Not impressed with the skill changes

[MPNZ]

Yeah they way over-pruned a lot of the jobs like BRD. It feels really weird that they would remove foei, refresh, and the crit buffs but keep sidewinder and add an aoe sidewinder when the could have just moved it's effect into empyrean arrow, bloodletter, and rain of death. And, then add an AOE DoT ability, and upgrade Warden's and minne into circular AOEs. It's actually weirder that BRD doesn't go more into song affects like Army's. And, the removal of the passive buff is also totally weird and just feels unnecessary

[VillainQueen]

So I'm WHM level 75 at the moment so I'm missing two skills I think, however I like the change so far. The Lily system change is great. Each Lily gives a pretty potent single target heal and it's instant cast (Afflatus Solace) and you have a constant supply of flowers to use as the regen rate is pretty quick. So I found myself using that Lily heal way more often than Cure 2 or Tentra as it heals more or the same and is imo cheaper. So I get my Blood Lily to appear quite often that gives a nice new damage skill to use. As for Dia and Glare, well it's Stone and Aero with a new design, feels about the same to play tbh.

Tldr; finally a Lily system that you actually use and rest feels the same.

[The_NPC]

I don't have to hit lv80 to know how MCH feels... that & at even lv72 all ur waiting on is skill changes, Traits & 1 more "charge in 2 oGCD skills, hardest part thou is I'm fighting FOUR BLOODY YEARS of burst rotation muscle memory atm to even comprehend what the heck is going on with it... I keep forgeting the 2 new "priority" GCD skills exsist almost all the time & have spent the last 2 days just mashing crap that seams like a good fit together to do stuff with it (I even forget wildfire for several seconds at times as I'm just lost)

I'm to stubborn to give up thou so "I'll eather fail with it till its reworked AGAIN or somehow bruteforce my way threw MY OWN MIND! to a rotation"... I may have slightly dispised the last version of MCH but honestly I'd take it over whatever "This" is

[Neophyte]

Not likely. They may adjust potency and stuff. They won't overhaul anything for 2 years.

WAR/tanks rework at the start of SB? And the added Miasma2 for SCH 4 weeks after expansion release?

The one major, the other one minor, but both not onöy potency stuff.

[TankHunter678]

There was nothing "strategic" about AST. That's nothing but rose-colored glasses talking.

ASTs pulled for Balance. If it wasn't Balance, they used it for AoE enhance or feeding to Lord/Lady. Now it's easier to pull Balance, since they're all Balance... you just have to watch for the right seal and match with melee or ranged.

In 24 man raids AST pulled aiming for Balance, Bole, or Ewer. Ewer because you often times wind up spending a lot of mana getting people back up, Bole to mitigate some of the large unavoidable AoE's hitting the party to reduce healing needs, and balance is a no duh. In 4 man Dungeons AST used their entire card kit, even if Spire was only good for large pulls to sustain physical DPS and their immense TP needs.

If a BLM was in the party then Arrow was also aimed for. If BRD/MNK was in the party Spear was aimed for. Every card may have been niche besides Balance but every card had its purpose and use. Which made AST have to think on their feet and plan ahead. Even if a card had no use then it could have use in the future, be it for the spread, for the royal road, or as a attack or heal in the crowns.

Now? The damage buffs are so minor and so short in duration its almost not worthwhile to use except as Lord/Lady fodder to get a damage buff that is close to old balance even if it has half the duration of the old balance. Seals only matter for the half (almost 1/3rd) duration AoE Balance.

[Millybonk]

There was nothing "strategic" about AST. That's nothing but rose-colored glasses talking.

ASTs pulled for Balance. If it wasn't Balance, they used it for AoE enhance or feeding to Lord/Lady. Now it's easier to pull Balance, since they're all Balance... you just have to watch for the right seal and match with melee or ranged.

If you try to use rose-colored glasses as an argument you should also uphold integrity + stay with facts.

Before AST had access to 6 unique card effects which offered you choice, even though some of them were heavily favored compared to others, but now every card does the same in granting a 6%/3% damage buff, except Lord/Lady.
Where do you see rose-colored glasses in effect?

[Cincierta]

Ast feels terribly gutted now. If not the cards being reduced down to a matching 3% to 6% game, but the stances.

Nocturnal sect is basically a no-go now since switching to it actually increases your mp consumption on some skills, and sch has a much better kit for shielding with and can crit. Noct doesn't seem to do that now at all. It's like they're forcing you to stick to diurnal because of reduced mp costs and regen that feels a little under par with whm until much later on when you can stack CU and CO for enhanced regen. And this doesn't help that not only Protect is gone, but it feels like tanks have been made squishier now with mass pulling in not only old areas, but the newer areas too (I have not gotten into ShB yet, but a tank friend has told me of his experiences in there: everything hits harder than a truck with quest gear on).

While I am glad that buttons got trimmed down due to the bloat, I'm not exactly happy about these changes to ast. Unless they actually buff the card buff timer to 30 seconds instead of 15 or reducing the recast on Draw from 30 to 15 seconds to match the buff duration, there really doesn't seem to be much point in using the class' novelty skill unless you're going to maximum dps in expert groups. 90% of the game is just leveling stuff and trash dies too fast for it to be of any actual use.

[SpiritMuse]

There are still people who do actions after they are rezzed and die right after they raise because of it, instead of waiting a second for heals.

To be fair, nothing in the game tells you that you've a small invincibility window after being raised, and nothing tells you that actions other than walking will cancel that window. It's something you have to be told by other players, or discover accidentally and then realise that this is going on instead of ascribing it to luck.

[Jimmymagic]

Scholar isn't a DPS. It isn't supposed to have power.

this 100%

a healer that has to heal what a concept!

[NinjaTaru72]

While the expansion itself seems amazing, they definitely over simplified the jobs. Likee they feel like we can't handle what we had. Healers had tons of skills removed. Tanks were the worst. It's like they said "oh you've been riding bikes for 10 years? Well let's force you to use training wheels so you don't definitely can't mess up."