Thread: AST Wishlist for 5.0

Originally Posted by Seraphor

So with only pure heals, how will you have the time to use cards?
Will everything be instacast?

1. You'd have plenty of time between heals for cards. There's no content in the game that would force you to be healing constantly with no time for cards.
2. Did you miss the part where I mentioned I'd like to see the Abridged trait from PVP added?

Originally Posted by Eloah

I pray they dont touch the shields, at least not too much. They finally got Noct in a good spot to where it "works" but doesn't outclass Scholar. Of course if Scholar gets Meltdown I'll be a happy lala.

Agreed. And if Scholar gets Meltdown AND White Mage gets Ultima, I'll be a happy lala.

Originally Posted by NorthernLadMSP

I want regens and shields gone and for them to be direct heals only. I want the Abridged skill from PVP. And I want the sects to be changed to where one focuses on heals while making cards weaker and the other focuses on card buffs while making heals weaker.

I can't agree more with this. I thought I would be the only one of this opinion.

If were up to me, I would prune the crap out of AST until it was a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, and start there. I would make them more into the time mage they should be. They would retain their unique features like the cards and abilities related to them, Time Dilation, Earthly Star, Light Speed, Celestial Opposition, Synastry and both Sects. What I would have them focus on now is maintaining a slow debuff on mobs as their means to decrease incoming damage. The stun debuff from CO I would change to the debuff 'Stop'. It still works the exact same way just a different visual effect on the affected mobs. The slow and stop effects can also be extended by the AST, and they would be able to even remove resistances to these debuffs by 'turning the clock back' so to speak.

One of the abilities I've been thinking about that I would love to give them is a spell called 'Black Hole' or 'X Zone'. I forget which boss has this ability, but it would work in a similar way. It basically tears some kind of aetheric hole onto the battlefield, and any and all enemies that are close to it will get tethered and take moderate DoT.

The Sects would definitely work differently now as well since AST would no longer have shields or HoTs. They could retain the stronger/weaker heals depending on the sect, but the presence of a SCH or WHM will no longer dictate which Sect they use. Instead, card effects will change depending on the Sect. As an example one sect will give the Bole the usual increase to defense, but the other sect would have that Bole reduce the defense of the afflicted mob(s). The Spear would give/take away CHR. The Balance would have to be unique this way, because no one is going to care about a DMG down debuff to a boss because it only helps the tank. So I would probably do something along the lines of one version of balance increasing physical attack, and the other magical.

What I am certain of is that if 4.0 AST makes it into 5.0, I'm dropping it completely. I won't even bother getting it to 80.

i personally really like where ast is at currently. i would like more card play if i'm to be honest with myself though. not sure what it'd be whether adding more cards or more ways to interact with them or whatever. i came for the cards, stayed for the heals.

Originally Posted by NorthernLadMSP

1. You'd have plenty of time between heals for cards. There's no content in the game that would force you to be healing constantly with no time for cards.
2. Did you miss the part where I mentioned I'd like to see the Abridged trait from PVP added?

Well if you wanted to stop me and countless others playing AST, this would do it.
It's precisely this that stops me playing WHM.

If you take away shields you'll break the viability of WHM/AST groups on a lot of Savage content (which is already a rare combo, but is totally viable) and you'll make ultimate basically impossible since the boss will just kill everyone without heavy party mitigation management, which pugs will be really hard pressed to handle. Having cards handle debuffs is not gonna help because it's RNG.

Direct heals also tend to be GCDs , and the over reliance on GCDs is a big part of the reason why WHM is ignored in meta. It would be extremely interesting though to replace benefic/helios with weaker insta-cast oGCDs that you could weave using some kind of resource (or we run into even worse mana problems than we already have) , so you'd really be speedy in responding to damage. They could get the trait from ED that increases the potency the lower the target's HP is so there is incentive to AST always being the first to respond.

Resource generation could be tied to your card play so you don't just hold stuff forever, like the faster you deal with the card the more you build kinda thing, and using Minor Arcana on it could punish you by generating less of this resource that you need to cast insta-heals.