I made a mistake by ignoring the dev discussions (AST changes)

To preface, the most fun I've had in this game is with the AST job. The multiple layers of RNG and finding ways to play your cards just right was incredibly fun. It felt like playing a card game between heals, and since AST's healing was pretty solid, it was an all around wonderful time.

So I didn't actually know what the AST changes were going to be when I logged in. I avoided most of the dev discussions so I didn't burn myself out (like I did before SB's release), and since I'd only heard previously that WHM, DRK, and MCH were the ones getting touched up the most, I felt confident that my job would be fine.

I've tried AST with the new mechanics and it's just . . . bland. Rather than six different mechanics that I can juggle around or convert into other unique mechanics, I have one. I know that Divination is the new mechanic, but it's so simplified compared to what we had before that it doesn't hold my attention at all. I've been interested in the story of ShB so far, but losing the gameplay I enjoyed the most had bummed me out so much that I was having a genuinely hard time getting invested in the game again. I'm going to give it another go, but not as AST.

I hear WHM got better, and I'm happy about that. I've barely touched SCH, but after hearing how its mechanics were overly simplified, I'm very sorry to SCH players. If anything positive comes from the myriad of healers expressing their woes, I hope there is no attached negative of reverting WHM's buffs. I really, really don't want to see that happen, not with how many people I've seen happy with WHM's buffs.

I miss the time-mage spells from AST. Just Gravity and Lightspeed are alive.

I miss Royal Road or just some diversity on cards.

This is not AST. This is a cheap tarot card reader with just damage cards.

#bringback4.0AST

Even something as simple as bringing back the diversity on our cards would regain my interest, I think. But yes, bringing back the 4.0 AST and expanding on its mechanics for 70-80 content would be wonderful.

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Originally Posted by BahamutxD

I miss the time-mage spells from AST. Just Gravity and Lightspeed are alive.

I miss Royal Road or just some diversity on cards.

This is not AST. This is a cheap tarot card reader with just damage cards.

#bringback4.0AST

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i highly disagree with everything but "time mage" spells

we definitely should feel more "time magey" as that's what i wanted this class to be, and that's what this class IS, just with a different theme to make it a "healer" and not a "dps support" basically

but, no
royal road really wasn't a good concept, at first launch, sure, but it's better that we've evolved from it after 2 expansions

you waited longer to use your next card just to buff your next card, that's a full minute of a cooldown, that's not "fun or engaging" just because you "get to decide which one i want to use"

this new mechanic of tossing out cards MUCH faster is a lot better, while having to accept losing out on the "utility" of bole/ewer (spire was trash and would be useless now due to no TP, and arrow/spear were just balance, let's face it)

seals are a different story

the problem i have with it, is right now, we have SIX buttons (7 with Undraw, but you could count that if you really wanted to) dedicated to this card system


yet all it is now, if you really look at it, is basically a 4% damage buff for ONE target over the course of an engagement
that looks like it's just so not okay when looking at it on paper


the only two "different" ones are Sleeve Draw, allowing you to give it to "more targets" at once on a 180s cooldown, and Divination lets you also boost damage for your group on another 180s cooldown

but regardless, ignoring those 2, that's still 4 (5 with undraw) buttons just being dedicated to give one person a 50% uptime of 8% damage

before, you also had 6 buttons (7/8/9 for undraw/spread undraw/road undraw, but meh) dedicated to cards
but yet we had a heal, a damage, a damage resist, an mp refresh, a tp refresh, and a damage boost
now, THAT, on paper, sounds incredible (aside from how it "actually" worked, tp being useless, mp being manageable without it, and damage resist being unnecessary)

i mean now it's barely as interesting as bringing Selene for her previous little haste buff that would be auto-cast, like???
that's not "engaging", it's just a flat number boost to allies
there's really nothing interesting about that, and that doesn't change how you or your allies get to play the game

at that point, just give us a third cooldown along with Sleeve Draw and Divination that's single-target

it's like if they re-added Protect into the game for WHM, but you had to dance around and have 5 buttons you had to micro-manage to apply it

i'm not totally against the direction they took the cards, i just think they handled it poorly
(especially because "ARROW" is melee???????????????)

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Originally Posted by Yakugami

we definitely should feel more "time magey" as that's what i wanted this class to be, and that's what this class IS, just with a different theme to make it a "healer" and not a "dps support" basically

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I am on a different boat - I'd prefer to have a real Time Mage job and not this identity theft.

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

I am on a different boat - I'd prefer to have a real Time Mage job and not this identity theft.

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i'm also not against this, and i didn't say i was against that concept, i certainly would have liked this, myself

Time Mage is probably one of my if not definitely my favorite class in the Final Fantasy universe, right under Mime

but, eh, it's not like they'd remove the entire class or switch its role entirely, so we kinda have to accept what we got

honestly, i can understand their direction of it, "time magic" in an MMO would just be "too" support-y and "too" debuff-y, i feel like it'd just be required in every group at that point, unless they made it REALLY different... i dunno, it all really just depends on what they would have decided on to do with it, i suppose it could have just been basic party buffs, then full dps rotations, but, eeeeehhhh

I think the changes are fine but they need to shorten the Divination cd and change sleeve draw a bit. It's not fun to use imho.

I don’t understand why they took away all of Astro’s unique buffs just to give them to Dancer. It reminds me of every time they took Job abilities from WHM to give to all the healers as Role actions. *shrug*

The healers need to bring more support that isn’t just spamming st nukes and a few heals.

The only buff Dancers can give is a damage buff, and damage shield every so often. Dancers didn't get the missing Ast buffs.

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Originally Posted by Tyssyn

The only buff Dancers can give is a damage buff, and damage shield every so often. Dancers didn't get the missing Ast buffs.

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yea... i have no clue where people are getting this from
i mean, yes, they give a crit buff and direct hit buff, but that's also only to them and their dance partner on a 120s cooldown or something... so, like............?
they definitely were not given astro buffs

White Mage is supposedly a powerhouse right now. So if you're looking to stay on Healer, I recommend giving it a good. Otherwise, Dancer is tons of fun. Friend of mine can't stop raving about it. May be worth giving it a whirl.

I feel you, OP. I didn't like the changes in theory while watching the livestreams and I definitely didn't like them in play. I was also fairly disappointed by how "empty" my other class, BRD, is and how boring my only tank glass is. So, I decided to forego all my main classes in favour of something else. I liked how Gunbreaker felt a lot, but I don't have the confidence to tank in raids and such (weak, I know!). So, I decided on DNC. It, to me, is more boring than bard was before 5.0 because it doesn't have a lot of strategy to it (thus far, at level 66), but it's a "fresh start" so I don't have anything to go by that led to me to disappointment.


I do like the MSQ so far! So, once you find another class to play (if that's the route you choose, I know there are some ASTs playing but it's mostly WHM with the very, very rare scholar [much rarer than AST]), I hope you can enjoy it. :)

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Originally Posted by Yakugami

yea... i have no clue where people are getting this from
i mean, yes, they give a crit buff and direct hit buff, but that's also only to them and their dance partner on a 120s cooldown or something... so, like............?
they definitely were not given astro buffs

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Soooooo...a damage buff, a crit buff, a shield, regen...these are not buffs Astro had pre 5.0? Am I missing something? /s

Yes I was exaggerating a bit. But my point was why give the healer a pure damage buff and give the DPS shields and cures?

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Originally Posted by DiznypKC

a damage buff

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what is Devotion, then?
what is Embolden, then?

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Originally Posted by DiznypKC

a crit buff

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what is Battle Litany, then?
what is Chain Stratagem, then? (though, at least a little differently, for this one)

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Originally Posted by DiznypKC

a shield

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literally where
it's troubadour and tactician, if you mean the damage resist

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Originally Posted by DiznypKC

regen

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again literally where
DNC gives a small aoe heal, that's more like medica than anything

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Originally Posted by DiznypKC

exaggerating a bit.

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that's much more than a "bit" at that point
EVERYONE is over exaggerating, that was my point

everyone is freaking out a lot more than they need to, it's not necessarily just directed to you, so don't take that part too personally
(though i may have over-sassed in this post, which i guess i apologize for maybe a little bit)

some of their choices this expansion ARE concerns to cause an uproar about, i'm not trying to dismiss that, and imply that everyone should blindly accept the developers point of view, especially when it's met with a huge community backlash

it's just...i just think people need to make better arguments for their concerns over WHY it needs fixing and what's actually wrong

"Aww man, another useless Spire card."
"Aww man, there goes another useless Bole card."
Aww man @ anything that isn't a Balance card.

The community got its wish.

Maybe you didn't, but this was general sentiment around AST and now they're complaining again about it.

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Originally Posted by CarnivalNights

"Aww man, another useless Spire card."
"Aww man, there goes another useless Bole card."
Aww man @ anything that isn't a Balance card.

The community got its wish.

Maybe you didn't, but this was general sentiment around AST and now they're complaining again about it.

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Can we please stop grouping the AST's that solely fished for balance with the AST's that actually enjoyed the class and used all the cards? I'm getting tired of seeing that same repetitive comment. Most of us didn't whine when we didn't get a balance.

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Originally Posted by Seoulstar

Can we please stop grouping the AST's that solely fished for balance with the AST's that actually enjoyed the class and used all the cards? I'm getting tired of seeing that same repetitive comment. Most of us didn't whine when we didn't get a balance.

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Yeah, I'm sure the reasoning for the change was that the community didn't mind it so much that it had to be changed.

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Originally Posted by Seoulstar

Can we please stop grouping the AST's that solely fished for balance with the AST's that actually enjoyed the class and used all the cards? I'm getting tired of seeing that same repetitive comment. Most of us didn't whine when we didn't get a balance.

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i'll start by saying, again, i still disagree with the way they handled cards this expansion

however, to be fair, it definitely should have changed, regardless of the community "whines" or not

expansions will mean classes evolve

just because some people enjoy their classes and doing the same thing for years and years and years each expansion, doesn't mean it's healthy for the game to have classes that don't change and evolve their rotations and mechanics over time, especially when they're outdated, or are completely overwhelming compared to other options, even with minor tweaks, simply because of how mechanics directly affect the game

them wanting to change the card mechanic made perfect sense, they just.... yea, kinda also didn't exactly do it very well, but, still

you know what else is "the same repetitive comment"?
people going around saying that "wE uSeD aLl OuR cArDs"
that's great for you and those who accepted being inefficient

but an entire class shouldn't be balanced around "muh nostalgia" and "i have "options" even though those "options" are really just unnecessary fluff"
(again, yes, i dislike what they currently did; i don't find it entertaining to have 7 buttons dedicated to sub 10% damage bonus, that IS bad, i agree)

but basically it was also pretty bad even before when you actually look at it
(as a mechanic, i get that AST was still top pick healer due to what they offered, but that's not what i mean here, it's trying to fish for damage to be efficient that caused the mechanic itself to be bad as a concept)

(cont....)

(cont...)

Spire would be useless now, because TP is gone

Bole is basically a bad concept overall, because giving ONE healer a damage resist would either mean "if the other healers can't out-heal the mechanics/tank busters/pressure from mobs, then this one can because it has damage mitigation in a form the others don't have" and that makes it mandatory, otherwise, the damage resistance is unnecessary fluff, because none of the other healers have a problem with it
and this "fluff" comes at the cost of getting clogged up with a damage boost mechanic, and that, simply put, is clunky

Balance/Spear/Arrow, no matter what you want to pretend about your "utility" being lost, were simply all damage buffs

yea, sure, you could put arrow on a healer for them to heal faster to deal with mechanics, but this is another bole situation: the healers should be able to deal with it, without needing an RNG-proc from a specific class, otherwise, it's trashy, or the healers are trashy (role-wise, not player skill-wise)

same thing if you were trying to argue it's for the BLM; if the BLM can't cast because of mobility mechanics, then "evolve" BLM as a class for the expansion in order to handle it, don't lock them behind needing a haste buff from an RNG-proc from one specific class

the only real argument i can think of that i'd agree with about the loss of "utility" from cards is Ewer, as it IS pretty unfortunate that SCH/WHM can refresh MP, yet AST can't, i think that's a pretty garbo concept, but it's still not the end of the world
though this ties in why i (personally) dislike what they did with the card mechanic; we have so many buttons dedicated to this, we end up losing other real spells, and one of those spells could have been an MP refresh of some kind

Lord/Lady could also be debatable, but even those were barely useful, as again, you lost out on using those "niche" cards for another 30s, such as bole and ewer, and again turns into "well the other healers don't have these on an rng basis, so they can't be mandatory", though i wish those were on a separate draw/card mechanic that you could use alongside the current card mechanic, and were still damage/heal, that would have been fine in some form

and yet again in case of TLDR, no, i don't agree with what they did with current cards, but they certainly are well within acceptable limits to change them in the first place