks like AST is going to be pretty meta. We'll need to see the tooltips and potencies but I would not be surprised if WHM/AST was the dream comp. Neutral would probably give you just the amount of shields you need.

[Acece]

Questions of identity and gameplay asside. It looks like AST is going to be pretty meta. We'll need to see the tooltips and potencies but I would not be surprised if WHM/AST was the dream comp. Neutral would probably give you just the amount of shields you need.

Tbh it's probably going to be ast + 2nd highest DPS. Unless they fucked ast healing pot again.

[VictorTheed]

I like shield healing and doin DPS so I'm switching my healer of choice to Sage.

Farewell astro as my healer, u will be missed, HW to SHB 5.5

[Mansion]

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.

For me the problem is that current encounter design doesn't require "on demand" shields or regens, because as everything is scripted, everything is planned in advance with oGCDs (which are more powerfull, mana efficient and not a DPS loss). Even barriers are unnecessary most of the time because there is very little damage that requires more HP than players' life pools. So being able to shield/apply regen whenever falls short in my opinion.
SCH has the strongest single target regen (the fairy link) and decent regens with the fairy or upgraded sacred soil, diurnal AST and WHM can weave in a single target shield that helps mitigate tank damage in raids.
That's why the barrier/pure healer duality doesn't work for me, we need encouter design changes to make it work.

[Kraniel]

I have to say, as someone who's been maining AST since early SB days, and quite salty about the changes introduced to it up until this point, this time i've actually been mostly okay with what i've seen in the LL.
Let me explain :

1. Nocturnal Sect removed : Honestly, we all saw it coming, and it makes sense. Nocturnal AST was never going to be as efficient as SCH, and the only time you would use it was basically when you had 2 AST in the team. Not saying you can't play double barrier or complement a WHM with Nocturnal Sect, but most of the time it's not really worth it.
For me the most important thing was that they would not remove Neutral Sect, and they didn't, so ... i'm fine with this.

2. Divination not using seals anymore : I called this change in a different thread and i'm all for it. It doesn't currently make sense to "gate" Divination behind this falsely complex mechanic. Anyone who manages their seals right will have all three of them ready by the time Divination comes off CD very easily.

3. Cards used for self buff(s) : I'm kind of concerned with this one. They said we'll still have Redraw, which implies that cards will be different in some way ... I'm hoping that their effect will vary and that we're not just going to fish for seals again (but for a different spell) with all the same cards. That would just ultimately result in the same problem.

4. Having only one Redraw for each Draw instead of 3 charges : That's fine. Again i think with current AST, Redraw is kind of irrelevant if you manage your seals right, so if they make the seals even less relevant, then why not ... We'll have to see how it plays out with the new cards/buffs


Things i'm both concerned about and looking forward to :
1. New buffs : They mentioned all healers would get some buffs, which is i think a very good improvement towards giving us more things to do during downtime, BUT they also made it sound like AST wouldn't be able to use their cards on other targets anymore, which really sucks if you ask me. As much as i liked old AST, the seals mechanic is nowhere near to be a replacement for what we had before, so i think they should just free the main mechanic of AST (the cards) from it altogether. That would give them more room to be creative with the cards themselves.
2. Adjustments to Minor Arcana : Could go right or could go wrong ... impossible to say at this point but i'm curious to see what the changes are.

All in all i'd say the changes look good. Will they be enough to make AST more enjoyable to play ? That, we will need to see once EW comes out. There are many other parameters that will come into play, so it's too early to tell.

[MintnHoney]

BUT they also made it sound like AST wouldn't be able to use their cards on other targets anymore, which really sucks if you ask me.

Actually, ASTs can still apply their cards on other party members (and they demonstrate that in the actions trailer). The seals will now be used to buff the AST personally, however, using a new (?) action.
The one thing I'm confused about, is whether or not the AST can target another party member with a Lord or Lady, or if it will always be centered on the user.

[Saefinn]

We knew this was coming. Honestly? I'm okay with it. But the pay off needs to be there.
They're trying for a "pure" and "shield" healer balance and let's face it, for that to be achievable Nocturnal Sect has to go. There are potential advantages to them doing this and I really hope they achieve them, else it'd have been a waste. So I am worried about whether it will be redundant or actually work, but that all depends on balance and content - eg. shield healers need to rely on their shields otherwise they'll just use their pure heals. Looking at SGE's abilities...there is that concern.

The potential pay off if they get it right is that every healer only have 1 other healer it needs to be balanced against. And because Diurnal and Nocturnal are separate set ups, effectively every healer right now has 3 healers to balance against. Adding Sage would then make it 4. The potential knock on benefit is that they could then sacrifice less in the name of balance and homogenize less and potentially do more interesting stuff...though from the job trailers it doesn't look like they've tried the latter. With that said, I feel like AST comes out of it with improvements and Sage looks interesting and SCH and WHM feel like they got shafted.

Why do I think AST is likely coming off with improvements:

1 Charge of Redraw, this I think will aid the "card fishing" problem, I've generally felt if you get a bad card it should be better to Minor Arcana it and not fish. I've generally liked the idea of making useless cards useful and pre-ShB I felt like were were practically there, because you had a Minor Arcana system, you could Royal Road the card or you could reserve it for later use where it could be useful. I don't think simplifying the card system & make everything have the same effect was the answer but instead having something useful you could do with the card rather than fish. The current Minor Arcana system I think is the best solution for that.

It looks like they're getting new damage-related abilities, this will be good for breaking up the downtime. AST already has a card system that does this, but it looks like they might now get slightly more to break it up and I am for that.

It's WHM and SCH where I have my concerns.

[Kraniel]

Actually, ASTs can still apply their cards on other party members (and they demonstrate that in the actions trailer). The seals will now be used to buff the AST personally, however, using a new (?) action.
The one thing I'm confused about, is whether or not the AST can target another party member with a Lord or Lady, or if it will always be centered on the user.

Ah ok, good to know. I guess i didn't understand the wording well. So it is not the cards that are self-buffs, but the new ability that will use the seals ... Interesting. We'll have to see how that works out.
Now i'm just hoping that cards will have different effects again ... Else it would really feel like they only took half-measures to keep the useless seal mechanic, while making it less impactful by removing it as a condition for Divination :/

It's WHM and SCH where I have my concerns.

Totally. You can clearly feel that SE put most of their healer job design resources into SGE, a bit into AST, and basically left some crumbs for WHM and SCH.
That said, i've always been fine with WHM being the "dumb" healer class. I think every game needs one, or else people won't be willing to try out healer as the responsibilities can be a bit overwhelming when you're not familiar with the job. Granted WHM didn't need to be that dumbed down, but ...

(SCH on the other hand ... RIP)

[Saefinn]

Totally. You can clearly feel that SE put most of their healer job design resources into SGE, a bit into AST, and basically left some crumbs for WHM and SCH.
That said, i've always been fine with WHM being the "dumb" healer class. I think every game needs one, or else people won't be willing to try out healer as the responsibilities can be a bit overwhelming when you're not familiar with the job. Granted WHM didn't need to be that dumbed down, but ...

(SCH on the other hand ... RIP)

Yeah I feel WHM already was dumbed down, so I don't think they needed to do it further. I think its changes need to be simple:
- Have it so it feels powerful both in healing and DPS
- Have more to break up its monotony during DPS phases

That break up doesn't have to be complex at all.
Dia could be a debuff.
Glare could be a Lily dump - get to Afflatus Misery sooner without losing DPS to overhealing
Stone IV could be its own thing, either upgrade into Quake or proc into Quake (the latter I prefer)
Aero III could return and then be upgraded into Tornado.

For a newbie, it's still straight forward, the healing is the same
A newbie is more likely to reserve Lilies just in case, newbie Scholars do this with Aetherflow
The DPS moves aren't at all complicated.

But it add a layer of benefit to those longer DPS hauls:
- Lilies get used and Afflatus Misery comes more frequently, breaking up Glares and Holys
- Glares can break up Stone IV's spams too
- Stone IV can turn into a different effect with Quake, Quake would feel stronger and this would break up Stone IV spams
- Get an extra AoE step when Holy spamming. As Assize and Afflatus Misery are infrequent too.