Possible AST nerf

[Psycofang]

Wrong thread. This is the AST thread.

It was posted here in this thread

[alimdia]

The Balance has been nerfed http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...ac3297a0083b69

[MoroMurasaki]

AST needs several nerfs in my opinion.

I'm up to 63 right now, basically leveling it as a test to see if it's as OP as everyone says. I mained SCH in HW and main WHM now in SB so I've done most content with both other healers.

I have recovered from things as an AST in Noct that would have wiped the group as a SCH. I have had everyone down but the tank and I, next to no mp and mostly burned cooldowns and still recovered 4 man dungeons thanks to card utility. I have shielded people through ridiculous vuln up stacks instantly. I have mitigated tankbusters with a combo of shielding and regen to allow my tank to not pop any cooldowns and still barely have their health move.

This may seem like bragging but it is in no way a credit to my skill as a player and in every way due to the insane heal/shield potency, utility and reactive healing capabilities of AST.

If I, as a complete newbie to the class, am able to pull off some of the crazy saves I've made on AST when I haven't even gotten all my hotbars 100% set imagine what a dedicated player could do? There is basically no need for other healers except maybe for a WHM for 8 man content and even then it's only a WHM because they have the best healer DPS and Noct AST could solo heal anything with a much lower necessary skill level than any other healer.

I don't care what entitled AST mains think - this class needs to be hit and hit hard if we are ever going to have anything resembling healer balance.

People say as long as AST can heal things Balance (the card) will always make them the preferred healer. Maybe that's true. If it is though then we need to gate Balance, like any OP ability, behind some crazy cooldown/use restriction. If that has to be AST's healing potency dropping to 3.0 or lower then so be it.

This class is currently being ruined by the lack of difficulty it presents. I would love to main it at some point but it is basically like turning on an 'easy mode' or something which is not what I want out of this game.

[HyoMinPark]

I don't care what entitled AST mains think - this class needs to be hit and hit hard if we are ever going to have anything resembling healer balance.

I disagree with this. Because then SE will spend time buffing the undertuned, weak AST until it's overtuned again, and more threads like this will pop up, and the cycle will never end.

[Robert_Ilcri]

Looks like the only nerf Ast took was Balance being well... balanced to make it a 10% buff instead of 20%, and Spear has been changed to a critical hit increase instead of what it was.

[LunaFaye]

I am still waiting for this "10% extra dmg" or the critical hit increased every time I medica/II on my whm. I know it's never going to happen, but I can dream, and yes I do like AST more then I should be admitting, but cards vs lilies/butterflies? Cuteness wins, sorry cards, if I wanted to play with you, I'll become a professional poker player instead of playing ffxiv.

On topic, that nerf didn't hurt much, and yes I understand nerfing it by 10% is a huge deal to some, but to be honest unless you're trying to be top FFlog player or trying to do first world progression, I doub't we will be seeing lots of "you have been nerfed, we only recruiting SCH/WHM's now" kind of atmosphere. Therefore, we could have kept it at whatever it was, I mean the card system and their "bonuses" wasn't why people complained in first place lol. At least we tried right?

[Tyla_Esmeraude]

So much whine. Now you can finally stop complaining. Oh wait... now they are going to complain about how we get crit buff. lol *grabs popcorn*

[Reilyn]

You can't really say AST could boost the raid "reliably", they drew random cards. Redraw gives them a better chance at drawing the card they needed, and Spread helps keeping the card you might not need right now, but might need later, but the cards are still random in the end.

More reliably than 3.0 with all those changes, but now this discussion doesn't really matter. SE nerfed something that deserved to be addressed: the balance card.

So much whine. Now you can finally stop complaining. Oh wait... now they are going to complain about how we get crit buff. lol *grabs popcorn*

Half the ASTs cards being nice to draw instead of half of them being shuffle/royal road fodder is a change that even I appreciate. All it took was a balance nerf, and a spear change. Now balance, arrow, and spear are nice to see instead of just balance, while lowering buff potency at the same time so WHMs won't be shunned as hard for not being an AST.

I like it.

Still the matter of nocturnal sect shields > SCH shields that bothers me to no end.

Also hilariously enough, no duplicate classes allowed in savage. A measure to make sure at least 2 healers stay relevant by imposed force. It's almost like they knew the possibility of double AST was a concern xD

[Aerowaffle]

Still the matter of nocturnal sect shields > SCH shields that bothers me to no end.

It bothers me too, but I'm willing to try out these changes to see if I like the direction SE is trying to lead us.

SCH might have to give up the title of being "shield healer" and instead be the "emergency healer". Every 45sec (consistently now thank god) we will have 3 charges of AF with really good abilities that use them OGCD. SCH will be the best capable healer of reacting to unexpected damage and expected tank busters with these AF ability buffs. At least until we run out of AF before the CD on the refill is up.

[Volsung]

...
Still the matter of nocturnal sect shields > SCH shields that bothers me to no end. ...

I feel the same way, I was SCH main before HW, and then was AST main. (I wanted corsair card buffs but its a lot different)

I think this is largely steeped in what SE tried to do with the new three jobs. They were all meshes of older jobs. Machinist was a mirror to bard. DRK had a mix of pld and drk. AST could either do hots or shields(but not both at once) like whm and sch. However SE seem to have a hard time balancing them, because in their most basic of places, they all need to heal about the same, and offer other stuff. So SE gave AST better shields because sch offered fairy... but at the same time, they nerfed fairy and increased SCH mp costs on said shield spells. It looks like a kick in scholars face instead of balancing the healing output.

I haven't touched SCH yet in SB, I'm hoping SE can change that But I think much of the problem stems from how the 3 HW jobs were envisioned at launch.

I would have much prefered a new type of healing, more like earthly star or reactive heals, or special types of heals opening when drawing cards etc.