4 Paired Threads: AST - How do you feel about it?

[Renathras]

[*]Some actions (e.g., Horoscope, Celestial Intersection, Neutral Sect, Exaltation) feel pretty uninteresting or just barely too redundant. I wouldn't want to outright trim any of them, but I'd gladly replace for something better.

I've refrained from commenting in these threads, because I really just want them to be collections of what people think, but I really want to ask about this one.

How do you find those abilities uninteresting?

Neutral Sect is, to me, one of the most powerful and most interesting abilities in the game because of how it works by altering some of your GCDs and giving you distinct functionality. It would be akin to if a DPS like MNK or DRG had an ability that let them be an off-tank or off-caster for 20 seconds or so. It basically lets AST be an "off-barrier healer", and it's one of AST's coolest abilities to me.

Exaltation is a better Taurochole, and I like how it works and what it does a lot, especially when considering it doesn't require being used on a tank but can be used on anyone you need to survive a hit. It also doesn't work like any other ability in the kit.

Intersection I'm a bit more mixed on - the barrier is smaller than Benison and the heal much smaller than Dignity - but I feel like being a hybrid barrier/heal makes it interesting. Much more interesting than stuff like Celestial Opposition or Essential Dignity itself.

And Horoscope feels interesting to me as a party heal that can be stocked for use at the most opportune time. It's a far more interesting variation on Plenary (though perhaps that's not saying much...), and it can be used to first heal (with one of the Helioses) then stock the second heal for after a following attack with a 30 second window to do so. It's like Earthly Star but with more direct involvement and even more control. And like Neutral Sect, it effectively modifies GCD heals.

In general, I like stuff like that (I like things like Emergency Tactics because they give you different ways to use various tools), and so Neutral and Horoscope I find very interesting.

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So I'm not being antagonistic or saying you're wrong, I'm just curious why you find what I feel are some of the most interesting buttons AST has to be "uninteresting". Or, rather, trying to understand what you find uninteresting about them. Especially when AST has abilities like Celestial Opposition and Essential Dignity which are much less interesting to me (not uninteresting - I find them to be interesting, too - just LESS so.)

[ASkellington]

I've refrained from commenting in these threads, because I really just want them to be collections of what people think, but I really want to ask about this one.

How do you find those abilities uninteresting?

Not the same person but here's why I personally don't:

Celestial Intersection stopped being interesting when Nocturnal Sect was removed. Its a shield now. Hooray. It doesn't interact with any other part of AST's kit (Neutral/Synastry) and got straight up replaced by a better and more thematic version of itself in EW (Exaltation). I personally would not mind for its removal. Its quite literally Divine Bension now. I'd rather it not be.

Neutral Sect not only invalidates AST lore (having to chose between each Sect as befits the job by combining the two) they also didn't think to make it work on the oGCDs that Nocturnal Sect changed once the sect was removed. Nocturnal worked on Celestial Intersection by making it a HoT instead of a shield (since all your buttons would be shields). Celestial Opposition would also be a shield. Collective Unconciousness also worked differently but the differences were so miniscule to me that it felt unchanged (it'd have made sense if Diurnal was HoT only and Noct was Mit only but CU ended up having both in both stances so... ???) And yet Neutral doesn't work in this way. Neutral I'm just infuriated by. Of the abilities I'd remove from AST in a heart beat this is first in line after Undraw and Astrodyne. I'd rather have a stance dancer healer than this cop out of an ability.


I want to like Horoscope but it feels like a wasted slot on my bars. I can run most content without it. Anything I would use it for Macrocosmos, Earthly Star, Collective and Opposition are right there. I'd find the skill more interesting if, like Synastry, it worked with more than just 2 buttons on my kit that I rarely use outside this one instance.

Exaltation I like, but I can see why it feels redundant (see Celestial Intersection). We don't need both. And of the two, I'd rather have this one (please for the love of Nymeia keep it at 60 seconds and no charges).

[Supersnow845]

Not the same person but here's why I personally don't:

Celestial Intersection stopped being interesting when Nocturnal Sect was removed. Its a shield now. Hooray. It doesn't interact with any other part of AST's kit (Neutral/Synastry) and got straight up replaced by a better and more thematic version of itself in EW (Exaltation). I personally would not mind for its removal. Its quite literally Divine Bension now. I'd rather it not be.

Neutral Sect not only invalidates AST lore (having to chose between each Sect as befits the job by combining the two) they also didn't think to make it work on the oGCDs that Nocturnal Sect changed once the sect was removed. Nocturnal worked on Celestial Intersection by making it a HoT instead of a shield (since all your buttons would be shields). Celestial Opposition would also be a shield. Collective Unconciousness also worked differently but the differences were so miniscule to me that it felt unchanged (it'd have made sense if Diurnal was HoT only and Noct was Mit only but CU ended up having both in both stances so... ???) And yet Neutral doesn't work in this way. Neutral I'm just infuriated by. Of the abilities I'd remove from AST in a heart beat this is first in line after Undraw and Astrodyne. I'd rather have a stance dancer healer than this cop out of an ability.


I want to like Horoscope but it feels like a wasted slot on my bars. I can run most content without it. Anything I would use it for Macrocosmos, Earthly Star, Collective and Opposition are right there. I'd find the skill more interesting if, like Synastry, it worked with more than just 2 buttons on my kit that I rarely use outside this one instance.

Exaltation I like, but I can see why it feels redundant (see Celestial Intersection). We don't need both. And of the two, I'd rather have this one (please for the love of Nymeia keep it at 60 seconds and no charges).

Honestly while it would further invalidate WHM in mitigationwalker I agree when when nocturnal was deleted they should have changed neutral to affect oGCD’s rather than GCD’s or even do like a charge system like new thin air where neutral affects the next eligible oGCD

Neutral makes no sense at all anymore but if they insist on keeping it I would much prefer it affect oGCD’s, I also agree exaltation should just supersede celestial intersection

[Renathras]

...

Hm...not trying to put words in your mouth, just trying to clarify:

It sounds like you are (jaded?) strongly opposed to Neutral Sect not because it's a bad ability itself, but because you're upset about what AST used to be vs what it now is and are angry at the ability as almost sorta mocking that in some way?

For lack of a better way to put it, that is.

[ASkellington]

Hm...not trying to put words in your mouth, just trying to clarify:

It sounds like you are (jaded?) strongly opposed to Neutral Sect not because it's a bad ability itself, but because you're upset about what AST used to be vs what it now is and are angry at the ability as almost sorta mocking that in some way?

For lack of a better way to put it, that is.

Neutral Sect isn't a good ability either. Not without changes. And honestly I'd rather not have those changes over two better versions of AST (a full regen/delayed healer with 0 shields or a hybrid stance dancer).

I quite literally called it remaining as a way for the devs to say "you still have Noct sect without having Noct sect, don't worry as we remove yet another piece of your lore and kit".

I see nothing good from an ability that helped ripped apart another piece of a class, and quite literally had no reason to exist if they just changed Diurnal and Nocturnal to where you could switch between them in combat.

[Shurrikhan]

So I'm not being antagonistic or saying you're wrong, I'm just curious why you find what I feel are some of the most interesting buttons AST has to be "uninteresting".

No, no, that's a fair question. Admittedly, my rationale is a little idiosyncratic.

To be clear, I don't give a damn how AST's analogs compare to other healers. The fact that a direct comparison is even possible already sours any merit they'd have by having a more "interesting" version of copy-pasta. If that "interest" comes from simply being more "functional" (e.g., less integral, more straightforward, more foolproof) or "powerful", I'd probably give negative damns.

That said, I can be a bit harsh to abilities that take up a space that I think would otherwise be, or previously was, taken up by more interesting alternatives. Which can be a bit hard to follow, as I'm then not critiquing the skill itself so much as the use of design space. That's largely the case with Horoscope, Celestial Intersection, Neutral Sect, and Exaltation.

Add to that some space-leaving for returned functionality to currently gutted abilities, rather than just judging them per their current forms, and I could see why my answer would seem contradictory. Current Celestial Opposition, for instance, is as dull as can be. And, of course, there are duller abilities, like Essential Dignity, that I just don't judge as harshly because I simply consider them, in turn, in regard to their available design space and needs they'd have to fulfill. We do need simple slack via responsive abilities at least somewhere in the kit, after all.

In more detail, though:

Let's start with Neutral Sect. Yes, it allows you to barrier heal, but because the effect is purely additive, it in no way feels like you are temporarily "swapping" roles. It just feels like the devs gave up on trying to make Synastry useful or integral and were tired of hearing AST veterans complain about losing Nocturnal Sect, and this two-for-one crapshoot was the result. Now, admittedly, with Kardia having so much more room to be fleshed out on Sage, I'm not fixated on AST uniquely holding down a 2-target burst sustain niche, but I feel like Synastry at least has more of interest fundamentally going for it as an action than "Now have shields too!" Neutral Sect. I don't doubt Neutral Sect, too, could be more interesting, but its taking that space means, also, that there's then little room to do anything more integral (not CD limited) with the Sects themselves.

That complaint largely repeats for Celestial Intersection, though I'd probably be more fine with it if it just wasn't such a basic damned CD, if it had more of a shared opportunity cost, or at least interacted with something else.

Horoscope, meanwhile, actually seems less interesting to me for being able to plop down a buff in advance to be used later; while that does fit with the Time Mage theme to some tiny, tiny degree, it really just means that there's that much less need to think ahead since you can just hit it on CD and make use of it later. It's basically just "hit on CD so long as I may have a decent chance to use Aspected Helios sometime in the next 30 whole seconds." Since there's very little content that'd fall between 'don't need Horoscope at all' and 'yeah, you'll definitely have opportunity to throw out at AH once per minute', it just doesn't feel like it's doing much, tactically speaking, beyond adding 1 APM in what little content wouldn't thereby cause overhealing.

I have no idea why you say that Exaltation uniquely allows it to be used on non-tanks. The healing is done at the end of the duration, so it's not going to serve as an emergency heal. For the purpose you've stated, your conclusion is backward. Taurochole, not Exaltation, is the better heal to use on non-tanks. It's more potency, and it's immediate, meaning that it can actually make synergetic use of that added eHP... and it's a shorter CD. Exaltation's only decent use case is on the tank. At which point... Exaltation's just Aquaveil but with a 500p delayed heal in place of 5% mitigation. Aquaveil's larger %mit at least synergizes with pumped HPS --if we could finally actually get a use case for really pumping HPS!!-- but Exaltation just feels disconnected and fully meh. At best it can claim that delayed healing is an AST thing (despite also being on SCH and GNB)?? Idk. It just feels utterly unimaginative to me. I'd sooner have it than not have it, but I'd rather have, say, Spread and old Bole than Exaltation.

Shorter Version: I find them comparatively uninteresting because they replace, rather than synergize with, (A) Sect-switching and (B) deeper and more varied and integral use of Cards, each of which (and especially if together) I'd consider more interesting than these discrete skills that replaced them.

[Renathras]

No, no, that's a fair question.

Thank you for the reply, appreciate it.

Not trying to cut it short, it does seem you and ASkellington's dislike of some abilities seems to be far less on the abilities themselves being good or bad and more...let's call it frustration?...with what AST was/could be to you. I think you kind of say that here as well. So that makes sense to me. Sort of a "I don't hate you for anything you did personally, I just resent you due to what I associate with you" kind of a thing?

Taurochole heals up front, meaning if a person is at or near full health, the heal isn't as useful. Exaltation reduces damage taken and then heals on the back end. And due specifically to AST's kit, if the target is low health initially, you can weave an Essential Dignity into an Exaltation and first top the person off, then have them survive the hit, then heal on the back end. If you want to go ham, you can also give them an Intersection to top off their health if Dignity didn't and give them a bit more protection for the attack.

I dunno, I guess I take them in the context of the whole kits and Exaltation feels more generally useful to me, though it depends a lot on the specific situation going on.

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But again, not challenging your views, just trying to understand them. I can't imagine them ever giving AST "in combat sect swapping", even if they did return Noct (old AST never had it, either), since then it would just stomp all over other healer Jobs (even more than it already does). So I don't really see Neutral being due to that, and Neutral was added before sects were removed, so I don't think it was due to players complaining about that.

[Shurrikhan]

Not trying to cut it short, it does seem you and ASkellington's dislike of some abilities seems to be far less on the abilities themselves being good or bad and more...let's call it frustration?...with what AST was/could be to you. I think you kind of say that here as well. So that makes sense to me. Sort of a "I don't hate you for anything you did personally, I just resent you due to what I associate with you" kind of a thing?

Kind of. But that wouldn't be the case if their presence didn't also stymy/preclude a return to or revitalization of the things I preferred over them.

E.g.
Maybe someone else stole my shit and you're just standing with your stuff blocking my only way to follow, but given that you uniquely prevent my trying to get my shit, I'm going to be annoyed that you're blocking the path for an extended time if/when you didn't to even if you did not personally steal my shit. Or, say, we lost a uniquely vital worker because we refused to give her benefits despite working her over 40 hours per week, and now we're saddled with a clueless intern who we're told will work just as well but has turned out to be mostly incapable of effort or learning, and any push to hire her back is met with "But we have Timmy now!"

That's about how I feel about Celestial Intersection, Neutral Sect, Exaltation, etc., replacing and precluding a more fleshed out Card system and Sect-swapping.