My feedback on AST

I heard the devs look at the forum. So I kinda wanna give my feedback for ATS. Side note, I haven't even reach 71 yet.

I was never bothered much by the types of buff changes… since they don’t really affect me personally. The new system ensures that all cards are useful… so much so that the Undraw is unnecessary.

I am bothered by 2 things.

1) Seals not applied. Many have already pointed out; seals don’t apply if you’re not in combat. I understand they didn’t want us to “pre-prepare” the seals before battle. Appreciate if they make it so that seals can be applied once the “SHING” aggro sound is heard.

2) Sleeve Draw makes you a very very busy healer. It's AST’s very own Sleeve Draw Rotation (I'm being sarcastic here). Here’s a breakdown of how it works.
Sleeve Draw -> 1st Draw -> choose player -> Play -> 2nd Draw -> Redraw (maybe) -> Minor Arcana (maybe) -> choose another player -> Play -> 3rd Draw -> Redraw (maybe) -> Minor Arcana (maybe) -> choose 3rd player -> Play again -> Divination -> Is the tank dead?

You have to perform these sets of action as fast as possible to maximise your card cool downs. It takes a long time to perform everything here. If we’re tunnel-visioned, we neglect our healing duties. If we’re being a responsible healer, you’d need a few heals in-between this Sleeve Draw rotation, thereby making the process even longer. I really dunno how this skill can be improved. Maybe it’s impossible to change it now. Anyone can give suggestion?

If anyone notice any mistakes or misunderstandings I've made, I'd appreciate if you can point me out!

Having said that, thank you for the wonderful expansion. Shadowbringers has been phenomenal so far! :)

True that Sleeve Draw can take you quite some time to use.

I'd rather it gave me 3 cards straight to the Play skill without the need to Draw them.

Yea this insane amount of required button pressing is just a chore.

I recently got my AST to level 80

Healing overall:
Healing was definitely nerfed. Doing dungeons I am healing so much I barely dps. Although, the increased damage going out I think it is tougher for astro then say whm and sch. Aspected Helios, Celestial Opposition, Collective Unconscious all need a buff.

New Spells/Abilities:
Celestial Intersection is a nice ability. It's up allot and 30 sec CD. It doesn't have a super high potency but it's on short CD. Horoscope is not great. It is like an AOE version of benefic. Very underwhelming. Also you can easily forget about it and it will fall off with not popping at all. If it automatically popped no matter what and a potency increase. This ability will be good in my book. Neutral sect. I am 50/50 on this. It puts both a shield and regen on you/party members. I mostly find it underwhelming because it last for 20 seconds and basically you won't get much out of it. Probably can cast it twice if you are lucky. Maybe before an AOE attack and again right after. The 20% healing buff on it is amazing though. If it was also on a 60-90 second CD I can see this being more useful. Another note about neutral sect. Maybe this is SE way of testing it to see if it is overpowered to just be AST main and only stance. If they did do that then they would have to nerf the shielding, regen and remove the 20% healing buff on it but I can totally see this as a way to get rid of diurnal and nocturnal stances.

Cards/Buffs:
I know allot of AST mains are very upset over the card changes. Let me just say that I am ok with it. I don't mind the seal system. I think it's quite nice. What bothers me is why nerf the cards? in SB a single target card gave 10% across the board. Now it is 6% if you play it on the right role. Very underwhelming for my taste. Also they only last 15 seconds. Why? Dancers can keep a 10% total buff up on themselves and their partner indefinitely as long as they refresh their dance every 30 seconds. Also, divination.... This is a good ability. I guess SE wanted to give us an aoe buff back but why put it on a 180 second CD? That is way too long. We basically sit on seals until divination comes back off CD. Definitely needs a change. Also sleeve draw.... sometimes I don't even utilize all the draws because I am healing so much so sleeve draw goes to waste. Removing the 30 second timer will be a god send. also 180 seconds is way to long of a cd for the ability.

Suggestions:
SE can do one of the two things. We can't have both super potent heals and powerful card buffs. We can only have one or the other. My personal opinion. I can deal with the nerfed heals, just make our card buffs stronger. Can't nerf our healing and card buffs and think AST mains will be ok with it. I don't see many people playing AST right now and that is quite sad. I would love to see cards last 30 seconds when played, sleeve draw no more 30 second timer, different buffs other than damage buff on the cards will be lovely too.

I think the two main issues are Divination cooldown being too long and sleeve draw feeling clunky. The job is in a good place except for these two things imho. I get that people are angry that they removed the ability to buff other stuff than DPS but that is the way it is (personally I am ok with this) and this can work nicely if they address the two other issues I mentioned.

I think divination long cd is a opportunity to deal with minor arcana. While it is on cd is when I use sleeve draw and Lord/lady them all. I usually end up with the three arcanas and a bunch or lords throwed.

The only problem is that you let go of healing to do all this. Right now at lv 72 is hell on earth. I hope when I get Intersection it will be better.