would this be OP?

[Sunako]

SCH was nerfed during 4.0. They had weaker shields and more mana cost and barely any aoe dps, but then barely anybody play the job anymore. Even world first deltascape was done with whm/ast. Once sch shields become equal with ast, then other toolkit surpassed what nocturnal astro bring. If shield are stronger, it is easier survive certain mechanics. It is really hard balance between those two. I think nocturnal astro just need singletarget healing over time effect. Benefic 2 should turn into shield version like Adlo and Aspected Benefic should be regen regardless your stance.

[Seraphor]

It's not a really good way to balancing the roles because if the roles are too similar, it means the inferior option will always be kicked to the curb because why bring the inferior option to the fight? At least if the themes of the healing are different, it's easier to make arguments about why you should bring X healer to X situation and Y healer to Y situation.

Also the sects represent a balancing problem about AST itself as the developers have to balance between N.AST and D.AST.

*Points to Amelia's post on the previous page*

In my mind, the sects just represent a humongous blunder on the healer developers as it shows their inability to think outside of the already defined roles and choose to take the easy road in an attempt to not shake the balance. However, the balance is even more upset now due to the fact the kits between HoT healer and Shield healer are too similar.

I was personally hoping AST would be made into a dedicated HoT healer like Resto Druids were in WoW. Sad that didn't come to fruition .-.



I don't think you understand what I meant with "buffs" and my comment. If they turned AST into a vanilla healer, this means their heals would have very little frills. No HoTs, no shields, just raw healing. Their position as a healer role would be a buffing Healer in the sense that it would augment the team to do better - it already does this through the cards they use. Focus on the cards more and don't give them any special effects to their heals. There, now it's more unique from both WHM and SCH.

Without either HoTs or shields, AST would be useless as a healer, especially in light party content, and in high end content they would rely entirely on their co-healer to keep everyone alive.
Like i said, the buffs would have to be very substantial, at the very least theyd need a damage reducing buff that wasnt rng or on cooldown, and was more effective than just 10%.

Youre approaching this from a meta mindset, sure theres always going to be an outlier that's inferior and is not chosen over the other superior options as far as meta is concerned. You cant escape that no matter how well you balance them, people will work out whichnobe is superior and take it.
The main thing is that any combination of jobs has to be viable in all content, whether one option is technically superior or not is secondary.
AST dual sects allows for exactly that, they can fill the void of either of the other two healers in whatever content theyre brought into.

Like i said, the limitations are the system itself, AST makes the most of what its got to work within that system.

Not that this makes much difference, AST job quests specifically involve casting Nocturnal Aspected Benefic in order to erect a shield. Its never losing shields, and due to Diurnal being superior, its probably never losing HoTs either.

[Seraphor]

Whats more likely, is AST stays roughly how it is, and our new healer, likely Dancer if the rumours are to be beleived, will break the mould as a buffing healer, with non-rng mitigation and fast, cheap heals that can keep up with a lack of HoTs.

[Mansion]

I'd be happy if 5.0 (with or without a new healer) would break that Shield vs Regen healing duet, and focus on something about job identity.
I'd love to see them making a pure buff/debuff and time magic for AST, with the versatility of regens and shields if it comes to that (I think I'd like a 5.0 ability that would allow you switch into the other sect for a limited duration, with appropriate cooldown on that ability), make SCH a mitigation-focused class (with shields but not limited to that), and find that true identity of WHM (I'm not sure about that yet). So that all healers would be able to put out the required amount of healing in their own ways, and have a stronger share of raid utility (buffing and debuffing, interesting DPS etc.)