AST: recent letter from the producer

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/f...257609/?page=1

Quote:

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We'll focus on adjusting the power of astrologian healing.*
Additionally, we're making adjustments to the duration of party-supporting actions. You should be able to feel the power boosts more clearly, so please look forward to it.

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The second post down.
Im feeling hopeful enough to take ast off the back burner and grind those last 5 levels.
Thoughts?

(Sorry about the bad formatting, im on my cellphone )

I am looking forward to them as I have recently found a raid team who was hopeful changes would be coming and was willing to take my AST on, I am hoping they look at both sects for AST when buffing and not just durial again though but I do have faith that this may be what we need to become competative.

Honestly? really dissapointed

No mention of very required healing cd's
no mention of less rng
no mention of our cards actually being involved with healing and not just a wonky tagged on system

All i see is astrologian becoming the perfect farm content healer.

I'm kinda disappointed.
Glad to others change but I couldn't see any mention of Noct stance.
But still have hope Yoshi PD will work on that sooner.
Beside that. Satisfied.

The state ment is ambiguous enough the healing increase could be from cooldowns.also feels like they are going to increase the duration of the cards over buffing the cards effects itself.

Still have to see it. I love the class and sitting at ilvl193 now i dont intend to somehow stop buying AST eso gear or something. Ill just trust SE on this. I'm mainly waiting for the changes to finally fully dive into savage without people telling me no "no ast plz"

To be honest I'm quite nervous about the changes... specially because if they do not deliver it just means I won't be able to use AST for progression. And what's the point on using it for farming content only, if the first eso spent (or any new currency they come up with) don't go to it but to my WHM, that I don't find as fun. Hate wasting my eso on jobs I want to leave behind. :( I'd also hate having to stop raiding because it's one of the few things that makes me log on the game. But if it all boils down to that, well I guess more freetime for gathering/crafting and becoming a casual player. I just won't have the coolest looking gear (aside from artifact armor :P) but I'll be able to enjoy my gimped AST and all the tomes would go to it, like a single child pamper.

Wanted to add, part of the reason I'm quite nervous is because they've been kinda vague about how they have thought of boosting the job.. their statements' vagueness makes me think just adding a band aid and be done with it but hopefully they'll surprise us like they surprised Warrior in 2.1.

What? This is so vague
No mention of the horrible RNG, lack of healing CDs(maybe this is included into the "adjusting the power of astrologian healing" ?) and specially, the LACK OF IDENTITY.
I'm looking forward to it but i'm also a bit worried.

They promised good changes in the past aswell and basically it was a complete let down.

What worries me the most is that they still aren't able to say anything specific / concrete. I honestly don't expect anything spectacular, just some minor tweaking to some of the skills. I don't think it will be nearly enough to get the class where it should have been from the start. Part of the problem is that they failed to make AST unique. All it has is a weird mix of whm & sch skills with a bunch of cards slapped to it.

Mediocre buffs are still better than no buffs.
But at least the cards will actually feel like they're doing something. Im pumped for that at least.

I am looking forward to it. They made significant enough changes to WAR in 2.1 to make it viable in raids so i hope AST gets the treatment it needs. I want to main AST in savage rather than SCH and have an alt that is busy getting AST to 60 on as well.

There isn't enough information there to be particularly excited or particularly disappointed.

From the Q&A translation alone, it doesn't sound like the changes are really going to do the trick, but that's to be expected because the scope of the changes necessary to make Astrologian worthwhile are not really encapsulable in one or two quick sentences.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Damianqq

They promised good changes in the past aswell and basically it was a complete let down.

What worries me the most is that they still aren't able to say anything specific / concrete. I honestly don't expect anything spectacular, just some minor tweaking to some of the skills. I don't think it will be nearly enough to get the class where it should have been from the start. Part of the problem is that they failed to make AST unique. All it has is a weird mix of whm & sch skills with a bunch of cards slapped to it.

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Maybe they're waiting to give us a HUGE surprise :D :D :D?
No?
.....ok

No mention of changing card effects. The balance is the best one in general, bole if its getting a duration buff would actually be a bit more useful to slap on tanks. the arrow is a double edged sword, sure it increases attack and spell speed but that in turn burns melee dps characters tp faster and has the slight chance of throwing off rotations. Spear would be good if it effected cooldowns already running. Ewer is only really helpful for the astrologian. White mages have deccent mp managment now, SCH have ungodly mp management as do their SMN counterparts, black mages have their umbral ice mp regeneration built into their rotation. Spire is only useful on melee dps deep into a fight when theyve already burned their own tp recovery. WAR has equilibrium to get tp back. DK just switch to using mp. I really like the idea of the AST, i just hope they rework the cards so all of them are useful more frequently. Youve only got one always useful card, the others are ridiculously situational.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bman10119

Spire is only useful on melee dps deep into a fight when theyve already burned their own tp recovery..

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I can see spire being more useable after they add the TP bar to the party list.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bman10119

Ewer is only really helpful for the astrologian. White mages have deccent mp managment now, SCH have ungodly mp management as do their SMN counterparts.

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As long as you have caster dps it's great on bards for more requiem uptime. It'll almost stop the mana drain when playing.

I hope the buffs are worthwhile.

I've kinda grown bored with healing on SCH so AST is really the only hope I have of something in this game encouraging me to raid again.

It'll probably be something minor. I bet they just want to see if tweaking the numbers will actually solve most of the problems without changing any of the skills yet. If it doesn't expect some skill changes in 3.1. At least that is my guess.