Goodbye Astro

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

I'm sorry bad tanks gave you a biased experience. Even in 5.0 when gravity was a full cast time I still found moments to cast it when the tanks taking a beating, especially when Lightspeed was up. Use your cooldowns. If the tank is still taking a beating after you've used all your cooldowns that is either on them for not properly mitigating or the group not having sufficient aoe dps.

Energy Drain wasnt brought back for the mp sustain. It was brought back so SCH's had a way to dump excess aetherflow. You have Lucid on a 1 min and Lightspeed on a 90 sec cooldown. You have the tools to restore mp, maybe throw a bone and give ast another mp restore? Ok fine, but an rng card that you would rather burn to enhance a dps card most of the time is too unreliable, sure you could save it, but most people would've rather save that balance so they can use it at the best time.

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Bad tanks good tanks did not matter. Good tanks lasted a few seconds longer but would still go down. Even with Lightspeed and Synastry. Unless we got good DPS that will clear fast wall to wall pulls with an AST are a no go. All of my tank buddies agree on that. Though even with WHM or SCH some of those pulls are dicey and if the healer makes one wrong move trying to DPS the tank drops with the snap of a finger. Hence why I call them crazy tanks which they take as a badge of pride.

If we continue holding these discussions and making sure we prod them about it for every live letter, then I feel we might inevitably get somewhere. Even if our cards were reduced to three unique effects (MP regen, DMG buff, DEF buff), that alone would still be better than the boring thing we currently have.

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Originally Posted by Lodi

Before: Balance, two situational balances, three utilities, one damage and one heal. The ability to burn a card to buff the next.

Now: Eight way worse balances. And three redraws so if you don't like your way worse balance you can trade it for another way worse balance.


Eight whole cards with eight different effects turned into a coin toss with two similar outcomes.


AST mains played AST because of the cards and their semi RNG which involved fast decision making and made them feel powerful. And unique.
To turn this all into a coin toss that's either heads or heads is like removing jumps from Dragoons, or buffs from Bards... whoops, sorry!

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How does anything you said change the old system from an unreliable pile of RNG mess to not an unreliable pile of RNG mess? I won't bother because enough has been said about the shortcomings of the old system.

You do not speak for AST mains, you speak for yourself. This is not as one-sided of an opinion as you think. Too bad the people who can't move on and won't adapt seem the most vocal around here.

The way you oversimplify the new system is incredibly disingenuous and it seems you completely forgot that Divination and seals even exist. It's quite clear you've not thought at all about the potential of the new cards.

Now that the cards do not span the entire duration of most jobs' rotation, it's no longer as simple as throwing it on the highest DPS.

Let me give you a scenario: BLM and MCH, equally competent. BLM pulls higher DPS, naturally. You draw Ewer (oh god why? oh wait, it's no longer garbage). BLM is casting Despair. MCH is about to build up Wildfire. Who do you pick?

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Originally Posted by LariaKirin

How does anything you said change the old system from an unreliable pile of RNG mess to not an unreliable pile of RNG mess? I won't bother because enough has been said about the shortcomings of the old system.

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The shortcomings of the old system transferred over to the new system only worse because the duration and effect was heavily slashed, the cards were split into melee/range and then split further into 3 seals. Where in the old system only top end raiding fished instead at all content you fish for particular cards. Until you get your seals at which all that matters is the range type for you to minor arcana.

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Originally Posted by LariaKirin

You do not speak for AST mains, you speak for yourself. This is not as one-sided of an opinion as you think. Too bad the people who can't move on and won't adapt seem the most vocal around here.

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Its the majority, shared across all three regions. There are more people upset and throwing away the class then there are those who like it. AST's representation in high end content has all but vanished, and their appearance in normal content ques has all but vanished.

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Originally Posted by LariaKirin

The way you oversimplify the new system is incredibly disingenuous and it seems you completely forgot that Divination and seals even exist. It's quite clear you've not thought at all about the potential of the new cards.

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He is not oversimplifying the system. It merely IS that oversimplified. You have 1 card effect spread over 8 cards. Seals and the melee/range split only exist so that the card system itself can exist. Divination's only purpose is to be the AoE buff, and only tracks seals so that seals had a reason to exist to support the card system itself existing. The potential of the new cards is shallow with no width. All it takes is a glance and you know the complete potential of the new cards. All that matters is the system hands you the ones you need so that you do not have needless frustration.

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Originally Posted by LariaKirin

Now that the cards do not span the entire duration of most jobs' rotation, it's no longer as simple as throwing it on the highest DPS.

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Now that the cards do not have a duration worth a damn their weak effects lack impact. As a result ASTs overall impact is weak. The weaker the buff the longer the duration needs to be, which is why Dancer's buffs work and why Dancer is an automatic pick for many raid groups while AST is left to gather dust.

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Originally Posted by LariaKirin

Let me give you a scenario: BLM and MCH, equally competent. BLM pulls higher DPS, naturally. You draw Ewer (oh god why? oh wait, it's no longer garbage). BLM is casting Despair. MCH is about to build up Wildfire. Who do you pick?

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It would not matter which one you throw it on. If the MCH is outputting 12k DPS then giving him the card is an extra 720 DPS. If the BLM is doing 13k DPS then throwing the card on him adds an extra 780 DPS. A 60 DPS difference.

The DPS difference between either of them is so small as to not matter. You throw it on whichever one you can click on faster.

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Originally Posted by TankHunter678

Its the majority, shared across all three regions. There are more people upset and throwing away the class then there are those who like it. AST's representation in high end content has all but vanished, and their appearance in normal content ques has all but vanished.

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You know that for a fact because you've done the numbers. Please share.

Also, you know for a fact that AST's representation in high end content is because people are unhappy with the new cards, not due to the fact that it was severly undertuned for the entirety of Shadowbringers minus 4 days.

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Originally Posted by TankHunter678

Now that the cards do not have a duration worth a damn their weak effects lack impact. As a result ASTs overall impact is weak. The weaker the buff the longer the duration needs to be, which is why Dancer's buffs work and why Dancer is an automatic pick for many raid groups while AST is left to gather dust.

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What I am saying and what I am trying to illustrate with the example is that because the damage buff is on a shorter duration, you now have more nuanced decisions to make when choosing your target.

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Originally Posted by TankHunter678

It would not matter which one you throw it on. If the MCH is outputting 12k DPS then giving him the card is an extra 720 DPS. If the BLM is doing 13k DPS then throwing the card on him adds an extra 780 DPS. A 60 DPS difference.

The DPS difference between either of them is so small as to not matter. You throw it on whichever one you can click on faster.

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No wonder you don't understand the shorter duration thing. When you see 13k DPS on a Black Mage, do you think that any of their abilities equally contribute to the total DPS?

The reason it didn't matter with a 30 second Balance is because those 30 seconds would span the entire BLM rotation, therefore it wouldn't matter where they were in their rotation. If you use the card on the Black Mage in my scenario, you're boosting the following: Blizzard III, Blizzard IV, Thunder, Xeno, Fire III and maybe one Fire IV.

What you are telling me here is that the difference between MCH's Wildfire phase and BLM's ice phase is negligible.

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Originally Posted by LariaKirin

You know that for a fact because you've done the numbers. Please share.
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I too wanna see this data.
And no, using savage numbers don't count because not everyone does Savage.
Though Eden normal is a better use since even causal players can beat e1.
Not accurate number but it's an idea.

If you're just going by the amount of complaining on the fourms, that's also not an accurate amount since only a small amount of players use the fourms.

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Originally Posted by LariaKirin

You know that for a fact because you've done the numbers. Please share.

Also, you know for a fact that AST's representation in high end content is because people are unhappy with the new cards, not due to the fact that it was severly undertuned for the entirety of Shadowbringers minus 4 days.

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If you want hard numbers just go watch the abysmal growth of AST parses on FFlogs. If it truly was in such a good spot then its numbers should have spiked these past 4 days. Except they have not, while the WHM and SCH numbers regularly increase by 200 every other day.

Oh and when I see complaints about AST in game, it is always about the cards. When I see people say they are dumping AST they always cite the cards. Weaker healing could be put up with if the cards were worth it, but people do not feel the cards are worth it. Even the healing changes did not make AST any more prevalent because those changes were mainly aimed at EX Trials and the Savage Raids. The AoE healing it did have was sufficient for dungeons.

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Originally Posted by LariaKirin

What I am saying and what I am trying to illustrate with the example is that because the damage buff is on a shorter duration, you now have more nuanced decisions to make when choosing your target.

No wonder you don't understand the shorter duration thing. When you see 13k DPS on a Black Mage, do you think that any of their abilities equally contribute to the total DPS?

The reason it didn't matter with a 30 second Balance is because those 30 seconds would span the entire BLM rotation, therefore it wouldn't matter where they were in their rotation. If you use the card on the Black Mage in my scenario, you're boosting the following: Blizzard III, Blizzard IV, Thunder, Xeno, Fire III and maybe one Fire IV.

What you are telling me here is that the difference between MCH's Wildfire phase and BLM's ice phase is negligible.

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So you are saying that I should watch my BLM like a hawk to know what stage of the rotation they are in just so I can precisely time throwing my buff out. Which means I will be lacking in paying attention to the rest of my party and doing my job worse. I should also at the same time be counting the shots my MCH party member makes and how long it has been since they used wildfire so I know precisely when they are about to enter a burst window so that I have a card ready to slap on them when they are about to wildfire burst.

For incredibly tiny potential gains.

If that is your nuance in the system then its pretty pathetic and takes away from doing your job of keeping people alive. Must be why AST only functions for the most elite of elite of statics who call for this kind of stuff. Though you get better benefit out of just having your Dancer perma buff the BLM (or Monk). Though hey, perhaps that nuance is just so required that its little wonder the cards feel like they have no impact. Throw them in at the wrong time and the buff is squandered, which means 90% of AST players are screwing themselves on a regular basis. Nice to know. It just makes the new card system even more worthless.

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Originally Posted by xxvaynxx

I too wanna see this data.
And no, using savage numbers don't count because not everyone does Savage.
Though Eden normal is a better use since even causal players can beat e1.
Not accurate number but it's an idea.

If you're just going by the amount of complaining on the fourms, that's also not an accurate amount since only a small amount of players use the fourms.

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AST currently makes up 16.6% of the healer parses on E1, or 4897 out of 29247. If you go E1S then it is 13.4%, or 4624 out of 34360. If you go up through normal it stays consistent in that for every 1 AST there will be 3 WHMs and roughly 2 SCHs. If you go up Savage then the amount of ASTs drastically drops to where you have up to 14 WHMs or SCHs per AST.

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Originally Posted by TankHunter678

If you want hard numbers just go watch the abysmal growth of AST parses on FFlogs. If it truly was in such a good spot then its numbers should have spiked these past 4 days. Except they have not, while the WHM and SCH numbers regularly increase by 200 every other day.

Oh and when I see complaints about AST in game, it is always about the cards. When I see people say they are dumping AST they always cite the cards. Weaker healing could be put up with if the cards were worth it, but people do not feel the cards are worth it. Even the healing changes did not make AST any more prevalent because those changes were mainly aimed at EX Trials and the Savage Raids. The AoE healing it did have was sufficient for dungeons.



So you are saying that I should watch my BLM like a hawk to know what stage of the rotation they are in just so I can precisely time throwing my buff out. Which means I will be lacking in paying attention to the rest of my party and doing my job worse. I should also at the same time be counting the shots my MCH party member makes and how long it has been since they used wildfire so I know precisely when they are about to enter a burst window so that I have a card ready to slap on them when they are about to wildfire burst.

For incredibly tiny potential gains.

If that is your nuance in the system then its pretty pathetic and takes away from doing your job of keeping people alive. Must be why AST only functions for the most elite of elite of statics who call for this kind of stuff. Though you get better benefit out of just having your Dancer perma buff the BLM (or Monk). Though hey, perhaps that nuance is just so required that its little wonder the cards feel like they have no impact. Throw them in at the wrong time and the buff is squandered, which means 90% of AST players are screwing themselves on a regular basis. Nice to know. It just makes the new card system even more worthless.

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To be fair, astro has always had the least amount of players playing compared to whm and sch ALSO with the change to fflogs.
You don't need an astro anymore because your DPS is now rdps which is what you're ranked on now instead of your padded dps.

So now that whm does tank DPS and sch is really powerful in healing...
Our poor astro.... Astro is my favorite healer so I'll still play it.

My personal experience on the effect the changes have had was I personally started playing when Heavensward was new and fell in love with the Astro class. These changes have completely turned me off to the class and I play white mage now, healing is my favorite role even if they've felt somewhat neglected as of late. It probably doesn't matter to a large percentage of the player base but I happened to really like the lore and story of Astro, part of what I fell in love with, and these changes sort of walk all over it. It's not just the cards for me either but the whole effect, I have not level'd up Astro to 80 yet but having gone through as WHM they just feel in a better place for me. I wish I could be more constructive in this regard but I don't know what exactly could be done to "fix" this problem, I was much more of an rp gal as apposed to the savage raiding business but it's looking like this is the class for some time.

If you enjoy or like or approve of the new system I don't want to take that away from you, enjoy what you enjoy but realize for some of us we not only didn't get a new heal class but lost an old one.

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Originally Posted by TankHunter678

If you want hard numbers just go watch the abysmal growth of AST parses on FFlogs. If it truly was in such a good spot then its numbers should have spiked these past 4 days. Except they have not, while the WHM and SCH numbers regularly increase by 200 every other day.

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Why should have they have spiked these last 4 days? Why would a job being strong automatically mean people will play it? BLM is very strong, I don't see it topping the fflogs statistics you seem to like so much.

I say a job is strong. You respond with "Not enough people play it". How does that compute?

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Originally Posted by TankHunter678

So you are saying that I should watch my BLM like a hawk to know what stage of the rotation they are in just so I can precisely time throwing my buff out. Which means I will be lacking in paying attention to the rest of my party and doing my job worse. I should also at the same time be counting the shots my MCH party member makes and how long it has been since they used wildfire so I know precisely when they are about to enter a burst window so that I have a card ready to slap on them when they are about to wildfire burst.

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Counting the shots? MCH uses Wildfire on CD. If MCH used it at 0:05, then they're using it at 2:05, 4:05, 6:05, etc.

I'm saying that if you know more about the other jobs in the party you'll see significant gains over slapping cards willy nilly.

Obviously, you wouldn't do this if it interferes with your normal play. But if you care about maximizing RDPS contribution through your cards, this system is significantly more interesting.

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Originally Posted by TankHunter678

If that is your nuance in the system then its pretty pathetic and takes away from doing your job of keeping people alive.

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Is this what it's about? Jealous of DNC? You don't have to worry, DNC and AST do not compete for the same spot.

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Originally Posted by TankHunter678

AST currently makes up 16.6% of the healer parses on E1, or 4897 out of 29247. If you go E1S then it is 13.4%, or 4624 out of 34360. If you go up through normal it stays consistent in that for every 1 AST there will be 3 WHMs and roughly 2 SCHs. If you go up Savage then the amount of ASTs drastically drops to where you have up to 14 WHMs or SCHs per AST.

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FFlogs are not a good indicator for many reasons:
- Not everyone parses.
- Out of all people that parse, not everyone uploads logs.
- One person accounts for multiple logs. If I parse two runs of Eden and upload, I count as two SCH parses.

In fact, if I go into E1S today and clear it 100000 times, then by your logic, AST would be the most popular job.


Anyways, I'm done. AST is strong. The healers are more balanced than they've ever been. People will realize it sooner or later.