AST Adjustments 6.2

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Originally Posted by rewd

People are starting to dislike parsing/minmaxing talk because it does suck the fun out of the game if everything needs to be mapped and all that.

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people need to realize that you can minmax anything, at any time, under any circumstances. like, minmaxing is the entire fun for some people, why make even minmaxing itself easy and boring? all i do with cards now is hold 3 cards and lightspeed every 2 minutes minutes. riveting .

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Originally Posted by rewd

RNG has always been part of AST's identity and while utility you can't plan around 100% of the time might just be "flavour" for you, a lot of people enjoy it and it's what drew them to the job in the first place.

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precisely. i used to do parse runs a lot in heavensward and Stormblood and not once did i ever think cards were a problem because to me it simply was another aspect of the job to make the most out of. yes is annoying to get bad rng sometimes but that's kind of the point of playing rng classes.

i guess the biggest problem i can see with rng utility is the reliability aspect, but they can have better rng mitigation without completely gutting everything. like, making sure you see every card every 6 draws, or giving options to use cards without using up the royal road youve been saving, or something like that.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

people need to realize that you can minmax anything, at any time, under any circumstances. like, minmaxing is the entire fun for some people, why make even minmaxing itself easy and boring? all i do with cards now is hold 3 cards and lightspeed every 2 minutes minutes. riveting .

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This. Absolutely this.

And it's not just an issue for AST either. Since SE reworked party buffs and big burst windows to be every 2 minutes the optimization part of fights has become rather stale, because almost every job automatically syncs up with party buffs anyway.
So now optimization boils down to either just doing your rotation for 8 minutes without letting it desync... or creating an incredibly convoluted custom rotation for a single specific fight, just to get an extra cast of your big potency abilities in.

As for the problem with rng... is it really such a big problem for parse runs when crit and direct hit already exist? You can already end up having to do the same fight a ridiculous amount of times just to get good crit rng.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

people need to realize that you can minmax anything, at any time, under any circumstances. like, minmaxing is the entire fun for some people, why make even minmaxing itself easy and boring? all i do with cards now is hold 3 cards and lightspeed every 2 minutes minutes. riveting .

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Indeed, but not all minmaxing is the same. Minmaxing with RNG feels like you are accepting a compromise, and I understand that some people might not like it. You can give AST six utility cards and unless you remove RNG, they won't ever be part of your healing/mitigation plan because they are not reliable. Still, some people might find the unreliability fun and AST is the only healer that can offer a similar playstyle.

DPS and utility shouldn't be connected, but I also don't think that having RNG utility would just be useless flavour. If anything, I think current jobs need more flavour.

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Originally Posted by rewd

But that's exactly what people have been asking for (just check previous comments).

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I think a lot of the arguments are because not everyone is on the same page on that. A lot of the statements are "bring back the old system" and attacks on the elitist parsers for ruining their AST.

Giving AST their utility cards separately from the dps cards would be great and I'd be all for it. The utility wouldn't always be useful due to RNG, but you're not sacrificing something that's actually useful. It's a bonus that isn't a detriment to the class in any way. Sounds much more fun.

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Originally Posted by rewd

Indeed, but not all minmaxing is the same. Minmaxing with RNG feels like you are accepting a compromise, and I understand that some people might not like it. You can give AST six utility cards and unless you remove RNG, they won't ever be part of your healing/mitigation plan because they are not reliable. Still, some people might find the unreliability fun and AST is the only healer that can offer a similar playstyle.

DPS and utility shouldn't be connected, but I also don't think that having RNG utility would just be useless flavour. If anything, I think current jobs need more flavour.

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Honestly, the RNG aspects were the only thing that kept me playing AST during HW and SB. I love gambler roles in games, even online games. Yes, it's unreliable and clashes with the concept of meta, but I love characters in games that have risk and chance involved in their gameplay.

Something that I think could work better for RNG utility is rather than just applying one short-lived buff to one party member, is if the effects instead augmented certain actions. You get windows where you know certain actions will apply certain buffs and can choose how to use them.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

I think a lot of the arguments are because not everyone is on the same page on that. A lot of the statements are "bring back the old system" and attacks on the elitist parsers for ruining their AST.

Giving AST their utility cards separately from the dps cards would be great and I'd be all for it. The utility wouldn't always be useful due to RNG, but you're not sacrificing something that's actually useful. It's a bonus that isn't a detriment to the class in any way. Sounds much more fun.

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I assume that when people say "bring back the old card system" they mean a generic "give AST six different cards again". After all a 1:1 copy of the old system wouldn't work now because they'd need to rework the TP regen card anyway.

But yeah, I think we are on the same page then. I don't think we will ever get different cards anymore though, so I'm not expecting anything.

In terms of bringing back unique effects for each card, I've always liked the idea of having three cards focused on offensive support while the remaining three provide defensive support, then have Minor Arcana directly tied to that system.

As examples, we could have three cards that increase determination, critical hit rate, and direct hit rate while the remaining three decrease damage taken, increase healing received from healing actions, and convert a portion of damage dealt into HP. Minor Arcana becomes accessible once a card is played. Upon playing an offensive support card, you are granted The Lady. When playing a defensive support card, you are granted The Lord.

Such a system would allow for unique card effects to return while maintaining a degree of consistency with results. Regardless of what you draw, you will always contribute damage (as well as support).

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Giving AST their utility cards separately from the dps cards would be great and I'd be all for it. The utility wouldn't always be useful due to RNG, but you're not sacrificing something that's actually useful. It's a bonus that isn't a detriment to the class in any way. Sounds much more fun.

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I don't care if DPS is separated from utility, or if we still have the melee/range split but 3 different damage effects to be placed on them.

All I want is a legit reason to have 8 difference cards instead of 2 and 1 repeated 6 times.

The seals system does not work. Give it up SE and make the cards unique.

Something I've brought up a few times now is the idea of putting the cards on the GCD, and recently I spent a little time fleshing out that concept with an AST redesign. This is the gist of the card aspect of that concept:

Lodestars: Certain spells grant you 1 Lodestar of which you can have up to 6. Under the effects of Celestial Intersection, spells and weaponskills cause 1 Lodestar to be consumed to perform an additional attack that is of the same potency as your current version of Malefic. This will effectively make these actions DPS neutral or DPS gains depending. This is something gained at level 30 along with your cards.

Level 30
At level 30, you gain Astral Draw and Umbral Draw, both are GCD spells with 30 second recast timers, 2 charges, and restore 8% of your MP when used. Both now grant a Lodestar when used. They do not share a cooldown, meaning you'll draw and play an average of 2 cards per 30 seconds in theory.

Astral Draw will pull either The Balance, The Arrow, or The Spire.
Umbral Draw will pull either The Bole, The Spear, or The Ewer.

Play, Undraw, and Redraw are removed. The cards you draw replace their respective Draw actions, and you have to deal with what the cards give you. Additionally, card buffs are no longer instantly applied. Instead, when you give a card to someone, that card sits on them until you use a new action to detonate the effect. You can only have 1 astral card and 1 umbral card on any given person at a time.
The Balance, when activated grants a 10% Determination increase for 15 seconds.
The Arrow, when activated grants a 10% Direct Hit increase for 15 seconds.
The Spire, when activated grants a 5% critical damage increase for 15 seconds.

The Bole, when activated reduces damage taken by 10% for 15 seconds.
The Spear, when activated increases max HP by 10% for 15 seconds and heals for that amount.
The Ewer, when activated applies a 150 potency Regen for 15 seconds.

All cards also generate 1 Lodestar when played.

Celestial Opposition is now a GCD AoE heal of 300 potency at level 90. It also detonates all Umbral card effects on all party members you heal. It also generates 1 Lodestar, inflicts Stop on enemies for 4 seconds, and costs 1200 MP.
Celestial River is a new GCD AoE heal of 300 potency at level 90, and it detonates all Astral card effects on all party members you heal. It generates 1 Lodestar, reduces damage dealt by enemies by 5% for 10 seconds, and costs 1200 MP.

Celestial Intersection is a GCD action on a 15 second cooldown. It gives a target party member a 15 second buff that causes their spells and weaponskills to trigger Lodestars. It also generates 1 additional Lodestar for you and costs 400 MP. You can cast it on yourself. This must be used in order for Lodestars to be deployed.

Level 70:

Minor Arcana is learned. This becomes a GCD spell with a 600 MP cost that draws both the Lord and Lady of Crowns and generates 1 Lodestar. It has a 60 second cooldown.

Crown Play is removed. Instead, the lord and lady replace specific actions on the hotbar.

The Lord of Crowns replaces Combust on the hotbar and acts as a GCD AoE attack. When played, it deals 400 potency for the first enemy that decreases by 60% for remaining enemies. It also applies your Combust DoT to all enemies. The DoT has 100% potency on the first enemy and 60% less potency on remaining enemies. It generates 1 Lodestar. It costs 600 MP.
The Lady of Crowns replaces Helios on the hotbar and acts as an AoE heal. When played, it heals for 400 potency for yourself and all nearby party members while also randomly granting one of the umbral arcanum effects as well (i.e. 400 potency heal and 10% damage reduction or 400% heal and 10% max HP increase, etc.) It generates 1 Lodestar. It costs 600 MP.

That concludes the concept.

This system would do a number of things:
- It reduces the total amount of weaving required, making it more approachable and freeing up Lightspeed to be used situationally rather than for burst windows.
- It makes AST highly mobile which can also make it easier at face value.
- It allows for the existence of offensive and supportive cards, and allows you to set them up in advance to be used at once rather than hoping that supportive cards specifically will be useful when pulled.
- It creates a new playstyle of healer who is significantly less offensive as many of their GCD uses will go toward drawing and playing cards as well as activating them with a heal. This both breaks up the Malefic spam monotony while also creating something more palatable for healers unhappy with the volume of direct DPS healers are responsible for.
- It reduces a fair amount of button bloat that currently just feels like clunk.

I genuinely hope we get cards back but I'm not gonna be surprised if they just delete astro at this point to put it out of its misery

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...4/ast_loss.jpg

I don't have much unique commentary to add here, but I'll just repeat my feelings for the sake of shouting into the void and pretending that the SE Job designers in Japan will ever actually hear it, because this brings me psychological comfort compared to admitting that there probably aren't even human staff reading the English forums.

Cards, Seals, Astrodyne

I don't particularly personally care about the Cards / Gamble system, because what always appealed to me about "Astrologian" in FF was shooting stars at people, after first encountering Orlan Durai in FFT.

That said, I also was not particularly hostile to the Cards system back in HW and SB. I had fun with things like fishing for a Spread Balance, and figuring out how to make best use of "dud" cards when I couldn't Shuffle any more.

However, beginning in ShB, the Cards honestly began to feel more like a tumour on the Job's design. They're just so... bland. Carding went from an interesting and fun puzzle to solve and react to, into just a tedious and dull chore that I have to deal with every 30s.

Combine that with the execrable Seal system, which pressures obnoxious click-click-click-click-click double-weaving during burst windows... Ugh. It's just a nuisance that I don't enjoy.

At least in ShB I had some meaningful psychological incentive for lining up Seals properly, so that my Divination didn't fail shamefully.

But now with Astrodyne... ugh... it makes everything feel more like a going-through-the-motions chore than ever before. Do I really care when I line up a "perfect" Astrodyne? No, my personal DPS is still laughable either way, and I don't even get the satisfaction of supporting my team on the most support-oriented Job in the game.

At this point I think that I really wouldn't care if Cards got deleted entirely, because they're such a tacked-on, dull chore. And that's sad, because in HW/SB I felt like they were actually a cool and fun part of the AST design space.

For me, the primary issues with Cards currently are:

• Excessive clicking, burst-window spam, and detargeting. I like Cards in PvP because I can just fire it off without having to lose my enemy target, and I'm not trying to induce wrist RSI every 2 minutes.
• Dull and uninteresting. I like Cards in PvP because they actually have different effects again.
• Seals are just... not a fun mechanic. They feel like a tacked-on chore.
• Astrodyne feels like the gameplay equivalent of doing laundry on the weekend.

Lord/Lady

This was annoying in Stormblood because half the time, it was basically useless/superfluous.

One of the few things I actually enjoyed about ShB Card system was the choice of when to funnel cards into superior Lord/Ladies.

And now we're back to the SB "coin flip" system, but somehow... worse. Reverse progress.

To be honest, Lord/Lady always felt "tacked-on" and unnecessary, and I'd rather have more ways to shoot stars at people than extra Tarot cards with dull and forgettable generic effects.

Nocturnal Sect

What exactly did Nocturnal Sect die for...?

Sage / Scholar feel like they are basically just as effective at healing as "non-Barrier" healers in most situations, and in fact, SGE/SCH seems to be a viable comp in many (all?) situations.

It's not like Nocturnal Sect was particularly powerful or practical, either, except for carrying friends through old unsynced content.

I feel like there was, in retrospect, no reason to amputate this section of Astrologian.

DPS buttons

Well, of course, I'm having some of my usual hypoxic fever-dreaming right now, but as with all FFXIV Healers, I'd enjoy...

• More purely-offensive GCD and OGCD tools for AST
• A more complex offensive rotation than "Malefic Malefic Malefic Malefic Malefic Malefic Malefic Malefic Malefic Malefic Malefic".

In the long term, the removal of Nocturnal Sect doesn't really make sense if we ever add a 5th healer because there will be an imbalance anyway. That said, one of my biggest complaints about the job was how it was designed to be a substitute WHM or SCH rather than just doing its own thing. I don't mind removing the stances if AST's healing tools became more distinct, which they kind of have actually. I think GCD healing needs to be reworked and reevaluated anyway, especially for WHM who feels like a fossil in everything beyond the lilies, and even the lilies are very tame.

As for DPS buttons, I would rather see AST move in a different direction than having direct DPS, hence the suggestion on the last page about moving the cards to the GCD and having that be your gameplay loop with much lighter direct DPS when you're not engaging with the cards.

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

I genuinely hope we get cards back but I'm not gonna be surprised if they just delete astro at this point to put it out of its misery

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...4/ast_loss.jpg

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This is what happen when you had too much people qq about how hard and random stormblood ast to manage(which made it very appealing to play) my thing on those who complain on it why not play whm which is easier or sch then which is I guess moderate ast was to be hard mode high risk high reward hence why its personal dps was one of the lowest at one point with a 2.5 cast fic. You almost have no time to even a fic with stance card and combust 1 and 2 mangement. Now this is the punishment we get thanks to them. A now full cheaper mobile whm with crummy boring cards doing the same dry 3% or 6% buffs.

I never got into raiding till sbh of eden. But I do not care how niche some of the cards of sb was and people want only balance. Who give this one enlist player the say that from what i see on old post only fish balance or be kick for it? That is just bias imo cept for spire when tp was gone all cards even niche was still some type of help to me. Ewer my fav for if I was killed using lucid ewer was nice recovery. I wont get into why I found use for the other 4 again. Like you I hope the same but doubt it will happen

I just wanna say i'm very scared.
As AST is the only healer I still like, and it being busy is one of the reasons why I liked it, a major overhaul to make it less busy sounds like the worst thing ever.
Look forward to whm 2.0.

if all we get is a charge on lightspeed to better deal with the business ill be satisfied. i would of course much prefer if they made cards interesting and varied again but i have little hopes for the dev team

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Originally Posted by IceBlueNinja

This is what happen when you had too much people qq about how hard and random stormblood ast to manage(which made it very appealing to play)

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People mainly complained about how the utility was combined with the dps, so you'd have to sacrifice your group buffs and gimp your parties damage output to enjoy it. All they had to do was make the RNG fun and not a detriment, keep the utility cards but put them separate, polish it up and they'd be in the right direction.

Player feedback didn't ruin AST. Let's not kid ourselves, we don't make the game and the developers rarely listen to healer feedback. The fact that the devs are just bad at healer design and don't really care if they're fun to play is what ruined AST.

Yep that s true. Its like Liam said it. We have a lot of great ideas here in the thread! If its like my idea or from taurus + plus the massiv feedback. I am glade thats a lot of people love the idea to combain utility and dps push. There is no "THATS OP!!!elf!!!" And SE listens sometimes to the player feedback. But this is not shown much.

At least I am happy that we have a good time talk about the Job I like/play since 2015. It's true that the astro feels like an endless construction site. But there were good moments and now I see what the devs want. I hope you take your time and get away from the melee and ranged cards ;)

Here's my pitch:

Astro becomes a new limited job like blue mage.

We remove ALL of the skills.
Add way more cards. You now draw 5 cards at a time.
From now on Astros can only use abilities based on what card they draw.
Cards can only be collect via triple triad matches.

I assume everyone will be on board with this, and I will be taking no questions.

Oh wait! One more change! There is a new "dragon star" gauge that lets you know when dragons are about to attack. Good old Ishgardian astrology.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

People mainly complained about how the utility was combined with the dps, so you'd have to sacrifice your group buffs and gimp your parties damage output to enjoy it. All they had to do was make the RNG fun and not a detriment, keep the utility cards but put them separate, polish it up and they'd be in the right direction.

Player feedback didn't ruin AST. Let's not kid ourselves, we don't make the game and the developers rarely listen to healer feedback. The fact that the devs are just bad at healer design and don't really care if they're fun to play is what ruined AST.

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No they listen to DPS feedback and they all said they didn't like AST cards because they weren't getting enough balance cards to pad their logs with. The reason AST fished for balance so often was because it would give the DPS players they were feeding cards to better logs to post, it was never impossible to clear a run without them nor was it significantly easier to clear with a bunch of balance draws.

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Originally Posted by SieyaM

No they listen to DPS feedback and they all said they didn't like AST cards because they weren't getting enough balance cards to pad their logs with. The reason AST fished for balance so often was because it would give the DPS players they were feeding cards to better logs to post, it was never impossible to clear a run without them nor was it significantly easier to clear with a bunch of balance draws.

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this was, again, not even fixed by square enix. it was fixed by fflogs introducing rdps and thus killing padding almost entirely.

if fflogs had stayed the same we would still have asts padding players by giving them crappy 6% balances all run long.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

this was, again, not even fixed by square enix. it was fixed by fflogs introducing rdps and thus killing padding almost entirely.

if fflogs had stayed the same we would still have asts padding players by giving them crappy 6% balances all run long.

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Forgive me; maybe my wires are crossing in a weird way, but I'm pretty sure that's quite literally all we can do now, at least with the cards. That or 3%.
To be honest, I don't think fflogs really fixed anything (specifically for AST), nor would it have fixed anything if the cards never changed, simply because the game is entirely focused upon DPS. The crowd who fished, would continue to fish, and efficiency is always chased.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

this was, again, not even fixed by square enix. it was fixed by fflogs introducing rdps and thus killing padding almost entirely.

if fflogs had stayed the same we would still have asts padding players by giving them crappy 6% balances all run long.

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We had that at the start of ShB, before they introduced rDPS and probably the main reason for doing so, where it was basically mandatory even for tanks and healers to get dance partner if they wanted a good parse on the ex trials.

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Originally Posted by MintnHoney

Forgive me; maybe my wires are crossing in a weird way, but I'm pretty sure that's quite literally all we can do now, at least with the cards. That or 3%.
To be honest, I don't think fflogs really fixed anything (specifically for AST), nor would it have fixed anything if the cards never changed, simply because the game is entirely focused upon DPS. The crowd who fished, would continue to fish, and efficiency is always chased.

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im a bit confused myself about what youre trying to tell me, so im just going to list how the conversation went (and is going)
1 person A said they ruined ast because of players complaining
2 person B refutes by saying that player feedback didnt ruin ast
3 person C says "actually, it was DPS player feedback that they listened to because DPS players wanted to pad their logs more". to me this makes the implication that since we dont do balance feeding to pad parses anymore, the issue of log padding is somewhat fixed.
4 i tell person D that log padding was only fixed because of a change in fflogs itself, and not because of any change they made to ast. if fflogs had stayed the same asts would be using "crappy 6% balances" (aka the cards we have now) to pad a single player nonstop.
5 your reply

yes we would still had been balance fishing if we had rdps back in stormblood because given a choice between support or dps in a game where dps is all that ultimately matters, the decision is obvious.
that said i dont agree with what they did to cards, theres better and more creative ways to decouple support from offense and to give more reliability to RNG cards.

i hope this clears it up

Thanks to the homogenization of the skillsets, you can't really scrap any ability that the other twinjob has as well (ie all the bubbles, intersection/benison etc) so basically the only buttons they can drop are job identity ones sadly...

That aside, I think the PvP versions of the jobs are versions how the devs would envision how the job flavour would be if they had less restrictions.
In ASTs case it seems to be centered around fast casting and support/buff oriented.


Tons of text incoming ;)

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I'd scrap
- play (merged into draw)
- crown play (minor arcana draw now plays the minor arcana version of the current card again)
- undraw (that's what minor arcana will be for again)
- redraw (removes endless drawing and fishing for the "statistically best" cards - this job has rng as identity)
- astrodyne (that one skill why button bloat became so apparent and "replaced" again with divination)

New buttons:
- double cast (new core mechanic derived from the pvp identity)
- sleeve draw (the infamous skill now will let you select 1 card of your choice)


Core mechanic reworks:

Double Cast:

adds double cast as a job core system --> casts a slightly alternate version of the previous casted spell as ability for 0 mp cost
Up to 2 charges and the effect changes as soon as you cast any of the other eligable spells that would trigger double cast

--> benefic (instant, cleanses one debuff, deletes all your mp why are you double casting this? - )
--> benefic II (instant, restores critical HP)
--> asp benefic (triggers the nocturnal version of it instead of regen)
--> helios (instant)
--> asp helios (triggers the nocturnal version instead)
--> malefic (instant, reduces recast time of the next double cast)
--> gravity (instant, 10s generic slow debuff on all enemies)
--> macrocosmos (triggers the current healing effect of microcosmos without spending it, halves recast time)


Card Draw System:

Cards gain their unique flavour back with now all of them being aoe centered around the target. This will reduce target switching when the party isn't too spread out.
Redraw gets removed in favour of the minor arcana system to keep button bloat low.
Played cards grant a seal for divination - Unwanted cards can be turned into minor arcana. Draw will not repeat cards until all 6 cards were played at least once or if divination was used. If all cards were drawn without using divination, the pool resets and shuffles again.

Balance: Increases determination - flat damage up buffs would probably be too powerful otherwise. In flavour of the duality of the DET stat
Bole: Decreases damage recieved - adds a defensive option and good minor arcana option if not needed at that given time

Arrow: Increases movement speed - we all got a taste through SCH how good this is can be, I think spell/skillspeed buffs would mess rotations
Spear: Increases critical hit rate - many will probably would want to get this one but it's less impactful as you cannot get dupes within 2mins

Ewer: Refreshes HP and MP - I think only MP would be basically useless so it'll be a good additional healing option of things go south
Spire: Increases direct hit rate - this would round up the last of the 3 dps increasing cards


Minor Arcana system:

This is mostly used to turn the current drawn card into the opposite card of the pairing, albeit weaker version of that said card, in favour to the situation you're currently facing:
- The old pairings apply (balance/bole, arrow/spear, ewer/spire)
- You'll have a support or damage up version if RNG was not in favour of your current needs.
- Played minor arcana will not grant an arcana seal for divination!


Sleeve Draw:

Turns 6 spells into their respective cards that can be played by pressing the card you want to have on demand.
Kind of like the PvP three Mudra skill that lets you choose 1 card you immediately want to play. This will guarantee you at least 1 party damage buff every 120s for openers or on demand utility.


Divination and the Seal System:

--> every 2 minutes triggers the effects of up to 3 seals (this will add the flavour of the oracle side of this job instead of generic damage up which you'll be guaranteed to get thanks to sleeve draw). Does not require 3 seals so can be used with sleeve draw in openers for a solar seal divination. Resets the draw card pool so if you want to use up your draw pool, you can delay this ability if you still haven't played your desired card.
Ideally you'd want to play at least 3 cards with 3 different seals as same seals will not stack (think of as the bard's new codas).

- solar seal (balance/bole) - grants damage up
- lunar seal (arrow/spear) - grants cast time down (gcd remains unaffected)
- celestial seal (ewer/spire) - grants defense up


Synastry:

that one button everyone forgets will now grant a buff like "dance partner" that will also trigger any played card around that player as well. This will ensure you'll be able to cover distant targets as well since cards are aoe around the target now


Overall you'll have 3 buttons less to worry about (2 if you slotted in undraw before) and bring back some of the old AST identity with just enough tools to fight RNG.

i like your card system. sleeve draw and forcing all cards to appear in sets does wonders for the reliability issue that old cards had.

Your Minor Arcana has me on the fence. letting people burn support cards for dps doesnt sit right iwth me. I do acknowledge one key thing that could make it work though: when farming, the support doesnt matter; and when progging, the dps doesnt matter. theres also divination making it perhaps not worth it to burn boles for dps, so yeah, good job. i stil dont fully like the idea of MA letting you discard support for dps though...

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Originally Posted by Shikiseki

Double Cast:

adds double cast as a job core system --> casts a slightly alternate version of the previous casted spell as ability for 0 mp cost
Up to 2 charges and the effect changes as soon as you cast any of the other eligable spells that would trigger double cast

--> benefic (instant, cleanses one debuff, deletes all your mp why are you double casting this? - )
--> benefic II (instant, restores critical HP)
--> asp benefic (triggers the nocturnal version of it instead of regen)
--> helios (instant)
--> asp helios (triggers the nocturnal version instead)
--> malefic (instant, reduces recast time of the next double cast)
--> gravity (instant, 10s generic slow debuff on all enemies)
--> macrocosmos (triggers the current healing effect of microcosmos without spending it, halves recast time)

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i think it would be better if malefic didnt work with double cast. to me it would be more interesting to use asp bene/helios and then be able to "hold" that double cast for when it has maximum value. if malefic overwrites double cast youre pressured to use it right away after healing cuz otherwise you lose the cool nocturnal effect. not to mention it would create a dominant strategy in which double-cast malefics mean more double-casts which means its a compounded dps loss to not use double cast on malefic, and we already rarely use gcd heals as-is to begin with.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

i think it would be better if malefic didnt work with double cast. to me it would be more interesting to use asp bene/helios and then be able to "hold" that double cast for when it has maximum value. if malefic overwrites double cast youre pressured to use it right away after healing cuz otherwise you lose the cool nocturnal effect. not to mention it would create a dominant strategy in which double-cast malefics mean more double-casts which means its a compounded dps loss to not use double cast on malefic, and we already rarely use gcd heals as-is to begin with.

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I think it should, I love Malefic reducing the cool-down of double cast by 7.5 seconds how it is in PvP, it would greatly help out in Dungeons and Solo content, I personally think just in raids they need to create more ongoing consistent damage to the players so you need to then think, “do I squeeze an extra Malefic or a Benefic II” the option should be available. And not to mention help out overall with our dps considering AST is bottom of the healers in that department.

Also I’d also like to say, how many people really do cast Synastry end game or in dungeons?, I feel like it’s honestly not even needed with the array of abilities we have already at our disposal perhaps that skill should just be flat out removed and switched for double cast?. Like I literally just cast it for the sake of casting it cause it’s on my hotbar.

While I havnt played the old AST, I honestly wish I had, I’ve read AST use to be able to switch from Regen to Shield healing, I’d love to get that back, it would really make AST have a uniqueness being able to mesh with any co-healer, you got a SGE healing switch to regen, got a WHM go shields. From Google I’ve read it’s Nocturnal Sect/Diurnal Sect, they can just make it one button that switch’s to the other option that you have to cast before combat. I’d love to see this return.

About Cards, Draw/Play like in PvP, I’m not to fussed what they do with cards, I’ve become use to both how they work in PvE and PvP, while use PvE it becomes a pain selecting who to play the card on the switch back to target the enemy to dps but you get use to it, PvP is much simpler, draw the card play it, goes AoE to everyone around you, which I like aswell. My one wish if they do choose to make cards more complex I pray they add some sort of mouse over function, healing in WoW with mouse overs is a huge quality of life which I’d love to see in FF.

But im very excited and nervous about what’s happening in 6.2 to AST, I fell in love with the job and hopefully with this overhaul it continues to flourish.

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Originally Posted by Pepino

[...]Also I’d also like to say, how many people really do cast Synastry end game or in dungeons? I feel like it’s honestly not even needed with the array of abilities we have already at our disposal perhaps that skill should just be flat out removed and switched for double cast? Like I literally just cast it for the sake of casting it cause it’s on my hotbar.

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Synastry would be fine if only they interact more beyond than just their 3 single target GCD healing spells that they almost never need to use outside dealing with clown fiesta or paper tank. You can delete it from your hotbar and very little would change.

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Originally Posted by Pepino

But im very excited and nervous about what’s happening in 6.2 to AST, I fell in love with the job and hopefully with this overhaul it continues to flourish.

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In the light of most recent WHM's changes, there's that slight semblance of hope regained that they might do things right. But once again my low expectation kept me grounded, reminding me that they also have a good chance to find some silly excuses as to why X ability need to be removed when nobody ever ask for its removal.

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Originally Posted by Shikiseki

Ewer: Refreshes HP and MP - I think only MP would be basically useless so it'll be a good additional healing option of things go south

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You should leave Ewer as MP only, throwing healing on top of it would lead to them having to make both effects weak. Meanwhile leaving it as MP only brings back how useful it was in all content before, acting as a lucid dreaming you can throw on yourself, your co-healer, or RDM. Especially in Alliance Raid content where there are generally lots of deaths from clipping which means MP recovery is all the more important for healers.

I would say on your idea for Spire you should swap the movement speed to Spire from Arrow and put Arrow as Direct Hit. Thematically (in HW/SB) Spire was all about invigoration of the body (hence why Spire restored TP) which fits movement speed or increased healing received effects, while Arrow thematically was all about swiftness and accuracy.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Synastry would be fine if only they interact more beyond than just their 3 single target GCD healing spells that they almost never need to use outside dealing with clown fiesta or paper tank. You can delete it from your hotbar and very little would change.

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In a vacuum, it's a great skill with a unique concept. But single target healing in general is rarely needed and as you said, the action doesn't interact with anything but AST's last ditch effort for survival. It can be put on the target of your healing and they'll receive the additional 40% even when they're the target, but it's incredibly niche. I could see it gaining more value when Criterion dungeons come out as single target inherently has more value in light parties. It's just hard to justify single target actions in 8-man groups unless one person specifically is being targeted for heavy damage while no one else is being attacked.

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Originally Posted by Pepino

I think it should, I love Malefic reducing the cool-down of double cast by 7.5 seconds how it is in PvP, it would greatly help out in Dungeons and Solo content, I personally think just in raids they need to create more ongoing consistent damage to the players so you need to then think, “do I squeeze an extra Malefic or a Benefic II” the option should be available.

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it works in pvp because you legitimately might need the extra healing so theres actual risk involved, and gravity being stronger than malefic means you dont want to blow all your charges willy nilly.

in pve, even in ultimates you rarely cast gcd heals. in my last uwu clear i casted in total 38 gcd heals and 178 malefics. and of those gcd heals, almost all of them were casted when the boss wasnt targettable. the answer to "do i squeeze an extra Malefic or a Benefic II” is almost unequivocally malefic. a double cast malefic will be even a bigger dps loss than hardcasting malefic too because of the compounding effect of reducing the cd of double cast, so if anything, it would be better to cast gcds and use double cast exclusively on malefic if you need that healing.

conversely, i find it a lot more interesting to cast aspected helios, and then hold onto that double cast to use a nocturnal asp helios later into the fight to get the most value out of it. its just more strategic

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Originally Posted by Pepino

Also I’d also like to say, how many people really do cast Synastry end game or in dungeons?,

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i feel like synastry is pretty useful, but only in savage/ulti prog when people are dying and need to be healed to full health immediately. thanks to synastry, i managed to save a few pulls in ucob during adds phase when my cohealer had died.

but outside of that its kind of superfluous

Maybe Undraw will stay forever. Don't see why they'd wait until 6.2 to remove it.

Something I'd like to see is Benefic/Cure's critical/freecure become available until used - on the rare moments I've used either past a certain level nobody will need it within 15 seconds enough to justify hitting the button and the thing goes to waste. :(

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Originally Posted by Cygnia

Something I'd like to see is Benefic/Cure's critical/freecure become available until used - on the rare moments I've used either past a certain level nobody will need it within 15 seconds enough to justify hitting the button and the thing goes to waste. :(

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What's hilarious is I haven't actually seen either of those procs since HW quite literally. I haven't had Cure or Benefic on either healer's hotbar since like 3.5. I don't really play either WHM or AST anymore, but I played both plenty during Stormblood at least. If I ever had to synch down I just swapped it manually.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

What's hilarious is I haven't actually seen either of those procs since HW quite literally. I haven't had Cure or Benefic on either healer's hotbar since like 3.5. I don't really play either WHM or AST anymore, but I played both plenty during Stormblood at least. If I ever had to synch down I just swapped it manually.

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Go without using it for the most part, just if Square *does* want us to retain the lower level spell for niche use it'd be good to bolster the payoff. On quality of life features its way down the list - right now the overbusy nature is number one concern.

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Originally Posted by SieyaM

No they listen to DPS feedback and they all said they didn't like AST cards because they weren't getting enough balance cards to pad their logs with. The reason AST fished for balance so often was because it would give the DPS players they were feeding cards to better logs to post, it was never impossible to clear a run without them nor was it significantly easier to clear with a bunch of balance draws.

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As mentioned, fflogs runs on rdps now so cards have zero impact on a dps players log.

Also you seriously don't believe that the developers, who have a strong anti-parser policy, designed their class entirely to please a small handful of parsers? Like, seriously?
AST fished for Balance so often because Balance is always useful and in team based content a good player always wants to be useful to their team. I don't get why this concept is so hard to understand. High end players want to play to the best of their ability, that's what they find fun. They also love flavor and utility, but don't want that to come at the sacrifice of being as useful to the team as possible.

It shouldn't be a choice between flavor or being optimal. It should have been both available separately.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Also you seriously don't believe that the developers, who have a strong anti-parser policy, designed their class entirely to please a small handful of parsers?

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i cant put anything past the devs anymore considering they butchered sam because of "damage variance"


you know, the thing that only parses are even aware about lmao

If I only got one change for 6.2 it would be that the 2-Sign Astrodyne effect (Harmony of Body) changes from Haste to instant cast effect (effectively a 2nd Lightspeed). Gives me more mobility and lets me use all the oGCDs. I could put up with everything else as is if I had two 15 second bursts of instant casts and it addresses my biggest complaint about AST: too many oGCDs without the ability to efficiently double weave outside of Lightspeed.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

As mentioned, fflogs runs on rdps now so cards have zero impact on a dps players log.

Also you seriously don't believe that the developers, who have a strong anti-parser policy, designed their class entirely to please a small handful of parsers? Like, seriously?
AST fished for Balance so often because Balance is always useful and in team based content a good player always wants to be useful to their team. I don't get why this concept is so hard to understand. High end players want to play to the best of their ability, that's what they find fun. They also love flavor and utility, but don't want that to come at the sacrifice of being as useful to the team as possible.

It shouldn't be a choice between flavor or being optimal. It should have been both available separately.

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How would flavor and utility come at a cost of not being useful?

And frankly classes shouldn't be changed because a small portion of the playerbase wants it to. People will support a class being gutted for others if it means higher numbers for them. Ast rn is a basic and frankly boring class rn as it's just dps buffer that requires little to no thinking or planning.

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Originally Posted by VictorSpoils

Maybe Undraw will stay forever. Don't see why they'd wait until 6.2 to remove it.

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You know, I've had a thought I've been tossing around in my head, lately. I believe button bloat is a requirement to facilitate the low skill floor that the dev team desires.
By which I mean, these YoshiP approved skills, as they are now (or will be, after 6.2) would be a basic implementation, meant to facilitate the easiest gameplay for all.
And so, to that end, I think they should consider adding in more buttons, which could, instead, be used in place of other buttons that do not see as much use by those players who no longer have any use for them. This would enable the low skill floor to remain the same, while allowing players to venture into a more risky but possibly more "rewarding" territory as they see fit.
Will there be a meta of what's "strongest?" Yes, but that already happens anyway, and results would vary based upon the players who use whatever combinations. The meta isn't actually the problem, it's the variance in battle length/difficulty posed by having a player with different capabilities presented with a skillset that enables capitalization.

With regards to AST, I think that's another avenue they could take, regarding their cards. Just throw us a deck of various effects, make us pick 6 we like, and have at it. Let Undraw be replaced with Toss (which deals a low potency physical ranged damage to a target), or let players who don't like Synastry replace it with something else. Maybe let them replace Celestial Opposition with the old variant. Just leave the basic implementation as the "leveling" version and let players pick out variant spells/abilities as they please.
But that's just my idle wishful thinking.

I’m not super experienced with this job but here’s my humble suggestion for a reworked card system if AST is indeed getting major adjustments soon.

I feel that there needs to be a middle ground between the pre SHB card system and now. Reduce the damage buff to somewhere around 3% regardless of melee and ranged but now every card has a unique effect on top of the small damage buff. This means that you are dealing out cards based on the situation and the other jobs which sounds more interesting than just “got a blue card, give to the Sam, now it’s a pink card give it to the MCH” (I do know there is higher level skill expression with card timings).

Some of these effects could be:

-small regen/heal
-small mit/shield
-short movement speed buff (throw it on a melee during mechanics)
-a small MP restoration (healers and RDM would appreciate if they are rezzing)
-increase to healing received for a limited time, 10% or less (could be put on a tank or someone with vuln stacks)
-an Esuna or a status effect protection like Bard’s (would be pretty cool to esuna without using a GCD if the situation comes up)
-etc.

These effects aren’t crazy impactful enough so that ASTs who just wanna focus on damage buffs can’t just do that but it could be a fun way to contribute party utility. Some cards will inevitably be better than others, but it won’t be like pre SHB when the Balance was by far the best option because of how invaluable higher damage is.