Thread: 4.3 AST changes/speculations

Originally Posted by AmurT

That's a nice idea. I always did wonder why Gravity was essentially a worse version of Holy with less damage, targetting placement and no debuff.

Although, I have to say I'm fine with the RNG aspect of card drawing - it also fits with the lore and how tarot readings in general are complete RNG (some people even enjoy the RNG factor). When I get into bad parties, it's nice to suddenly draw a Bole or double Ewers, but the issue is those cards are only applicable in those situations.

I'm just worried that the RNG aspect makes players playing AST completely ignore the cards and 8 slots on their hotbars it takes up to deal with. Like below level 30 you don't even have the cards, so you're basically a baby-whm (Benefic II at level 26, where as WHM gets Cure II at 30, but gets Repose at 26.)

The fact that CNJ/WHM and THM/BLM are the only ones with Repose/Sleep, makes using it useless in all duties except Brayflox Longstop. Like I'm not sure what SE was expecting here. I've seen THM's try to use it in Sastasha, Copperbell and Halitali, but it really doesn't do anything in those, since other players just hit all the mobs at random. AST and SCH don't have them, so no content can ever be designed with "sleep" as a possible way to control the fight. WHM has Holy which is more useful for the stun effect than any damage it creates, since it resets all the mobs actions, thus making it easier to avoid their AOE's since they all appear at the same time. Gravity really needs to be at the same level (eg 42) since they have the same potency, but Gravity really needs Heavy or Bind to make it useful for crowd control beyond just being another AOE to throw at a group of mobs. SCH does not have a crowd-control skill at all.

Like I really don't care for "zerg"'ing dungeons, to begin with, but AST just ends up being slower to play, and slower to have in the party as the ideal card setup pre-pull is slow. I find it's more fun to play on the level 60 raids and level 60-70 Trials, but otherwise the lack of a AOE in all the level 50 and below dungeons makes it feel like you're the one slowing things down.

Something else SE could try is to remove the CD from all the card CD's when not engaged in a fight (eg allow draw/undraw/redraw with no CD.) That would speed things up a bit, particularly on Alliance raids where often there IS enough time to draw two cards, but not enough time to draw a second card once the fight begins.

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 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

Idk I just feel like in this situation SCH is like WAR and AST is like DRK, both arnt bad but both need some serious class adjustments to be more on level with it's counterparts

Unfortunately I feel like sch will always be OP and broken as it was in HW there's no way around it so at least makes some QoL to noct

The problem with combining MP and TP in order to give Spire a valid use, is that it then makes Ewer and Spire too valuable to Royal Road.
Having Spire as a throwaway card for Royal Road is incredibly useful.

The only card I never like getting is the Bole.
A healer can't rely on RNG for it's healing or mitigation, as such you will always plan your moves without taking Bole into account and when you do get it it's not needed.
Then again, like Spire, I occasionally Royal Road it when I've already got a Balance held, but it's far less useful than Spire.