What Do We Want to See? - AST

[Ari_Calithiel]

I never implied that everybody was up in arm because of that solely. There might be more reasons why people get upset of its removal, so please do not put words in my mouth. I was just pointing out that it was not optimal but still possible & not game breaking in any way. They should expand on that rather than just straight up deleting elements like they always do.

Not sure why you are bristling here. You brought up those 2 ogcds. And during the age of nocturnal sect, the only ogcds that were affected were celestial opposition, celestial intersection, and collective unconscious. We have the benefits of both sects in collective now with the regen and mit. And to expand on nocturnal sect in future updates would be to encroach on the shield healer domain and to have AST sitting in a position where it is both and neither shield healer nor regen healer. It's shield healing was sub-par to that of a SCH and to that of the SGE. If they were to continue down that route, we would likely have spells that can do shield or regen but are not the best in either healing type. That sounds terrible to me. And as I keep saying, AST's identity is its ability to pre-plan heals.

I don't remember seeing WHM asking for Nocturnal (shields) flavored spells back in ShB. All I remembered was WHM asking for utilities that can mean many different things than just mere shields, and they did sorely needed more utilities than just Temperance.

Except WHM's have been asking for shields... which is why they are receiving them in DT. AST only worked with nocturnal spec because it was the odd healer out. But now there is a clear divide with the addition of SGE.

I also never said that I only find the interest with the 2 ogcds you kept mentioning. Not sure why would you ask me that last question when I believe I've been super clear about how Noct AST+SCH was not optimal but still viable, so why remove (not a question to you btw)? To accommodate the Regen/Barrier split? If so then they have failed in every front but naming/title because double barrier/regen remains viable but at the cost of a playstyle remembered as "Noct AST" - a cost that should not even had to be paid, but they scapegoated it anyway just because.

It is not a viable combo. I explained this in a different reply, but AST's only spammable aoe is helios and A. helios. Helios is a much weaker version than A. helios. If an AST was to go noct, and spamming heals was needed, AST would not be able to deliver as well as a shield/regen healer combo. Shields overwrite each other and if a SCH and noct AST were to spam their aoe at the same time, the party would lose out on the healing from one of the healers shields. In fights like P10S or P8S part 2, every bit of healing matters greatly. Additionally, if an AST were to in a panic aoe heal after a SCH spreadlos, that spreadlo is gone. Nocturnal sect was a neat ability that just does not work really well. It was not as popular a combo as it is made out to be. Sure it was viable in a sense, but why keep something that isn't really adding anything to the identity of the class? It is not meant to be a shield healer. Its identity is a pre-planning, foresight healer. And we still get to keep the shields every 2 minutes. So I still don't get the fuss.