AST change

[Seraphor]

AST doesn't need more of anything. What it does need is an identity of its own. It basically stole WHMs identity and added a card gimmick to it.

People keep saying this, but what exactly did AST steal from WHM?

GCD heals?
A DoT and a DPS spell and an AoE DPS spell? So it’s only different from SCH in that it only has one DoT rather than two?
A oGCD cooldown AoE regen? That actually functions differently?
Benefic and Benefic II? So it’s just the fact that SCH doesn’t have a Physick II that makes it “stolen from WHM”?

These seem like healer basics to me.
The Aspected spells don’t work the same, Diurnal Benefic/Helios have a heal plus a HoT so it’s not the same as Regen/Medica II.
If anything it takes this from SCH, as Noct Benefic/Helios are basically Adloquium/Succor.

What else could AST have used?
Seems to me the problem isn’t that AST stole from WHM, but that WHM doesn’t have anything to it besides the most basic healer toolkit.
Fix WHM, give it an actual identity and a unique mechanic that isn’t 100% passive and inconsequential, don’t strip stuff from AST in order to bring it down to WHM’s level.


The problem with shields is they’re not an efficient form of healing unless they’re timed absolutely perfectly. A pure shield healer wouldn’t work very well in difficult single healer content. SCH has HoTs via it’s fairy, and Diurnal is almost unanimously favoured over Nocturnal.
I don’t think this dichotomy like MT/OT would work, and they’ve specifically said they’re trying to balance three healers before they add a fourth.
If anything, they need to give all healers options to shield or regen, but have unique applications of those.
WHM needs shields in some form. Give it Protect back as an exclusive ability, add Shell to that, and have some kind of unique interaction with lilies.

[Gemina]

People keep saying this, but what exactly did AST steal from WHM?

GCD heals?
A DoT and a DPS spell and an AoE DPS spell? So it’s only different from SCH in that it only has one DoT rather than two?
A oGCD cooldown AoE regen? That actually functions differently?
Benefic and Benefic II? So it’s just the fact that SCH doesn’t have a Physick II that makes it “stolen from WHM”?

These seem like healer basics to me.
The Aspected spells don’t work the same, Diurnal Benefic/Helios have a heal plus a HoT so it’s not the same as Regen/Medica II.
If anything it takes this from SCH, as Noct Benefic/Helios are basically Adloquium/Succor.

We can sit here and compare Benefic to Cure 1, and Benefict 2 to Cure 2, etc. etc. All that's doing is rearranging furniture on the Titanic. You are not seeing the issue as it exists today. They keep saying it because AST failed to bring a new form of healing into the game. It isn't called a SCH with cards because the majority of the time they a paired with SCHs which forces them into diurnal sect. There is not much reason for an AST to be paired with a WHM so they can be in noct because WHM brings absolutely nothing to a raid set up, which makes the whole 'fill the role that is necessary' dynamic a complete and total ruse.

Upon AST introduction in 3.0, it was useless. The devs couldn't figure out what to do with it so the buffed the schite out of it and in doing so, they shoved WHM into the dirt. Actually, that's an understatement: They buried WHM underneath the feet of AST. Some players such as myself still enjoy playing WHM. It's an AoE machine that shines on large trash pulls when the utility that SCH and AST bring isn't needed. In single target scenarios such as trials and 8-man raids, it's reduced to throwing rocks. SCH and AST spend a fair amount of time spamming Broil and Malefic respectively, but at least they can also provide utility, and have to monitor those CDs.

What else could AST have used?
Seems to me the problem isn’t that AST stole from WHM, but that WHM doesn’t have anything to it besides the most basic healer toolkit.
Fix WHM, give it an actual identity and a unique mechanic that isn’t 100% passive and inconsequential, don’t strip stuff from AST in order to bring it down to WHM’s level.

Again, healing kits are not the issue and hasn't been for a long time. The issue is AST is saturated with utility. Not only can it provide raid utility, but it also has it's own such as Lightspeed, Synastry, and Minor Arcana making them more effective than they are already. The job is ridiculously OP to the point of being broken. Having them in your group is akin to using a gameshark.

The problem with shields is they’re not an efficient form of healing unless they’re timed absolutely perfectly. A pure shield healer wouldn’t work very well in difficult single healer content.

Not true at all. I don't do savage, but I have solo healed EX primals and the chaos of 24-man with my SCH. Because DPS uptime for healers is around 90% of the encounter, I am quite confident SCH can solo heal savage without much issue. Shields are also OP in the game. Even though the shield restores HP at a low potency, the shield itself has more HP than what is restored to the player. Over-healing with shields also isn't an issue because they effectively increase the HP pool of the player it is casted on.

I don’t think this dichotomy like MT/OT would work, and they’ve specifically said they’re trying to balance three healers before they add a fourth.
If anything, they need to give all healers options to shield or regen, but have unique applications of those.
WHM needs shields in some form. Give it Protect back as an exclusive ability, add Shell to that, and have some kind of unique interaction with lilies.

I agree with you here. Giving all healers direct heals, HoTs, and shields as base kits is one way to handle them with diversity obtained through their DPS and utility kits. However, what they currently have with 2 of 3 healers being able to increase raid damage, speed, and defense cannot continue.

[Lordfurious]

I like your ideas I had offered some suggestions prior. I wanted to see something added similar to planetary Indulgence. An instant AOE heal. Calm down folks get your finger off the mouse pads. Yes I know they have Earthly indulgence. Please know earthly Indulgence is something that requires targetting and two clicks to cast therefore not making it instant. White Mages have benediction Scholars have Lustrate. I would like to see a big heal like this added to to astrologian as well.

I main Healers my second choice is tanking. I am recently back to game. I can tell you the only time I have ever felt like a failure as a Healer was while playing on astrologian. They just don't, while leveling that is, have the ability to keep up at the level of a scholar or White Mage. Take your fingers off those mousepads again. The recent letter from developer he acknowledged this which is why they will not be adding a fourth healer in this expansion rather balancing the three classes as they are in desperate need of balancing.

I do really enjoy your ideas. I like to play all three classes of Healers. I want to Healing capabilities to be very similar. The Spells can be as different as night and day for all I care as long as each class has the ability to Output the same HPS, or close.

Thank you for your awesome ideas and for listening to my opinions as well

[Seraphor]

White Mages have benediction Scholars have Lustrate. I would like to see a big heal like this added to to astrologian as well.

This is basically Essential Dignity.
I know technically WHM has two of these, Benediction and Tetragrammaton, but SCH only has the one in Lustrate like AST's Essential Dignity.

Oh and you meant Earthly Star, not Earthly Indulgence.
I'd say Earthly Star is actually more of an Assize analogue. Plenary Indulgence doesn't really have an analogue.
But AST's Collective Unconscious is superior to Asylum, so there's that.

[Mansion]

Essential Dignity, timed correctly, has a stupid high potency. I'm not saying it's worth a Benediction on a WAR that Holmgangs with all their HP buffs on, but still. Right now you can instantly give back 40K HP (and it's more than enough). It has a short Cooldown, and you can work around it with your Earthly Star or a Lady of Crowns.

Benediction has a high CD, and heals perhaps too much, compared to the average damage output in the game. I'm not really envious of Bene when I play on my AST.

[Lordfurious]

This is basically Essential Dignity.
I know technically WHM has two of these, Benediction and Tetragrammaton, but SCH only has the one in Lustrate like AST's Essential Dignity.

Oh and you meant Earthly Star, not Earthly Indulgence.
I'd say Earthly Star is actually more of an Assize analogue. Plenary Indulgence doesn't really have an analogue.
But AST's Collective Unconscious is superior to Asylum, so there's that.

I knew someone was going to mention that abilities and claim it was similar to benediction. Please allow me to correct you. That ability would be closest to the ability tetragrammatron. That is just one more ability extra that white Mages have. I would also say it is like a Scholars lustrate, because of the fact Scholars can cast it three times if they have a full stack of Aether. But thanks for your input, and sorry I did not add that into my previous comment.

Sorry I got Earthly star incorrect. I probably should have looked up the exact name as I am a recently returning player and I'm not completely up on exactly every name but do know every healing spell and what it does, which is why I mentioned that Earthly is nothing at all like assize. I can only assume that you didn't take the actual time to read my comments in its entirety. If you had you would have seen that because you need to actually Target and click it twice, it is therefore, not instant. As the game is progressing and moving forward the need for instant cast abilities is ever more prevalent, which is why I stressed these ideas. I do not believe that Collective unconsciousness is superior. While you are casting that you are immobilized you cannot move you cannot cast another spell. That is 15 seconds of downtime for a weak heal. After White Mage cast their asylum they are free to continue casting more heal spells. Since my White Mage is such an Uber Beast with terrific gear I tend to just Spam cure 3 after using asylum if need be. I really do value your input and I thank you for trying as hard as you did, but I think we are going to have to agree to disagree.

[Mansion]

I knew someone was going to mention that abilities and claim it was similar to benediction. Please allow me to correct you. That ability would be closest to the ability tetragrammatron. That is just one more ability extra that white Mages have. I would also say it is like a Scholars lustrate, because of the fact Scholars can cast it three times if they have a full stack of Aether. But thanks for your input, and sorry I did not add that into my previous comment.

I really don't agree. Cast an Essential Dignity on someone that is under 10% HP, it will explode Tetragrammaton's potency. Especially if it crits.
Tetragrammaton is more like Lady of Crowns. Its potency is lower but you can virtually use it every 30 seconds.
Plus AST has an instant GCD heal (with added effect of the sect) where WHM only has a Regen.
It's the little things, but overall AST can ironically put out much more healing than WHM without sacrificing DPS, in a raid context. And it comes with cards.

[Seraphor]

I knew someone was going to mention that abilities and claim it was similar to benediction. Please allow me to correct you. That ability would be closest to the ability tetragrammatron. That is just one more ability extra that white Mages have. I would also say it is like a Scholars lustrate, because of the fact Scholars can cast it three times if they have a full stack of Aether. But thanks for your input, and sorry I did not add that into my previous comment.

Sorry I got Earthly star incorrect. I probably should have looked up the exact name as I am a recently returning player and I'm not completely up on exactly every name but do know every healing spell and what it does, which is why I mentioned that Earthly is nothing at all like assize. I can only assume that you didn't take the actual time to read my comments in its entirety. If you had you would have seen that because you need to actually Target and click it twice, it is therefore, not instant. As the game is progressing and moving forward the need for instant cast abilities is ever more prevalent, which is why I stressed these ideas. I do not believe that Collective unconsciousness is superior. While you are casting that you are immobilized you cannot move you cannot cast another spell. That is 15 seconds of downtime for a weak heal. After White Mage cast their asylum they are free to continue casting more heal spells. Since my White Mage is such an Uber Beast with terrific gear I tend to just Spam cure 3 after using asylum if need be. I really do value your input and I thank you for trying as hard as you did, but I think we are going to have to agree to disagree.

Essential Dignity: 400 potency, that can scale up to roughly 1200 potency. (enough to almost fully heal, plus it can Crit) 40s cooldown.

Benediction: Maximum HP, equivalent to roughly 1500 potency maybe? 180s cooldown.
Tetragrammaton: 700 potency flat heal. 60s cooldown.
Lustrate: 600 potency. Can potentially be spammed up to 3 times for 1800 potency! 60s cooldown (based on Aetherflow)

So yeah, Tetra is more similar in terms of cooldown, but Bene is closer in potency, it actually sits somewhere in the middle but ultimately all those skills do the same job.


EDIT: All three healers have similar utility in their ‘emergency’ heals really.

AST: 400 potency at higher HP, 1000 or more potency at lower HP.
WHM: 700 potency with Tetra, Maximum HP with Bene.
SCH: 600, 1200 or 1800 depending on Aetherflows.

Basically, they can all do the same thing, but WHM takes up two slots on your hotbar to do it.




Earthly Star: 720 cure potency, and 200 DPS potency.

Assize: 400 Cure and DPS potency.
Plenary Indulgence: Only cures.

Again, Earthly Star does both jobs in a way. It uses a scaling mechanic, which I suppose you could attribute to Plenary Indulgence, but functionally, its a Heal/DPS combo.
So with Earthly Star and Assize, in both cases you would typically use the skill on cooldown for its DPS value, whereas Plenary Indulgence you'd save for cures. Hence why Earthly Star and Assize are more similar in function.




Asylum: 100 potency over 24s. Requires party members to remain within the area of effect, and chances are, they won't.
800 total potency (reliant on party members staying within the area for 24s)

Collective Unconscious: 150 potency over 15s, plus 10% damage reduction. Effect is imbued upon party members, allowing them to leave the area of effect. This means it only needs to be used for a split second to bestow this effect for 15s on all party members in range, you don't need to stand still. You can also extend the duration of this effect with Celestial Opposition and Time Dilation, increasing the effective potency of the HoT.
If you do stand still however, you can extend the duration beyond 15s, making that potency far better than Asylum, and with a damage reduction to boot!
750 total potency (guaranteed, can be extended to 1200 or even 1500 with both CO and TD, without needing to stand still, and even further if you do stand still)


But I thank you for your view, and thank you for not being too condescending about it, but it would appear that you don't quite "know every healing spell and what it does."

[Lordfurious]

EDIT: All three healers have similar utility in their ‘emergency’ heals really.

AST: 400 potency at higher HP, 1000 or more potency at lower HP.
WHM: 700 potency with Tetra, Maximum HP with Bene.
SCH: 600, 1200 or 1800 depending on Aetherflows.

Basically, they can all do the same thing, but WHM takes up two slots on your hotbar to do it.

Earthly Star: 720 cure potency, and 200 DPS potency.

Assize: 400 Cure and DPS potency.
Plenary Indulgence: Only cures.

Again, Earthly Star does both jobs in a way. It uses a scaling mechanic, which I suppose you could attribute to Plenary Indulgence, but functionally, its a Heal/DPS combo.
So with Earthly Star and Assize, in both cases you would typically use the skill on cooldown for its DPS value, whereas Plenary Indulgence you'd save for cures. Hence why Earthly Star and Assize are more similar in function.

Asylum: 100 potency over 24s. Requires party members to remain within the area of effect, and chances are, they won't.
800 total potency (reliant on party members staying within the area for 24s)

Collective Unconscious: 150 potency over 15s, plus 10% damage reduction. Effect is imbued upon party members, allowing them to leave the area of effect. This means it only needs to be used for a split second to bestow this effect for 15s on all party members in range, you don't need to stand still. You can also extend the duration of this effect with Celestial Opposition and Time Dilation, increasing the effective potency of the HoT.
If you do stand still however, you can extend the duration beyond 15s, making that potency far better than Asylum, and with a damage reduction to boot!
750 total potency (guaranteed, can be extended to 1200 or even 1500 with both CO and TD, without needing to stand still, and even further if you do stand still)


But I thank you for your view, and thank you for not being too condescending about it, but it would appear that you don't quite "know every healing spell and what it does."[/QUOTE]

Please fact check your information is incorrect and you're sharing misinformation.

Facts-

1. Whm Benediction full cure.

2. SCH Lustrate 600 cure potency, and can be cast up tp 6 times potentially in a row if aether stacks are full and off cooldown.

3. AST Essential Dignity cure potency 400. Higher if target hp is low.

I'm not sure where you came up with the number you came up for essential dignity but what I wrote above is what the tooltip says. Moreover I can tell you for a fact it will not bring a tank from the brink of death to full at the most I've seen maybe 50%.

[Lordfurious]

Actually I'm new to forums and I would like all of my comments removed I find all the people in the forms here not helpful you offer opinion,and everyone here wants to fight and get off topic. And then the community wonders why they cannot retain new blood we show up once in awhile but then have to listen to the bickering and arguing like what's happening here over off topic stupidity. Fact: the dev said there needs to be a balance that the healers are not balanced. So instead of everybody that's here trying to make an argument saying that the healers are balanced maybe you should sit down and read the letter from the editor that outlines specifically why we are not getting a forth healer and that is because the developer says there's imbalance in the healing and it's going to take this amount of time to be able to create that balance. But thank you everybody for ruining my forum experience. But mostly thank you for the misinformation and fictitious numbers associated with some of the skills.