Some AST suggestions

[inhaledcorn]

I know I don't have AST at 80 yet (working on it), but, seeing the frustration over what it is from my raid co-healer, and looking at what tools the other healers have, gave me some ideas on what could bring AST up to snuff.

1) AST doesn't really have a shield it can lay down. Yes, Collective Unconsciousness is supposed to be that shield, but the AST has to channel that. While I think it should get buffed (increased Regen potency and have the shield effect also be a timer buff that gets refreshed while under the dome), I think a secondary effect should be added to Earthly Star. It's already an ability AST can place, so I think it getting a secondary Regen/Shield effect while standing in the stars (depending on stance) would help AST (as well as encourage people to stand in the thing).

2) Celestial Opposition should grant the opposite buff, not same. I don't know what it's called in Japanese, but I really think this should grant the opposite effect of your current stance, considering it's called "Opposition". If it could also grant MP like Assize, that would be great. The idea behind the ability (at least originally) is that you're turning back/freezing the clock.

3) Celestial Intersection should be a buff like Emergency Tactics. It temporarily turns your next Aspected cast into its other cast. It could also affect Celestial Opposition if they would rather keep the current effect. It might need a longer cooldown to compensate, and I worry that this idea will make Intersection somewhat superfluous.

4) Divination feels weak. For it being the main thing AST works toward, it really doesn't seem to do much. While I don't know just straight buffing the amount or the duration is the right call, I do agree with what someone said about bringing back the old Time Dilation effect for cards into Divination. However, this could lead to issues with Sleeve Draw and Divinations' cooldowns not aligning cleanly.

5) Synastry could be used to share buffs. I think making it act like a temporary Dance Partner would make Synastry more impactful. So, if you link someone and play a card on a different person than the one linked, the linked target also receives the card.

6) Redraw's charge time. 30s seems a bit too long for it, especially when we draw one card every 30s now. I was thinking maybe 10s, but then they might think it would be too easy to get the right seals for Divination.

[Silver-Strider]

1) To be fair, Asylum isn't a shield, just a regen. I'd be fine with a potency buff and for the shield effect to be a buff that applies to others though. Earthly Star is fine for the most part, it just needs to be more prominent as the little star outline can easily be lost in the the multitude of AoEs in the game.

2+3) What's in a name honestly? More a nitpick really than an actual suggestion really but I'd be fine with CO granting back MP though as AST really needs more MP tools to work with.

4) Change Divination to be a 2/3/4% buffand extend its duration to 30 seconds. As a 6% buff, extending the duration of it might make it too powerful as a 30 second buff. Another suggestion would be to make it a 4/6/8% buff and leave the duration as is.

5) No Comment

6) With how many oGCD an AST is expended to weave already, it seems like a bad idea to make cards available even more often than they already are, not to mention that AST rDPS would be ridiculous if they were just tossing out cards 66% more often. Misread so ignore this.

[Marc-Vigar]

I really like the idea of a permanent Synastry, maybe with a lower potency.

[inhaledcorn]

1) To be fair, Asylum isn't a shield, just a regen. I'd be fine with a potency buff and for the shield effect to be a buff that applies to others though. Earthly Star is fine for the most part, it just needs to be more prominent as the little star outline can easily be lost in the the multitude of AoEs in the game.

6) With how many oGCD an AST is expended to weave already, it seems like a bad idea to make cards available even more often than they already are, not to mention that AST rDPS would be ridiculous if they were just tossing out cards 66% more often.

Asylum gained a shield effect in ShB.

Redraw is the ability to cycle through your cards, not get one. I've blown all three charges trying to get the right seal, and still don't have the one I want.

[Silver-Strider]

Asylum gained a shield effect in ShB.

Redraw is the ability to cycle through your cards, not get one. I've blown all three charges trying to get the right seal, and still don't have the one I want.

No, it gained the ability to boost other healing effects but it doesn't provide any mitigation whatsoever.

I did misunderstand Redraw and thought you meant just normal Draw, my mistake.

[Jaelommiss]

2) Celestial Opposition should grant the opposite buff, not same. I don't know what it's called in Japanese, but I really think this should grant the opposite effect of your current stance, considering it's called "Opposition". If it could also grant MP like Assize, that would be great. The idea behind the ability (at least originally) is that you're turning back/freezing the clock.

Celestial Opposition is a reference to the astronomical term opposition, not the colloquial usage. It describes the relative positions of two celestial bodies that both orbit a third when the three align perfectly with the stationary* body between the other two.

*WRT this orbital model


As an ability, a 0 MP oGCD Aspected Helios is nice, but it could definitely be made more interesting.

[Wawachume]

Personally, I'm not attached to the AST stances, for a variety of reasons. But as long as we have them, I'm reluctant to add more "opposite stance" abilities like celestial intersection.

As it stands now, we only have three abilities that follow the stance you're in (aspected benefic, aspected helios, and celestial opposition), and one that does the opposite (celestial intersection). If we switch one of the first three, then fully half the abilities will do the opposite of the designated stance.

At that point, I think the stances would stop being "regen stance" and "shield stance" and just become "stance A" and "stance B".

[MintnHoney]

-snip-

Regarding Celestial Opposition, I feel like having the PVP variant brought into PVE would be a better way to go (the PVP variant doesn't do a direct heal, but it applies both a shield and regen effect to party members within range, while also stunning enemies in range). I actually think MP recovery shouldn't be thrown onto Celestial Opposition, as I really would rather avoid making us have "our own Assize."

Instead, I think MP recovery should be thrown onto Collective Unconscious, where the player would recover MP based upon the number of party members who have received the Wheel of Fortune buff. Whether or not the ability should restore a flat amount of MP immediately or recover over time based upon a potency that increases based upon the number of Wheel of Fortune buffs, I think, would be best determined after determining how we want the Collective Unconscious to be used.
Up until now, even before the nerfs, the optimal way to use C.U. was to set it, get as many people into it as you can, and move on. I think if there were incentives and if the healing was strong enough to offset our inability to act, I think Collective Unconscious could be a successful channeling ability.

I like your idea for Synastry and would prefer that in place of the current effect. However, if the effect was in addition to the current effect, I think then we'd have a problem of needing to balance out the effects, the length of the buff, and how strong the healing and buffs would apply to the target via Synastry. I also feel like it may be important to establish whether or not someone with synastry can get the secondary card effect if you apply the card on them (like how you can apply Synastry now to grant that 60% additional healing even if you're just healing that same target). Personally, I would say "no" to that, as it would discourage spreading cards around.

Regarding Divination: increasing the buff potency would cause too many waves. I think bringing the potency for all seal amounts to 6% (because Squeen), and increasing the duration of Divination based upon unique seals obtained would be the best way to go. 10 seconds for 1, 20 seconds for 2, 30 seconds for 3.

Regarding Redraw: I actually think it would be best to leave Redraw alone. To be honest, I would rather we try to find ways to have players avoid using redraw and encourage the use of cards obtained in some way.

That all being said, Squeen's going to look at everyone's suggestions and decide that tripling the potencies for Nocturnal sect will solve all the problems and call us ungrateful when we get upset for ruining whatever semblance of balance amongst healers we had left, so...

[inhaledcorn]

/snip

I'm inclined to agree with a lot of this. I like the idea of adding both a Regen and Shield to Celestial Opposition. I don't think the direct heal effect is terribly necessary as opposed to having more regen/shields available/being less stance dependent.

That Collective Unconsciousness thing, though... I do want it to be better, but I don't think that should be how. Tying MP regeneration to that seems like it would be difficult to sort out, personally. I look at DNC and how its Improv works, and while it's slightly different as they only gain Esprit as long as they're doing it, this encourages CU to be used on cooldown, and I don't think that's how they want it to be. I did think about maybe putting the Time Dilation effect back in it/it refreshes any buff on players cast by the AST as long as they stand in it, but that might also be difficult to balance/optimize.

Actually really like that Divination change as a flat damage buff I feel is more important, but I wanted the Redraw change to help get appropriate seals as, when you get all your seals, you can't change them. They're locked until you use Divination. Maybe if there was a way to take a seal out/overwrite them, I won't feel as forced to use Redraw to get the right ones. Like, another skill or a heal that consumes all duplicate seals.

[MintnHoney]

Collective Unconsciousness

Collective Unconscious, as an ability, needs to be looked at entirely. The parameters of the ability goes against the identity of our core gameplay philosophy (ABC: Always Be Casting vs. ...Stop). Therefore, if they don't want to remake the ability entirely, they're going to have to pump up the strength to make it worthwhile, especially if they intend for it to be something that we stop to use for longer than a second.