Thread: 4.3 AST changes/speculations

I honestly expect MP reduction on Aspected Helios to follow the recent reduction on Succor. Besides that I'm afraid of possible buffs on Diurnal AST that is already very powerful and I'd like Noct to get some love since Scholar is back to the absolutely broken status it had on HW.

Other than that maybe Malefic cast time reduced? It's one of the most requested AST changes since SB launch. One can dream.

Changes I would like to see:
-Remove the damage down effect on Lightspeed. I want some of that DPS fun.
-Change Lady of Crown to something more readily usable. As it stands now, we can't rely on Minor Arcana to be a clutch heal because of its RNG nature. The current strategy with Lady of Crown is to use it as quick as possible so you can try for a Lord of Crown next draw, which is kind of lame. They could make Lady restore some of our MP when we use it, they could turn it into pseudo-Disable that lowers an enemy's Damage dealt by x%, or maybe even turn it into an HoT that we can extend.
-Either give Combust/Combust II a small amount of burst damage like Aero/Aero II or give us a weaker insta-cast, burst-damage spell so we can add DPS while we're moving and not have clipping issues.
-Condense Ewer and Spire's refresh effects into one card and give the remaining card a different effect. I don't know what new effect they could give the card though...

Personally I think they're only going to make some small changes to it, adjustments here and there. I just realllly hope they're in the way of buffs and not nerfs though.

Originally Posted by CorbinDallas

A repeat of 3.3 (or was it 3.4?) is what I'm scared of as well. It doesn't need bigger numbers, it needs QoL. The loss of aero and the merging of combust/combust2, along with adding even more off globals, makes it feel really bad to play despite it still being a strong job.

This is exactly what I feared when I first saw the skill list back at HW launch. It is near impossible to make a hybrid of 2 existing classes and keep it balanced.

It was kinda both. 3.3 saw aspected helios get its shield percentage to 120 since if I recall there were only 2 clears of A8S before 3.3. Then 3.4 saw everything in Noct stance get buffed( 5 to 10 percent healing bonus, 130 to 170 on aspected benefic, and 120 to 150 on aspected helios) which all were rendered moot because of the balance change.

But ya, I'm fearful cause I saw this coming and I know exactly what will get changed. The changes to Noct Ast has always been make the number bigger. Nothing inventive or creative or anything to try make them stand out more or feel unique. Just bigger numbers to try and make them even with the fairy and the ogcds the sch has.

Originally Posted by ElasmoFan

Personally I think they're only going to make some small changes to it, adjustments here and there. I just realllly hope they're in the way of buffs and not nerfs though.

At the very least, I don't see any nerfs happening.
Collective unconscious could potentially see a CD reduction maybe, Earthly Star easier to use, small QoL things like that perhaps.

do you think they will put in a set of cards that will act like animus augeo and animus minuo

After giving it some more though, I'm pensive about these quoted AST adjustments but I'm cautiously optimistic that it won't go overboard since there isn't a large amount of healers complaining about AST's inadequacies at this juncture like there was in the 3.0 to 3.3 era.

I'm having a hard time figuring out what kind of small-scale adjustments they could make to AST in 4.3. My best guess is that they'll do something about mana costs or refresh potency on Ewer. If they mess with the mitigation/buff percentages, wouldn't SE be backtracking on their earlier stance on balance and bole being too strong?

Honestly, I wish they'd stir things up with the nocturnal sect (seeing how nAST just fails to interact properly with half of the AST toolkit). I enjoy the thought of having layered shields - not stacking shields with high numbers to cheese stuff, but a shield with several charges that gradually deplete when struck. Shields that could gain layers with TD and CO, for example.

But SE seems really rigid in their designs when it comes to healer and healing-related mechanics so that'll more likely be a 5.X or 6.X thing, should it ever come to pass at all.

Originally Posted by Ghishlain

After giving it some more though, I'm pensive about these quoted AST adjustments but I'm cautiously optimistic that it won't go overboard since there isn't a large amount of healers complaining about AST's inadequacies at this juncture like there was in the 3.0 to 3.3 era.

At the same time, I don't particularly remember WARs asking for much, if anything at all. Yet they got a rather OP aoe mitigation skill, and the very next patch, their playstyle completely reworked and buffed.

We'll see what happens, though if past examples are anything to go by, SE is a fan of overbuffing jobs for a patch or two just to get people playing them.

Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

At the same time, I don't particularly remember WARs asking for much, if anything at all. Yet they got a rather OP aoe mitigation skill, and the very next patch, their playstyle completely reworked and buffed.

We'll see what happens, though if past examples are anything to go by, SE is a fan of overbuffing jobs for a patch or two just to get people playing them.

I really hope they don't completely rework it. I really enjoy AST's current playstyle (I even enjoy that I have to actually be careful about my MP usage and that I actually need to make sure I have Max-Ethers available for crucial moments).

Instant weak damage GCD seems to be the most common request in here + reddit. I know I'd be super happy and making big forum ty posts just for this one change. No need for them to go nuts