How could you do this to AST?

[ssunny2008]

As for OP's post, I called Nocturnal being removed in 6.0 ages ago. Neutral sect exists, Noct was heavily critizised (either for how much mana its abilities costed at the beginning of 5.0 or for being less efficient than Diurnal), and even the community wanted it to be removed. I don't like it since AST is already WHM but with cards and more lore purging (also, wtf are they going to do for the SB questline? doesn't it call for Noct Asp. Benefic?) and there's 0 news on if they're going to alter/change the card system again. /shrug Here's to hoping we get a unique healing playstyle come 6.0

That´s actually the biggest issue. That 100 guys here or some streamer doesn´t represent the whole community. There are millions of players of players who were fine with certain class mechanics. Of course you can´t count voices, when nobody is saying a word. But it´s in nature of humans to stay silent if they´re staisfied and to moaning if something goes wrong.
We´ve elistists, decent players, casuals and completely noobs out there. Everyone has an own opinion and everyone should be catered in some way. I´m fine with it. But i´m not fine with the fact, that every subclasses are going to be the same. They could always go the way to pick one subclass for each category of gamers. A simple one for whose who can´t or don´t want to do better. 1 or 2 who have some unique mechanics. The last one could be way more complex to cater the upper 10% of players who enjoy more challenging classes. FF14 has enough classes to go that way, but no, everything is getting simplified until everything plays nearly the same.

Nocturnal might haven´t been always perfect, but it´s something which is up to the players decision. If someone doesn´t like it, why should it get removed? Just stay on Diu and let the players play Noc, who actually wants to play it. It´s not even a big work in the background since it´s implemented and SE just had to adjust some numbers here and there with new patches.

Btw we´ve a similar discussion in the DPS section already. This guy nails it in some way: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post5502976

I personally can´t see the need of AST and SGE if we just get WHM 2.0 and SCH 2.0 with new animations and another gimmick, which is there just to create the idea/feeling of ​​uniqueness, but isn´t one. (SGE and SCH can´t be played together anyway. If barriers can be stacked, then certain boss mechanics are going to get cheesed hard.)

[ASkellington]

That´s actually the biggest issue. That 100 guys here or some streamer doesn´t represent the whole community. There are millions of players of players who were fine with certain class mechanics. Of course you can´t count voices, when nobody is saying a word. But it´s in nature of humans to stay silent if they´re staisfied and to moaning if something goes wrong.
We´ve elistists, decent players, casuals and completely noobs out there. Everyone has an own opinion and everyone should be catered in some way. I´m fine with it. But i´m not fine with the fact, that every subclasses are going to be the same. They could always go the way to pick one subclass for each category of gamers. A simple one for whose who can´t or don´t want to do better. 1 or 2 who have some unique mechanics. The last one could be way more complex to cater the upper 10% of players who enjoy more challenging classes. FF14 has enough classes to go that way, but no, everything is getting simplified until everything plays nearly the same.

Nocturnal might haven´t been always perfect, but it´s something which is up to the players decision. If someone doesn´t like it, why should it get removed? Just stay on Diu and let the players play Noc, who actually wants to play it. It´s not even a big work in the background since it´s implemented and SE just had to adjust some numbers here and there with new patches.

Btw we´ve a similar discussion in the DPS section already. This guy nails it in some way: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post5502976

I saw that post and I agree with it, but I don't think it fully applies here. For one, the whole reason people wanted Noct removed wasn't just because it was inferior to Diurnal. The hope of Noct's removal was to give things back to SCH and rebalance the healers (why anyone thinks it would force SE to do this I have no idea but that's the idea) not to get rid of it because they hated it.

For another, even if they kept Nocturnal it still doesn't change the fact that AST is by design a 1:1 copy of WHM (and in some ways SCH with Noct stance). While I'm not in favor of Noct's removal at all, nor AST's concept of switching between shield/regen healer if it means this gets changed, you can bet I will happily board the train that gives us more unique healing abilities like Horoscope and Synastry.

The issue is the word "if".

If Square actually decides to make 4 unique healing playstyles.
If Square gives AST something to replace Noct sect that isn't just potency fixes we don't need.
If SGE actually plays differently to SCH and isn't a reskin like AST.

If, if, if, if. Noct being removed itself isn't the problem, at least in my opinion. Its still an unwanted change, but not the underlying problem. The problem is that Square keeps removing things and not changing or improving what's left so there is no good trade off.

[Saefinn]

I think very much the above, yeah. Noct could mean the potential of AST evolving into its own identity more and throwing away of its shackles of being a hybrid of SCH and WHM. But equally, that could also mean is bleeds over more with WHM. WHM 2.0 and SCH 2.0 are my worries for AST and SGE too.

But I also see that the heavy distinction between 2 types of healers also gives them more space. If they do it right, it means AST only has WHM to compete with, which I think is easier to balance than say trying to balance Di AST, Noct AST, SCH and WHM all against each other and in 6.0, adding Sage to the mix. Their struggles balancing I think is where some of the homogenisation comes from, because they explained 5.0's changes with "balance". If this is what it means, the losing Noct is a necessary sacrifice.

But as it stands, there's a LOT of cross over with WHM in how they are used:
Benefic -> Cure
Benefic II -> Cure II
Aspected Benefit -> Regen
Helios -> Medica
Aspected Helios -> Medica II
Essential Dignity -> Tetra/Bene
Celestial Intersection -> Divine Benison
Horoscope -> Planetary Indulgence

This is enough for AST and WHM to feel homogenised in most situations. It's when my AST play is pushed that I start to feel its unique side, because I am planning my abilities differently, and this is because of AST other supporting skills, which means I hand situations differently to WHM.
Lightspeed - this is for when I need to heal and be mobile, in some mechanics, this is really useful, whereas WHM may reserve some oGCD usage for them. Also great for DPS when I need to be mobile, which WHM lacks an advantage on.
Celestial Opposition - a free regen, whilst WHM's has Medica II, but they don't have an oGCD version.
Earthly Star - whilst one could try to compare it to Assize, it's used in a different way, assize tends to used whenever available. Earthly Star I will put down and purposefully let people drop in health so I can detonate it.
Neutral Sec - this has no WHM equivalent. I use this probably in a similar way I use Seraph on SCH. That is when people are taken consecutive damage damage and the shield gets eaten up whilst regen gets to heal some of the lost damage.

But I'd say it's not enough. I think if they could make changes that differentiate it more.

It needs to drop the WHM/SCH mode mentality. But I think AST's relationship with WHM for example could be that it's more technical and maybe take some advantage of planning our heals more - that could mean introducing (and bringing back) more time-based mechanics.

[ssunny2008]

snip.

I´m fully with you.

What i care about are those "if´s" aswell. Too many if you ask me and SE has proven more than once, even in the recent past with monk, that they´re not willing to go deeper with the classes. In the last years, too many classes got simpler and similar to others. I would lie if i say, i still trust in Yoshi and his team.

Yes Noc is just a little thing cross over the board, but it let the player decide. It´s pretty much the last variation SE gave us, which is in our hands. Synastry is cool, but tbh... i don´t use it that often. Even when i heal savage here and there, i normally has one instant heal up. The rest is getting carried by horoscope or the star anyway. Yes, all of them are unique in some way and you can use them for "what´s coming". But it´s still too similar to the other classes.
I would highly welcome more deeper class mechanics or directions like "tank healer, group healer". Maybe even with buffs here and there and a rework from the role-skills.

I can just give swtor as example here again. You had only 3 healer, but all played completely different. e.g. Sage had shields, an aoe with a hot similar which worked similar to whm shield. If you wanted to heal a tank, you had to cast for some seconds, meanwhile the tank got a heal tick each second. If you ran oom, you had to sacrifice your own HP to gain force again. On the other hand you´d the mercenary with less aoe, but a lot of single target burst heals and less casts. But you had to care about overheat. The last one was a mobile hot-healer with a drone you can lead to players, but you still had to take care about your energy. All of them had some raidbuffs.
In the early days you even had 3 debuff types and each heal was only able to cleanse one of them. Two were able thanks to the skilltree, but the Sage was the only one who was able to cleanse force debuffs. But that was too hard at some bosses if you had double classes or whatever with you, so it got changed later.

Of course, this is not swtor. But any MMORPG i´ve played has way deeper and unique playstyles related to the background of the jobs. The soul was real and any healer was different from the others, not just 2-3 buttons barely within the whole kit. SE should take other games as example to improve the classes and to adjust the boss-mechanics to it. AOE heals every 30s, here and there a tank instant and lucid dreaming on cooldown isn´t that big of deal right now. As i said, if you can play 1, you can play all. Maybe not perfect in DPS directly, but heal is definately not an issue.

[Absurdity]

The issue is the word "if".

If Square actually decides to make 4 unique healing playstyles.
If Square gives AST something to replace Noct sect that isn't just potency fixes we don't need.
If SGE actually plays differently to SCH and isn't a reskin like AST.

If, if, if, if. Noct being removed itself isn't the problem, at least in my opinion. Its still an unwanted change, but not the underlying problem. The problem is that Square keeps removing things and not changing or improving what's left so there is no good trade off.

Pretty sure this is gonna make or break the next expansion for a lot of people, it certainly will be the deciding factor for me.
Because we all know content in this game rarely lasts until the next patch, so the only thing that keeps me playing is whether or not the gameplay is engaging enough, and for a lot of jobs it currently just isn't.

[Semirhage]

Btw we´ve a similar discussion in the DPS section already. This guy nails it in some way: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post5502976

Oh hey, it's me with WHM. Played since ARR. I like the aesthetic. I just happen to think being immobile, clipping your GCD a lot, having basically no identifying features the design team won't happily strip out other than overhealing, and being the first stop on the Sylphie "anything more complicated than Cure or Glare will fry our brains" snoozeathon express is a stupid corner to paint job design into. *shrug*

[Deceptus]

Nocturnal might haven´t been always perfect, but it´s something which is up to the players decision. If someone doesn´t like it, why should it get removed? Just stay on Diu and let the players play Noc, who actually wants to play it. It´s not even a big work in the background since it´s implemented and SE just had to adjust some numbers here and there with new patches.

Because it's been hell to balance since it's inception. It's either too strong and then replaces WHM or SCH, or too weak and AST gets replaced. One of the two needed to go.

[elioaiko]

100% agree, I think that their obsession with WHM being the "easy" healer aka braindead easy is so troubling. It's literally just hit one of two buttons to heal and then spam galore. Misery is nice and the lillies are a welcomed change but the clipping immobile nature of WHM is so so horrible. And the excuses aren't valid.

BLM is a selfish dps who originally had to plan around movement in a fight but slowly and surely got many ways to weave and move throughout a fight. And now RDM is the worst at moving.

The turrety design is horrible and does not work in a game where you are punished severely for not moving or clipping your casts.

This also goes for SCH as well. With the lost of Eos casting her abilites seperate from SCH during a Broil cast, has made it crazy hard to optimize their heals without eating a loss that is using Ruin II. Both WHM and SCH need better ways of weaving their oGCDs without being punished for it. AST only got the 1.5s Malefic change in 4.3~4.4 during SB because we complained so much about clipping cards.

[EaMett]

This also goes for SCH as well. With the lost of Eos casting her abilites seperate from SCH during a Broil cast, has made it crazy hard to optimize their heals without eating a loss that is using Ruin II. Both WHM and SCH need better ways of weaving their oGCDs without being punished for it. AST only got the 1.5s Malefic change in 4.3~4.4 during SB because we complained so much about clipping cards.

Not to mention that Ruin II was thrown to the dogs when they increased broil potency recently, making it even worse. Makes me fear for the 6.0 changes if they can't even get the most basic skill synergy down.

[Recon1o6]

Because it's been hell to balance since it's inception. It's either too strong and then replaces WHM or SCH, or too weak and AST gets replaced. One of the two needed to go.

you need to stop saying this, they've never had a problem balancing it and never said as much.

what they have is a problem with refusing to make it equal to diurnal sect because they keep penalising noct sect users