balance through Balance

[Noni]

It's not the ppl, it's the white mages; whom can't think so much since they are too occupied overhealing/afking. They want some kinda of buff then they can't be completely useless to their party.

I don't know who you are or who you think you are but WHM do dps provided the OTHER healer and dps know and do their jobs. You have so much WHM hate, its why the healers are separated and not playing as a team the way they were created. Thanks for doing your best to ruin the divine trinity.

[Supersun]

Honestly if I were SE I would limit healer DD buffs to be strictly single target on the DPS themselves. So long as some classes have AoE DPS buffs and others don't it'll be impossible to balance healer damage between both 4 and 8 man content because of the effect being doubled in 8 man. Either Whm will have enough personal DPS to compete in 8 man which in that case Whm will obliterate everything in 4 man, or Whm will be balanced for 4 man, but will under perform in 8 man since their personal DPS won't be enough to catch up to the AoE buffs.

The better to balance around in the future way to "nerf balance" would be to instead remove the ability to AoE the cards in the first place where the cards are only single target (and stratagem would buff 1 ally instead of debuff the monster) and then personal DPS and DPS buffing should be able to be balanced.

[Verdan]

u gon get nerfed and there's nothin' u can do bout it

[loreleidiangelo]

Man, you reminded me that I forgot to mention how garbage Disable was at launch with it's "getting slapped off by an auto right before the impending tank buster" design.

But yeah, my post as a whole was more a summation of issues and I probably touched on some of them a bit broadly. Either way, my overarching point about AST's "initial badness" having a LOT less to do with a weaker Balance and way more to do with a poop-tier "everything else" still stands. With the power we have now, Balance can definitely afford to be nerfed. ASTs will be fine.

[RichardButte]

Can we also not ignore the fact that they gutted SCH this xpac and many hate the WHM changes?

[ty_taurus]

Here's what I'd like to see from the cards in a way that could help redistribute that power:

First, it frustrates me that Arrow is ultimately just a weaker Balance. That doesn't make it feel impactful, it makes it feel like I'm settling on less power. Second, Ewer and Spire are not useful on every job, nor are their effects powerful enough to really want to use over their royal road effects. Third, Spear just doesn't work; its design is inherently convoluted, difficult to communicate, and even more difficult to gauge who it's best to give to on the fly. So here's the solution I propose...

Balance: 10% Damage boost that doubles to 20% when used on a character in the Melee DPS role. 30s

Arrow: 10% Attack Speed boost that doubles to 20% when used on a character in the Ranged DPS role. 30s

Spire: 10% Critical Hit boost that doubles to 20% when used on a character in the Caster DPS or Healer role. 30s

Bole: 20% Damage Reduction (unchanged). 30s

Spear: 20% Reduction to non-global cool downs. Abilities that are currently on cool down are sped up by 20% or made active if less than 20% of the time is left on the cool down. 30s

Ewer: MP and TP refresh. 30s (duration doubled).

The idea here is that you have your 3 offensive cards that you prioritize based on your team, and that ultimately nerfs the AoE effect because only some party members will receive the 10% boost while most will only get a 5% boost to that source of damage.

Bole already has its uses, and the changes to Spear allow it to be less of a "quick I need to figure out who hasn't used their cool downs yet" situation, and allows you to reap the benefits of it regardless. And merging the MP and TP refreshes means that this card is no longer useless on non-healer roles and the doubled duration means that the actual amount regained is actually worth using the card with in more circumstances. You can also expand Ewer to help provide a hefty amount of resources to the team when players are running low.

[Cyrocco]

/Snip.

Thus far I’ve vehemently opposed most proposed changes to ASTs cards...but this system looks far more fun and creates a reward for pulling more than just Balance. I’d actually very much love to see this implemented.

[Kethic]

I would like to see Bole, Arrow, and Balance roughly equal, and Spear, Ewer, Spire as roughly equal. As it stands, the heirarchy seems to be Balance, Arrow, Bole Ewer Spire, Spear.

As for a Nerf? Maybe a baby Nerf to Balance, but it's not necessary. I'd rather they spend some time on SCH. I main WHM, and some PI rework would be nice too, but is lower priority.

[Kethic]

I didn't put any thought into cross healer balance while reading it, but I also like ty_taurus suggestions.