How could you do this to AST?

[currentlemon]

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Given their trouble with AST balance in the past, the Regen and Barrier healer idea is something that SE had no choice but to go to. They're the ones who put themselves into this corner, and they have nothing but to themselves to blame for it. These next few months are going to be crucial as healer gameplay will be put into question. Will this separation of healers help SE design better gameplay for the four jobs in general or will it get worse? I can't image it'd get any worse for healers than it is now. But anything is possible, and we're not off to a pleasant start.

[Ceasaria]

I dunno, I think we have enough experience and info, at this point, to see that their design philosophy isn't changing, so the decision to make another "pure healer" is extremely worrisome.

Hmm, for Shadowbringers all healers followed the principle of Pure Healer.
Now they want to come back to two groups of healers as it was in ARR which is really good .
And like Hyomin Park says, Pure is for Regen (and/or strong raw healing maybe).

This. Since it's inception, AST has been a nightmare to balance because of it's dual nature.

Yeah and it's what we already asked end of Stormblood, delete that Noct Ast and make two groups of healers.
Glad, they have adopted that choice.

[MintnHoney]

Hmm, for Shadowbringers all healers followed the principle of Pure Healer.

I don't believe that's the case, actually, even if you can certainly play all of the healers that way.

Yeah and it's what we already asked end of Stormblood, delete that Noct Ast and make two groups of healers.
Glad, they have adopted that choice.

I don't remember anyone specifically asking for that, actually. In fact, it's that they want to force the two types of healers that makes me believe that they didn't learn their lesson thus far.
Every job needs to be fun, and then dynamic enough to provide their own (hopefully unique) solutions to problems that come up in gameplay. Pigeonholing doesn't usually provide any room for that.

[Leidolf]

Let's not pretend healers haven't gotten screwed over throughout the expansion cycles. Scholar got its DPS nerfed hard at the start of Shadowbringers, and every patch they make some kind of change that kills part of the Astros before to make room for the upcoming patch: removing the time elements, changing the cards, etc.

I really can't say I'm surprised since they originally wanted it to be a third healer that could go between the two, but so that things could be perfectly balanced (as all things should be), either they'd have to introduce another healer that can straddle the line or they were going to screw over Astrologians.

Pattern recognition wins out.

[Ayer2015]

Personally I think it is a good thing. 5.0 AST was underwhelming. With the removal of Noct sect a number of skills will need to be reworked. Hopefully the devs use this rework to focus more heavily on the card system.

[RyuDragnier]

This. Since it's inception, AST has been a nightmare to balance because of it's dual nature.

Agreed. It has been the main cause of the healer imbalances, and I'm glad they're finally addressing the fact that the Sects have been a failed idea (they did try, I will always respect them for that).

Every job needs to be fun, and then dynamic enough to provide their own (hopefully unique) solutions to problems that come up in gameplay. Pigeonholing doesn't usually provide any room for that.

You mean the Pigeonholing that has been there since AST's release? Nocturnal Sect has always been a trap due to being fundamentally weaker than SCH, and AST's abilities since Stormblood have been pushing it into a pure healer role. The devs are unable to effectively balance AST without causing major issues in the healer balance. Make Nocturnal too strong, you throw SCH out of the meta. Make Diurnal too strong, and WHM is forced out. Make either too weak, and AST can be tossed out.

That has been the flaw since release, and anybody who has been here since HW can recall those days where they were basically "rebalanced" almost every patch. It caused massive chaos. Even in SB you saw AST's balancing caused chaos. Here in ShB it too caused chaos. Let's just be honest with ourselves here, AST has been in a dire need for a rework since release, simply because the Sects made it impossible for any semblance of healer balance to exist. AST needs to be its own healer, not a carbon copy of another, not a hybrid.

[currentlemon]

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I don't know what this Noct Sect is (not an AST player), but perhaps SE will use this opportunity to rework that skill and tie it to some of its old time magic spells. Again, not an AST player, so I have no say in the matter. But anything is possible.

[HyoMinPark]

I don't know what this Noct Sect is (not an AST player), but perhaps SE will use this opportunity to rework that skill and tie it to some of its old time magic spells. Again, not an AST player, so I have no say in the matter. But anything is possible.

Nocturnal Sect is a stance that turns some of your healing tools into shields. Kind of the “opposite” of Diurnal Sect, which makes them regens. I don’t know how they could rework Noct to bring back time aspects—it’s more likely that they will just remove it entirely. I’d wager that Neutral Sect will still remain and probably perform as it does now, where you get both shields and regens for a limited time every 2 minutes. I also hope that Celestial Intersection stays the same as it is in Diurnal Sect, where it is basically a baby Divine Benison. Just a little shield on a tank for autos or something extra for a buster. I like Diurnal CI a lot, so I hope we get to keep it as is.

[Leidolf]

Astrologian was meant to fill in the balance, with an edge in that it offered support with the cards. But as the game has changed going forward, they've steadily removed things they felt was strenuous under the need of balancing (lore or not). That's the crux of the problem. They're going to have to do something to adjust the classes to try to keep things in check so that no class overshadows the other, but they keep hitting walls every step of the way and solve that by either a massive rework or gutting certain features. People were complaining about Job Identity when they messed with the cards, now they're removing an entire aspect of the playstyle.

I can understand why they need to do it, but I can't say I'm happy about it.

[MintnHoney]

You mean the Pigeonholing that has been there since AST's release? Nocturnal Sect has always been a trap due to being fundamentally weaker than SCH, and AST's abilities since Stormblood have been pushing it into a pure healer role. The devs are unable to effectively balance AST without causing major issues in the healer balance. Make Nocturnal too strong, you throw SCH out of the meta. Make Diurnal too strong, and WHM is forced out. Make either too weak, and AST can be tossed out.

That has been the flaw since release, and anybody who has been here since HW can recall those days where they were basically "rebalanced" almost every patch. It caused massive chaos. Even in SB you saw AST's balancing caused chaos. Here in ShB it too caused chaos. Let's just be honest with ourselves here, AST has been in a dire need for a rework since release, simply because the Sects made it impossible for any semblance of healer balance to exist.

Technically, it's been there since before Heavensward's release, and it worked then, because there were only 2 healers (so making that distinction between them was an easy way to make the gameplay different and, therefore, more fun and unique).

You're asking me to be honest about AST needing a rework, but I'm not disagreeing about that. I'm actually of a mindset that AST should have an even more drastic update, even so much as a role change, so that they can, potentially, be able to stop totally fucking around with the job every single expansion.
However, I don't believe that continuing the separation of the healer role into 2 specifically types of healers is going to solve the problem of "balance," wherein there will be pitchforks and tears the minute a job's competition becomes the "meta healer," in lieu of trying to allow all healers to be equally adept at problem solving the various healer conundrums that come their way.
It also does not necessarily solve the biggest problem healers have at the moment, which is what to do in their downtime. Yes, they still have time to make changes and we don't know everything yet, but, for me, doubling down on the concepts of "pure healing" and "shield healing" spells trouble on the horizon for any prospective idea that they understand why healers of various skill levels would be unhappy with the role at the moment.

But that's just my personal musings on it.