Thread: Patch 3.4 Notes (Preliminary)

Mostly play AST among my healers and these still look like overbuffs to me. I can give a 50% longer Raging Strikes and Rampart at will now, really? In the meanwhile, Spear remains unusable, and the only mitigation of the RNGness is another cooldown reduction, this time to Redraw at least. Still zero Nocturnal synergy for Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition.

...Why are power buffs the only way SE seems to know how to correct their oversights?



More appropriate changes, imo:

General:

• Allow for shield stacking, but only one shield may be consumed at a time.
• Players can now carry up to three card buffs, and up to two from each AST.
• Cleric Stance is now a cooldown of two GCDs, rather than a hard 5 seconds.
• The 2.5s Stoneskin is now baseline.

WHM:
WHM has thus far been lacking in flair and bankable utility, especially in terms of control for its procs, leaving it a powerhouse, but not especially tactical or well equipped in feel. Its procs have therefore been mostly exchanged with bankable stacks from normalized RNG, while additional offensive reliability, utility, and synergy has been added.

• Wisp of Winds trait at level 16. Your wind abilities (Aero, Aero II, Aero III) have a 50% reduced chance to miss and generate Wisp of Winds, which reduces the cast and recast times of your following curative or earth abilities by 20%. Stacks up to three times (meaning 20% reduction on next three casts). (Enhanced Medica is now baseline.)
• Water's Wake trait at level 32. Your water abilities (Esuna, Fluid Aura, Asylum) generate Water's Wake, which reduces the mana cost, decrease the recast time, and increase the critical strike chance of following water abilities by 20%, stacking up to three times. Esuna may now strike critically, leaving Water's Wake on the target to absorb the next debuff within 7 seconds. (Freecure has been absorbed into Healer's Flow at level 44.)
• Earthen Ward trait at level 36. Your earth abilities (Stone I, Stone II, Stone III) duplicate 5% of their damage into Earthen Ward for 14 seconds, which is siphoned to increase the effectiveness of your Stoneskin casts, increasing the amount absorbed by up to 20% of target max HP.
• Healer's Flow trait at level 44. Your Cure spells now have a {normalized} 50% chance to generate a stack of Healer's Flow, which reduces the mana cost of your next Cure II by 33% for 15 seconds, and your Cure II spells have a chance {normalized} 50% to generate Healer's Wake II, which reduces the mana cost of your next Cure III by 16.7% for 15 seconds. Stacks to 100% chance. This normalization allows for more efficient and rotatable use and neglect of the mechanic.

AST:
AST currently suffers from poor RNG control and certain missing synergies due to certain oversights. These oversights have been fixed, and RNG control has been mitigated by making each card choice more viable without empowering it directly. A tiny bit of gameplay flair has also been added to diversify Sects, which can now be swapped in combat, and to improve pre-Gravity AoE.

• Diurnal Sect now increases attack speed and decreases mana costs by 7%.
• Nocturnal Sect now increases all potencies by 5%.
• You can now chance Sect in combat. Instant-cast Spell, 15-second cooldown.
• Time Dilation now duplicates all effects you placed on the target, to be applied when the original falls off. Now has synergy with Nocturnal Sect by duplicating shields.
• Celestial Opposition now duplicates all effects you placed on the target, at 50% duration, to be applied when their originals fall off. Shields are instead duplicated at 50% potency. Now has synergy with Nocturnal Sect, but no longer favors Expand. Aspected Benefic is extended by 9 seconds, while shields are duplicated at 50% of original strength. Cards are duplicated at 50% (RR-affected) duration.
• The damage reduction from Collective Unconscious now lingers for 10 seconds after leaving the spell area, and may be refreshed by re-entering.
• Royal Road - Expand will now always equal at least 200% effect between its affected targets, and its diminished potency is now split between duration and potency. This should give it more spot-buff effectiveness. For instance, a Balance will generate +10% damage for 30 seconds on 2 players, 8% for 24 seconds on 3 players, and 6.7% for 20 seconds for 4+ players.
• Royal Road - Enhance will now double the effectiveness of the embonused card.
• Royal Road - Extend still doubles the duration of the card. Aided by changes to maximum card buffs per player and to Time Dilation as not to be an inferior choice.
• Royal Road cooldown reduced to 3 seconds.
• Redraw cooldown reduced to 30 seconds.
• Draw buff time increased to 30 seconds, allowing the player to wait out for a Redraw or Shuffle. A "Discard" ability has been added to the Actions & Traits list at the same level, serving as an easily set aura cancel.
• Ewer and Spire now both affect MP and TP. Ewer restores both directly, over time, while Spire reduces their costs, to a greater cap.
• Spear now additionally doubles the cooling rate of abilities over its duration. (Cooling an additional 20 seconds' worth off all CDs over its 20 seconds.) This now makes extended Spear superior to empowered Spear if the cooldowns affected are shorter than 90 seconds.
• Bole now additionally increases the effectiveness of healing done to the target 10%.
• Arrow's attack speed buff increased to 12% and now also reduces TP and MP costs by 15%. Stacks with Spire. No longer as inferior to Balance.
• Enhanced Benefic changed to Turning Heavens, which changes effect based on Sect. In Nocturnal Sect, your single-target overhealing creates Nightveil, which increases the effectiveness of your next Benefic II by up to 50%, siphoning from Nightveil. In Diurnal Sect, your Benefic II casts and your Aspected Benefic ticks have a chance to create Daystar, which causes your next Benefic to trigger no mana cost or global cooldown.
  Scale expanded royal road to always total at least 200% among the affected members. 100% at 2 people, 66.7% at 3, 50% at 4+.
• Enhanced Disable made baseline. Replaced with Celestial Bodies, which causes Combust and Combust II to radiate 20% of their periodic damage as an AoE, and Gravity to deal increased damage to targets affected by either.

SCH:
Three QoL improvements added. That is all.

• Using Sic no longer prevents manual use of your abilities. All pet abilities can now be used even while casting Embrace.
• Shadowflare can now be easily queued. Once queued, at the end of the current cast Shadowflare will be cast at the queued position.
• Pet movement speed increased by 45% by default, but decreases back to current over 3 seconds of movement, and regenerates over up to 6 seconds while stationary. Allows for quicker repositioning for those who actually have their pet dodge certain AoE, etc.