How could you do this to AST?

[Zolvolt]

I am deeply disappointed by the decision to make AST a pure healer as a player who always play noct ast in savage content along side my whm friend. I know this may be a selfish personal reason but in order for the two of us to continue playing savage content together one of us must now change jobs and as the shield healer it is going to fall to me. In order to play high level content with my friend, I will have to give up my favorite job. Never has this decision been forced on a player before now. You can play any job combination in any party as long as everyone is a different job and this has been the case since ARR. Now we are making it an actively bad choice for Whm and AST to play together and actively bad choice for SCH and SAGE to play together. While its discouraged to have 2 phys R and 2 casters its not an actively bad choice. This hurts.

I think this is such a bad decision for so many reasons. Currently on live any healer combination can play together optimally and effectively. Going forward there are 2 healer combinations that will be lacking due to a loss of shields or actively hindering each other by having non-overlapping shields. We already all hate groups that lock out 1phys r and 1 caster and wait in PF for decades. I fear this will be the new case with healers. Additionally the party match making are going to treat shield healers and pure healers separately as well in order to fill a party. I am worried about this as well since currently on live most of the content you queue for can be done with any healer combination even doubles, so why are we making changes to increased the wait time for these duties?

I just have these concerns and am also upset about the AST change.

[popotaro]

I am deeply disappointed by the decision to make AST a pure healer as a player who always play noct ast in savage content along side my whm friend. I know this may be a selfish personal reason but in order for the two of us to continue playing savage content together one of us must now change jobs and as the shield healer it is going to fall to me. In order to play high level content with my friend, I will have to give up my favorite job. Never has this decision been forced on a player before now. You can play any job combination in any party as long as everyone is a different job and this has been the case since ARR. Now we are making it an actively bad choice for Whm and AST to play together and actively bad choice for SCH and SAGE to play together. While its discouraged to have 2 phys R and 2 casters its not an actively bad choice. This hurts.

I think this is such a bad decision for so many reasons. Currently on live any healer combination can play together optimally and effectively. Going forward there are 2 healer combinations that will be lacking due to a loss of shields or actively hindering each other by having non-overlapping shields. We already all hate groups that lock out 1phys r and 1 caster and wait in PF for decades. I fear this will be the new case with healers. Additionally the party match making are going to treat shield healers and pure healers separately as well in order to fill a party. I am worried about this as well since currently on live most of the content you queue for can be done with any healer combination even doubles, so why are we making changes to increased the wait time for these duties?

I just have these concerns and am also upset about the AST change.

LMAO

The new expansion isn't even out yet and you're already complaining? Please stop. Just stop.
You don't even know what they are going to do with AST beside making the job a pure healer, yet here you are spouting nonsense

[MintnHoney]

ishkabibble

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.
I was also more of a Noct AST fan, myself, so I'm also a bit upset by that bit of news.

[currentlemon]

snip

He has a point. I agree we still don't have enough information to know more about this pure healer direction for AST, but forcing the job into playing a role similar to WHM doesn't seem like a good idea on paper. And now with this notion that, for 8 man content, you have a separate queue for the two types of healers? That's concerning, and again, it sounds bad on paper. I don't play AST, but since its introduction in 3.x, it's supposed to be a hybrid job. This just makes healer mains even more concerned, especially what happen to the role in 5.x. Based on what we have, one could assume SE is forcing healer mains to play 2 healers instead of their preferred job.

[HyoMinPark]

Pretty sure “pure healer” is just synonymous with “regen healer”.

Let’s face it. The developers have had 3 expansions to make Nocturnal just as decent a choice as Diurnal. But even after repeated adjustments, they have failed. Ultimately, Noct Sect is only used for solo healing Savage/Ultimate content, and during early prog where shielding is needed to survive. When shields stop being needed, you switch to Diurnal. Even with a WHM, double regens is just better if shields are not needed.

I figured it was only a matter of time before Nocturnal Sect got axed. So this was not a surprise to me. Disappointed they couldn’t make it just as good as Diurnal, but thinking about it, it would probably threaten SCH too much. Hence why it was always weaker. I enjoyed the hybrid aspect, but again—I expected this sooner or later, and made my peace with it.

[ASkellington]

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.
I was also more of a Noct AST fan, myself, so I'm also a bit upset by that bit of news.

Pretty much this. Unless we get more abilities like Synastry, Horoscope, and ES for AST I'm extremely wary for what they're gonna do to it. We'll see how things work out, but yeah, I have no hope.

[Zolvolt]

They tried this "MT/OT roles" to try and split the tank and it did not work so they reverted it. They're trying the same thing with healers now. Admittedly I don't know how this problem could be avoided with 4 healers besides having another healer that could do both but we absolutely know that this is going to be problematic.

[Awha]

Bye Astro

[Gojin]

monkeys paw you asked for another healer you got it! lol

[Deceptus]

Pretty sure “pure healer” is just synonymous with “regen healer”.

Let’s face it. The developers have had 3 expansions to make Nocturnal just as decent a choice as Diurnal. But even after repeated adjustments, they have failed. Ultimately, Noct Sect is only used for solo healing Savage/Ultimate content, and during early prog where shielding is needed to survive. When shields stop being needed, you switch to Diurnal. Even with a WHM, double regens is just better if shields are not needed.

I figured it was only a matter of time before Nocturnal Sect got axed. So this was not a surprise to me. Disappointed they couldn’t make it just as good as Diurnal, but thinking about it, it would probably threaten SCH too much. Hence why it was always weaker. I enjoyed the hybrid aspect, but again—I expected this sooner or later, and made my peace with it.

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