AST Wishlist for 5.0

**Wayfinder3** · 02-11-2019 07:54 PM

Im kinda a new AST but a friend of mine teaches me and she's fallen out of love with the job because of How Easy it's become after the changes to malefic 3, She loved the choices that came with meaningful clipping and it allowed her to feel rewarded with proper optimization. While i personally love the changes to malefic 3 and hope they stay. One thing we both agreed on is that, the skill floor for this job is far too low and in the hands of RNG

A lesser skilled ast will out preform simply because they got more Crit Lord of Crowns. I think something about this should be done as RNG shouldn't be what defines the highest tiers by so much, some level of skill should really be involved the the process. Also Change lady of crowns into A small and potent regen would help it be more useful for Auto's. Having a random heal isn't very useful when you have to calculate for it not being there all the time

**AvenoMatt** · 02-11-2019 11:24 PM

I love AST and I would definitely call it my second main but I have to say that even though I do like the flexibility that comes with sects I do hate how it does feel paste on and because the dynamic of heals/shields is so important in this game it limited what AST could of been and what others healers could be. That's why I'm also in the mindset of getting rid of Sects all together and focusing more in it's cards.

Originally Posted by Seraphor

As for the cards themselves, ive thinking:
Bole and Balance: Shields, same as nocturnal.
Spear and Arrow: Bonus 10% damage reduction.
Spire and Ewer: Regen, same as diurnal.

I actually like this a lot but I would do without the 10% damage reduction and instead have Bole, Arrow & Ewer all be regens and Balance, Spear, and Spire be shields. My reasoning for this is because of the cards associated elements, the former 3 being WHM associated elements make sense to be Diurnal aspected cards and the latter 3 being BLM associated elements would be Nocturnal aspected cards. Aspected Benefic and Helios would still be a part or AST's kit but would now burn your cards to apply the effects. I'd also remove their front healing and have them just apply the regen or shield. Potencies of the regen and shield would also be reduced since you want strong regens or shields then you should go with WHM and SCH respectively. AST's main focus should be it's cards and party buffing utility.

I would also like to see a new ability that allow us to swap a card for it's pair so if you pulled a Bole instead of redrawing and potentially getting one of the other 5 cards you instead would get it's pair the Balance. This would also come in handy for when you want to place a shield but pulled a Diurnal card, use the ability and boom Nocturnal card to place your shield.

**Seraphor** · 02-12-2019 12:25 AM

Originally Posted by AvenoMatt

I'd also remove their front healing and have them just apply the regen or shield. Potencies of the regen and shield would also be reduced since you want strong regens or shields then you should go with WHM and SCH respectively. AST's main focus should be it's cards and party buffing utility.

...are you trying to kill everyone?
It's not a healer if it can't heal, the 'pure support role' doesn't exist, AST is still a healer and has to compete with the other two/three.

**AvenoMatt** · 02-12-2019 06:11 AM

Originally Posted by Seraphor

...are you trying to kill everyone?
It's not a healer if it can't heal, the 'pure support role' doesn't exist, AST is still a healer and has to compete with the other two/three.

I didn't say remove all of it's healing just the upfront healing from it's aspected heals. It would still have benefic, benefic II, helios, and all of it's ogcd, maybe even focusing more of it's ogcd by lowering the cooldown of essential dignity or doing what another player suggested and lower the cooldown on draw so we can use minor arcana more often.

And honestly I doubt AST having weaker shields or regens would make it less desirable since it still can heal and provide it's rdps.

**Ghishlain** · 02-12-2019 06:51 AM

In a recent interview at Paris, Yoshi-P made this comment when talking about the new Gunbreaker job:

I don't think it'd be good for the three tanks to form a "triangle", so maybe we'll balance them by having two MTs and two OTs, or make them capable of both.

If a fourth healer is introduced soon and S-E continues to develop the idea that there should be a "Main healer" and "shield healer", then I hope Yoshi-P takes the bolded section above and balancing two main healers and two shield healers. I wouldn't mind extending the shield healer idea to be "Mitigation healer w/ support utility" and thus pushing AST to be balanced against SCH in 5.0 - taking away the idea of HoTs vs Mitigation for AST and be easier to balance overall. This will also allow the 4th healer to be balanced as a pure healer against WHM (hopefully).

**Maltothoris** · 02-12-2019 06:56 AM

Originally Posted by AvenoMatt

And honestly I doubt AST having weaker shields or regens would make it less desirable since it still can heal and provide it's rdps.

Well thing is it actually did all the way back during the 3.x. The cards weren't strong enough to offset the healing disparity that AST had back then. In fact it took patches of buffs to make people even consider WHM/AST (3.3 and the infamous 3.4) cause SCH just did everything better than a noct astro before 3.4. For comparison sake back then
before 3.4 noct astro aspected benefic total potency 603.75 (262.5 heal/341.25) compared to adlo 600. The only advantages were it was instant and cheaper. Come 3.4, Noct sect got buffed from 5 percent healing to 10 percent healing and the shield percentage got buffed from 130 to 170 percent. Only then, did I see an increase in astros (of course there was also that stupid buff to balance which was the main reason).

Edit: FFlogs isn't really a good metric but I still remember back then checking the stuff on A8s during the midas tier. Of the hundreds of groups that cleared before 3.3, you had only 2 that were logged as a ast/whm group. SOme may not logged their clear but it gives a good idea back when there were hundreds of clears with whm/sch or sch/ast but few whm/ast clears. There was a reason they buffed the shields in 3.3 with aspected helios being increased to 120 percent of the heal and then the huge full buff to noct in 3.4.

Edit: Not defending it either, I do wish the explore with the cards a bit more and tried to differentiate with the sects themselves. However, having been through hw and the tumultuous cycle back then with whm vs ast since SCH was king back then and knowing what SE has done, it just wouldn't be very likely sadly.

**AvenoMatt** · 02-12-2019 07:57 AM

Yeah but a problem ppl have with AST now is that it's healing and cards are too strong of a combination. It's not as bad as it was at the end of 3.x but it still ends up out classing WHM.

Also wasn't the issue for AST more that it's overall healing, Benefic, Benefic II and Helios, was just too weak not just it's a Aspected heals.

**Maltothoris** · 02-12-2019 08:38 AM

Originally Posted by AvenoMatt

Yeah but a problem ppl have with AST now is that it's healing and cards are too strong of a combination. It's not as bad as it was at the end of 3.x but it still ends up out classing WHM.

Also wasn't the issue for AST more that it's overall healing, Benefic, Benefic II and Helios, was just too weak not just it's a Aspected heals.

Ya I just using noct aspected benefic as example as why no one wanted to use noct astro. Ya before 3.07 it had weaker heals in everything. the cards now aren't necessarily stronger but you have more control over the rng now with sleeve draw and minor arcana but I would say they've backed themselves into corner and would probably be best to take the route that they're thinking with the tanks now.

**Seraphor** · 04-12-2019 09:41 PM

New Spire effect: Reduces MP costs for target by 10%.
This would compliment it's counterpart in Ewer, while Ewer would recover lost MP, Spire would preserve MP, and with TP merging into MP this will benefit anyone.

Sects effect cards: Current effects are present in Diurnal Sect*, new effects for Nocturnal Sect target enemies instead of party.
Balance: Enemy deals 8% less damage for 15s.
Bole: Enemy takes 8% more damage for 15s. (does not stack with Trick attack)
Arrow: Enemy’s attack speed is reduced by 10% for 15s. (but certain special moves and phase changes are unaffected)
Spear: Enemy cannot deal critical hits for 15s.
Ewer: Inflicts a 50 potency DoT for 15s.
Spire: Enemy takes 10% of the damage they inflict on any party members for 15s.

The point of this is to allow dual-AST compositions to use their cards without worrying about overwriting the other’s effects.
The duration is nerfed to 15s for Nocturnal effects as they could be more OP than party buffs, with Bole/Balance nerfed in potency to 8% as well.
*Diurnal Balance and Bole also nerfed to 8% effect.

I think this would also see Nocturnal Sect favoured more over Diurnal in some ways, due to an Enhanced Bole being more effective than Trick attack. (12% more damage over 15s) Would be a neat way of improving the currently inferior Nocturnal Sect.

**lordcruxis** · 04-13-2019 12:38 AM

Can draw and redraw please be reduced to 20s cd, this would be enough for me

Thread: AST Wishlist for 5.0

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