AST Adjustments 6.2

I bet my Gil on that theyre going to remove Lord- and Lady of Crowns entirely again and then do some Potency adjustments and call it a day, all for the sake of Button bloating.


And it isnt like basic Rotation Skills on Jobs like SAM take up 8 slots or on the matter of Healers, u got arround 14 different Healing skills that only differ in looks, cooldown and somewhat in cast time. This could easily be fixed by turning those into combo actions like in PvP, if they want to reduce any "button bloat".

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

Not just in casual content, I've took dancer into DRS and both 5.0 and 6.0 savages, and its one of two jobs I've progged ultimate in, so I'm hardly a casual dancer player. (I might not have as many parses btw because I do my hardcore content on ps4)

Then again, I'm not as zealous an optimiser nor super high skilled as some people. It was that 6.08 changes that made me think that the sks buff would be a good thing, because its not permanent having a card buff on, and it feels slower as a result of said changes.

I will concede that the sks buff may be better for me as someone with high ping so lag doesn't affect me as much compared to an equally experienced dnc player closer to the servers.



An alternative to the arrow i would like to suggest though to return to flavour if we cant agree on old arrow: give it paladin's double autos or instant casting speed. Still a speed buff but a more approachable one
Old arrow would also be good in the current situation for healers tbh. squeeze out more glare/broil/malefic/dosis. but thats just me being bitter again

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Based on info from The Balance discord, a very small amount of skill speed is recommended for most Dancers because not many players have absolutely no lag, and that will help you actually stick to your rotation. There are a few different thresholds that are recommended based on your ping, but an AST randomly giving you an attack speed buff is not the solution and has a chance of actually hurting your performance.

But yeah, rethinking what buffs the cards do outside of attack speed can make a lot more sense.

I want draw/play and arcana buttons to be one button each not two. I want sleeve draw back to mitigate crappy luck, I hate the cards so much I have barely touched my astro due to this. With these changes I, particularly the sleeve draw, I will return to healing on ast instead of scholar. I must say I was not happy for our essential dignity to be nerfed only to have the potency put on an extra charge of opposition and a new button.

What I find utterly baffliing is that in shadowbringers they changed sleeve draw from 3 fast card plays to 1 because it was TOO BUSY for many players to keep up with... and then they go and add a haste buff. So people who struggled to weave already struggle more. I liked the old sleeve draw, it was fun. A haste buff jus feels weird given all their previous efforts to slow the job down and make it simple.

Would like to see the time dilation effects to come back in some form but no way that happens this expansion.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

You will drift or clip with SkS because your GCD's don't divide evenly into the 30 sec cooldown of Standard Step (at 0 SkS, they divide perfectly into 12 GCD's). This isn't actually as much of an issue due to the 6.08 DNC buffs but it can still feel bad and misalign your rotation.

While you might like an attack speed buff for a "feel good" in casual content, an experienced DNC would hate it. SkS and SpS is usually the sort of stat that jobs either avoid like the plague or stack to very specific amounts for a specific rotation. While it would be nice to be able to just hit things faster and not worry, mathematically it can turn out to be a loss due to how the game is designed.

No class should be able to apply an unplanned buff that can disrupt other players rotation. It's just not a good idea.

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No offense, but that's exactly the reason why jobs are boring, I'm sorry. The second something seems remotely fun another one brings up a calculator. I don't play a fantasy game to have boring abilities because a spreadsheet says so.

On one end we have casuals so most of the game with eye contact to the MSQ needs to stay easy and on the other end the second an abilities threatens to make whatever job suboptimal (whatever that means) it's out the door.

I totally get both sides and they have a place, but XIV throws out the baby with the bathwater and the end result isn't all that appealing long-term. To be fair, PvP is a really good start.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

No offense, but that's exactly the reason why jobs are boring, I'm sorry. The second something seems remotely fun another one brings up a calculator. I don't play a fantasy game to have boring abilities because a spreadsheet says so.

On one end we have casuals so most of the game with eye contact to the MSQ needs to stay easy and on the other end the second an abilities threatens to make whatever job suboptimal (whatever that means) it's out the door.

I totally get both sides and they have a place, but XIV throws out the baby with the bathwater and the end result isn't all that appealing long-term. To be fair, PvP is a really good start.

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The problem isn't specifically that it's suboptimal. It's that it feels shitty to play. No one who has developed a strong understanding of the game's mechanics want so sit there and wait half a second to be able to continue their combo. Skill speed and spell speed are just bad stats conceptually for an RPG centered around cooldowns. There are other effects that could be more interesting and usable that we continue to not explore, but just like accuracy, skill speed and spell speed should've died years ago. Speed up mechanics should instead be built into the jobs that need them because that way it can be realistically controlled.

If we got more than 3 cleansable debuffs across every ounce of content added to the game in the span of 2 years, maybe debuff prevention would be a much greater asset, for example.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

There are other effects that could be more interesting and usable that we continue to not explore, but just like accuracy, skill speed and spell speed should've died years ago.

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Especially since Astrodyne feels like such a weak effort to keep the Seals mechanic. SE probably realized in ASTs current design that there isn't actually a need for more than 2 cards and quickly thought of some way to keep 6 cards. Standing VERY far back, the Job still appears to have RNG in card drawing, but when you take a closer look, it's simply the appearance of RNG with no actual quick thinking or decision making.

My favorite line: "All of the cards do the same thing, and somehow you still don't get the ones you want"

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Originally Posted by IllyaPrisma

Especially since Astrodyne feels like such a weak effort to keep the Seals mechanic. SE probably realized in ASTs current design that there isn't actually a need for more than 2 cards and quickly thought of some way to keep 6 cards. Standing VERY far back, the Job still appears to have RNG in card drawing, but when you take a closer look, it's simply the appearance of RNG with no actual quick thinking or decision making.

My favorite line: "All of the cards do the same thing, and somehow you still don't get the ones you want"

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Well that's kind of the issue from the get-go. Trying to justify 6 different buffs in this game is highly challenging because you're inevitably going to have cards that are weaker and others that are stronger. With the old system, Royal Road helped a lot at creating a counterweight to grant value to the more niche utility cards, especially Spire who's effect was virtually useless but was the best card to burn. This ultimately wasn't enough to make it a fair and balanced mechanic, but there was logic to it.

The seal system was created as a response to this, enabling them to homogenize the cards into 1 repetitive effect, but it's a colossal failure. It actually highlights even more just how unnecessary the 6 different cards aspect is on a functional level and has felt stupidly clunky every step of the way so far. Even though it's been smoothed out since ShB's launch, it still feels like a mess because there's just no reason to have the system at all the way it's currently implemented.

What's more is the Cards are very heavily linked to the lore of job, and while lore-breaking isn't something they're too afraid to shy away from, foundational lore aspects aren't things they're going to eliminate. If we were to ignore the lore, the most sensible thing we could do would be to cut the card system entirely and just replace it with a single button, but that would get a heavy amount of backlash, and I wouldn't be happy with that solution either. What this means is if they really want to make AST enjoyable is they're going to need to bring the cards back to the drawing board once more and figure out a way to justify having 6 cards in a way that doesn't feel like ass and yet retain a level of consistency that inspired the ShB changes to begin with.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Well that's kind of the issue from the get-go. Trying to justify 6 different buffs in this game is highly challenging because you're inevitably going to have cards that are weaker and others that are stronger.

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i agree with your post. if we lost 1 or even 2 cards for a total of 4 or 5 different effects in exchange for the effects actually being interesting and meaningful i would definitely prefer that. i mean pvp only has 3 cards and its already a lot more fun (tho tbh defensive bole as a 4th card would be great to have too).

Okay so here's a wacky concept, though the specifics would need to be ironed out.

Astral Draw draws one of three astral aspected cards: The Balance, The Arrow, and The Spire
Umbral Draw draws one of three umbral aspected cards: The Bole, The Spear, and the Ewer

Both the draw and the play are now on the GCD (your draws would share the same button as your play respective to each draw). When used, they create an orbital star stack on the Astrologian to a maximum of 6. When casting an offensive spell, a stack is consumed to deal an additional attack of 250 potency. Astrodyne is an OGCD action that transfers all your orbital stars to another player. Their spells and/or weaponskills trigger the 250 potency attacks, though the potency is still based on your stats and not theirs.

Each card compiles an effect on you as the AST along with the damage buff they put on other party members.

Balance = 6% damage increase effect
Arrow = 8% critical hit increase effect
Spire = 12% direct hit increase effect

Bole = 10% damage reduction effect
Spear = 10% increased healing action received effect
Ewer = 200 potency heal effect

Celestial Intersection grants your compiled astral effects onto one target as an OGCD action.
Celestial Opposition grants your compiled umbral effects onto yourself and nearby allies as an OGCD action.

I'm not quite sure how you might work out the rhythm of something like this, but I think that could be an interesting place to start. If fleshed out, it could actually create a highly passive healer who mainly DPSs with Combust and Malefics between drawing and playing cards, but is largely spending time passing damage buffs around and passing orbital stars out to others to use while you continue drawing.

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

Not just in casual content, I've took dancer into DRS and both 5.0 and 6.0 savages, and its one of two jobs I've progged ultimate in, so I'm hardly a casual dancer player. (I might not have as many parses btw because I do my hardcore content on ps4)

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That's fair, apologies if I came across as implying you weren't a good DNC.

DNC isn't the only example and to clarify I have no problems with a DNC loading up on SkS if they wanted. But sometimes at high end gameplay you find that your rotation maps so that you end on an exact GCD when the boss phase changes, often with small adjustments to ensure you complete a key combo on that GCD. Someone forcing SkS on you ruins that delicate planning.

Basically given that it can hinder gameplay for some players, SkS should be a personal choice, not something another class can dump on you.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

No offense, but that's exactly the reason why jobs are boring, I'm sorry. The second something seems remotely fun another one brings up a calculator. I don't play a fantasy game to have boring abilities because a spreadsheet says so.

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I don't disagree with you.

I'd actually like stats like "Haste" to be something we can load up on freely and go nuts with. I've never been a big fan of ff14's 2 minute precise spreadsheet rotation loops for optimal damage on some classes and I suspect the reason is that it's easy to balance and friendly to the spaghetti code and servers.

Ideally they'd work on making it so SkS/SpS weren't detrimental. But while they refuse to do that, giving a class the ability to force that detrimental stat on you just isn't fun imo. It's not the fault of the high end players that the game works this way.