Do AST really need this Buff?

[Elamys]

AST didn't need the buff. I don't think Earthly Star is as overpowered as people say it is but the buff to Nocturnal shields really pushed it. Our heals should be at least equal to WHM in potency, not stronger, and for less MP. Or maybe keep the less MP, but we certainly shouldn't have stronger heals.

I have two problems with the buffs AST has gotten and will receive.

The first is with Balance. It is so strong that, first of all, parties believe it's NECESSARY to clear (it absolutely isn't, but that's what people think oh well). It's also so strong that every other card we have feels extremely lackluster in comparison. I get that it's RNG, but it's still heads and shoulders above the other cards. I'm always tempted to Redraw for Balance. I felt like the amount of damage increase it gave before was fine, some don't, maybe even half of what we did get would be fine.

The second is the Nocturnal buff. Right now Nocturnal is already far ahead of Diurnal, to the point where gear and comps are built exclusively around it. This is only going to widen the gap and make less people want to play Diurnal. I'm not a huge fan of the proactive healing style, so I've stubbornly stuck with Diurnal, but I don't want people to think even more that I'm terrible with how wide the gulf will be between power. I get that the two probably won't be 100% balanced between each other, but they won't even be close at this point.

[Ashua]

Other healers should not be brought up to the astros level. The astro should be brought down. Healing is already over the top in comparison to damage in this game.

[Elamys]

Also, the buffs have really flooded the "healing market" with a ton of terrible ASTs ;.;

[Leanna]

AST was a failure from the begining, SE didn't know how to make a new healer and the new buffs and nerfs prove it even more. They basically killed WHM and SCH because they have no idea of how to balance them, AST shouldn't have stronger shields than SCH, and shouldn't have a stronger healing potency than WHM.

Cards are the only reason to have an AST in the party, and it's a good reason, there is no point in use WHM/SCH anymore since two AST would give way more utility, and they are better at healing than the other two.

[Valmaxian]

AST was a failure from the begining...

The concept could have worked, but there needed to be a significant drawback, i.e., noticeably weaker heals or DPS. We were a bit weak at the very beginning, but too many buffs followed, and now we not only heal better than WHM/SCH, we also have considerably more utility. That's bad enough. But they also made easy a class that was supposed to be challenging in order to deliver all that it could and still be considered reasonably balanced. AST is no longer a challenge to play as of 3.4, and come Stormblood, its going to be a joke. I don't want my class to be easy, I want it to be interesting, and challenge is part of that. If we're going to bring X, Y, and Z to the table, we should have to work for it, not be given it.

[gumas]

Give some time, when thing finally checked and observed iam sure the ast will get balanced out later

That or either whm got buff or ast got nerf

On healer class note, i wish we have some sort of combat healer class, like battle priest or sort

[Fernosaur]

I haven't been able to keep this issue out of my head. My nerdy tabletop game designer side won't let it rest, so I guess I'll share in this thread ideas that I've had that could make AST a more unique job with powerful healing gated behind a lot of intelligent CD use and tons of utility that isn't only relegated to the cards. A lot of this is based around their vague identity as a time mage, the theme of using cards to predict the future and read someone's fortune, and of course possible appliances where they can synergize to the other healer jobs' strengths.

Now, before you read this, you should just get rid of every conceptions you have of the job right now, since it's going off from a complete and entire redesign. Fresh start, so to speak.

- Keep their Time Mage aspect relevant by making them the most mobile healer. Putting the regular Benefic on an instant or even a 1 sec cast makes it a great tool for emergency intervention and for weaving in a ton of oGCDs. Benefic would probably be their only single target direct healing tool on the GCD, perhaps with a potency reduction to 350. I'll elaborate more on that on point two. Even the cast time on Helios could be reduced in the same way to make it a quick (though not instant) AoE healing tool. I don't think removing Helios would be a good idea, as it would seriously cripple their AoE healing capacity, and it's a basic enough spell for them to keep. Might have to tone the potency down to 240-250 though.

- Give them the strongest single-target regens in the game, but keep their direct healing options weaker. More or less, make Asp. Benefic's 300-500 total potency stronger than Regen, with also a slightly stronger heal per tick, at the cost of them losing Benefic II. This cements AST as a support and utility healer which is assisting more than directly healing, and further identifies the job's utility. I also think it would be interesting if Asp. Benefic was actually a CD with a 15 sec recast instead of a spell, and if it had a proc interacting with either itself or Benefic that reset the timer, kinda like how Low Blow works on DRK during HW, and also keeping with the RNG aspect of the job without being awfully punishing (since AspB. is in a shorter CD than its full duration).

- Asp. Helios could also be an oGCD, giving it a decent-powered HoT similar to a roused Whispering Dawn, probably with the same duration (18-21s) and on the same CD as WD or even a slightly longer one, since Celestial Opposition should still be a thing. Additionally, there could be CDs related to the use of the regens that could transform 50% of the total potency into a shield similar to Nocturnal Sect's effect. Either this, or a CD that would accelerate the remaining potency of every HoT cast by the Astro into an instant burst heal. Could also be toned down to 50% of the total potency cause it could border on hilariously powerful healing, and should probably be on a quite lengthy CD. Perhaps if the total duration was of 18s with a potency of 150 per tick (Rouse+WD is 140) it would be good for both the regen and the burst: the total potency would be 900, and if cut to 50% it would be a 450 instant heal on a lengthier CD than Indomitability. By using Celestial Opposition, this increases dramatically, but has used up 3 different CDs to achieve a great single burst healing.

- Both perviously mentioned CDs (the shield and the burst) could be a thing and probably shouldn't be mutually exclusive. Then again, they could also have their own Nocturnal Helios kind of CD on its own, without needing to sacrifice the regens for it to work. The shield should still probably not stack with Galvanize, and if Stoneskin II was still a thing (and 90sec CD useable in battle, as it should be, imo >_>) it could stack with it to give AST/WHM a decent mitigation tool that couldn't be affected by healing potency+ buffs.

- Essential Dignity should probably still be a thing, as well as Collective Unconscious. One offers a good powerful heal for emergency single target intervention, and the other offers good mitigation and an extra powerful regen for when Asp.Helios is on CD if needed. Perhaps CU's cd could be increased but it's debatable.

- By keeping with the theme, I think Synastry would be a more interesting ability if it instead connected the AST to the target ally, and in turn the targeted ally shared AST's personal CDs and durations used as long as the Synastry connection is up. If used again on a different target, the two targets are instead connected, but the original target doesn't lose the CDs previously shared with AST until they (or Synastry) expire. Similarly, the new Synastry target would benefit from the same buffs and effects used on the original target. For healing purposes, you could connect the two tanks together, and only apply a regen (receiving the buff but not the initial direct heal) or a Bole on one to extend the effect to both. For offensive purposes: imagine giving an enhanced Balance to your BLM and then extending it to your SAM.

- A new creative ability that makes a return from some past games in the series: Float. A personal CD which can be shared by Synastry that allows the AST to ignore ground effects (like fire puddles, frostbite, etc) for a short duration (10-15 secs tops). It could also add a +25% movement speed buff to keep it universally relevant.

- Allowing Time Dilation to be used on oneself, which helps with the concept of Synastry, and would also allow AST to share the effects of Lucid Dreaming, Largesse, etc, etc. Might have to tone it down to 10 extra seconds per use if this is the case, though.

- And finally, the crowning skill and the main reason why the shield probably shouldn't stack with Galvanize: A personal buff, shareable by Synastry, that increased Critical Hit rate by 50-100% for 3-5 seconds tops, and on a pretty lengthy CD (5mins or more). Yes, I know I'm gonna get flack for this one, but hey, we need synergy with both WHM and SCH :P. This could give a potential guaranteed critlo every time this CD came up, or at least two GCDs of Cure III guaranteed crits. Obviously, WHM would benefit less from this than SCH, and I'm aware it's probably an incredibly problematic skill, but thought it could be an interesting addition that would make AST+SCH comps more desireable (consider that these changes to AST would make it a very difficult healer to play through progression, as, just like SCH, all the CD usage could be overwhelming and the tools aren't nearly as forgiving as WHM's).

- Earthly Star could probably stay, though I'd personally extend the CD a little bit to keep AST's healing power from creeping into WHM's, as they'd already have pretty strong burst healing options.

I'm not going to say any of this is perfect. Specially not perfectly balanced. It could either be very OP or very disfunctional, but these are just ideas that I've been tossing around in my head as I go about my everyday business and that I needed to drop out somewhere. The main objective of them is to make AST 100% unique and give WHM the niche they desperately need back.

Feel free to share your thoughts and tell me I'm an idiot if you think I deserve it

[Miste]

When there is an expansion upgrade to buy and you gain more levels you are supposed to get more powerful. So buffs are in general necessary for all jobs to make people feel like they are getting more powerful since they spent money to purchase the expansion upgrades; just like how upgrading gear does that. An expansion is something you pay for for an upgrade.

So I don't think of it as AST was undeserving of buffs...more like they didn't buff (utility/mechanics) WHM/SCH enough and/or took away too much of their DPS capability(in SCH's case) since SE seems to prefer healers be healers and seem to be trying to remove DPS aspects somewhat by removing a lot of extra DPS spells healers had.

I personally as a main AST don't like the AST changes either. I don't consider the healing potency on Diurnal a "buff" I consider it a nerf since I liked Diurnal AST for it's extra speed.

But I personally want to try SB before I freak out too much over stuff....I almost kind of want to switch to WHM for savage due to ASTs very simplified/nerfed DPS rotation now. I understand since AST offers cards we can't DPS for a lot, but the unfortunate side effect of that is boring gameplay. We lost 2/3 of our DoTs so single target DPS is reduced to Combust II then spam Malefic III and that's it and lost a lot of weaving capability :/

[Crushnight]

But I personally want to try SB before I freak out too much over stuff....I almost kind of want to switch to WHM for savage due to ASTs very simplified/nerfed DPS rotation now. I understand since AST offers cards we can't DPS for a lot, but the unfortunate side effect of that is boring gameplay. We lost 2/3 of our DoTs so single target DPS is reduced to Combust II then spam Malefic III and that's it and lost a lot of weaving capability :/

So much this I have thought about completely going over to being a dps in SB cus of this I can't stance dance I have a literal 1, 2 dps combo with 1 ogcd damage being earthly star so may not get used for it. There was enough with ast to pay attention to in 3.X without feeling too much this wold make me more asleep in dungs. Ast was fine by 3.2 imo with a minor buff to noct only needed now it seems like it will be a ridiculous powerhouse it never needed to be.

[MsTanya]

Don't forget that during your rotation if you keep drawing garbage cards you can 50/50 turn them into a 300 potency single target nuke or 500 potency heal. There's been many times while I was on ast I had an aoe royal road and kept getting ewer into spire or spire into spear and I had to use my throw away macro now you have a chance during that kind of a scenario to turn it into that lord card, effectively making all the trash cards and bad rng worth something. Plus it adds a layer of fun to your core mechanic and enhances it to be something superior to what it is now. All healers lost a lot of weaving capability and got condensed dots and more boring rotations but neither other healer got two new dps abilities.