New AST from a New Player

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Originally Posted by vtndll

I think it might be the people who likes the old cards vs the people who want a new healer. I'm starting to believe, like others here, that the changes made to astro is to make room for time mage. I think if you compare those two groups I can see why they wouldn't revert the changes.

Idk, sometimes I feel like I need esoteric knowledge to make out heads or tails of what square is doing. Unfortunately all the card I have say balance.

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If it's true, they chop off AST limbs just to make another healer i would really disappointed.
If u chop off a starfish arm u will produce the exact same starfish, omg...

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Originally Posted by Hatstand

Those are the practical barriers, yes, but there are three psychological barriers there, too: pride, a sunk cost fallacy, and the dam on healer changes.

For pride, the devs have been insisting that the new card system is fine for months now, and that just as many people like it as like the old one. Changing it now would mean they’d have to admit they were wrong not only about the changes, but in all those statements, too.

For a sunk cost fallacy, no matter how lazily designed the new AST card system is, it is a whole new system, and taking it all back so soon after release would feel like a lot of work for nothing. Of course, it’s particularly fallacious in this case because they already discarded the old card system which clearly had had more work put into it.

Finally, the devs are always going on about how the healers are finally balanced. If they restore the assets they shouldn’t have ripped away from AST (and hopefully SCH, too) then they’d be right back where they started, and they’d have to admit that balancing the healers properly is going to require significantly more thought and effort than they seemed to want to put in last time. (The proper way to go about it would be to leave SCH and AST alone for the most part except potencies and spend more time improving WHM so that it’s as good as them).

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WEll, for first, yes, they was VERY wrong. Admit it or not, it is a fact.
For second. If Balanceing healers means that they make every healer the same boring and useless, and lost every enjoyment and fun mechanic, then i dont want to be a healer anymore. I loved the healers in FF cause they was diferent, unique, special. Every healer had its strong side and ways. As whm was a pure heal ans mostly just that, but that was its role. And was fun to play it. Sch was a specialist who neglect dmg income and mostly utility user healer, a shielder. And my old main, the AST, that was just fascinating, fantastic, the most fun to play character for me. Every card and the card system was unique and you had so many ways to use them. Even its not was the highest healing capacity, that was the cost of the card system is a little stronger. So it was already balanced.
Anyway, what system we talking about? There is no any system in AST now. You drop a card every 30 sec, no matter which one to who, then you press the aoe dmg buff and poof. Not even matter which seals you have active cause that worthless 1-2% simply not a matter. Not worth the effort to hunting 3 diferent seal. In other hand, the nerfed the heal of the ast and lowers the durations of the active hots what means ast become a hardcore spamer. An i experienced this in many dungeon where ast must heal out the tank and the others alone. In raids, she dont even need to heal, thats why is there the other healers, players only get ast for raid cause its an energizer and no more.

But cause of this, ast becomed unplayable in any other content of the game. In some msq on lvl 70 i cant even complete with it cause simply dont have the dmg to finish it and dont have the utilitys to defend yourself. So yes, i trust you it is very good in raids cause "MROWL NUKE DMG BUFFER" but please peoples... raid is very very little part of Final Fantasy.
Back to the dungeoning theme: there is players who just started ast and dont have lvl 80 instantly with the endgame gear. Yes, other in the group dont have too. And you must be able to heal out the tank AND the others what is in many situation is nearly impossible. And if the players for example not that professionals as me, made mistakes or just new for that dungeon. And its cause ast was nerfed to ground comletly.
Even the developer accept or not, this is the fact.

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Originally Posted by vtndll

I might be reading too much into the devs choice, but I'm starting to think it's less about the people who likes the old card vs the people who like the new cards.

I think it might be the people who likes the old cards vs the people who want a new healer. I'm starting to believe, like others here, that the changes made to astro is to make room for time mage. I think if you compare those two groups I can see why they wouldn't revert the changes.

The thing about it is I can't see this current version of ast. making it into the next expansion. It's going to need adjustments at least, if not a complete rework. But at that point isn’t reworking ast. essentially making a "new healer" that they wouldn't have had to do if they left the old card system in?

And if they are going to not add a new healer because they need to "balance" healers again, then what was the point of gutting astro. this way?

Idk, sometimes I feel like I need esoteric knowledge to make out heads or tails of what square is doing. Unfortunately all the card I have say balance.

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If they do this then I’d be heartbroken. Celestial Opposition and Time Dilation WERE part of AST’s kit and people want Time Mage into the game then y’all have been sleeping on AST because, Lore wise AST IS TIME MAGE ITSELF. They could’ve given AST more time mage-esque skills for those who want the class in the game.

I started up the game back in June just before the expansion launched. The current card system does seem like it just takes a few too many button presses for too little effect, and since it only provides damage buffs, if I'm not perfectly weaving it into my own Malefic spam, it seems like it's almost a waste of effort. That's what bugs me the most, that a system that could provide some interesting support tools is just a dps boost now. The laser focus on DPS even for tanks and healers in this game seems detrimental to class design to me.

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Originally Posted by SacrificialToast

I started up the game back in June just before the expansion launched. The current card system does seem like it just takes a few too many button presses for too little effect, and since it only provides damage buffs, if I'm not perfectly weaving it into my own Malefic spam, it seems like it's almost a waste of effort. That's what bugs me the most, that a system that could provide some interesting support tools is just a dps boost now. The laser focus on DPS even for tanks and healers in this game seems detrimental to class design to me.

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Having recently started playing Astro again since I need to level it. This is exactly how I felt. The sheer amount of card play felt more like busywork than something meaningful. By the end of roulette spamming, the only thing I had was a mildly sore hand. What made it worse is I knew if I simply went White Mage I could put in less than half the work for far better results.

I myself am pretty much new to the game. I dabbled in it in the past, but never got past ARR due to....well the pretty long and tedious MSQ for it. With the launch of Shadowbringers and the praise it was receiving I decided to push through this time and level.

As it currently stands I am in Stormblood content (LOVED HW) and, I have primarily been maining Astrologian...along with Scholar depending on my mood.

I do not know much about how Astrologian plays as compared to before. Overall, I love the animations of the job and I enjoy its pace. Lore wise, I have to agree for the cards and their uses. I thought there would be more....purpose for each card compared to the Job quests descriptions.

With that being said, I understand everyone's frustration about how AST is in its current form. I know what its like to have class identities gutted and changed every expansion (former WoW player here). I also understand the needs for the balancing from the dev team.

I guess ignorance is bliss cause I do enjoy how the job plays right now. Would I be upset if they changed the way the cards work and bring back the original design or something similar. I would say no. I love playing a buffing type healer over a straight up healer. So if they brought that system back to make it interesting or change it up. I would be down.

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Originally Posted by Nhala_Levee

But cause of this, ast becomed unplayable in any other content of the game. In some msq on lvl 70 i cant even complete with it cause simply dont have the dmg to finish it and dont have the utilitys to defend yourself. So yes, i trust you it is very good in raids cause "MROWL NUKE DMG BUFFER" but please peoples... raid is very very little part of Final Fantasy.
Back to the dungeoning theme: there is players who just started ast and dont have lvl 80 instantly with the endgame gear. Yes, other in the group dont have too. And you must be able to heal out the tank AND the others what is in many situation is nearly impossible. And if the players for example not that professionals as me, made mistakes or just new for that dungeon. And its cause ast was nerfed to ground comletly.
Even the developer accept or not, this is the fact.

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So, I have not reach this part of you saying the job is basically unplayable and have not heard this from anyone else..... Also, raiding is a part of an MMO....regardless if this is FF or not.

This is me, as a newer player and not playing the old Astro....The way the healing jobs are designed now seems to focus mainly on healing and throwing out a few dps abilities here and there. I do not follow your logic when it comes to being new to a dungeon and not being able to run through it quickly? If a healer is new and doesnt know what mobs do what, or what boss does what...and there is a wipe....that is part of the learning curve. Are you saying you want the content to be really easy? Or the job to be really easy?

I am only asking because, as I have reached stormblood the difficulty of the game increased significantly. The first dungeon alone in Stormblood gave me a run for my money, as both Astrologian and Scholar. Which after running it a few times with both, I understood the mobs, their abilities, when to use my abilities, how hard they hit, and the boss mechanics to better prepare. After that, it was far easier to keep the group up and going.

Does it need some tweaking, yeah every class probably needs tweaking, but its not unplayable. I am very confused by this statement.

I've been a new player at the start of the Stormblood expansion.I picked AST to play as my main... i stopped playing the job after a week or two after i had hit the 70lvl... Wall to wall tanks were a plague for a new players... especialy as a Healer

- I remember SB AST card game goal was just chasing for the BALANCE card and believe in RNGsus... and it was an headhache sometimes. Don't you remember this :"Damn..should i keep this BOLE card for the next tank buster ? what if i get a SPIRE if i redraw ? But i could get a BALANCE too !" (and some dps died while you were pondering)... you redraw a card and get an EWER ...
- Let's be honest ... BOLE, SPIRE, EWER were just card you used for royal road.. and sometimes.. really rarely you used the cards for their effect... i'm not even talking about SPEAR and ARROW cards that were just seen as bad draws.

I gave up AST for WHM and things became way more easier without that damn RNG card game.
But let's talk about the Shadowbringer expansion. I've played WHM mostly.. but i decided to give the new AST a chance, and i found the job far better to play. The card game is more instinctive and i've never been brainfucked by it since. There's still bonuses to play the card game but it's no longer bound to RNG.. (thanks to the new minor arcana)
So yeah, for me the new AST rocks. But i understand others may not enjoy it.

I think we could come back to unique card effects as long as we keep minor arcana to switch the card to a dps buff. But the dev team wanted some kind of balance between the healers, maybe it would be really unbalanced with these cards.

oh and btw.. i never met any difficulties in healing as an AST for now.. even with dumb tanks that dont use their mitigation tools or dps seeking death in AoE for that position strike they need.. The only issue may be the MP cost of nocturnal spells (diurnal are fine) but nothing that some Piety melding can resolve.

The healing seems to be in a good place with AST, which can probably be said for all the healers. I think the main points of contention has been less about each healer job's effectiveness in their role and more about how they feel to play, which while subjective and is a matter of taste, has been widely considered such a drastic departure from what was already enjoyed by many players for years to something so unrecognizable that long-time players have been dropping it en masse.

That's not to say that changes shouldn't be made; they should be made to maintain healthy engagement with ALL classes. But what the devs seem to have done is applied a sledgehammer to a doornail, leaving little to no room for compromise between old AST and new AST.

And there was such a large space for compromise too, if they even took the opportunity to explore them. The Minor Arcana conversions for example could have been the guaranteed DPS buff regardless of the card pulled, pleasing the big numbers crowd and the ASTs who wanted to preserve unique effects. Just anything that would indicate more than "We see people complain about not getting one card enough, so despite the fact that that is the point of the card mechanic from the start, we made every card the same without gauging how that would affect the people that have played and enjoyed it like this for years."

Compromise is meant to reconcile opposing sides. Now that they have acknowledged that "some people loved the old system, and some love the new" then maybe they can begin to work on compromise; the problem here is that they've set themselves up for an uphill battle to achieve a happy medium while also saying that they have no interest in even doing so.

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Originally Posted by ZeroFool

What I am most curious about is why they changed it; to whom were the devs listening to that when brought about these changes? Was there an absolutely vocal crowd who simply despised what AST has been since release? It's been mentioned that the simplification was to attract the influx of new players who were brought in by the expansion, but while I cannot speak for anyone but myself, I felt like AST on its own was already appealing enough. In fact, it was being disillusioned by the changes which drove me to voice my opinion.

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They were listening to themselves. The core of the issue seems to be that they don’t have a separate class balancing team and instead it’s an effort put forward by the content designers with limited ressources.

Balancing dps is easy enough but once you need to do two-three-more way balancing (utility-enmity-healing-dps-mobility-ressource management) where one can directly affect the others, you really need dedicated people to the art and dedicated tools. It implies having a lot of hands on experience with all tiers of skill as well. I doubt the current team has much time to play at all tbh.

As a result they’ve been struggling to balance the game a lot and move away from meta and whatnot. This especially with healers whom they seem to have very little experience with in the first place.

As a result they made their life easier by homogenizing everything so all healers have «*equivalent*» skills, removing significant utility from many classes, removing enmity management, removing TP, etc. It all happened this expansion.

They made these changes to suit themselves while seemingly ignoring the player base that was asking for more complexity.

It’s a real problem and I’m amazed no influencers have gotten around to asking them the hard questions regarding this. Though it isn’t surprising considering none of them play healer.

Everytime the word "Pure Healer" is associated with any healer it just brings disappointment. SE wanted SCH and AST to be more like pure healers, and here we are.

They didn't even bother to patch up what they removed from the AST questline? NICE.
I miss the time buffs AST had. I could even make my sprint last 10 seconds longer, since celestial opposition gave every self buff +10 on their timers.
If they were that lazy with editing the AST quests, they probably rushed to make every card a balance, especially since they got rid of tp, and spire was a tp regen before Shadowbringers.

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Originally Posted by EaMett

It’s a real problem and I’m amazed no influencers have gotten around to asking them the hard questions regarding this. Though it isn’t surprising considering none of them play healer.

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That's the crux of the problem: the so-called influencers weren't there trying to find out information about all the jobs and roles, only their favorites. If even one of them had played AST even secondarily, they'd have asked WTF was happening with all the utility being removed -- or at the very least, why potencies of all the job's heals were being reduced to significantly LESS than other healers. I mean, if devs had truly intended to make heal jobs roughly equal, that was a piss poor way to start.

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LunarShadow67

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This is something you cant understand, until you dont play the real astrologian.
In final fantasy, every character made for having fun and meanings by they own ways. Now, astrologian is what you see. A healer with dmg buffs and without a realy helping spells.
In the old times, astrologian had a system that was fascinating, fantastic. Gived you the feeling to yell when you made a nice buff combination. As every 6 card had diferent buffs, those was useful even as they own, you could combined them for being more helpfull.
I learned all the cards and they every effects even alone or in "royal road spell" and when i draw a card, no matter which one, i saw every possibility of it and had the feeling "YAY now i made this combo, or that combo". It was a realy nice feeling and enjoying one.
But players nowadays just want a buffer for they raid content. Yes, raids are part of the game. But a very little part. And reworking a class to be just for that, is a very bad idea.
Now, when i draw a card, i just dont feel anthing, just drop it on someone, cause no matter anymore. No more possibilities, no more combinations. Astrologian simply lost that very nice feeling to "being completed something".

And no, it was not easy to play it. But it was much more satisfaction when you played it well. Now just feeling "eh, put card", cause every card is just the same. No matter what you do with it, just need to do it 3 times and boom aoe dmg buff. ONLY dmg buff.
I miss the possibilities, the ways as you can guide the fate with your cards. The utilitys.
Sadly as i told, you never can understand this, as you didnt played the real astrologian back in those times. It just a weak shadow of that. :/

About uselessness, yeah, its healing capability is very low compared to the other healers or even to the old astro.
As not everything rolling around hardcore raidings and premade groups, i many time met tanks in daily roulettes whos rushing forward and pulling too many monsters, cause they think astro is whm or sch. But its not. So we wipe. No matter what lvl we talking about.
In old times i simply avoided this with the "The Bole" card, what will gives 10% dmg reduction, and with combined that with the tank def CDs, it was enough to let me heal out that tremendous dmg he takes. (Yes, i always had one stored for this situations.)
Now, i simply cant do anything to save the bold tank. Spaming heal and hope its enough. But mostly not cause its heals not that much as the other healers. As that, sch have the skill to still gives 10% reduction with her dome looking spell (sorry i dont know the exact name) and still have a fairy with her who will heal, not so high heals but still a help. Meanwhile she capable of putting double shield on the target what is a huge utility for her. And even have a spell that instantly heals a high ammount if the target fall under 50% hp.

So, now get a better look, what have the astro. DMG buff. Hmm... it will dont save anybody. Have a hot. Not realy a big help. Or if the dungeon is high lvl enough, then can be shielded as Nocturnal sect. But far not that strong as the schs shields. You have the 10% redu aoe, but that is a stationary spell, so until you channel it, you cant cast anything else otherwise you broke your own casting. And what else you can do? Hm, nothing. Watch, spam, hope. And meanwhile, not even enjoyable too for me. Dont have the feeling as the old one when i pull the card and see the possibilitys in it. Lost the feeling "YAAAY".
So overall, i simply lost interest and yes, as the astro have the most smaller dmg spells and the most smaller healing spells, advancing in MSQ or just open world things are very hard or even impossible with it.

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Originally Posted by LunarShadow67

I love playing a buffing type healer over a straight up healer. So if they brought that system back to make it interesting or change it up. I would be down.

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I dont think so. I think you would love the old astro. Thats WAS the real buffing type class. Yes, not only dmg buff, but more situational and more completed. And with that many combination, if you like buffing and mixing buffs into new ones or stronger ones, the old astro is for you.
For more dps supporting, there was the Bard. Bard had many party buffs whats mostly orinted to support the damage dealers. I didnt realy tryed bard now, dont know if it changed.

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Originally Posted by Nhala_Levee

I dont think so. I think you would love the old astro. Thats WAS the real buffing type class. Yes, not only dmg buff, but more situational and more completed. And with that many combination, if you like buffing and mixing buffs into new ones or stronger ones, the old astro is for you.
For more dps supporting, there was the Bard. Bard had many party buffs whats mostly orinted to support the damage dealers. I didnt realy tryed bard now, dont know if it changed.

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Bard kinda changed they lost their Crit from the songs and Requiem so now they deal more dmg closer to Machinist, they still have Battle Voice but other than the ones that I can think of whilst Dancer got all the utility for low damage.

Old AST WAS the epitome of a buffing healer class, there was so many things you could do with your cards, along with being able to increase Buff Durations with Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition. How badly I want those two to come back or at least come back under a different skill or as an added effect since AST buff durations are hella short ESPECIALLY for Divination, I thought they increase it to 30s so that it actually makes an impact.

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Originally Posted by Kuwago

Bard kinda changed they lost their Crit from the songs and Requiem so now they deal more dmg closer to Machinist, they still have Battle Voice but other than the ones that I can think of whilst Dancer got all the utility for low damage.

Old AST WAS the epitome of a buffing healer class, there was so many things you could do with your cards, along with being able to increase Buff Durations with Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition. How badly I want those two to come back or at least come back under a different skill or as an added effect since AST buff durations are hella short ESPECIALLY for Divination, I thought they increase it to 30s so that it actually makes an impact.

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For me, astro was the life in this game. It was my favorite, but that exact one. Other classes was nice and all, but my everything was astro. Now im mostly just running around or talking with my friends online.
Sadly im loving unique games too much. And Final Fantasy 14 was unique. I liked every class as they was. And now, they becomed so similar to WoW classes, i lost my interest about the game. :/
Healers just do buffs. DPS classes dmg boosts are mostly usable once / bossfight. And there is just one, just like in wow. Tanks are becomed very similar to WoW tanks too, with these mechanics, and with that so many lost skills.
Dont know, everywhere in this game i see WoW now. Classes lost their meanings. But realy... a bard... singing, telling tales, inspireing they team mates to become more. Lost them skills? Becomed so called "balanced"? Balance means we rework all classes to be "equal"? Even if cause this the game loseing its very thing that made it diferent from the others? I don know anymore...
I simply lost my interest in this game...
Sad thing...

But the worst thing about all this, i cant even have any options to play that what i loved in this game.
There is no diferent kontent servers. And sadly there is not any private servers too, to have just a little chance to go back to stormblood, where the whole game was that good as i loved it so much.
Damn shame...

Hi. I've only recently been levelling AST and like it - the mobility, support, lore etc.

However, I can sympathise with the jarring nature of how it plays and the "missing skills".

Whilst I'm new to AST (and as such will not pretend to know the ins and outs of endgame play), I have played with many ASTs through different types of content (been playing since ARR). I've also been reading a few threads to better understand the class, and it seems the main concerns are: loss of identity, nocturnal stance; the cards and the loss of time mage-type skills. I thought I'd share some of my ideas on these issues (I like thinking about these things).

1) Make diurnal sect the default state of AST. Then make nocturnal sect an early version of neutral sect i.e. it starts as a cooldown that changes the diurnal effects to nocturnal effects for a period of time and then later grants both when upgraded to neutral sect.

2) Cards
- keep the draw and play distinction
- draw starts off a 60 sec cooldown with access to all 6 cards. After a certain point - maybe 60 you learn how to read the arcana more effectively creating 2 different cooldowns with access to 3 cards each - offensive draw and defensive draw. These would share a recast timer.
- offensive card effects change - balance is a dhit and crit up, spear is just crit up, arrow is just dhit up - could be balanced to grant same rdps in ideal situations.
- defensive cards - bole is increase in heal potency for abilities and spells, ewer is a heal potency on just spells and spire is a heal potency on just abilities
- redraw could be stripped of charges and just redraw from current "play" pool - combined with the smaller pools the need for "balance" fishing would be negated
- minor arcana - a third kind of draw - on the same 60 sec draw CD - but a 50% chance of returning lady or lord. lord is DMG ogcd ability, lady is an ogcd single target heal
- add back spread - has the effect of spreading a card and resetting the CD on draw. However, to avoid doubling up if offensive card in spread already can't use offensive draw. if defensive in spread then can't use defensive draw. if minor arcana in spread can't use minor arcana
- divination - possibly could be gotten rid of but if kept then it could require 3 seals and increases the potency of the next play. 3 different seals being slightly more potent than 2 types vs 1 type of seal.
- using defensive, offensive and minor arcana each grants a separate seal i.e defensive always gives a lunar seal, offensive always a solar etc. - avoids rng
- sleeve draw could be a skill that just grants one of each seal. Only use in combat. overrides current seals

3) Time mage type spells
- add slow effect to gravity
- add back time dilation as an aoe effect that resets timer of any diurnal or nocturnal field effects granted by the astro to those in range

AST of old faced an impossible to solve problem. A series of highly situational buffs coupled with one always useful buff and tied to random chance.

There were three solutions possible here:

1. Make them all do the useful buff and remove the situationals.
2. Remove the always useful buff and leave the situationals. If the useful buff is desired out it into a non-random skill.
3. Leave the cards but remove the random.

All of the old cards were actually good useful buffs. But 99% of the time only 1 of them was useful, and the others were vital at key moments but you had no ability to ensure having it when needed.

You don’t need an MP refresh or a buff to crit chance until you MEED it and then you really need it (the crit buff for instance, to squeak past an enrage timer on a progression raid in that first week when you just barely have it... that happens, and when it dies your a super hero if it was you that got your group over the line. But that’s a rare moment...)

Of the three ideas I noted, they chose the first; probably the worst possible choice for job flavor but best for matching how players adapted to the older broken system. I think the second fits the job flavor the best, and the third is lore violating but the most useful.

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Originally Posted by Makeda

AST of old faced an impossible to solve problem. A series of highly situational buffs coupled with one always useful buff and tied to random chance.

There were three solutions possible here:

1. Make them all do the useful buff and remove the situationals.
2. Remove the always useful buff and leave the situationals. If the useful buff is desired out it into a non-random skill.
3. Leave the cards but remove the random.

All of the old cards were actually good useful buffs. But 99% of the time only 1 of them was useful, and the others were vital at key moments but you had no ability to ensure having it when needed.

You don’t need an MP refresh or a buff to crit chance until you MEED it and then you really need it (the crit buff for instance, to squeak past an enrage timer on a progression raid in that first week when you just barely have it... that happens, and when it dies your a super hero if it was you that got your group over the line. But that’s a rare moment...)

Of the three ideas I noted, they chose the first; probably the worst possible choice for job flavor but best for matching how players adapted to the older broken system. I think the second fits the job flavor the best, and the third is lore violating but the most useful.

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TBH, Cards were situational, if you don’t optimize where you use it. There were 3-4 cards that I found myself using most of the time, Top ones were Balance, Spear, Arrow and the occasional Ewer mostly for me and my co healers. I admit, Spire and Ewer were mostly RR fodder for me since I like to give everyone the buffs.

But I was able to use each cards I pulled into something albeit maybe not to the best but I made it useful. Whenever there RNG in play there will almost always be fishing no matter what it was. Before its Balance for aoe balance and now its fishing for seals.

If they want to keep this every card is balance then they need to take out the melee/range restriction and come up with something else.

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Originally Posted by Makeda

AST of old faced an impossible to solve problem. A series of highly situational buffs coupled with one always useful buff and tied to random chance.

There were three solutions possible here:

1. Make them all do the useful buff and remove the situationals.
2. Remove the always useful buff and leave the situationals. If the useful buff is desired out it into a non-random skill.
3. Leave the cards but remove the random.

All of the old cards were actually good useful buffs. But 99% of the time only 1 of them was useful, and the others were vital at key moments but you had no ability to ensure having it when needed.

You don’t need an MP refresh or a buff to crit chance until you MEED it and then you really need it (the crit buff for instance, to squeak past an enrage timer on a progression raid in that first week when you just barely have it... that happens, and when it dies your a super hero if it was you that got your group over the line. But that’s a rare moment...)

Of the three ideas I noted, they chose the first; probably the worst possible choice for job flavor but best for matching how players adapted to the older broken system. I think the second fits the job flavor the best, and the third is lore violating but the most useful.

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I totaly agree with that, need just the only one useful card from the deck. That was the defense buff. As a healer, it is not its role to give dmg buff, but defense it is. If dps is too noob to do dmg, just delete the game, thats all.

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Originally Posted by Makeda

All of the old cards were actually good useful buffs. But 99% of the time only 1 of them was useful, and the others were vital at key moments but you had no ability to ensure having it when needed.

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Both of these assertions are untrue.

First, 99% of the time it was possible to make use out of whatever cards were drawn.

Second, we DID have an ability to ensure that a particular buff was ready when we needed it. For example, if the tank was gung-ho on pulling wall to wall and/or wasn't quite geared well enough for the content, we could put a BOLE on hold and use that for a big pull or just before a tank buster.

I'm sorry that you didn't play the job extensively enough to learn these things before SHB. It was a blast, and one of the most engaging jobs of them all.

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Originally Posted by Side-Eye

Both of these assertions are untrue.

First, 99% of the time it was possible to make use out of whatever cards were drawn.

Second, we DID have an ability to ensure that a particular buff was ready when we needed it. For example, if the tank was gung-ho on pulling wall to wall and/or wasn't quite geared well enough for the content, we could put a BOLE on hold and use that for a big pull or just before a tank buster.

I'm sorry that you didn't play the job extensively enough to learn these things before SHB. It was a blast, and one of the most engaging jobs of them all.

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Oh, finaly someone who can understand my pain. AST was the perfect class with perfect spells and a perfectly mastercrafted gauge. AST was perfect as that was in stormblood. And the devs broke it cause some kiddo dont want to use it as a real class, just want a dmg dynamo on its raids. Poor choice. >.>

Now that I've got used to AST (never picked it up proper prior to ShB as I've always had SCH/WHM levelled and AST never felt right coming from them), I'm kinda lamenting I didn't get it to 70 before ShB hit. Whilst I am liking it at 80 and find it less boring than my former main, SCH, I think I'd still have preferred how the cards used to work, especially with how it improved for SB. And whilst less boring than my SCH, it still suffers and needs its variety back.

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Originally Posted by Saefinn

Now that I've got used to AST (never picked it up proper prior to ShB as I've always had SCH/WHM levelled and AST never felt right coming from them), I'm kinda lamenting I didn't get it to 70 before ShB hit. Whilst I am liking it at 80 and find it less boring than my former main, SCH, I think I'd still have preferred how the cards used to work, especially with how it improved for SB. And whilst less boring than my SCH, it still suffers and needs its variety back.

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Don't get me wrong; AST is (post 5.05) a sufficient healer, but not as good as it was before. The 'situational' utility it brought was just useful enough to overcome any heal shortcomings and provide value to groups/raids, and it was just RNG-reliant enough to keep it from being overpowered.

Now, the job's usefulness is limited to inconsequential damage buffs (invisible to the naked eye -- gotta have a parser to even notice), and the utility of extending buffs has been stripped away... so even the tiniest of buffing can't be enhanced by making smart timely choices with CDs.

If Squeenix isn't willing to give back our "time mage" abilities -- like Time Dilution and the previous version of Celestial Opposition -- it needs to do two things: 1. acknowledge that rDPS and utility do NOT make up for lesser healing so heal potencies need to be increased again; and 2. change heal-based abilities like Collective Unconscious to either be click-and-go (instead of requiring us to stand still and inactive) or its benefit needs to be quadrupled.

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Originally Posted by Side-Eye

... 2. change heal-based abilities like Collective Unconscious to either be click-and-go (instead of requiring us to stand still and inactive) or its benefit needs to be quadrupled.

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I'm hoping that a change would feel more like the latter; it should be as powerful as it looks when it's channeled. Seeing CU used in cutscenes and how awesome it was whenever Y'shtola took a defensive stance, I looked forward to how that power would be translated to an active ability. It translated poorly, with 10% damage reduction and piddly regen, combined with a small radius which encouraged turtling.

I personally really like the channeling aspect because it sets it apart from the other support bubbles. Something to actually justify being rooted in place could be rapidly regenerating shields for everyone inside the bubble which disappears if players step outside, to reinforce its 'protection' aspect.

Just anything that makes it more interesting and not just another set and forget bubble that people may or may not even step in.

I'll be honest, while the new system may feel less exciting because there are no surprise, it is true that in the end, we were fishing for balance (which is the exaxmxt same as fishing for divination symbols).
Using a single target card was always a dps loss. While it could have been exciting for a BLM to get a 150% arrow, it was still a bad draw.
The situational utility of cards, mostly Bole and Ewer were... Well very situational. The only time I was happy to get a Bole spread was during hello world 2. While it could give some comfort on other boss, it was useless,. We killed those bosses with less ilv so more mitigation was never properly useful. At best it would made me sqvd a helios. Same for ewer, never up when I or my cohealer died... Making it again something I would just royal road or minor. The most frustrating part was having the spread effect ready and drawing a ewer, that I could have used for mp but couldn't because..., ell I had the spread buff.

The old card system was maybe more diverse, but in a dps centric game, because it was rng the only thing u were actually aiming for were dps cards. The odd that the Bole or Ewer would be drawn at the right time were very slim (altough, I have to admit it made it all the more exciting)

Perhaps they could rework and give cards double effect, a dps effect and a support effect. You would then either pick what effect would be the most useful, either raw number on your dps player or utility (mostly on tank / healer) that's the closest compromise I could see and, would bring back a bit the excitation of randomness, like drawing the right supportive card at the right time.

But beside this, I dont see much of a difference between the old systeme and new, I was fishing for balance, now I fish for divination symboles...
My only issue is the opener. Too many weaving at once it's not fun

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

Perhaps they could rework and give cards double effect, a dps effect and a support effect. You would then either pick what effect would be the most useful, either raw number on your dps player or utility (mostly on tank / healer) that's the closest compromise I could see and, would bring back a bit the excitation of randomness, like drawing the right supportive card at the right time.

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The problem is that unless the support buff is enough to change a benefic into a malefic (and with a cohealer and our host of oGCDs is that really likely?) then the DPS cards will always be preferable.
What I feel would be better is if you get a second 'play' action after the card, which would be a support/healing effect.

Though Bole's issue is still here - you can't ever guarantee that you have the right support skill. If you can't plan for having it, you have to assume that you won't have it.

Having played AST for quite a while, I would suggest a different effect for lady of Crowns and Lord of Crowns instead of damage. Since TP is not a thing anymore, if you drew a shire card it would be completely useless until you had draw again for 30 seconds mid fight. I would like another way to regain MP also, Lucid Dreaming is nice and so is lightspeed but I feel like the Piety build just doesn't cut it since SCH and WHM have different means to obtain some mp. I personally would love if they added a special effect for each card.
Balance:5% damage boost
Spear 5% crit boost
Bole 5% defense boost
arrow 5% cast time reduced
Ewer: 30 Mp potency regen for 10 seconds
Nothing too Major, I'd feel like this would give Astro back it's diversity from the other healers. Being the weakest dps of the 3 healers.

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Originally Posted by MitsukiKimura

Having played AST for quite a while, I would suggest a different effect for lady of Crowns and Lord of Crowns instead of damage. Since TP is not a thing anymore, if you drew a shire card it would be completely useless until you had draw again for 30 seconds mid fight. I would like another way to regain MP also, Lucid Dreaming is nice and so is lightspeed but I feel like the Piety build just doesn't cut it since SCH and WHM have different means to obtain some mp. I personally would love if they added a special effect for each card.
Balance:5% damage boost
Spear 5% crit boost
Bole 5% defense boost
arrow 5% cast time reduced
Ewer: 30 Mp potency regen for 10 seconds
Nothing too Major, I'd feel like this would give Astro back it's diversity from the other healers. Being the weakest dps of the 3 healers.

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maybe they change balance into 5% direct hit so that Balance fishing wouldn't be a thing again. I feel like Ewer should be at least 40 potency since its still under RNG and not a guaranteed MP regen