What Do We Want to See? - AST

[Ari_Calithiel]

This is false.

1. Only A. Benefic and A. Helios are unable to be stacked with SCH/SGE. 2 abilities we don't even use.
   
2. SCH has plenty of non-GCD heals (and so does SGE) to the point where they are better together than WHM+AST or with one of them because they can both mitigate and heal with little to no downsides.
   
3. AST still has Helios to spam heal the party and Benefic 2 to do the same with a tank if needed.

Nocturnal AST is a non-issue.

Further Nocturnal Sect was apart of AST until EW and shouldn't have been removed, rather changed to where it could be toggled in combat so AST could be a stance dancing healer which is a play style we don't have in the game for healer yet and one that I think would suit AST, as they could switch to Noct Sect to mitigate an attack that they know is coming, and go back to Diurnal when they need the healing.

I've even mentioned that having both back could address the cards issue, as one sect (Diurnal) could have defensive/utility cards while the other (Nocturnal) could have the more offensive ones, keeping the RNG and separating the two as that seems to be everyone's hang up (I personally don't care).

I'm not gonna die on the hill of it should return no questions asked, but I'm also not going to not ask for a part of my kit that I did not ask to be removed to come back when I have the oppertunity to ask for it.

1. Yes those don't stack. So if a boss starts pumping damage or your team decides to commit mass suicide via a boss mechanic, a Noct AST and another shield healer would struggle to compensate. SGE/SCH struggle with this which is why this combo only works with set statics. As for the ogcds from Noct AST, there were 2. Two heals, one aoe shield and one ST regen. So I'm not sure why these two abilities are what have everyone up in arms about. It feels like people want it more for the flavor and idea of it rather than what it actually does. Could you do a set static for Noct AST and a shield healer? Sure, but Noct AST's shields will always be weaker than anything SCH or SGE could do, so why have it?

2. I'm going to include aoe and ST in this count. WHM has 6 ogcd heals (however they receive lilies every 20 seconds which are dps neutral, so this should be taken into account). AST has 8 (but Macro is also dps neutral). SGE has 8 (they also have pneuma which is dps neutral). SCH has 7. These are pretty even across the board considering WHM should never cap their lilies with it being free healing. So I'm not really sure where you get the idea that one job has more than another.

3. I don't understand what you are saying here. I think you are referring to my point about 2 shield healers needing to spam. So when 2 shield healers gcd heal with their shields, the spells overwrite each other. So the only healing you are getting is the base potency of the heal and losing the shield from one of the healers. In the situation, lets say, P8S part 2 near the end of the fight, boss goes nuts and just spams aoe damage. If Noct AST and SCH were healing together, they would need to be spamming aoe heals to deal with this. So the party loses 1 healers shield. But wait! It gets worse. Noct AST shields have 35% less strength than either SGE or SCH. And if a shield healer shields after a SCH spreadlos, say goodbye to the spreadlo because it just got overwritten. And helios is AST's only aoe spamming ability. So there is no way to get around this.

Nocturnal is an issue. The changes made need to remain. If anything, one could argue that the ogcds that were affected by nocturnal in the past also receive the affects under the new nocturnal. But we should never go back to having a second stance so to speak. As I have argued before, AST's beauty lies in its ability to pre-plan heals, and that is where the focus of this job should remain. The only reason nocturnal lasted as long as it did was because there wasn't a 2nd shield healer. It acted like a filler (albeit much weaker version of a SCH). Nocturnal itself is still there and the changes made to it with its ability to stack with other shields is awesome. A spreadlo plus nocturnal shield is nearly a full hp shield and that is freaking awesome. It is still the same potency, so its not a very big shield, but we still have the ability to do so. Additionally, as I said in the reply above, if AST were to receive nocturnal sect again, you know this would cause waves in the other healers wanting to be able to stance dance as well.

Edit: AST does have helios. Yes, but in the situations I'm referring to, it would not be enough. Helios itself is a much weaker aoe heal than its aspected counterpart.

[ASkellington]

Snip.

I mean this in the nicest way possible, you don't know how double shield healers work. If there is an event were they need to spam their GCD heals to deal with massive healing, they're healing wrong or the party is doing something wrong. SCH has Soil for mitigation + regen, Whispering Dawn, Fey Illumination which increases healing by 10% and reduces magical damage by 5, Indom, Fey Blessing, Summon Seraph for Consolation, Expedient for another ability to reduce damage by 10%, and Critlo to place a beefy shield on the party. SGE also has a good chunk of these tools plus Panhaima.

They aren't going to struggle for healing.

In a hypothetical where Neutral Sect doesn't exist (or even if it did) you aren't going to see Noct AST spam A. Helios. Currently that's a REGEN. If there is a need for spam healing that would be HELIOS which I addressed. Further, AST has Macrososmos to consolidate heal, Earthly Star, Collective Unconciousness for mit + regen, Lady of Crowns if they draw it, Horoscope, and Celestial Opposition. A Noct AST will still have all of those tools as Nocturnal Collective is pretty much the same in the end as Diurnal and Celestial Opposition stacks.

Nocturnal Sect is NOT an issue. Especially in high level play where I would be coordinating with my healer and even more so if the suggestion of making it stance dance actually gets implemented. I don't see why other healers would want it, other than SCH with Selene which, I'm all for.

Also A. Helios excluding the Regen which you will be overwriting every time you spam it is 250p. Helios' potency is 400. You will be spamming Helios and it would be better than to spam A. Helios.

If you don't want Nocturnal Sect to return because you don't like it that's fine, but please stop spreading misinformation it would be a hassle to cohealers. It was fine in Shb. It was fine in SB (if weak). It would have been fine in EW or DT and would be fine in 8.0

[Ari_Calithiel]

I mean this in the nicest way possible, you don't know how double shield healers work. If there is an event were they need to spam their GCD heals to deal with massive healing, they're healing wrong or the party is doing something wrong. SCH has Soil for mitigation + regen, Whispering Dawn, Fey Illumination which increases healing by 10% and reduces magical damage by 5, Indom, Fey Blessing, Summon Seraph for Consolation, Expedient for another ability to reduce damage by 10%, and Critlo to place a beefy shield on the party. SGE also has a good chunk of these tools plus Panhaima.

I do not understand why you are coming at me so aggressively, but if that is how you wish to communicate, I shall do so in kind.

I mean this in the nicest way possible, you don't seem to understand how savage and ultimate raids work. I can point to multiple instances in my raiding experience were spam healing was not only good but necessary to progress the fight. Sure, you don't want to sit there being a healbot in most of the fights. But several mechanics in several encounters have instances where the boss hits you over and over in quick succession. I know what the abilities of all the classes do. My co-healer play SCH and I have savage raided on WHM, AST, and SGE. I pre-planned with my co-healer every encounter of all 3 tiers this expansion not to mention the 2 ultimates and all the extremes we did. I know what abilities have mitigation, what abilities are ogcd and roughly how long the cds are for almost all the abilities. The fact that you are trying to cut down my arguement by telling me "you don't know what you are talking about" without having any knowledge of my experience is both foolish and childish. You are welcome to look at FFlogs to verify my claims. My name Ari Calithiel and I'm pretty sure I'm the only one.

In a hypothetical where Neutral Sect doesn't exist (or even if it did) you aren't going to see Noct AST spam A. Helios. Currently that's a REGEN. If there is a need for spam healing that would be HELIOS which I addressed. Further, AST has Macrososmos to consolidate heal, Earthly Star, Collective Unconciousness for mit + regen, Lady of Crowns if they draw it, Horoscope, and Celestial Opposition. A Noct AST will still have all of those tools as Nocturnal Collective is pretty much the same in the end as Diurnal and Celestial Opposition stacks.

Nocturnal Sect is NOT an issue. Especially in high level play where I would be coordinating with my healer and even more so if the suggestion of making it stance dance actually gets implemented. I don't see why other healers would want it, other than SCH with Selene which, I'm all for.

Also A. Helios excluding the Regen which you will be overwriting every time you spam it is 250p. Helios' potency is 400. You will be spamming Helios and it would be better than to spam A. Helios.

If you don't want Nocturnal Sect to return because you don't like it that's fine, but please stop spreading misinformation it would be a hassle to cohealers. It was fine in Shb. It was fine in SB (if weak). It would have been fine in EW or DT and would be fine in 8.0

Fair, I misread the Helios and A. Helios potency. If you are going to spam helios, which had no shield healing capabilities in "oh shit" moments, why is nocturnal even needed? SCH or SGE provide better shields. I conceded that it would be nice if during the current nocturnal it also changed the ogcds opposition and intersection like it used to do. But that is the only neat thing about noct AST. Those 2 ogcds. All their gcd shields are less powerful and are overwritten in a shield war. It was not a powerful ability and with the appearance of SGE, it no longer serves the purpose of being an option for those that didn't want to play SCH. AST still has the ability to apply shields. Other than it being a pretty flavor, there was nothing overly impressive it brought to the table. As I keep saying and will continue to do, AST is a pre-planning healer and that is where the energy and effort should be put in. That is its identity and it is a fun and challenging one that should be supported further.

[ASkellington]

I do not understand why you are coming at me so aggressively, but if that is how you wish to communicate, I shall do so in kind.

Its nothing to do with being aggressive and all to do with explaining why adding in Nocturnal Sect isn't a problem like you say it is. Because its not a problem. You're insisting you major reason for not wanting it is issues with clearing when many people by now have already mentioned that SGE+SCH can clear savage just fine, so Nocturnal AST which would be a SGE (since its shields pale to Critlo) would be able to clear just fine with either one.

As far as AST being a preplanned healer, if you read my first post in full I don't mind it being one, but if I were given the choice, I'd ask for Nocturnal Sect to come back, Neutral Sect to be remove like the lore devouring trash it is, and for AST to be a stance dance healer between Regen/Shields because that to me sounds fun.

[Ari_Calithiel]

Its nothing to do with being aggressive and all to do with explaining why adding in Nocturnal Sect isn't a problem like you say it is. Because its not a problem. You're insisting you major reason for not wanting it is issues with clearing when many people by now have already mentioned that SGE+SCH can clear savage just fine, so Nocturnal AST which would be a SGE (since its shields pale to Critlo) would be able to clear just fine with either one.

As far as AST being a preplanned healer, if you read my first post in full I don't mind it being one, but if I were given the choice, I'd ask for Nocturnal Sect to come back, Neutral Sect to be remove like the lore devouring trash it is, and for AST to be a stance dance healer between Regen/Shields because that to me sounds fun.

Your first sentence to me was to attack my understanding of the game due to me mixing up the potencies of 2 spells. You were being highly aggressive while I was trying to discuss with you why nocturnal should not come back in good faith. I never once diminished your understanding, your character, or your experience and yet this was okay and acceptable for you to do when you did not like my response to you.

SGE brings 30 sec mitigation and an additional 120 sec cd mitigation. You don't run SGE/SCH because of "yay shields," you run it for the mitigation spam. SGE has lower shielding capabilities with it in turn being able to provide more straight healing output. I know this because I ran SGE/SCH through P5S to P7S. But as I have mentioned, this requires a lot of pre-planning as this combo goes off the rails if things start to fall apart. Again, I know this from my experience of actually playing said combo. This would be true of any shield/shield combo.

I'm not going to argue about the lore or the fun of neutral because this is opinion based. I had fun stance dancing as AST in ShB. But I learned very quickly that it was a much weaker shield healer. Every bean counter in the game that did the math was able to see that and there is information going back warning ASTs to go diurnal unless they had to go noct with a WHM co-healer.

I have already spelled out multiple times why nocturnal then was not good and why its current iteration is an improvement that complements your co-healer rather than fights with them.

[ASkellington]

Your first sentence to me was to attack my understanding of the game due to me mixing up the potencies of 2 spells. You were being highly aggressive while I was trying to discuss with you why nocturnal should not come back in good faith. I never once diminished your understanding, your character, or your experience and yet this was okay and acceptable for you to do when you did not like my response to you.

SGE brings 30 sec mitigation and an additional 120 sec cd mitigation. You don't run SGE/SCH because of "yay shields," you run it for the mitigation spam. SGE has lower shielding capabilities with it in turn being able to provide more straight healing output. I know this because I ran SGE/SCH through P5S to P7S. But as I have mentioned, this requires a lot of pre-planning as this combo goes off the rails if things start to fall apart. Again, I know this from my experience of actually playing said combo. This would be true of any shield/shield combo.

I'm not going to argue about the lore or the fun of neutral because this is opinion based. I had fun stance dancing as AST in ShB. But I learned very quickly that it was a much weaker shield healer. Every bean counter in the game that did the math was able to see that and there is information going back warning ASTs to go diurnal unless they had to go noct with a WHM co-healer.

I have already spelled out multiple times why nocturnal then was not good and why its current iteration is an improvement that complements your co-healer rather than fights with them.

We're going to have to agree to disagree as far as Noct Sect goes. Not in that its weak, because it is, but that its return is a bad idea. I don't think it is with improvements (same as HW/SB era cards). I'll grant you, we probably won't see those improvements considering how the dev team handles things (see the coming cards), but if there is a chance for it to come back and work, I want to see it.

As far as the rest, I'm not going to lie and say to me you didn't come across as a person who didn't know what they're talking about. Because you very much did, and there have been many people in the past I've dealt with who have similar and I'm jaded, tired and extremely bitter. And for that I apologize. It wasn't my intention for it to come off as an attack, I just didn't know how else to word it in a way that could be understood. I still stand by my statements that it would be no different than SCH+SGE. Noct AST wouldn't be using their shields outside of CO (assuming of course no stance changing under combat) and Neutral Sect (assuming its not removed) because they wouldn't want to overwrite SCH's in the event they crit.

I genuinely don't believe its that big of an issue to remove the idea of Nocturnal returning or AST as a stance dancer idea.

[RhiaCeallach]

As far as AST being a preplanned healer, if you read my first post in full I don't mind it being one, but if I were given the choice, I'd ask for Nocturnal Sect to come back, Neutral Sect to be remove like the lore devouring trash it is, and for AST to be a stance dance healer between Regen/Shields because that to me sounds fun.

Every healer, bar white mage, is a pre-planned healer, having nocturnal back wouldn't change you being one. As for your stance dance, it would either heavily favour one stance over the other like in the example you gave or they'd have to come up with something unique to incentivize people to do it properly. Considering that they keep pissing off people with the way the class changes every expansion, I feel like it would be for the best if for right now they focused on the actual problem, which is the dumbing down of the card system for no good reason.

[ASkellington]

Every healer, bar white mage, is a pre-planned healer, having nocturnal back wouldn't change you being one. As for your stance dance, it would either heavily favour one stance over the other like in the example you gave or they'd have to come up with something unique to incentivize people to do it properly. Considering that they keep pissing off people with the way the class changes every expansion, I feel like it would be for the best if for right now they focused on the actual problem, which is the dumbing down of the card system for no good reason.

The preplanned healer I believe Ari and I are talking about are delayed heals. Which is a theme AST has gained in abundance since Shb's iteration. Its not one I'm against, I actually advocated for it, but again, if I given the choice (and effort we know won't be put in it but lets assume it was) I'd like AST to stance dance. It fits it well enough, ties into the cards decently. The threads are there may as well weave the quilt so to speak.

As far as cards go

Preposed changes:

• The Ewer goes back to HW/SB era and becomes a refresh for MP on the target. Niche of a use as it is, MP Refresh has more uses than a bloody regen that we have already on the GCD. I can give it to DRK, PLD or BLM who still use mana, a CO-Healer who can't manage their own mana, my co-healer/caster who was recently raised, or myself the AST due to how gimped for mana we're like to be.
  
• The Spire as Ewer's counterpart can either make all spells that cost mana free for the duration (akin to Free Cure) or give a Lightspeed/Swiftcast effect by making all spells' casting duration shortened or instant (recast timer remains the same).
  
• I want to keep The Bole's theme of protection, but again mitigation is a waste. Instead I'd like to see it be a damage reflection card, where in all damage taken by the player under the card effect is given back to the enemy for the duration (perhaps up to 50%).
  
• The Arrow is the one card I can't think of a suitable effect for. Perhaps make it a compile to where at the end of the duration all damage taken by the target is thrown back at the attacker up to 50% of the damage.

Not ideal honestly, but I feel they have more uses than what we're getting. I'd LIKE for 4 of the 6 to be damage oriented in nature with the remaining two to be supportive. Doesn't work out well, if we cut the draws into two, but if we're going back to 1 card out of 6... better I suppose.

Anyways I'd want to see these four change from heals/mitigation to something else, and the recast timer reduced.

[RhiaCeallach]

I mean this in the nicest way possible, you don't know how double shield healers work. If there is an event were they need to spam their GCD heals to deal with massive healing, they're healing wrong or the party is doing something wrong. SCH has Soil for mitigation + regen, Whispering Dawn, Fey Illumination which increases healing by 10% and reduces magical damage by 5, Indom, Fey Blessing, Summon Seraph for Consolation, Expedient for another ability to reduce damage by 10%, and Critlo to place a beefy shield on the party. SGE also has a good chunk of these tools plus Panhaima.

They aren't going to struggle for healing.

In a hypothetical where Neutral Sect doesn't exist (or even if it did) you aren't going to see Noct AST spam A. Helios. Currently that's a REGEN. If there is a need for spam healing that would be HELIOS which I addressed. Further, AST has Macrososmos to consolidate heal, Earthly Star, Collective Unconciousness for mit + regen, Lady of Crowns if they draw it, Horoscope, and Celestial Opposition. A Noct AST will still have all of those tools as Nocturnal Collective is pretty much the same in the end as Diurnal and Celestial Opposition stacks.

Nocturnal Sect is NOT an issue. Especially in high level play where I would be coordinating with my healer and even more so if the suggestion of making it stance dance actually gets implemented. I don't see why other healers would want it, other than SCH with Selene which, I'm all for.

Also A. Helios excluding the Regen which you will be overwriting every time you spam it is 250p. Helios' potency is 400. You will be spamming Helios and it would be better than to spam A. Helios.

If you don't want Nocturnal Sect to return because you don't like it that's fine, but please stop spreading misinformation it would be a hassle to cohealers. It was fine in Shb. It was fine in SB (if weak). It would have been fine in EW or DT and would be fine in 8.0

i) Ari has done almost an entire tier with scholar/ sage, you don't even have sage unlocked according to your profile and your scholar is still level 80. Unless you have an alt set as your main you have obviously not done any savage or ultimate with a double shield healer so I'm not sure why you felt the need to say "you don't know how they work" . The super awesome cooldowns you list have assigned spots they're used, so for some weird reason you can't use pneuma or spreadlo on the go if people go full headless chicken mode while they're still on cooldown. White mage can use cure 3, astro has helio and sage/ scholar have a single use of their ability that turns the shields into direct heals after which point you just spam your shield. If we're talking about recovery mode because people failed mechanics and you can't burn one of your pre-assigned cooldowns to save the run, white/ astro are just superior at that.

ii) Again, you list off cooldowns but not only are they already assigned, unless you're only pfing fights, but literally the only thing that nocturnal astro would have that the current astro does not is a small shield on opposition which has a 60s cooldown and a regen on intersection. What's the point of getting sects back if that's the only difference? Just ask them to bake those into neutral sect and you'd have what you want more or less.

iii) Your stance dance suggestion conveniently gives the good(damage buff) cards to nocturnal and the ones that no one would want to use(random buffs) to diurnal so the only thing it would accomplish for astros healing with a shield healer, would be them having to swap to nocturnal every minute so they can get the cards they actually care about. Astro already has way more than enough free heals and damage reduction, so you cannot possibly tell me anyone would choose to get the free heal/ free dr, especially when you also get a lady card once a minute with the new cards.

[ASkellington]

Snip

The fact I am arguing is that can SGE+SCH clear? If the answer is yes, than so can Noct AST+ either one. And yes, they can. That's the whole point: arguing that Noct shouldn't come back simply because it would be harder to heal with in high tier content is a poor one to me. That's all this back and forth is. No more, no less.

As far as the stance dancing goes its to give an extra incentive to go into Nocturnal instead of camping Diurnal as well as address the issue of utility vs damage cards being in the same pool that everyone gets hung up on. The offensive cards can be in Diurnal for all I care, I figured the offensive ones would be better in Nocturnal to reward the ASTs who are proactive with their healing and the defensive ones in Diurnal to aid if they need to triage.

It doesn't matter to me either way.

I already addressed in another post that I'd like more actions added to Nocturnal to make the stance dancing worth it. Its not JUST to get back just CI and CO (CU also changed under it btw as redundant as it was). Its to add more interkit play and give AST another option to distance itself from WHM/SCH.

I asked for this back in Shb and with the supposed class overhaul of 8.0 I'm asking again what I'd like to see - which is Nocturnal come back with stance dancing in combat because the idea of a stance dancing healer appeals to me.