Is AST bad?

Hi o/ , first time posting (hoping im posting to the right place!); i wanted to ask the healer community a question since I couldn't find any straight answers online-
It's my goal to be able to play every role fluently and decently well. I've already gotten tank and dps down and high leveled, so I decided it was about time to give healing a go. I picked AST as my healer of choice and have been enjoying it so far. I always knew AST got kinda nerfed for ShB, but according to most everything I've read AST is terrible now, with some people saying they don't even like it anymore. Most of these posts were made at the start of the ShB launch though.
So can any AST mains or healers in general tell me, is AST really that bad? I'm not one of the people who only cares to play the best classes of every role, but if AST isn't even fun anymore then i rather not invest time into it.

Thanks for any feedback!

No. (10 characters)

Fun is always a subjective measure—so only you can really determine if a job is still fun for you or not.

But speaking personally, as someone who played AST since 3.1/3.2, the new AST is terrible. I don’t think it flows as well as it has in the past; its gameplay has a lot of cumbersome and clunky aspects to it. And it has to work twice as hard to achieve less results than a WHM. I think the changes they made to the card system took away the versatility and flavor from the class—and I really don’t like the removal of the Time Mage aspects from it either. I’ve tried repeatedly to enjoy the job in different types of content since ShB dropped, but I just can’t.

I do think AST is far less popular now: comparing Savage uploads of it to WHM and SCH, there is a noticeable gap. Last week, the E4S clears uploaded for WHM and SCH were over 12,000 while AST was only at 2,400. AST has lagged behind in Savage uploads since the tier dropped 10 weeks ago. And while some of this is because it’s not meta, meta and speedkills don’t make up the majority of uploads.

I'm not a particularly good healer, but I found AST to be barely more difficult than the other healers in 5.0, and not at all in 5.1. The class can do everything it needs to do.

I personally can't stand it. But if you like it, there's no reason not to play it.

And as a bonus, you get to be the rare special unicorn of healing jobs. It's always fun to like something other people don't.

I think healers in general is going to be an odd one for getting opinions, because you're definitely going to get mixed opinions and some divide. My general advice with anything is to try it and see if you like it. A hundred of us could post in here saying how terrible it is and the moment you pick it up you might go "hey, this is fun, I like this" and our points would be moot. Many of us have fallen in love with our healers at different points in their life cycle and thus have gotten different things out of it. As an example for me, a lot of the SMN community doesn't like 5.0 SMN for how it feels to play. Me? I mostly like it, so in a way I found myself going against popular opinion. Whereas with SCH I hate it now.

New AST? I didn't play much of old AST to be connected to how it used to play. Though I am fully aware of why not everybody likes it and why it's less popular right now and would not want to downplay that.

But out of the 3 healers at the moment, despite it being the least popular, I've been enjoying AST the most, though not without its problems. But there's more to do and less downtime versus the other healers (at least in Noct Sect, which I mostly play in, simply because it is the weaker of the two). As odd as it sounds, I feel at times either healers heal too well or the content is not challenging in the right way for us to fully use our toolkit (and I think they all have a good toolkit), so with Noct being weaker, it feels like I get to use more of it.

The good news for somebody newer to healing in this game is that you will likely feel there to be less of an issue with downtime (unless you're a natural at it, I guess), though there may become a point where it does. Because as with anything there's a learning curve. Those of us who have healed in this game's content the longest are probably going to be the most disatisfied.

However, when it does come to downtime, out of the 3 AST actually has the most to do, AST cards make up for a part of your activities between DPSing and healing, which the other 2 healers don't have. But in terms of balance, it is behind WHM and SCH on every front. In terms of fun, entirely subjective of course. It depends on what you're looking to get out of your experience.

No, it's not bad, it just felt underwhelming atm. The card system is much better to deal with for me. Although they need to nerf divination's CD to 90secs at least. You build up 3 seals pretty fast.....but I guess it's there cause you do proc more "lord" type cards which is a 8% dmg buff if they want the CD to 2mins...idk. The healing tools is pretty good, somewhat better than SCH..SOMEWHAT..although collective unconc. is garbage right now, was thinking that it needs a regen buff, but you'll end up having 2 strong party regens for the job. Malefic and combust is really underwhelming. Those needs a buff because I do want to contribute to the group in terms in beating raids or trials while giving member buffs, party buffs to the group.

As a learning curve, it's much fun to play because you have to think beforehand on what you have to do. SCH is 2nd in the learning curve with your aether stacks and fairies and WHM is brain dead last cause you have tools that you don't have to work hard in mastering.

If you haven't really played AST, then you're not going to feel the ShB changes to the job. That basically means you can play it and determine if its current iteration is enjoyable to you without any bias. Give it a go and see if you like it. Simple as that. I honestly would turn a deaf ear to everything everyone is saying about it and just determine for yourself if it is a job you enjoy playing.

It is if you don't know how to play it well.

No AST isn't bad, but I hate the new AST with a passion. To avoid getting grilled by the New-Ast-Defender-Squad I'll just echo a previous post and say the only way you'll know you will like it is to play it.

It's not as bad as it was on 5.0 launch after their screen-long list of buffs when Savage dropped.

But also a few tidbits:

AST has no secondary source of MP regen, like aetherflow or assize, etc
New card system is controller unfriendly. If you use a keyboard and mouse it'll be less cumbersome
Collective Unconscious was badly nerfed with a potency drop. Skill is not worth channeling fully, cannot move while in use unlike SCH and has a longer cooldown than sacred soil.
Celestial Opposition lost its stun effect with the new expansion so you lost a crowd control option that synergized with your kit

But strictly speaking I feel the job is inferior to SCH and WHM, but can heal content fine.

It's not bad, it just needs tweaks here and there mostly to cards and mp management. Cards are a lot busier now than they were before for no additional gain.

Ast is fine outside of some of it's awkward tools it got in ShB

I think new card system(the buttons themselves) is good
While the card effects are just bland

No, AST is great to play now, especially if you want a class that's busier then the other two healers, it's the only healer capable of using its ogcd heals without loosing damage, while with the current tier its card buffs are weaker, percentage based buffs do tend to get better as gear does.

The issue is that while it's good to play, some of the people who preferred the way it played prior to shb view it in a very negative light.

I say give it a try on your own terms, and dont let any of our opinions influence you.

This is my opinion so take it as you will. Started out as a black mage main into a AST main. The Class has the most challenging gameplay of the three healers. If you play on Console, the Card system is going to be your worst enemy. I wouldn't say the class is "Bad" I will say it does need a lot of improvement and adjustments to it, especially with Divination and the cards feeling unique again. AST has some powerful tools in its kit, but there are some skills that are just lackluster or not even used at all Cough "Undraw". The main reason why I love and play AST is for the challenge and improvement in my play style with it, not to mention it is a really beautiful class that just feels underwhelming for all the hard work you have to do to just compete with the other healers. Pretty much how I feel it's like pre patch Ninja of healers, it needs a lot of Love and I hope Yoshi P takes our feedback into consideration about it. Hope this helps you understand a bit more about AST.

AST can heal perfectly fine in everything just gotta use cds effectively in big pulls.
AST pDPS is lower than the other two healers so things will take a little longer solo but it is still manageable.
Diurnal AST is stronger than Nocturnal AST especially at lv 80 (this could change in 5.1 who knows).
2 seal Divination is very marginal loss (only 1% difference) so if have to use that if unlucky (24% chance to get 3 seal divination without redraw goes up to 32% chance if use redraw for 2nd and 3rd seal).

The only thing i can say is bad about AST is its card system design from a controller user standpoint especially going for optimal setup, there are other issues but nothing else i would consider as abysmal as that.

Ultimately it is down to you if you find AST enjoyable or not, I'm fine with AST in dungeons/normal raids but i won't step foot in savage with it not because it can't do it but because of the horrendous time every opener and 6 mins into a fight i have to deal with that makes me want to throw my controller across my room for less gain than glare, glare, glare, glare, i may have projected there a little :p

As a person who plays on a controller I can tell you ast feels absolutely awful to play. In the old system you could change the cards to AoE buff cards so you wouldn't have to press up and down on the d-pad so much. Even when you did single target buff someone you had the ability to extend the buff which resulted in less targeting as well.

If you are not using controller I heard the new ast plays "alright" but I can’t confirm that.

Doing the opener optimally does rather suck imo.

The new AST is a perfectly functional job that can do content. You can participate in the normal healer gameplay on it and be quite effective, with the only achilles heel being that MP management gets pretty tight.

It is also a complete mess of a design with little fantasy, a card minigame "mechanic" that barely engages the user or interacts with the kit it is a part of, and has precious few cooldowns that feel satisfying to use.

They'll go back to the drawing board eventually. In the meantime, it is something slightly different to do from Scholar or White Mage.

Its fine, it just requires the most effort out of the 3 healing jobs.

All Heals have no problem doing thier main job, but all heals are mind numbing boring to do when healing is not needed. 1 dot, 1 Aoe, 1 spell, is not fun, so to make sure we DPS less and heal more they increased our HP by 50%, took away the 15% increase in Magical and physical defense "Protect", and stealth nerf healing output.

AST was perfect the old card system allowed more DPS up time for the whole party, save cards that could be situational, and my favorite do i need Ewer to keep my weak dps up, or to raise the misfortune. Right now the AST cards are weak and bothersome to keep up, SE made AST a |Joke|r of all trades and a Master of none. Why is it so hard for SE to go back to the old Card System, stop trying to reinvent the wheel, when AST only needed a tune up. if they dont want AST to dominate with Balance, then lock it with Divination on a 60s CD with a percentage that reflects optimal damage in SHB. make the BALANCE and the SPIRE cards that effect the heals only, i like how the tanks can help each other with their niche abilities, do the same with the Heals but only give it to the AST. PLEASE once again make AST the Jack of all tades but a Master of none, I hope SE knows you cant balance three when healing content that people wait for is a couples thing.

SE neutered AST and SCH, to make WHM shine the brightest. I cant wrap my head around this, way before SHB dropped the Heal Forum for WHM had hundreds of thousands views, i think over 900k+ with thousands of comments. Mean while AST and SCH was Happy, just waiting on what will be added in SHB, not taken away.

If you play on a controller, I wouldn't touch AST with a 10 foot pole. If you play on K+M, best advice anyone can give you is to try it for yourself and see what you think.

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Originally Posted by Billythepancake

If you play on a controller, I wouldn't touch AST with a 10 foot pole. If you play on K+M, best advice anyone can give you is to try it for yourself and see what you think.

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I'm a controller player, I'll admit it gets fiddly, but how I've got it set up works for me when I play AST. However, I've spent a little time trying to optimise my settings to get it as fluid as I can across 2 cross bar pages then get used to playing like that (it doesn't take long, but feels weird to start). There's options to bring up a different set of abilities if you combine both back buttons and which set of abilities you get depends on which back button you hit firsts. There's also an option for double tapping for a similar effect, though I find the former more reliable and less clunky than "RB + A", "RB+X" etc. This in effect makes it not too awkward to access up to 32 buttons (if I added the double tap on top I'd get an additional 8, but I could get into the flow of doing that and 32 slots is plenty). At least I find this helps me play jobs on the controller that have more buttons.

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Originally Posted by Saefinn

I'm a controller player, I'll admit it gets fiddly, but how I've got it set up works for me when I play AST. However, I've spent a little time trying to optimise my settings to get it as fluid as I can across 2 cross bar pages then get used to playing like that (it doesn't take long, but feels weird to start). There's options to bring up a different set of abilities if you combine both back buttons and which set of abilities you get depends on which back button you hit firsts. There's also an option for double tapping for a similar effect, though I find the former more reliable and less clunky than "RB + A", "RB+X" etc. This in effect makes it not too awkward to access up to 32 buttons (if I added the double tap on top I'd get an additional 8, but I could get into the flow of doing that and 32 slots is plenty). At least I find this helps me play jobs on the controller that have more buttons.

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Absolutely second using multiple cross bar pages. Outside of healing, it's a lifesaver to have a universal bar for travel and social stuff (gpose and vital chat macros) that is exactly the same no matter what I'm playing. For healing, I like to put sects/summons/prepull junk on a secondary page to free up buttons for my main bars. It does feel super weird to switch in combat but it's wonderful once I got used to it.

The double-tap + directionals are a bit more awkward but having more cooldowns on my front page helps me track them. I've seen some controller players activate a secondary hotbar specifically to visualize cooldowns, too, but they use the "hidden" page of combining back buttons to access them. One thing about double-tap is that it takes a bit more mental prep. Since it's all off globals, I access the page as soon as I begin casting and hold until it's time to weave.

And with all these extra button spaces, there's enough room for me to macro cards. I feel dirty doing using macros in combat, but it's the only way I can imagine getting through the opener in a raid setting. Not having to physically target for cards has salvaged the class for me. It doesn't always work though, because macros can't queue the way that spells and abilities do, so I just try to get the card out on the next GCD instead. I wind up smashing buttons a lot during the Sleeve Draw.

If anyone has more coping mechanisms for AST on controller, I would really like to hear them.

I am a keyboard and mouse player, with all three healers at 80. For me the answer to; 'Is AST bad?' is; 'Yes, AST is bad'.

Prior to the 5.0 changes I preferred to play Scholar or Stone Mage over AST because:

It's sound effects make me feel sleepy. Honestly, the tinkerly little sparkly flutter of malefic and combust combined with any low level roulette make it horribly difficult for me to keep my eyes open.

After the 5.0 changes my opinion of the class changed from; 'Its good but I can't keep my eyes open.' to 'Its bad.' the reasons being:

I have to dot something or otherwise engage an enemy before I can use a card on player or I will not gain a seal.

The seal system isn't fun. The old card system was, I really liked burning cards for potency, duration, and aoe modifiers. trying to get the right set of seals, feels more like rolling dice then drawing cards to me. not sure why. But I don't like it.

AST feels like it takes twice as much attention and work then SCH or WHM just to get the same performance. Which might be fine, except those damn sound effects are putting me to sle..... Wha... What was I typing about again?

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Originally Posted by tesni_g

Absolutely second using multiple cross bar pages. Outside of healing, it's a lifesaver to have a universal bar for travel and social stuff (gpose and vital chat macros) that is exactly the same no matter what I'm playing. For healing, I like to put sects/summons/prepull junk on a secondary page to free up buttons for my main bars. It does feel super weird to switch in combat but it's wonderful once I got used to it.

The double-tap + directionals are a bit more awkward but having more cooldowns on my front page helps me track them. I've seen some controller players activate a secondary hotbar specifically to visualize cooldowns, too, but they use the "hidden" page of combining back buttons to access them. One thing about double-tap is that it takes a bit more mental prep. Since it's all off globals, I access the page as soon as I begin casting and hold until it's time to weave.

And with all these extra button spaces, there's enough room for me to macro cards. I feel dirty doing using macros in combat, but it's the only way I can imagine getting through the opener in a raid setting. Not having to physically target for cards has salvaged the class for me. It doesn't always work though, because macros can't queue the way that spells and abilities do, so I just try to get the card out on the next GCD instead. I wind up smashing buttons a lot during the Sleeve Draw.

If anyone has more coping mechanisms for AST on controller, I would really like to hear them.

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If it helps, this is my current set up, it may still need some tweaking. Stuff like Synastry could be in a better place. My brain is a little chaotic, so it might not work for some. But I've based my layout on what I feel is fluid with my controller set up with Expanded Hold Controls turned on:

https://i.imgur.com/oLge09H.png

The logic I've gone for is:
RT - Healing
LT - Expanded Healing & Cards
RT->LT - DPS - I've slipped in Sleeve Draw, Neutral Sec and Swiftcast + Ascend because I might weave Sleeve Draw when I'm free to DPS. And as I only need to push down LT when healing, I can quickly get to may Rez and Neutral Sect. The DPS is here for a similar reason, because it feels more fluid swapping to DPS from this position when I've just been casting heals
LT->RT - Other cooldowns and role abilities

Then I use a hotbar just to show me the cool downs I care about on page 2, it's just more visible then.

https://i.imgur.com/yp9RgOk.png

Then with a little bit of practice against a striking dummy, I can get a feel for how it flows. I've also moved stuff around when certain bits fell janky or places I my misfire more... kinda like me getting back into levelling PLD again recently, I moved my AoE's, but put them in a spot where if I misfired in trying to be quick I turn off Shield Oath...not that I annoyed a random healer in a dungeon by doing exactly that & not realising I did it or anything...

I wasn't excepting so many replies, thanks for all the input.

I'll probably alternate between AST and SCH to see which i like better, theres way too many WHM players so i rather try something fun and unique. I'd really like to stick with AST, but if it's a chore then im fine with dropping it.

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Originally Posted by Palibun

I wasn't excepting so many replies, thanks for all the input.

I'll probably alternate between AST and SCH to see which i like better, theres way too many WHM players so i rather try something fun and unique. I'd really like to stick with AST, but if it's a chore then im fine with dropping it.

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It's only a chore if you find it tedious to play, if you find that you enjoy it then it won't feel that way.

It’s is not the bad job it’s or more less whm brings more dmg with less effort and heals better then astro. But with astro you have a lot of different things too do, so the job isn’t as boring as whm is.

If this is going turn into another long AST thread, I'm going to say what I always say. Mostly just in case this is the one long AST thread SE reads.

My problem with astrologian these days is that it feels like a DPS job.

Normally in MMORPGs, healer gameplay is about problem-solving and managing the situations that come up. You have to choose the right spell for the right circumstances, taking into account things like target priorities and resource management.

DPS classes are different. They can't really be situational because for a DPSer, there are only two possible situations: "do as much damage to this thing as possible" and "do as much damage to all these things as possible". So instead, DPS classes have "rotation"---their spells interact not with the situation but with each other, and the object is to cast them in the right sequence to maximize output.

The old astrologian cards were very much a healer mechanic. They were random, so you didn't always get what you wanted, but you accepted the situation as it was and played the cards where they'd be most useful, while also using your other spells as circumstances dictated.

The new astrologian cards are more of a DPS mechanic. Their effects are much simpler than the old version---now it's just "+X% damage"---and the lost complexity has been replaced by arbitrary interactions within the system. Instead of putting the arrow on the black mage because they're entering a fire phase, you put the arrow on whoever (preferably melee) because you already have a solar and celestial seal and now you need a lunar one to buff your ultimate damage ability.

This isn't necessarily bad. Maybe it's good to have one healer work like a DPS; some people might enjoy it. But personally, it means I have no interest in playing AST at the moment. It's just not why I started healing. If the old cards were unacceptable, I would honestly have preferred to have no RNG card system, and make up for it with increased complexity elsewhere in the job.

It feels like I missed the boat here, sniff. Astrologian can still heal alright in most content. Probably the only priority change now is to bump up their mana regen a bit. Especially for Nocturnal Sect shields. Try to use Diurnal Sect Heal over times if you can.

Most of the complaints for them feeling terrible stems from the card system not feeling fun for some players. I can't comment on using a controller since I am a PC person on a Keyboard and MMO Mouse for this game. For me, it's just another iteration of the system since it still gives you cards you don't need. Redraw sometimes gets you a card with a different seal, but can still screw you after using all 3 charges. At that point, I convert it to Lord / Lady since the card I don't need is going to make me get the same seals otherwise. We need 3 different seals to maximize the Divination cooldown.

In conclusion, it's going to come down to whether you like or tolerate the new card system. Give it a try to see if it meshes with you.

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Originally Posted by Tigore

It feels like I missed the boat here, sniff.

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No missed boat here, all input is good imo, after all i might end changing my mind!

It'd be decently "smooth" at least, with just a few changes, but that'd likely still leave it far from compelling to most former AST veterans.

For me, the largest issues are that Divination's CD seems to exist only either to ensure AST has the least rDPS (as some sort of revenge or reset of former bias favoring AST that can be tuned back to balance once WHM has had its time to shine) or to allow for Minor Arcana, and that Seals are made clunky at best -- superfluous at worst -- by the CD, the scant percentile rewards, and how the Seals themselves are replaced.

Note:

At present, 6% of the 15 seconds of a level 70 BLM's Astral Fire phase (ideal damage outside of including Foul or Thundercloud) is only worth a raw (i.e. after Magick and Mend, Astral Fire, and the then-10% Enochian multipliers multiplicatively affecting each other) 306 potency. A single Malefic III GCD saved is worth nearly as much. The amount provided is... pretty negligible. If, say, Lord of Crowns were still a direct damage option at even just 230 potency (therefore 299 raw potency after Magick and Mend), it would be only 7 potency less than near-perfect use on the near-perfect target, which would mean that most of the time, you'd rather consume cards via a pathetic 230-potency oGCD attack than hand out cards to others if not for contribution towards Divination.

The shallow but relatively effective fixes, then:

• Redraw can no longer draw the same card(s) as have already been drawn within the same Draw period. Think of it as drawing a new card from the deck of only 6 without returning and shuffling the old one (in)to the deck.
• Change Divination to a 3-minute CD of 6%, but have each unique seal decrease its cooldown by 30 seconds. Thus, it is available for immediate burst, but you could also potentially reuse it every 90 seconds if RNG favors you. You are no longer obliged to use one Minor Arcana per Divination.
• Rather than simply replacing the last Seal regardless of benefit or disbenefit, new Seals will now always replace a non-unique Seal if present. Thus, a trade is always beneficial.
• Minor Arcana now converts an existing Seal into the seal of crowns, but cannot newly create a Seal of its own -- only convert or "King/Queen" an existing Seal.
• Return Minor Arcana into direct potency. Healing for Lady. Damage for Lord. Something in the range of 440/600 potency of healing (a single Malefic IV saved is worth 240 potency) or 220/260 potency of damage (so, 286/338 raw potency). These would thus be stronger, on average, than a typical card, at their given levels, but would not contribute seals. They are, effectively, discounted if you had bad RNG luck between your third draw and Divination use, since they can replace but cannot create a Seal.

In truth, though, I'd much rather have back the old cards with simple balancing changes and system improvements. I don't mind Divination itself, but Horoscope and Celestial Intersection seem poor oGCD-replacements for the complexity and power previously granted TD and RR.
(On the other hand, I don't actually mind CO no longer extending buffs, especially those affecting myself (like LD and LS, which had to be included into every CO), not because I disliked Time Mage aspects (I love them, actually), but because its implementation just made everything feel locked into sets if used optimally. That just made me feel obliged to stack all my power into brief windows and then just wallow in boredom until the next burst, as if I was an AST only insofar as I could stick as many skills as possible together so that I wouldn't waste any output from a skill that wasn't particularly fun to press anyways, rather than how well I could manipulate AST- or Time Mage-ish things.)

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

(On the other hand, I don't actually mind CelOpp no longer extending buffs, especially those affecting myself. That just made me feel obliged to stack all my power into brief windows and then just wallow in boredom until the next burst.)

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I like most of what you're saying but when it comes to CO, I do mind it not extending buffs.. and I mind it losing the stun (freezing time) component. I do mind TD being removed. Both of these abilities were part of the "time mage" aspects of the AST identity. CO was replaced with a poor man's heal (losing both of its 'flavor' components), TD wasn't really replaced at all. Squeen probably wouldn't have tried to get away with the outright removal of a core ability if it hadn't been an expansion patch which delivered a bunch of new abilities for increased levels...

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Originally Posted by Side-Eye

I like most of what you're saying but when it comes to CO, I do mind it not extending buffs.. and I mind it losing the stun (freezing time) component. I do mind TD being removed. Both of these abilities were part of the "time mage" aspects of the AST identity. CO was replaced with a poor man's heal (losing both of its 'flavor' components), TD wasn't really replaced at all. Squeen probably wouldn't have tried to get away with the outright removal of a core ability if it hadn't been an expansion patch which delivered a bunch of new abilities for increased levels...

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I said nothing about being okay with losing Time Mage aspects, only CO in particular -- in this case, due to its exact implementation.

I just didn't feel that CO, specifically, added anything to that identity, despite making all other buffs feel far, far more limited by extension -- including ones that would otherwise have complemented the Time Mage feel. Use Syn-CU-AB, or Card, now? A waste. Wait the last 15 seconds for CO unless you can extend it into that range now with TD. Lightspeed, Lucid Dream, or Cleric Stance? Nah, would be a waste until affectable by CO; heck, you'd oom yourself.

Something that synergizes that broadly just makes everything used without it feel lackluster, while only feeling like an extra, empty-yet-obligatory step to reach seemingly normal output when it's optimized. If at least Expand was merely balanced against --instead of greatly outshining-- Extend and Enhance, it'd be an extra reward for affecting the whole team instead of specific targets, but... you would have used only Expand anyways. And even if we had fixed the old card system (which I'm all for), I don't think it'd be that appealing an ability design; it'd still just offer more steps to feel like you're having an impact, rather than seeming to reward foresight. You were shooting yourself in the foot any time you used LS or LD without CO, which just made everything feel very rutted -- no ingenuity, just how much you could stick inside the CO -- zero freedom of use. Thus, for the time being, I was glad it was scrapped, no matter how much I dislike Horoscope and CI as "replacements".

Now, how would I come to like CO? Simply put, it'd take more involved healing and dps, such as a way of placing stronger DoTs or HoTs, or generating personal buffs, via more actions than just my cooldowns, and for these effects to be snapshotted and extended by CO. That way, I would less often be holding onto CDs (because they'd be relatively wasteful until CO is back) than I'd be working towards prepping my next CO. The feeling would shift from "waiting for" to "preparing for", encouraging further use of my toolkit instead of discouraging use of my toolkit. But, that'd take a whole lot of added complexity.

That's complexity I'd want to see regardless, but it'd probably still take me a good 12 hours just to decide on what I really want, let alone compare that to and compromise with what other players want, adjust other toolkits in a similar fashion from "spam A and B in a 11:1 ratio" so that it isn't complained of for having to deal with a modicum of complexity while others have none, and then balance it to past muster when all other toolkits... That's months, probably even for a team as large as XIV's. Though, by that I mean... three people, probably only one of whom would find the work even remotely worthwhile or the design philosophy (available depth of enjoyment over immediacy of performance -- i.e. enjoyment-oriented design rather than pandering) compatible with the game?

Edit: As for the stun... I'd like that back, even if shortened now that CO's CD has been halved.

It's like 50% short of a bowmage, which was when they turned Bard into a caster after after lv 50 ( unless you were ok with a DPS drop), and messed up river of blood (which is lived on in a sense in mage's ballad's effect now). Basically, they changed something about how the job play in a way that it wholly altered what made the job enjoyable to a significant section of the player into something that basically feels like they misread the room. Like, turning Magic the Gathering into war