What Do We Want to See? - AST

[Ari_Calithiel]

Not to mention that when Noct AST still existed in ShB, people were fine anyway when SCH for whatever reason paired with Noct AST. All they did was... the same as today: designate one of them to just not use their AoE shield to avoid overwriting. Spreadlo was only the exception. That was literally the only part of their kit that conflicts with one another - GCD shielding. Was it optimal? Not really... but it was certainly viable.

Depriving Noct AST aka a playstyle to conceive SGE - brand new copy pasta job - only to see same prob persist was one of a total joke of a decision they've made in their track record, and I'm afraid that would just continue to pile up in the future.

So... either Sch doesn't use their kit or Ast doesn't use their kit. What is the point of having Ast with nocturnal at that point? It would be far more beneficial to a team to have healer with regen and a separate healer with shields than have two shield healers with one being unable to use gcd heals. What happens when a run starts to go sideways? You are sitting there stuck with one healer unable to spam their aoe because, you know, shields don't stack. Unless you solely do normal content, this would be massively unfeasible and I don't see any group that would be willing to do it. SGE/SCH works because SGE has the capability to spam heals that aren't shields should the need arise (even if they are a weaker version of medica I or helios). I don't understand this take.

And how is SGE a copy pasta of AST with nocturnal? Because they can shield and have a regen skill? SGE is equipped with more mitigation than AST, has a reapplying shield (Panheima), and a laser cannon that heals the party not to mention a ton of other abilities the AST doesn't have as well as AST skills that the SGE does not have. SGE is the dps healer. AST is the pre-planning healer. Just because a few of the abilities are slightly similar does not make them copies.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

So... either Sch doesn't use their kit or Ast doesn't use their kit. What is the point of having Ast with nocturnal at that point? It would be far more beneficial to a team to have healer with regen and a separate healer with shields than have two shield healers with one being unable to use gcd heals. What happens when a run starts to go sideways? You are sitting there stuck with one healer unable to spam their aoe because, you know, shields don't stack. Unless you solely do normal content, this would be massively unfeasible and I don't see any group that would be willing to do it. SGE/SCH works because SGE has the capability to spam heals that aren't shields should the need arise (even if they are a weaker version of medica I or helios). I don't understand this take.

And how is SGE a copy pasta of AST with nocturnal? Because they can shield and have a regen skill? SGE is equipped with more mitigation than AST, has a reapplying shield (Panheima), and a laser cannon that heals the party not to mention a ton of other abilities the AST doesn't have as well as AST skills that the SGE does not have. SGE is the dps healer. AST is the pre-planning healer. Just because a few of the abilities are slightly similar does not make them copies.

GCD heals did not stack. But oGCD still does, which what made the comp viable, although wasn't optimal back then. Earthly Star? Opposition? Essential? Overpowered Noct Intersection? Yeah they all do. Neutral was also there. SCH/SGE do not see much of an issue today because they're both mitigative & HPS monster with the latter having literally every single piece of their action littered with questionable heals even when they're not properly used. (Pan)Haima & Holos are probably the more egregious examples. Noct AST back then only had Helios & Neutral to fall back on should they needed to pump out heal when their SCH mate was down for whatever reason.

Also my copy pasta comment was referring to how SGE is quite literally a carbon copy of SCH minus opportunity costs. The only similar part about Noct AST and today's SGE is literally only their fully mobile ST GCD shield.

EDIT: to be clear, my comment to Percibel was mostly me lamenting how pointless SE's attempt to split the healers in Regen/Barrier dichotomy. If Noct AST stayed throughout 6.0 - today, there really won't be any harm at all. Most people would probably still go Diurnal. Nocturnal probably won't be optimal, but still viable, which is my point. It's not broken, and some did enjoyed that 'playstyle'. The only few QoL they needed was to ensure only stronger barrier remained intact & maybe try to build a way for ASTs to dance between sects with added risks, if the player want to.

When SGE shipped out and people still able to pair both barriers together, albeit by designating who to prioritize GCD shielding (aka the same way as old Noct AST + SCH comp did in the past), it begs the question... then why do we even remove Noct AST at all if that same problem just jumps ship to today's SGE? (and in addition to that, being a carbon copy of an existing job instead of something fresh in that new design space... but that's a rambling for another thread) All of this just screams "Noct AST was removed for absolutely no reason".

[ASkellington]

So... either Sch doesn't use their kit or Ast doesn't use their kit. What is the point of having Ast with nocturnal at that point? It would be far more beneficial to a team to have healer with regen and a separate healer with shields than have two shield healers with one being unable to use gcd heals.

This is false.

1. Only A. Benefic and A. Helios are unable to be stacked with SCH/SGE. 2 abilities we don't even use.
   
2. SCH has plenty of non-GCD heals (and so does SGE) to the point where they are better together than WHM+AST or with one of them because they can both mitigate and heal with little to no downsides.
   
3. AST still has Helios to spam heal the party and Benefic 2 to do the same with a tank if needed.

Nocturnal AST is a non-issue.

Further Nocturnal Sect was apart of AST until EW and shouldn't have been removed, rather changed to where it could be toggled in combat so AST could be a stance dancing healer which is a play style we don't have in the game for healer yet and one that I think would suit AST, as they could switch to Noct Sect to mitigate an attack that they know is coming, and go back to Diurnal when they need the healing.

I've even mentioned that having both back could address the cards issue, as one sect (Diurnal) could have defensive/utility cards while the other (Nocturnal) could have the more offensive ones, keeping the RNG and separating the two as that seems to be everyone's hang up (I personally don't care).

I'm not gonna die on the hill of it should return no questions asked, but I'm also not going to not ask for a part of my kit that I did not ask to be removed to come back when I have the oppertunity to ask for it.

[Ari_Calithiel]

GCD heals did not stack. But oGCD still does, which what made the comp viable, although wasn't optimal back then. Earthly Star? Opposition? Essential? Overpowered Noct Intersection? Yeah they all do. Neutral was also there. SCH/SGE do not see much of an issue today because they're both mitigative & HPS monster with the latter having literally every single piece of their action littered with questionable heals even when they're not properly used. (Pan)Haima & Holos are probably the more egregious examples. Noct AST back then only had Helios & Neutral to fall back on should they needed to pump out heal when their SCH mate was down for whatever reason.

Also my copy pasta comment was referring to how SGE is quite literally a carbon copy of SCH minus opportunity costs. The only similar part about Noct AST and today's SGE is literally only their fully mobile ST GCD shield.

EDIT: to be clear, my comment to Percibel was mostly me lamenting how pointless SE's attempt to split the healers in Regen/Barrier dichotomy. If Noct AST stayed throughout 6.0 - today, there really won't be any harm at all. Most people would probably still go Diurnal. Nocturnal probably won't be optimal, but still viable, which is my point. It's not broken, and some did enjoyed that 'playstyle'. The only few QoL they needed was to ensure only stronger barrier remained intact & maybe try to build a way for ASTs to dance between sects with added risks, if the player want to.

When SGE shipped out and people still able to pair both barriers together, albeit by designating who to prioritize GCD shielding (aka the same way as old Noct AST + SCH comp did in the past), it begs the question... then why do we even remove Noct AST at all if that same problem just jumps ship to today's SGE? (and in addition to that, being a carbon copy of an existing job instead of something fresh in that new design space... but that's a rambling for another thread) All of this just screams "Noct AST was removed for absolutely no reason".

So to summarize, because they removed an ogcd single target regen and an ogcd aoe shield (that was weaker by 35% than scholar and sages gcd shield) everyone is up in arms? These abilities that had a 30 sec and 60 sec cd respectively? I don't get it. Earthly star still exists and was unaffected by the sect. Collective unconscious now actually got buffed to include the regen and the mitigation. But because we don't have 2 ogcds, everyone is upset. This seems like a bit of a silly gripe. We now have the ability to apply shields, albeit gcd, with the new nocturnal which stacks in times of emergency and there have been a few moments where it was needed in the recent tiers.

Now to the point of SGE/SCH combo. I took a quick peek at FFlogs site and the number of recorded SGE/SCH logs for savage in the last tier (Anabaseios) were 42. The number of WHM/SCH? 430. The number of WHM/SGE? 871. I am not sure why I keep seeing people talk about SGE/SCH as if it is some godly combo. It is decent, but as I stated in a previous reply, they do not handle things going off script well. Heals need to be more planned out in order for it to work well as neither job has the ability to pump heals should things go off track. I know because I completed P5S-P7S in a SGE/SCH combo. The mit is great, but if our team lost their minds, recovering was hell. Additionally, SGE's extra little heals they do on both Panhaima and Holos (which you mentioned) are not the primary reasons you use them and are honestly not even very big. Holos has a cure potency of 300 with a small shield and the mit and is on a 2 minute Cd. Panhaima has 5 shields with 200 potency heal a piece with the leftovers at the end of the duration only healing for 100 potency a stack. These aren't big numbers when translated into direct heals. They likely exist as SGE does not have the monsterous shield potential as SCH.

SCH and SGE differences... they are similar, sure. But the way they should be played and their kit differs enough so that they are separate. If I were to go in depth on this, it would turn into a novel.

To your comment about how AST having nocturnal would cause "no harm," you have to think about it from the devs point of view. They now have 2 dedicated shield healers. And then there is AST. If AST keeps Nocturnal, then WHMs will want a similar spell. Then SGE and SCH will want to be able to pump heals like AST and WHM. Then there is no split and all healers are starting to become the same. You know this is true because people are already crying for AST to have some kind of special movement speed ability now that WHM has a yeet. And honestly, there is no need for nocturnal AST. It is truly just a watered down shield healer, a jack of all trades, master of none. It's current iteration is a stronger, smarter version of how it should be. Maybe the request would be to have it affect the ogcds during its duration rather than to request the whole sect back.

Also, you speak of healing as people should only be ogcd healing but then say that SGE players and SCH players who raided together would "assign" who to shield. This doesn't happen. You still don't want to gcd heal even with this combo. The only time I would shield anyone during my SGE/SCH combo was if the player walked into stupid and was about to die, had just rezzed and I had no stacks, or was the tank and my co-healer and I agreed before hand who was doing what. And according to you, Noct AST was only interested in the 2 ogcd abilities you mentioned above. So why is Noct AST even necessary for 2 ogcds that you could have alternate effects to?

[Ari_Calithiel]

This is false.

1. Only A. Benefic and A. Helios are unable to be stacked with SCH/SGE. 2 abilities we don't even use.
   
2. SCH has plenty of non-GCD heals (and so does SGE) to the point where they are better together than WHM+AST or with one of them because they can both mitigate and heal with little to no downsides.
   
3. AST still has Helios to spam heal the party and Benefic 2 to do the same with a tank if needed.

Nocturnal AST is a non-issue.

Further Nocturnal Sect was apart of AST until EW and shouldn't have been removed, rather changed to where it could be toggled in combat so AST could be a stance dancing healer which is a play style we don't have in the game for healer yet and one that I think would suit AST, as they could switch to Noct Sect to mitigate an attack that they know is coming, and go back to Diurnal when they need the healing.

I've even mentioned that having both back could address the cards issue, as one sect (Diurnal) could have defensive/utility cards while the other (Nocturnal) could have the more offensive ones, keeping the RNG and separating the two as that seems to be everyone's hang up (I personally don't care).

I'm not gonna die on the hill of it should return no questions asked, but I'm also not going to not ask for a part of my kit that I did not ask to be removed to come back when I have the oppertunity to ask for it.

1. Yes those don't stack. So if a boss starts pumping damage or your team decides to commit mass suicide via a boss mechanic, a Noct AST and another shield healer would struggle to compensate. SGE/SCH struggle with this which is why this combo only works with set statics. As for the ogcds from Noct AST, there were 2. Two heals, one aoe shield and one ST regen. So I'm not sure why these two abilities are what have everyone up in arms about. It feels like people want it more for the flavor and idea of it rather than what it actually does. Could you do a set static for Noct AST and a shield healer? Sure, but Noct AST's shields will always be weaker than anything SCH or SGE could do, so why have it?

2. I'm going to include aoe and ST in this count. WHM has 6 ogcd heals (however they receive lilies every 20 seconds which are dps neutral, so this should be taken into account). AST has 8 (but Macro is also dps neutral). SGE has 8 (they also have pneuma which is dps neutral). SCH has 7. These are pretty even across the board considering WHM should never cap their lilies with it being free healing. So I'm not really sure where you get the idea that one job has more than another.

3. I don't understand what you are saying here. I think you are referring to my point about 2 shield healers needing to spam. So when 2 shield healers gcd heal with their shields, the spells overwrite each other. So the only healing you are getting is the base potency of the heal and losing the shield from one of the healers. In the situation, lets say, P8S part 2 near the end of the fight, boss goes nuts and just spams aoe damage. If Noct AST and SCH were healing together, they would need to be spamming aoe heals to deal with this. So the party loses 1 healers shield. But wait! It gets worse. Noct AST shields have 35% less strength than either SGE or SCH. And if a shield healer shields after a SCH spreadlos, say goodbye to the spreadlo because it just got overwritten. And helios is AST's only aoe spamming ability. So there is no way to get around this.

Nocturnal is an issue. The changes made need to remain. If anything, one could argue that the ogcds that were affected by nocturnal in the past also receive the affects under the new nocturnal. But we should never go back to having a second stance so to speak. As I have argued before, AST's beauty lies in its ability to pre-plan heals, and that is where the focus of this job should remain. The only reason nocturnal lasted as long as it did was because there wasn't a 2nd shield healer. It acted like a filler (albeit much weaker version of a SCH). Nocturnal itself is still there and the changes made to it with its ability to stack with other shields is awesome. A spreadlo plus nocturnal shield is nearly a full hp shield and that is freaking awesome. It is still the same potency, so its not a very big shield, but we still have the ability to do so. Additionally, as I said in the reply above, if AST were to receive nocturnal sect again, you know this would cause waves in the other healers wanting to be able to stance dance as well.

Edit: AST does have helios. Yes, but in the situations I'm referring to, it would not be enough. Helios itself is a much weaker aoe heal than its aspected counterpart.

[Valmaxian]

A wish list eh?

1. I do want Royal Road back. I’ve no use for pure RNG for its own sake, but being able to utilize every single card for something is cool, thematic, and efficient.

2. Nocturnal Sect back (adjusted to have synergy with SCH/SGE) so that double AST parties are more interesting, but don’t hinder another barrier healer.

3. Time Dilation back

4. Clear out some buttons - I know they’re useful, but I’d personally be fine giving up CU and CO if it meant getting our old tools back…

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

So to summarize, because they removed an ogcd single target regen and an ogcd aoe shield (that was weaker by 35% than scholar and sages gcd shield) everyone is up in arms?[...]

I never implied that everybody was up in arm because of that solely. There might be more reasons why people get upset of its removal, so please do not put words in my mouth. I was just pointing out that it was not optimal but still possible & not game breaking in any way. They should expand on that rather than just straight up deleting elements like they always do.

Now to the point of SGE/SCH combo. I took a quick peek at FFlogs site[...]

Ever considered that the words of a job dev describing their vision of Regen/Barrier dichotomy may be affecting how general mass interact with the role? This was especially true early expac where I often seen folks limiting the healer slots to WHM/AST + SCH/SGE. Over time, this practice died off, but by then, it was already ingrained too deep in the mass perspective that "1 regen 1 barrier good; double regen/barrier bad" (paraphrase). They are still viable regardless how you describe them to be more punishing to mistakes (I partially agree to that) as Noct AST + SCH certainly did, and that's been my point. I care less about conversing how optimal/unoptimal they are.

To your comment about how AST having nocturnal would cause "no harm," you have to think about it from the devs point of view[...]

I don't remember seeing WHM asking for Nocturnal (shields) flavored spells back in ShB. All I remembered was WHM asking for utilities that can mean many different things than just mere shields, and they did sorely needed more utilities than just Temperance.

Also, you speak of healing as people should only be ogcd healing but then say that SGE players and SCH players who raided together would "assign" who to shield. This doesn't happen.

When I mentioned "designating who to prioritize GCD shielding", I meant "when something hits the fan & either SCH or SGE cannot afford to ignore the mishap without one of them biting the GCD heal". I hope that clears up the misunderstanding.

I also never said that I only find the interest with the 2 ogcds you kept mentioning. Not sure why would you ask me that last question when I believe I've been super clear about how Noct AST+SCH was not optimal but still viable, so why remove (not a question to you btw)? To accommodate the Regen/Barrier split? If so then they have failed in every front but naming/title because double barrier/regen remains viable but at the cost of a playstyle remembered as "Noct AST" - a cost that should not even had to be paid, but they scapegoated it anyway just because.

[ASkellington]

Snip.

I mean this in the nicest way possible, you don't know how double shield healers work. If there is an event were they need to spam their GCD heals to deal with massive healing, they're healing wrong or the party is doing something wrong. SCH has Soil for mitigation + regen, Whispering Dawn, Fey Illumination which increases healing by 10% and reduces magical damage by 5, Indom, Fey Blessing, Summon Seraph for Consolation, Expedient for another ability to reduce damage by 10%, and Critlo to place a beefy shield on the party. SGE also has a good chunk of these tools plus Panhaima.

They aren't going to struggle for healing.

In a hypothetical where Neutral Sect doesn't exist (or even if it did) you aren't going to see Noct AST spam A. Helios. Currently that's a REGEN. If there is a need for spam healing that would be HELIOS which I addressed. Further, AST has Macrososmos to consolidate heal, Earthly Star, Collective Unconciousness for mit + regen, Lady of Crowns if they draw it, Horoscope, and Celestial Opposition. A Noct AST will still have all of those tools as Nocturnal Collective is pretty much the same in the end as Diurnal and Celestial Opposition stacks.

Nocturnal Sect is NOT an issue. Especially in high level play where I would be coordinating with my healer and even more so if the suggestion of making it stance dance actually gets implemented. I don't see why other healers would want it, other than SCH with Selene which, I'm all for.

Also A. Helios excluding the Regen which you will be overwriting every time you spam it is 250p. Helios' potency is 400. You will be spamming Helios and it would be better than to spam A. Helios.

If you don't want Nocturnal Sect to return because you don't like it that's fine, but please stop spreading misinformation it would be a hassle to cohealers. It was fine in Shb. It was fine in SB (if weak). It would have been fine in EW or DT and would be fine in 8.0

[Ari_Calithiel]

I never implied that everybody was up in arm because of that solely. There might be more reasons why people get upset of its removal, so please do not put words in my mouth. I was just pointing out that it was not optimal but still possible & not game breaking in any way. They should expand on that rather than just straight up deleting elements like they always do.

Not sure why you are bristling here. You brought up those 2 ogcds. And during the age of nocturnal sect, the only ogcds that were affected were celestial opposition, celestial intersection, and collective unconscious. We have the benefits of both sects in collective now with the regen and mit. And to expand on nocturnal sect in future updates would be to encroach on the shield healer domain and to have AST sitting in a position where it is both and neither shield healer nor regen healer. It's shield healing was sub-par to that of a SCH and to that of the SGE. If they were to continue down that route, we would likely have spells that can do shield or regen but are not the best in either healing type. That sounds terrible to me. And as I keep saying, AST's identity is its ability to pre-plan heals.

I don't remember seeing WHM asking for Nocturnal (shields) flavored spells back in ShB. All I remembered was WHM asking for utilities that can mean many different things than just mere shields, and they did sorely needed more utilities than just Temperance.

Except WHM's have been asking for shields... which is why they are receiving them in DT. AST only worked with nocturnal spec because it was the odd healer out. But now there is a clear divide with the addition of SGE.

I also never said that I only find the interest with the 2 ogcds you kept mentioning. Not sure why would you ask me that last question when I believe I've been super clear about how Noct AST+SCH was not optimal but still viable, so why remove (not a question to you btw)? To accommodate the Regen/Barrier split? If so then they have failed in every front but naming/title because double barrier/regen remains viable but at the cost of a playstyle remembered as "Noct AST" - a cost that should not even had to be paid, but they scapegoated it anyway just because.

It is not a viable combo. I explained this in a different reply, but AST's only spammable aoe is helios and A. helios. Helios is a much weaker version than A. helios. If an AST was to go noct, and spamming heals was needed, AST would not be able to deliver as well as a shield/regen healer combo. Shields overwrite each other and if a SCH and noct AST were to spam their aoe at the same time, the party would lose out on the healing from one of the healers shields. In fights like P10S or P8S part 2, every bit of healing matters greatly. Additionally, if an AST were to in a panic aoe heal after a SCH spreadlos, that spreadlo is gone. Nocturnal sect was a neat ability that just does not work really well. It was not as popular a combo as it is made out to be. Sure it was viable in a sense, but why keep something that isn't really adding anything to the identity of the class? It is not meant to be a shield healer. Its identity is a pre-planning, foresight healer. And we still get to keep the shields every 2 minutes. So I still don't get the fuss.

[Ari_Calithiel]

I mean this in the nicest way possible, you don't know how double shield healers work. If there is an event were they need to spam their GCD heals to deal with massive healing, they're healing wrong or the party is doing something wrong. SCH has Soil for mitigation + regen, Whispering Dawn, Fey Illumination which increases healing by 10% and reduces magical damage by 5, Indom, Fey Blessing, Summon Seraph for Consolation, Expedient for another ability to reduce damage by 10%, and Critlo to place a beefy shield on the party. SGE also has a good chunk of these tools plus Panhaima.

I do not understand why you are coming at me so aggressively, but if that is how you wish to communicate, I shall do so in kind.

I mean this in the nicest way possible, you don't seem to understand how savage and ultimate raids work. I can point to multiple instances in my raiding experience were spam healing was not only good but necessary to progress the fight. Sure, you don't want to sit there being a healbot in most of the fights. But several mechanics in several encounters have instances where the boss hits you over and over in quick succession. I know what the abilities of all the classes do. My co-healer play SCH and I have savage raided on WHM, AST, and SGE. I pre-planned with my co-healer every encounter of all 3 tiers this expansion not to mention the 2 ultimates and all the extremes we did. I know what abilities have mitigation, what abilities are ogcd and roughly how long the cds are for almost all the abilities. The fact that you are trying to cut down my arguement by telling me "you don't know what you are talking about" without having any knowledge of my experience is both foolish and childish. You are welcome to look at FFlogs to verify my claims. My name Ari Calithiel and I'm pretty sure I'm the only one.

In a hypothetical where Neutral Sect doesn't exist (or even if it did) you aren't going to see Noct AST spam A. Helios. Currently that's a REGEN. If there is a need for spam healing that would be HELIOS which I addressed. Further, AST has Macrososmos to consolidate heal, Earthly Star, Collective Unconciousness for mit + regen, Lady of Crowns if they draw it, Horoscope, and Celestial Opposition. A Noct AST will still have all of those tools as Nocturnal Collective is pretty much the same in the end as Diurnal and Celestial Opposition stacks.

Nocturnal Sect is NOT an issue. Especially in high level play where I would be coordinating with my healer and even more so if the suggestion of making it stance dance actually gets implemented. I don't see why other healers would want it, other than SCH with Selene which, I'm all for.

Also A. Helios excluding the Regen which you will be overwriting every time you spam it is 250p. Helios' potency is 400. You will be spamming Helios and it would be better than to spam A. Helios.

If you don't want Nocturnal Sect to return because you don't like it that's fine, but please stop spreading misinformation it would be a hassle to cohealers. It was fine in Shb. It was fine in SB (if weak). It would have been fine in EW or DT and would be fine in 8.0

Fair, I misread the Helios and A. Helios potency. If you are going to spam helios, which had no shield healing capabilities in "oh shit" moments, why is nocturnal even needed? SCH or SGE provide better shields. I conceded that it would be nice if during the current nocturnal it also changed the ogcds opposition and intersection like it used to do. But that is the only neat thing about noct AST. Those 2 ogcds. All their gcd shields are less powerful and are overwritten in a shield war. It was not a powerful ability and with the appearance of SGE, it no longer serves the purpose of being an option for those that didn't want to play SCH. AST still has the ability to apply shields. Other than it being a pretty flavor, there was nothing overly impressive it brought to the table. As I keep saying and will continue to do, AST is a pre-planning healer and that is where the energy and effort should be put in. That is its identity and it is a fun and challenging one that should be supported further.