SCH and AST

[Muahbec]

So i\\'ve been playing SCH since ARR e AST since HW and i gotta say, i have no idea of what SE tried to achieve with these changes.
Sure i know the whole "pure healers" stuff, but, is this the right way to do so?
Most of the changes seems so questionable, its almost as if they don\\'t even play their own game.

The new cards are by far one of the weirdest experiences i\\'ve had in this game.
I feel like im working a lot and doing nothing at the same time...
3%? 6%? Really? What\\'s that? 200 more damage on a skill/spell? Seriously?
3 minutes for a 6% lame AOE damage buff that lasts a ridiculous 15s?
And looking at numbers, these buffs doesn\\'t do THAT much, i better of just stop and DPS myself instead of wasting my time thinking on which card to use and having to stress myself with redraw in order to try and get the right seals.
(Without mentioning the frequent "SPIRE>BALANCE>SPIRE" situations)
Isn\\'t our job as AST to buff people? Would it really hurt THAT much to give us some real buffs? And not these lame 3/6/8% crap?

Also, what\\'s with Celestial Opposition? Long CD really low potency, short range, while SCH has a 400 AOE, and WHM a 300 AOE+Damage at a low CD. If you\\'re going to turn it into an aoe instant heal then at least do it correctly for christ sake.
CU feels terrible as well.
In big pulls i use literally everything, it all goes into CD and then i turn into a Benefic 2 spam machine while SCH has 1612772 tools to use and WHM has way more potent heals.
The job was standing at a pretty nice spot, only spire had to be changed and SE decided to simply kill it entirely.
So let me ask you dear SE, why do you hate AST so much?

As for SCH...
What\\'s the point in having 2 fairies doing the exact same thing? Why not make eos focused on pure heals/regens and Selene on shielding?

Embrace on EOS would be the 150 potency heal, and for Selene it would be a flat X potency shield with no heals
Whispering dawn for eos would be the AOE regen and for Selene a X potency shield on everybody.

I don\\'t know, something else instead of just an useless fairy glamour...

I always loved the "shield healer" design and i was expecting more shields, but instead i got more heals, I AM NOT A WHITE MAGE SQUARE ENIX!

SCH already has enough healing tools, give them SHIELDING/defense tools.
I always wondered, why doesn\\'t excog give a 800p SHIELD instead of heal? That would make much sense to me at least....

Sure, some shields wouldn\\'t stack but i believe y\\'all know what i mean...

I won\\'t even mention the whole "only in combat" stupidity for seals and Aetherflow...

Jesus Crist Square Enix.
I really hope you do something, i\\'ll be really surprised if you actually manage to fix this mess.

[nalol]

I feel the new healing skills are underwhelming.

fey blessing is weak
not amazed by seraph either. consolation doesn't feel that great ...

Our best AoE heal is still indom (and even better if u use recitation) ... and it just feels strange that higher lvl heals are weaker. I was doing crystal tower dg and didn't feel consolation was enough to keep group up ... u need to use it with another AoE healing ... same for fey blessing .. so weak

indom is 400 cost 1 AF
fey blessing is 300 pet potency so not even 300 .. has CD AND costs fey gauge.

even fey union feels weak.


so on top of everything ... and the removal of so many skills .. the new ones aren't that great for me. Not that we NEED uber healing spells ... but u would think lvl 80 would bring more than indom that is 52.


for AST, I think I'll lvl it now I finished SCH to see how it goes

[EaMett]

Consolation is great, it’s an ogcd succor shield you can use back to back. I think seraph is one of, if not the best, healing mechanic they introduced this expansion.

[heynowjose]

I hadn’t been able to put it into words but that’s exactly what playing ast feels like now:

You’re working a lot and somehow not really doing anything

Even if they intend to keep this new system at least make the buffs last longer or make them worthwhile. No ones winning a fight or finishing it quicker bc of a 6% or 8% 15 second buff every three minutes. Like no.

[Billythepancake]

Consolation is great, it’s an ogcd succor shield you can use back to back. I think seraph is one of, if not the best, healing mechanic they introduced this expansion.

Personally, I think consolation would've been better if I could only use it once, but it was a bigger heal/shield. I don't see why I would ever need to succor twice in quick succession like that, as well as everything else Seraph offers is underwhelming. Seraph was not worth losing everything we lost. I love the idea of SCH having their own version of bahamut, but I honestly forget to use her most of the time, because when I do, she doesn't make enough of a difference.

[Haxaan]

I haven't had a chance to play SCH yet, but as for AST... I am pretty disappointed still at all of the changes. I will not lie and say that the old card system was perfect, but it was way more fluid than what we have now. I think the new system is interesting, but I spend way more time "fishing" for seals then I ever did for a Balance in the old system. The payoff for cards is way to low for the amount of time we waist waiting for the cd and the duration of the cards. Also, why did they make Celestial Opposition an aoe heal when they gave us Horoscope... CO should have stayed the way it was, then you could boost your aoe card durations to make up for the extremely long cd of Divination. The heal potencies for the new abilities are abysmal and the nerf to CU just makes me sad. I could 100% understand having lowered heals if the buffs we offered made up for it to balance things out, but realistically they don't. I feel like half the time I am either focusing on the card mechanic or spamming heals. The dps is pretty much the same so it is what it is, I knew what I signed up in that respect. All in all, AST is not unplayable by any stretch of the imagination but it has lost its spark. AST was SO damn fun in SB and now it just feels tedious. They say they wanted to balance the healers and make them more approachable for newer players, but honestly... they have just made it more convoluted and unremarkable.

[Deceptus]

even fey union feels weak.

This is what gets me.

When I pop Sacred Soil (with regen) Whispering Dawn and Fey Union and STILL have to heal the tank, something is very wrong.

[Enla]

This is what gets me.

When I pop Sacred Soil (with regen) Whispering Dawn and Fey Union and STILL have to heal the tank, something is very wrong.

Honestly I'd trade an increased Faerie Gauge cost, 30 and upwards, for it being buffed to do even 1.5x the healing it does now. Right now it's just a filler heal that I only remember to click if I have no other options left.

[Israphel84]

They say they wanted to balance the healers and make them more approachable for newer players, but honestly... they have just made it more convoluted and unremarkable.

My brother was leveling up AST just before 5.0 and he was starting to get the job and he actually liked it. He was lv. 45 when the calamity (the AST patch) came
Now I taught him the new changes and the new way he has to play and he was like kthnxbye and he isn't interested in AST anymore

[HyoMinPark]

I have leveled AST to 80, am currently leveling WHM, and SCH will follow up probably after I level BRD to 80.


I won’t go too much in depth about AST right now—I really want to get WHM to 80 and compare them at level cap—but leveling it felt like a chore. I felt incredibly weak almost to the point of useless in some instances. The cards are lackluster. Divination is lackluster—I have a lot of issues with this skill, to be frank. It’s supposed to be our hot, new gimmick, but it’s +6% for 15 seconds every 180 seconds. It just feels so weak and underwhelming that I forget it even exists until I hear the sound effect for it proc.

Leveling up AST, I felt as if I was doing a lot of work healing but not really putting any dent into the damage my party was taking. Popping CU or COpp were meh. I hate Horoscope, simply because you have to use it, cast Helios/Aspected Helios, and then use it again to get the heal off...it just feels really clunky. Especially compared to the new PI on WHM. I do not think that the outgoing damage has increased. I think that my heals are just really weak. As if I was healing with half of my gear broken. I want it to be known that I don’t mind healing more or spending more GCDs on healing—but it has to feel satisfactory, and this doesn’t feel satisfactory. It feels like I’m limping.

Conversely, healing with WHM is super comfy. Yeah, I feel like I have to use a couple more GCDs on Solace or Cure II if Tetra and Bene are down, but otherwise I’m still spamming Holy as much as I was before. With AST...I actually felt unsafe spamming Gravity on some occasions. Even with tanks that were really good at rotating their CDs. I was just afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the auto attack damage. I don’t have that fear with WHM at all.

I also lost a couple DRKs to Living Dead at the higher levels while leveling AST, because even with spamming Benefic IIs, it was hit or miss if they died from LD or not if I had no oGCDs to buffer. Usually with Essential Dignity or Earthly Star, I could manage with the rest being Benefic IIs no problem... but I lost a few when I didn’t have ED/Star despite spamming my other heals (even trying to get Celestial Intersection off for that tiny top-off). I think it was because they would be sitting at 100,000+ HP, but my Benefic IIs were still only healing for ~20,000 (~30,000 if it was a crit)—and there just wasn’t enough time without lucky crit RNG to save them. Maybe I just have bad luck. Maybe this is an issue exclusive to me...I don’t know. I never had issues healing LD on AST prior to this: even with spamming Benefic II if I didn’t have ED.

Anyways, that’s my quick and dirty thoughts on healing thus far. I’m fairly certain I’ll end up abandoning AST in favor of WHM at this rate.