For AST changes, just potency buff malefic and combust...

[Osmond]

Buff the potency of Malefic 4 to 310 instead of 240 and combust to 60 potency DoT. Playing AST, lvling it to 80, tried some trials and raids, it's painfully obvious that it needs a DPS buff. The other tools are fine to my surprise, but if SE want ASTs to use many tools, lose DPS in the process by buffing other players in their dmg, it needs something to compensate. I can see why many healers jump to WHM or SCH more than this job even though it does have the tools that greatly benefit other players.

[HyoMinPark]

Putting aside my desire for them to revert back to the old card system...

AST also needs another method of MP regeneration. Both WHM and SCH have at least 3 ways to regenerate and manage their mana (Lucid+Assize+Thin Air for WHM; Lucid+Aetherflow+Energy Drain for SCH), where as AST only has Lucid and Lightspeed—the latter of which has to be held for optimal card usage in certain parts of the fight (e.g., during the opener for Sleeve Draw and to get Divination out quickly; basically any time you have Sleeve Draw active because of all the card nonsense you have to juggle). In terms of MP regeneration, AST only has Lucid, as Lightspeed only halves the costs; but WHM and SCH have at least 1 other tool to give back mana (with SCH having 2 since they brought back Energy Drain).

Trying to keep up with ABC on AST—even with proper Lucid and Lightspeed usage—can have an AST running dry on mana if they don’t have Piety seeping out of their every pore. Especially if they land in a party where they have to do a lot of Raising/AOE healing.

Nocturnal Sect also needs some changes to make it not absolute garbage—but they already addressed that they were looking into Noct Sect. I have my doubts that they could ever make it competitive with SCH, though.

[ForteNightshade]

This wouldn't really solve the issue though. While Astro's damage remains low, its Achilles' Heel at the moment is abysmal MP management and poor gameplay; neither of which a damage buff will improve. Look no further than Ninja, who does respectable damage now yet it's still the lowest played DPS by a substantial margin.

[FusionSamurai]

At a 310 potency Malefic AST would be doing the same, if not more DPS than WHM. That doesn't even include the card DPS contribution.

At that point, you're doing as much, if not more DPS than WHM while bringing an extra 1.5k from cards. Why would you ever even consider bringing a WHM?

AST needs MP return when Draw is cast. Otherwise the class is fine.

[Verlyn]

Since we cannot expect a proper, design-oriented rework of this kit for some time, these are the band-aids I would do:

-Malefic potency buff
-Slight MP cost reductions for Nocturnal Aspect skills.
-Card Damage % and Divinity Damage % are no longer variant. Draw and Play are now level 1.
-Earthly Star is now a level 60 skill.
-Playing any card on any target restores 500 MP to user. Undraw restores 1000 MP. Choose whatever numbers would be balanced.
-Lightspeed reduces MP cost to 25%.

Reasoning:
-Malefic feels like a waste of time to use. It needs to be stronger.
-Small Nocturnal Aspect MP cost reductions would help AST in higher stress situations. The shields themselves aren't bad, but they aren't 1000 MP good either.
-The seal system is not fun or rewarding to engage with, and until the card system can be remade into something less stupid, I'd rather get the buffs I ask for when I ask for them. Also, AST should have its primary defining mechanic in lowbie dungeons. Really, they should. SCH gets the fairy. WHM gets...uh, Stone. Why in the world does AST not get cards? It's not like the Sastasha Experience isn't compromised as it is.
-Earthly Star is one of AST's most fun skills and the less time AST is without it the better.
-Cards are currently a minigame and do not interact with us or our kit. Making them a personal source of MP would at least make me feel a little engaged with them, because they are now of personal benefit, rather than something I am simply obligated to throw out on cooldown.
-This Lightspeed change might be unnecessary given the above changes, and given how ridiculously strong Lightspeed already is, but throwing it out there.

[FusionSamurai]

Since we cannot expect a proper, design-oriented rework of this kit for some time, these are the band-aids I would do:

-Malefic II+ potency buff
-Slight MP cost reductions for Nocturnal Aspect skills.
-Card Damage % and Divinity Damage % are no longer variant. Draw and Play are now level 1.
-Earthly Star is also a DoT within the circle. Earthly Star is now a level 60 skill.
-Playing any card on any target restores 500 MP to user. Undraw restores 1000 MP. Choose whatever numbers would be balanced.
-Lightspeed reduces MP cost to 25%.

Reasoning:
-Malefic feels like a waste of time to use. It needs to be stronger.
-Small Nocturnal Aspect MP cost reductions would help AST in higher stress situations. The shields themselves aren't bad, but they aren't 1000 MP good either.
-The seal system is not fun or rewarding to engage with, and until the card system can be remade into something less stupid, I'd rather get the buffs I ask for when I ask for them. Also, AST should have its primary defining mechanic in lowbie dungeons. Really, they should. SCH gets the fairy. WHM gets...uh, Stone. Why in the world does AST not get cards. No, I am not concerned about the precious balance of dungeons like Sastasha and Halatali.
-Earthly Star is one of AST's most fun skills and the less time AST is without it the better. Also, they really need more damage.
-Cards are currently a minigame and do not interact with us or our kit. Making them a personal source of MP would at least make me feel a little engaged with them, because they are now of personal benefit, rather than something I am simply obligated to throw out on cooldown.
-This Lightspeed change might be unnecessary given the above changes, and given how ridiculously strong Lightspeed already is, but throwing it out there.

It wont get a rework because it doesn't need one. It is very close to both other healers in terms of RDPS and it has probably the best healing toolkit of the three in terms of efficiency.

Malefic doesn't need a damage buff. AST already has a pretty solid raid DPS contribution that will only become more impactful as the expansion goes.

NOCT does feel like trash. Honestly delete it in 6.0 and make AST just a Regen healer. Balancing AST has been a nightmare in part because they are struggling to balance two subsets of one class.

Earthly doesn't need more damage. It's low damage is a benefit for optimization purposes, as it makes it a pretty flexible tool that can be moved around as needed. More interesting design wise than Assize.

Undraw giving a big chunk of MP would be hackin' cool. Draw already returns MP in pvp if I recall. Wouldn't be hard to implement that for PVE.

Do not buff AST damage. They did that accidentallyast expansion and it further buried WHM.

[Verlyn]

I removed the Earthly Star change for that reason. I think just giving it earlier is probably fine.
I think Malefic does need a damage buff though. Raid dps contribution isn't everything--AST really struggles outside of dungeons.

But I will die on the hill that it does need a rework. Very badly. It is a functional kit, and that is the best thing I can say about it. Design-wise it's just so bland, with very few spells even attempting to convey the flavor of the job's lore and mechanics (surprise, those are my favorite spells of the whole lot). The card system, like I said, is a minigame. You feel obligated to do it because you are expected to, not because it creates any gameplay or purpose for you, the caster. There's no reason to divide the job into two like the stance system does either, unless you either want it to be a greater or lesser version of the other jobs. Very few of the skills feel fun and impactful to use. It's just a mess. I don't have the most intimate knowledge of what it was like before Shadowbringers, but I could give that the card system at least could do something for you back then if things went sideways.

That said, if it isn't going to get one, fixing the cards and tweaking Draw/Undraw would work wonders for the job's overall engagement.

[FusionSamurai]

I removed the Earthly Star change for that reason. I think just giving it earlier is probably fine.
I think Malefic does need a damage buff though. Raid dps contribution isn't everything--AST really struggles outside of dungeons.

But I will die on the hill that it does need a rework. Very badly. It is a functional kit, and that is the best thing I can say about it. Design-wise it's just so bland, with very few spells even attempting to convey the flavor of the job's lore and mechanics (surprise, those are my favorite spells of the whole lot). The card system, like I said, is a minigame. You feel obligated to do it because you are expected to, not because it creates any gameplay or purpose for you, the caster. There's no reason to divide the job into two like the stance system does either, unless you either want it to be a greater or lesser version of the other jobs. Very few of the skills feel fun and impactful to use. It's just a mess. I don't have the most intimate knowledge of what it was like before Shadowbringers, but I could give that the card system at least could do something for you back then if things went sideways.

That said, if it isn't going to get one, fixing the cards and tweaking Draw/Undraw would work wonders for the job's overall engagement.

The devs dint balance around outside of instances content. It's literally impossible to fail any story content if you heal yourself and spam malefic forever. It is mind-numbing, but it isn't bad.

Raid DPS is everything from the balance point of view. If they buffed malefic they would have to need cards, and the cards are what they want in the job. They want it to be a support healer.

By your own logic every class is a minigame and you have 0 reason to play any of them even semi optimally except obligation.

Most jobs don't have real lore tied Into their kits in a deep and meaningful way.

The card system in stormblood wasn't the best. RNG fest that was either really good, alright, or it absolutely screwed you. I prefer the new one because I like having more consistency, but that's just me. Drawing anything other than AOE balance last expansion felt pretty bad. Sure getting a bike on a buster felt decent, but it wasn't likely to say you anything given it couldn't be planned. Idk. It was a really meh system.

[Verlyn]

The devs dint balance around outside of instances content. It's literally impossible to fail any story content if you heal yourself and spam malefic forever. It is mind-numbing, but it isn't bad.

Raid DPS is everything from the balance point of view. If they buffed malefic they would have to need cards, and the cards are what they want in the job. They want it to be a support healer.

By your own logic every class is a minigame and you have 0 reason to play any of them even semi optimally except obligation.

Most jobs don't have real lore tied Into their kits in a deep and meaningful way.

The card system in stormblood wasn't the best. RNG fest that was either really good, alright, or it absolutely screwed you. I prefer the new one because I like having more consistency, but that's just me. Drawing anything other than AOE balance last expansion felt pretty bad. Sure getting a bike on a buster felt decent, but it wasn't likely to say you anything given it couldn't be planned. Idk. It was a really meh system.

You're right that raid dps is everything to these designers. It shouldn't be everything in my eyes, but I won't argue what it should be in this case. That said, I'm fairly certain WHM and SCH out-dps AST, so I think they can stand to get at least a little touch o' love to Malefic... :\. Being a support job as the reason makes sense for why not, anyway.

If you think that is my logic, then I haven't explained myself well. So I'll try approaching it from a different angle: Job mechanics and cooldowns tend to create some form of gameplay or interaction. Most of SCH's mechanics interact with the fairy, the fairy meter or their shields. WHM's mechanics interact with their heals. DRK's mechanics are about managing MP, Darkside and Darkness bar. Even the worst skills that only exist as buttons to push at least do something vaguely important to you or utilize your kit in some way: Carve and Spit restores MP, Egi Assault procs Ruin IV and boosts your pet damage, Bloodletter interacts with Mage's Ballad, etc. AST cards and Divination are like... in their own little box. Whether you utilize them or not only impacts other people, not you, and the only fun that can be had with them is lining them up with other jobs' big burst abilities, and that probably isn't more optimal than simply using them on cooldown.

I'd disagree on the lore bit. Most jobs are designed around their lore or flavor, more than what the job is in other games in most respects. AST used to be like that, but now none of the cards do anything like what they represent, they lost several time-and-card-related abilities and basic gameplay boils down to using spells that are interchangeable with the other two healers. I'm not saying WHM and SCH are currently bastions of great design either, but AST feels less like an Astrologian than Scholar feels like a Scholar. And while it's fine from a pure 'I'll use this in a raid' perspective, that's still a failure of design.

Well, just having them do damage % isn't that interesting by comparison but I'm gonna agree that consistency is probably more important. So given that, the seal system is probably the biggest issue since it creates inconsistency where it is unnecessary and where it doesn't engage you (in fact, it just seems like the old system except less impactful). But I honestly don't know how I'd fix it without gutting the whole thing and making it even blander, either -.-.

BTW, I'm liking your other comments because this discussion is cool. Thank you for engaging me on it.

[FusionSamurai]

I\\'d disagree on the lore bit. Most jobs are designed around their lore or flavor, more than what the job is in other games in most respects. AST used to be like that, but now none of the cards do anything like what they represent, they lost several time-and-card-related abilities and basic gameplay boils down to using spells that are interchangeable with the other two healers. I\\'m not saying WHM and SCH are currently bastions of great design either, but AST feels less like an Astrologian than Scholar feels like a Scholar. And while it\\'s fine from a pure \\'I\\'ll use this in a raid\\' perspective, that\\'s still a failure of design.

Well, just having them do damage % isn\\'t that interesting by comparison but I\\'m gonna agree that consistency is probably more important. So given that, the seal system is probably the biggest issue since it creates inconsistency where it is unnecessary and where it doesn\\'t engage you (in fact, it just seems like the old system except less impactful). But I honestly don\\'t know how I\\'d fix it without gutting the whole thing and making it even blander, either -.-.

BTW, I\\'m liking your other comments because this discussion is cool. Thank you for engaging me on it.

Raid DPS is most important because balancing raids has to be their priority. No matter what, all classes can perform well in story/normal content, so they try to balance for high end content, where balance makes a noticeable difference. In the future I wouldn\\'t mind then scaling HP on mobs depending on what job is being used for content.

WHM and SCH are currently ahead of it. WHM mostly, but SCH isn\\'t too far ahead of it. That doesn\\'t necessarily necessitate a buff. There is an inherent problem wherein buffing AST now will result in it needing nerf later. % DPS increases, such as Divination/cards will scale a lot better as the expansion goes. AST will likely end up being a bit better than WHM by the end of the expansion. Buffing it now is a band-aid fix, but would need adjustments later as well.

AST at the moment is very good from a DPS and raid DPS standpoint. Being the least raid DPS doesn\\'t make it bad, it just makes it lower. Like, say, if one tank does 8k, the others do 7,950, 7935, 7920. The 7920 is the worst, but it\\'s not by a significant margin. I would worry about buffing AST because of its potential later.

You also have the problem of the stigma around it. Most high level players now are opting into playing WHM, so we aren\\'t seeing AST played at it\\'s potential rdps wise.

I don't think SCH\\'s kit revolves around the fairy. Embrace is basically random now. You only use WD, FI, and consolation with seraph. SCH revolves more around Aetherflow than fairy. It always has, by back in the day the fairy was a lot stronger. Even the gauge for SCH is really disappointing.