Changelist for ast ^_^

[Bdyer]

WHM is a really powerful healer and extremely wanted for Savage groups, and these changes won't change that. I do hope they might balance the numbers of WHM and AST as main healers though (currently 152 AST kills for A8S vs 893 WHM kills on logs).


Except noct AST still won't be competitive against SCH who are wanted in raid groups mainly for their DPS capabilities.

I havnt parsed a sch, but wouldn't balance either raid wide or extended single target trump sch damage?

Assuming a 2000 dps character we are talking about 400 dps increase for single and aprox 1200 dps for raid wide + Ast dps. I know that there is some rng but with redraw over 2 draw sets you have a 50% chance ( each set either spread or royal road)

[Shurrikhan]

I do not see how access to a ~minute-long Shadow Wall, or a longer Raging Strikes on demand, is at all balanced. AST is already competitive apart from certain synergy oversights. And the shit cards remain as shitty as ever. Why?
Even just changing out the mobile Benefic II for the auto-crit is a bigger buff than the job needs, though appreciated given that the real problems are likely never to be fixed. Thanks for the Draw and Redraw QoLs though, I guess.

Except you forgot the part where you still have to fight the RNG for Bole and Balance along with the Royal Road bonus every minute or more. You make it sound like AST can just draw those specific cards 100% of the time and ALSO draw the correct card type for Royal Road to be most beneficial. That doesn't happen in a real-world scenario. There can be times where you just don't draw Balance for 3 minutes. There can also be times where you get 3 balances back-to-back. Just because the second scenario CAN happen doesn't mean it WILL happen.

Given the new line-up between Draw and Redraw, you have a 50% chance to get a card moving you towards mass-Balance, and an additional 25% chance towards improved Bole every Draw. When the cards are increasing raid DPS by 10%, or serving as an extra tank stance buff, being up a third of the time is more than enough. Note that these buffs affect Diurnal as well, which is not especially lacking in DPS.

[magnanimousCynic]

I do not see how access to a ~minute-long Shadow Wall, or a longer Raging Strikes on demand, is at all balanced. AST is already competitive apart from certain synergy oversights. And the shit cards remain as shitty as ever. Why?
Even just changing out the mobile Benefic II for the auto-crit is a bigger buff than the job needs, though appreciated given that the real problems are likely never to be fixed. Thanks for the Draw and Redraw QoLs though, I guess.

Except you forgot the part where you still have to fight the RNG for Bole and Balance along with the Royal Road bonus every minute or more. You make it sound like AST can just draw those specific cards 100% of the time and ALSO draw the correct card type for Royal Road to be most beneficial. That doesn't happen in a real-world scenario. There can be times where you just don't draw Balance for 3 minutes. There can also be times where you get 3 balances back-to-back. Just because the second scenario CAN happen doesn't mean it WILL happen.

[Shurrikhan]

Balance at 20%. I really didn't expect them to go that high. So, not only the changes to Redraw will make it more easy to get a Balance, but it'll also make the AST's indirect DPS spike like crazy for 30-40 sec (depending on CO's availability). This is nuts, but that was needed to make N.AST close the gap in DPS between him and SCH. The gap is still not closed, but it's now way closer.

We might even see AST/AST combos in order to make fflogs explode, in scenarios where the Limit Break reduction doesn't matter.

The thing is, this is a universal change, not one limited to Nocturnal Sect. Which means, if AST can replace SCH by use of these buffs, then it can also take up the non-SCH non-AST spot as well. 10% bonus raid damage at all times, atop DoTs that cannot miss, the most mana-efficient spammable AoE among healers, and now more reliable shielding. If they wanted to level out NOCTURNAL Sect DPS specifically, they need go no further than making Nocturnal Sect affect ALL potencies, while Diurnal then additionally reduces mana costs to balance out its increased speed and lesser effect, and fixing its toolkit synergy issues.

I've seen double AST for about as long as fflog padding has been a thing. This just makes it no joke.

[Osmond]

Your math is off since it's literally impossible for the numbers to be lower than it is now, especially since Nocturnal Sect now buffs healing by 10% instead of 5%.

TL;DR: Use Potency for comparison, not in-game numbers.

Ah ok, had a feeling I was making a mistake on something. Thanks for the heads up.

[zuzu-bq]

Snip

My scenario was: Each healer use one of their abilities and one spell. With no other factor both shield for similar numbers.
And yeah SCH will still be used for early progression for world and server racers more because no one will want to learn a new job now and SCH is still more powerfull. As for raid busters... Except for Primal Ultimates that take 3 years for them to charge at you, in A8S for example you don't have time to set up all of that on most Kicks... And most raid busters from primals are survivable just with Succor and everyone full health. But in the end seems like we both agree SCH is stronger for one single AoE and AST for repetitive ones.

[Fyce]

The thing is, this is a universal change, not one limited to Nocturnal Sect. Which means, if AST can replace SCH by use of these buffs, then it can also take up the non-SCH non-AST spot as well. 10% bonus raid damage at all times, atop DoTs that cannot miss, the most mana-efficient spammable AoE among healers, and now more reliable shielding. If they wanted to level out NOCTURNAL Sect DPS specifically, they need go no further than making Nocturnal Sect affect ALL potencies, while Diurnal then additionally reduces mana costs to balance out its increased speed and lesser effect, and fixing its toolkit synergy issues.

I've seen double AST for about as long as fflog padding has been a thing. This just makes it no joke.

I never said otherwise. But the DPS gap between N.AST and SCH was what prevented N.AST from taking this off-heal spot to begin with. It will need really good parsing and maths to actually figure this out entirely, but I think this issue is more or less solved with the buffs.
Of course, D.AST will also see its DPS spike with 3.4, I'm not denying that.

My point was just to say that there will now be no reason to deny an AST from taking the place of a SCH. In short terms: statics who were looking for a SCH should also include an AST in their search from now as this job can now take any healer spot.

[SuzakuCMX]

Bole is still useless. No Tank will map his cooldowns with taking in mind he can or can not get a non reliable mitigation cooldown.

It's useless to plan around sure, but if you draw a bole it's now basically free DPS for 30 seconds.

EDIT: Or you can Spread it and save it for when the tank needs to use a cooldown.

[Judge_Xero]

My point was just to say that there will now be no reason to deny an AST from taking the place of a SCH. In short terms: statics who were looking for a SCH should also include an AST in their search from now as this job can now take any healer spot.

To a degree. If your party damage is too low to outpace the difference in SCH vs AST personal damage then SCH would be best.

High party DPS + GOOD RNG then NoctAST will be ideal.

But if the new Raid benefits from the consistently higher shielding then AST will be in a good position regardless.

[Cyrocco]

*heavy breathing*