How could you do this to AST?

[Payadopa]

Well here's the thing, the AST playerbase complains about how the old cards were taken out. As it was pointed out by you, ALL THOSE CARDS WITH THE EXCEPTION OF 3 WERE SITUATIONAL. You don't want situational, yet you want the old card system back? They changed it to the current one BECAUSE YOU PEOPLE DIDN'T WANT SITUATIONAL. But people want the old one back. Here's the thing... IF YOU WANT THE OLD CARD SYSTEM BACK, YOU'RE GOING TO GET SITUATIONAL CARDS. NOW EITHER YOU WANT THEM BACK, MEANING YOU WANT THE OLD SYSTEM, OR YOU DON'T, MEANING YOU WANT THE CURRENT SYSTEM. THERE IS NO IN BETWEEN!

Yeah, pretty much. I'm not one of [those] people, as you described. Don't get my wrong, I do want the old card system back but only because it was more fun and it [felt] way more impactful to me since I had to constantly make decisions. If broken down on a spreadsheet I'm sure there was an optimal way but that's not how I play. Game feel will always determine the fun I have, not how optimal it is.

[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.

[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*

[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.

[Roel-Nelhah]

Mained Whm in ARR and switched to Ast directly at early Acces 3.0.
I loved Astro for it's card buff range and it time utilitys, but every year they took one thing of their identity away.
Well they did the same for scholar tbh, they killed both jobs. Scholars Fairies and Astros Cards etc.

[IceBlueNinja]

Wrong. Fight design makes regens objectively better for almost all content. Conceptually Shields are always more powerful than Regens, because while Regens have greater healing potency, Shields grant temporary HP, allowing for living through things players shouldn't, while also expanding the Healer role's power to influence the Tank's efficacy.

You underestimate me. I know full well that actually optimizing regens is a pain in the ass. That doesn't change its power conceptually. The most powerful regen in the world won't save you from a hit that deals 1 more HP than your HP total. If they wanted to, they could balance fights such that shields are required for every single raid wide, or all non-tanks die. They don't do this in hardly anything.

yup been trying to say this forever. many times noct saved me even with low hp than dirunal when am full hp and still can get 1 hit by certain mechs lol. I burn more mana in dirunal than noct. i seen too much proof on trash pulls when i use dirunal vs noct and most ill use like 1k or 2k mp, while whole dirunal alot more . I even have still throw es more in dirunal where I only use 1 or no es and eith 4k crit atm my shields crit big alot. I respected diruanal more back in storm blood when aspected helios was 30 seconds lasting and aspected benefic regen was 20 seconds(not too sure so correct me). Regens dont be lasting too long enough nore tick fast enough to me to counter the damage being done by 10+ mobs on large pulls. and trying to throw aspect bene dirunal and helios back to back using 1200 no total vs aspect noct and celestial intersection regen with cu auto cancel and maybe a few benefic 1 only if tank gear is not too good else yes I use alot lesser mp in noct than dirunal. Also for those saying sch shields and noct as shields dont work together is not fully but part wrong. Only shields that do not work together is noct field/gal. celestial op shield can stack with galavine and noct field will not cancel out catalize of sch. Dirunal shields ofc intersection/netrual shield can work with gal and cata. I honestly see the main fight with this is they did a bad mistake to make whm and and dirunal ast regens stack with each other should have did what they did with noct ast and sch. Both sec is equally good to me I still fail to see how dirunal passes noct in anyway. sure noct both fields overwrite each other but its the same concept of succor/alqo of sch.

[ty_taurus]

Or better still, they could have kept doing what they were doing and make every healer shield+regen. Diurnal and nocturnal having counterparts on the other healers. White mage changes between light magic for shields and elements for regen
sch goes between eos and selene for regen and shields

Its better to add things than to take away, but SE apparently just tests battle content on an ai first, and if the same is true of jobs, then no wonder healers are in the current mess.

So... more homogenization?

[Recon1o6]

So... more homogenization?

No assuming SE actually put some thought into it. Different healers could have had different levels of shields and regens. Sch high on the shields with maybe 1 or 2 regens, Whm the opposite. Sage and Ast could have had more equal numbers of shields/regens. Ultimately stances are just a tool to help with job design, they aren't neccesary with clever design
Hell if Sage turned out to be like ast with two stances they wouldn't have needed to take chunks out of it a third time. There's pretty much nothing left of Ast that isn't stolen from whm or reduced to a mockery of itself.

But SE doesn't bother to think or even give a damn about healers. The new healer from a lot of the interviews and the reveal was driven more by SE obsessing about balance rather than fun when balance is not the problem.

There's been tons of suggestions over the forums with ideas to diversify and improve the healers. But SE chooses not to listen

Rumour has it that they have an ai test out savage floors, if thats the case with jobs too, no wonder healers are the way they are

[Sqwall]

I always ran in diurnal anyway, so I'm not worrying much.

I also sort of wondered when this was going to happen as astro was playing dual roles for healing, and with a new healer introduced astro being be pruned down seems necessary long term.

Also has me speculating on Neutral sect and what it will be worked into. It is such a powerful buff and on a short cooldown I use this every time it's ready. With shields gone will it just be meh? Also synastry I feel this could be worked into another skill, celestial intersection maybe since shields are removed?

Just speculating.

Other then the healing I feel like we are going to get more seal skills like divination. We can build different seal combos for different effects.

Divination would stay raidwide damage increase with all three seals represented.

Where we would have an alternate seal spender on a 45 sec cooldown that interacts with the seals that you have. This would fill the gap right after a divination use so that you can still throw out cards and us your seals before divination comes off cooldown. I wouldn't mind if minor arcana system get's the boot honestly.

Seals would also play more of a role in what your choosing to play. i.e. seals have special bonuses baked in respectively. These bonuses can only be granted with the new seal spender (divination) ability.

Lunar - Incoming healing increase
Solar - Skill/spell speed increased
Celestial - Reduced incoming damage

Each seal value is 1%/2%/3%

Example: This would allow you to stack 3 Lunar for 3% Incoming healing when you use the "seal spender"

Or combine 2 Solar and 1 Celestial for 2% skill/spell speed increase and 1% reduced incoming damage

Just thinking about the gap after a divination use and filling it in with more cards and a seal spender.