They should just delete AST

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Originally Posted by Israphel84

... because os "ASTs" like you we real ASTs were destroyed.

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Yes, because only who can play AST at savage level and squeeze every bit of efficience from the job, has the right to talk about the job, has the right to tell SE how the job must be made.

Cannot believe those filthy casuals even dare to tell how they feel the job. Unbelievable.

Long are gone the days everyone lamenting the AST was a card lottery and the system needed be changed. SE listened and AST changed. Now the new system is trash and the old was a masterpiece that maybe needed only a couple retouches here and there. Wow... just... wow!

I think the actual AST is good, more simple to use and, thanks to the 5.05 buffs, I don't feel subpar when paired with WHM and SCH.

If I dare to ask something more, is a bit of love to Collective and to the Nocturnal.

Yeah but the coolest part of the old ast was that when u were unlucky u could always trying to save the situation creating an almost decent buff, but when u were lucky, God, it was so satisfying! That was the sensation of the ast, If live gave u lemon u did a lemonade, and that s also the core job lore: u’re just a destiny watcher, u can’t change it, but u could trying to do your best to get it most benefic u could. (Srry for my bad eng xD )
I suppose divination needs to be the best buff in game cause is quite rng based, so I would turn into 8%-5%-4%

Right now all that ast need is something to differentiate the bad or the beginners one, from the ones who know how push the card system at it’s max, I don’t know how but need to work in this direction if they want to save the job

At the very least, looking at the JP forums it seems they are still just or even more dissatisfied than us, so maybe there is still hope? Hopefully we get some answers and reasons this 7th.

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Originally Posted by LalaRu

Yes, because only who can play AST at savage level and squeeze every bit of efficience from the job, has the right to talk about the job, has the right to tell SE how the job must be made.

Cannot believe those filthy casuals even dare to tell how they feel the job. Unbelievable.

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Guess what! I'm a filthy casual who dares to tell how I felt the job! I've never done savage! Unbelievable!
I'm a filthy casual who enjoyed content, who weaved combinations for the party / raid, like AoE boles + CU for big raid damage, 150% effect / 200% time spear for BLMs or DPS, 150% Boles for tanks, MP management after wipes, etc etc etc. Could always have a card active, and not like now that I have to be fishing for the right seals to make the best for divination.
Yes, the actual AST feels better in terms of healing, but not as fun as before for me.

OMG tell me more!!! What are their complaints??? D:

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Originally Posted by LalaRu

Yes, because only who can play AST at savage level and squeeze every bit of efficience from the job, has the right to talk about the job, has the right to tell SE how the job must be made.

Cannot believe those filthy casuals even dare to tell how they feel the job. Unbelievable.

Long are gone the days everyone lamenting the AST was a card lottery and the system needed be changed. SE listened and AST changed. Now the new system is trash and the old was a masterpiece that maybe needed only a couple retouches here and there. Wow... just... wow!

I think the actual AST is good, more simple to use and, thanks to the 5.05 buffs, I don't feel subpar when paired with WHM and SCH.

If I dare to ask something more, is a bit of love to Collective and to the Nocturnal.

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I don’t think the ast we got right now is more simple and easy. It’s buff seems powerfull but it’s rdps shows they’re not, To get the same amount of the other heal jobs ast has too coordinate precisely with every party members uptime and call every single buff to notify its comrades that is time to push further, allining also the divination buff with the other ones (embolden or dancer ones). While the old ast could improvise and still do his amount of utility dps as the others

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Originally Posted by Israphel84

OMG tell me more!!! What are their complaints??? D:

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My JP proficiency is nowhere near so I help myself with google translate but.

Basically the same that we mention, the new system is not "fun", it was an unnecessary and an uncalled change, 4.X AST was perfect (or as close as one could get), that YoshiP said that before every change they would do they will communicate with the community which they didn't do at all. Tons of likes on those post too.

It is a pretty fun contrast with the MNK side, where everyone is so happy we were finally heard.

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Originally Posted by MOZZYSTAR

Helios' barriers have been decreased by 125%. That's a pretty big percentage. The barriers in general have all decreased (CO being by 25%, but that's not as steep as 125%). That's a pretty big nerf, unless I'm not understanding the percentages in comparison to the non-percentage.

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If you heal for 1000 before, you got a shield for 2500. (1000 x 2.5 (250%))

If you heal for 2000 now, you get a shield for 2500. (2000 x 1.25 (125%))

It's a straight buff.

OP is a bit hyperbolic, imo. Just tried AST in a new dungeon and it seems completely fine. Yeah I would have liked if they reverted back to the old card system, but what we have now is nothing to sneeze at.

Ast healing is improved, but its buffs still suck and its unfun. You're still better off taking a whm or sch over ast in every situation.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

And there's still just as much decision making involved with Cards. It's just the end result is different, and given that you didn't feel the effect of those cards, other players did, it's entirely flavour for the AST.
In other words, it might have 'felt' better before, differentiating between Crit or Speed, but it was all in your head.

Losing Ewer for more consistent Lucid Dreaming and Lightspeed, and Bole for an extra Shield on a 30s cooldown, are vastly superior utility.
Meanwhile all DPS jobs now get equal buffs in the form of consistent Balances. Making AST rDPS more consistent, without the horror of drawing several Spires in a row.

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Same decision making? Previously six cards had six different effects and now three cards give effect "A", and the other three cards give effect "B". Two seems a lot less then six so maybe I'm missing something but how is that "as much decision as before? Yes, I'm ignoring seals because it's the cards that are supposed to be what defines an astrologian.

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Originally Posted by LalaRu

Yes, because only who can play AST at savage level and squeeze every bit of efficience from the job, has the right to talk about the job, has the right to tell SE how the job must be made.

Cannot believe those filthy casuals even dare to tell how they feel the job. Unbelievable.

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Is Savage 95% of the content in the game? No. So why should the entire class fantasy, utility toolbelt, flexibility, and lore be reworked for content only the top 1-5% of the playerbase even cares about.

If a class is fun then efficiency matters less. Just look at DNC. That class is fun to play, even though it is one of the lowest DPS classes in the game. Look at MCH, that class was good in terms of numbers but reworked to make the class FUN.

If 95% of the playerbase wont be able to have fun with the job then it wont matter if the job can put out high numbers, it will still be left to the wayside because we play games to enjoy them and fun class design is a massive part of that. It is a big part of why WoW is suffering: because class design is shit and not fun.

I wish Time Dilation could come back.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

But when playing old AST, all you ever wanted to draw was Balance.
The rest was crap.
Spear was ok but not Balance.
Arrow was ok for SAM and BLM but not Balance.
Bole was Minor Arcana fodder.
Ewer was either MP when you didn't need it, or Divination taking up a card slot.
Spire was Divination taking up a card slot.

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That is wrong in many ways. You assume thats how we all played, but its not. You use your cards to your advantage at that moment. Sure spire would be useless now, but they could have given it a different buff.

Pop a Bole on a tank before a tank buster to negate damage, or have the 50% aoe royal road to negate aoe damage for the entire party.
Then Arrow on the BLM (which this expansion with all the aoes) making them something to fear even more, or a physical dps with tp gone so no longer a worry.
Ewer would be great for healers who have died, or even casters like RDM who needs it.
Spear on a DRG or even a Bard would be great even with double potency.

You think everyone farmed for a balance when that is incorrect. Every card was useful, but you refuse to see that just cause you played differently.
Now all this class is now is farming for balances cause that all it can do...and its boring, and one of the worst new mechanics the devs have introduced to the game. Taking away most of Astro's identity with it.

Also, do not forget most of the players do not do savages, or even hard raids. I do and i thought Astro worked great. Yes it had some issues, but the devs could have done some other changes to fix that. Instead they hurt everyone with this new system....but the pros of course. Cause all they want is balance.

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Originally Posted by Zohar_Lahar

I wish Time Dilation could come back.

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They're giving it to Time Mage in 6.0.

At least it doesn’t feel as crappy as it did. I agree that this class’ identity really is all over the place. It’s sad bc ive been maiming ast since it came out and even at its worst it was fun.

But meh. All we can do is continue to share our displeasure and hope. In the meantime at least it’s a bit better to play

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Originally Posted by fantasticm

They're giving it to Time Mage in 6.0.

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Astro already has time magic in its lore.. I really feel Geomancer is going to be the next healer, there's lore and WHM is moving away from Stone/Wind/Water based spells. A rework of Stoneskin 2 would make a really nice shield for a Geomancy class :^)

almost unplayable in savage prog,the tons of work with the card system (if executed perfectly) ,the crazy amount of heal you need to pull off with that poor kit of healing you have,the people to resurect etc.......

i had to switch to whm because it was hell

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Originally Posted by TankHunter678

Is Savage 95% of the content in the game? No. So why should the entire class fantasy, utility toolbelt, flexibility, and lore be reworked for content only the top 1-5% of the playerbase even cares about.

If 95% of the playerbase wont be able to have fun with the job then it wont matter if the job can put out high numbers, it will still be left to the wayside because we play games to enjoy them and fun class design is a massive part of that. It is a big part of why WoW is suffering: because class design is shit and not fun.

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Pretty much this.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

But when playing old AST, all you ever wanted to draw was Balance.

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And this is why AST is the way it is.
Stop saying this, PLEASE.
No, YOU might have been but a lot of us didn't. Stop speaking for all of us.
Thanks to people megaphoning this we're stuck with this crappy Balance Bot
for possibly 2 years. Thanks a lot.

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Originally Posted by Mikhaill

And this is why AST is the way it is.
Stop saying this, PLEASE.
No, YOU might have been but a lot of us didn't. Stop speaking for all of us.
Thanks to people megaphoning this we're stuck with this crappy Balance Bot
for possibly 2 years. Thanks a lot.

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As opposed to the past 4 years, when you were stuck with a crappy Balance bot.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

As opposed to the past 4 years, when you were stuck with a crappy Balance bot.

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Said "crappy balance bot" was what got me into healing because the class was fun and the card system thought provoking outside of the balance fishing. It is no surprise that the AST population has all but died off and people exclude it from their parties.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

As opposed to the past 4 years, when you were stuck with a crappy Balance bot.

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Except I wasn't. Seems to be posts like this here.

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Originally Posted by LalaRu

Yes, because only who can play AST at savage level and squeeze every bit of efficience from the job, has the right to talk about the job, has the right to tell SE how the job must be made.

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And guess what? Not gonna throw numbers from my bottomside, but a big portion of people...don't raid.
And those who don't have a say were ignored I guess. I don't know SE's way of thinking but it ain't it.
So listening to the minority here, pretty much killed AST's identity.
I'm really just about to say remove Balance all together.
It's obviously an issue with it because these same old arguments keep popping up.

EDIT: And before someone tells me "Well now you fish for seals" I really don't.
It's not fun. I don't give a rat's butt how much DPS you get from me. You get what you get.
Not gonna sit here and play "Go Balance +++" forever to maximize the DPS for people and trying to heal. Not happening.

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Originally Posted by TankHunter678

Said "crappy balance bot" was what got me into healing because the class was fun and the card system thought provoking outside of the balance fishing. It is no surprise that the AST population has all but died off and people exclude it from their parties.

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Except as you got further along Ast, you began to see that the 'thought provoking' card system stopped as you became more proficient. Spire was pointless, Bole was never actually needed, almost everyone disliked having Arrow, Spear had to be reworked and retuned to keep from being RR bait, and Ewer's usages hinged almost entirely on !@#% hitting the fan. Hope you RNG'd it.

Don't misunderstand me, I don't much care for the cards now either, but throwing the ole rose colored goggles on doesn't help anyone.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Except as you got further along Ast, you began to see that the 'thought provoking' card system stopped as you became more proficient. Spire was pointless, Bole was never actually needed, almost everyone disliked having Arrow, Spear had to be reworked and retuned to keep from being RR bait, and Ewer's usages hinged almost entirely on !@#% hitting the fan. Hope you RNG'd it.

Don't misunderstand me, I don't much care for the cards now either, but throwing the ole rose colored goggles on doesn't help anyone.

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Spire was in need of a rework, pretty much everyone agreed with that. Bole was very useful for me in the dungeons and 24 man raids which was the main content I did. BLMs and SAMs loved getting Arrows tosses on them. Spear was an odd one that realistically needed a mechanic fix to make it so that when the buff was on someone it sped up existing cooldowns, not just cooldowns used when it was active. The rework into it handing out crit was an ok alternative though it did not help me since I used the old spear to help with cooldowns like Lightspeed, just meant I was throwing spears on BRDs and MNKs primarily instead. Ewer was basically an extra LD and because of that it was helpful, especially in the main content I did where lets be honest... shit hit the fan a lot.

And this is not rose colored goggles talking either. I was working on getting back into the groove for healing this expansion after a long break until I read the changes and lost all drive. Things turned out as bad as I expected and the class became a pain to level so I just tried to level it in short spurts. The AoE healing feels a bit better now, but not the wall to wall tank pull healing.

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Originally Posted by Mikhaill

And this is why AST is the way it is.
Stop saying this, PLEASE.
No, YOU might have been but a lot of us didn't. Stop speaking for all of us.
Thanks to people megaphoning this we're stuck with this crappy Balance Bot
for possibly 2 years. Thanks a lot.

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You either fished for balance or you were a bad player, period. It still amazes me how people that have apparently played AST since HW are still under the illusion of choice when it comes to the cards. The cards as they are right now are Objectively a buff, just because you play inefficiently doesn't make the card changes bad. Every. Single. Card. you draw gets use and contributes way more than their previous iterations. People love fooling themselves because "Muh diversity". You either drew balance or you did not, the rest of the cards were inferior in comparison.

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Originally Posted by Selova

You either fished for balance or you were a bad player, period. It still amazes me how people that have apparently played AST since HW are still under the illusion of choice when it comes to the cards. The cards as they are right now are Objectively a buff, just because you play inefficiently doesn't make the card changes bad. Every. Single. Card. you draw gets use and contributes way more than their previous iterations. People love fooling themselves because "Muh diversity". You either drew balance or you did not, the rest of the cards were inferior in comparison.

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My man, I enjoy optimizing myself, but that playstyle is not for everyone. There are people that enjoy playing games causally, and in a casual sense the previous cards were great. Yes, in optimization, balance was the best card, hands down, but only a very small, and I do mean very small, portion of players play in an optimized setting. Besides, who are you to tell someone else what they enjoyed about a class? Or what they fell in love with it for?

TL;DR : get off your high horse, there is more to games than just "git gud"

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Originally Posted by Selova

You either fished for balance or you were a bad player, period. It still amazes me how people that have apparently played AST since HW are still under the illusion of choice when it comes to the cards. The cards as they are right now are Objectively a buff, just because you play inefficiently doesn't make the card changes bad. Every. Single. Card. you draw gets use and contributes way more than their previous iterations. People love fooling themselves because "Muh diversity". You either drew balance or you did not, the rest of the cards were inferior in comparison.

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Are you another one of those savage only balance only elitists who did not see the use of the entire card system in all the rest of the content?

With the old card system every card saw use, every card had use, and even if you went back and looked at the old logs from past expansions you would see this was the case. Be it in dungeons, raids, 24 man raids, open world content like eureka, treasure map dungeons, and even a good amount of savage raid logs.

But now we have balance only cards and the results do not lie: its a straight downgrade, the class is being abandoned by and large, the class is being excluded because it quite simply does not bring enough, and there is outrage in every region over what was done.

Why does it not bring enough? Because everything had to be balanced around only throwing out a damage buff which cannot be strong or the class is unbalanced.

You can screech illusion of choice all you want but it was the other non damage boosting cards that allowed us to have strong buffs. Now we have weak buffs, to go with our lack of options.

Not to mention the entire class fantasy, class identity, was built around all of the different cards and us working with what we got to shape fate in our favor.

I would rather go back to the old card system and rework balance to being direct hit then deal with the garbage we have now. Since if all this is because of balance then the old effect can get trashed.

As a former AST main ive cleared E1S about 3 hours after patch went up as WHM. I always had instant aoe heals up for days, never even slightly dry on mana. It was just a good time. Later today ive done some attempts on E1S with my alts AST and oh boy the difference is just insane. Am not gonna lie, in comparison to my WHM clear, the AST attempts felt absolutely messy, clunky, tryhard and nowhere near efficient or good.

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Originally Posted by Selova

You either fished for balance or you were a bad player, period.

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Don't care what you think, my apologies. Not listening to anyone who does savage or the "Balance" army.
Games not all about "MUH DEEPS" when you know there's like 100 people playing savage out of the millions that play this game.
(Yes, I pulled numbers from my behind!)
Call me bad, don't care. As I see it, as long as you're healed up, then no healer is bad.
I played for fun, not stressing myself to tears over content barely anyone plays.

You all are failing to realize why most of us are upset.
Because we had CHOICES. That set us apart from any other healer, and it was different and all cards had uses in someway.
AST is about fate, and to get a little personal, I strongly believe in Astrology so playing
the hands of fate was fun, and you worked with what you had and was allowed to change your fate
for better or for worse and yes, Balance was great to get at times. It's fun to see what card pops up next.

This version of fate is God awful. It's you better hope you get this card for that melee/range and get these 3 matching seals for days
then spin redraw over and over and over again to the right seal. It takes so much time to do, it really does.
Guess you'll be the one saying "If you didn't fish for the 3 perfect seals you're a terrible player."
Okay bye lmao. Not gonna listen to it.

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Originally Posted by TankHunter678

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And not just our own gameplay, who could have helped all those RDM having MP issues? All of those newcomer GNB having a hard time? basically every single MNK upset with the loss of IR? we could have made their lives easier and playtime more enjoyable. SE just said screw it to old AST players, the ones who enjoyed the buffs, and its very own lore, just so a bunch of raiders who are going to clear any content anyways, can do it a few seconds faster without thinking anything more than blue = melee , purple = range.

If they needed consistency WHM has always been there for them, yet they decided to neglect it, even now MNK who is basically on par with SAM, has next to no parses on FFLogs, game play is just as important as numbers.

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Originally Posted by Selova

You either fished for balance or you were a bad player, period. It still amazes me how people that have apparently played AST since HW are still under the illusion of choice when it comes to the cards. The cards as they are right now are Objectively a buff, just because you play inefficiently doesn't make the card changes bad. Every. Single. Card. you draw gets use and contributes way more than their previous iterations. People love fooling themselves because "Muh diversity". You either drew balance or you did not, the rest of the cards were inferior in comparison.

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Your one sided logic, which in reality is nothing more then being Close Minded... Is a problem and an issue why there is confusion between what the desires of the player base are. In all reality for the Stormblood incarnation of Ast was you played what you were dealt. For me that meant I was holding Ewer or Bole in spread burned through Arrow and Sometimes Crit and even balance via royal road So when I drew them again they had a buff of and because of royal road i got back to them faster. the rest of the cards weren't inferior its just you didn't have the understanding to use them. which as Mik said is part of the problem with that mindset and because of that mindset its players like you that put us in this situation we are in.

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Originally Posted by Selova

You either fished for balance or you were a bad player, period.

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If you were throwing away Spears and Arrows instead of using them when they came out then you were the bad player, because those were still damage increases. I like the new system, but let's not pretend that it isn't a much shallower version of what we had before.

If your mindset in Stormblood when you already had Royal Road prepared was if you drew a Spear or Arrow and either Redrew it for something like Spire or Minor Arcana'd it, you cheated your group out of damage.

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Originally Posted by Jestigeress

snip.

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I find it mildly amusing that people keep trying to blame a specific kind of player being the reason for the AST changes, rather than just accepting that it was obviously the devs vision for the job.


The only thing that has become evident in this thread is people not understanding basic math by calling the buffs to AST nerfs and wanting the devs to give you diversity for the sake of diversity.


You can blame whatever outlier for the AST changes all you want, but one thing is for certain: Thank the twelve they dont listen to the types of players in this forum. I cannot even fathom how much more of a mess AST would be in if they did.

For all the guys with tunnel vision concerning the state of nocturnal sect...yes they doubled the potency when they halved the shield, but that only means noct is at the same level it was at the start of 5.0 shieldwise. And I seem to remember this forum exploding because AST was complete trash then. Diurnal received a far greater gain, while it was already stronger.

On the topic of the thread, I didn't main healer before, but enjoyed playing AST in SB dungeons. Now that they removed time dilation and the stun + extend from CO, as well as the homogenization of the cards, it is completely uninteresting to play. The second I saw this patch being basically only healing potency changes, I knew AST was dead to me.

Yesterday prog whas a farce for us. Just because even with buffs our Astro didn’t even come close to the dmg a whm could do. Astro ist just bad plain and simple. It got better but it’s still a massive pain. And to do whm dmg as Astro you are forced to play at 110 % . We’re white mages just has 2 buttons for dps.

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Originally Posted by Mikhaill

This version of fate is God awful. It's you better hope you get this card for that melee/range and get these 3 matching seals for days
then spin redraw over and over and over again to the right seal. It takes so much time to do, it really does.

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I still fail to see how this is any different to hoping you don't draw another Spire/Ewer/Bole when you've already RR'd one, or vice versa.
Difference is that now you can Minor Arcana for version that's still useful to you.

It's all just flavour.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

I still fail to see how this is any different to hoping you don't draw another Spire/Ewer/Bole when you've already RR'd one, or vice versa.
Difference is that now you can Minor Arcana for version that's still useful to you.

It's all just flavour.

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The difference is the massive effort now. I can give you 2 examples 1: you have 2 seals and need 1 specific and you have 3 redraw, if luck really hates you, you are forced to reroll 3 times and still end one the same seal and I had that sometimes already as astro when I did dungeons and ex fights and to effectively keep ur dps you are forced to weave in Malefic in between every ogcd action you do, in some situations were you need to heal it gets even worse. Back in sb you could use bad cards to enhance the other cards freely. Now you are forced to do 3 actions in a row if you have 3 seals or even more when you miss a seal and have redraw 3 times. So too keep up with whm dps you are forced to draw/malefic/Small Arcana/malefic/ play/malefic and that’s the rotation you are using the most and I gets worse when you fish for a specific seal. And the 2 thing I utterly hate is when you can’t get 3 different seals in 2 mins just because rng gives you the same seal 4 times in a row. Now it’s just 1 % dmg what still sucks bad, in a world we’re whm just dps you out of the water.

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Originally Posted by Mortex

The difference is the massive effort now. I can give you 2 examples 1: you have 2 seals and need 1 specific and you have 3 redraw.

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so a 1/3 chance?

How about this:
You've RR'd a Spire for an Expanded card. You now need to draw either a Balance or a Spear for an effective AoE buff.
That's a 1/3 chance...