Question for those who didn't pick up AST til 5.0 or after.

Do you enjoy it? That's the question. Do you have fun playing AST? Speaking as someone who didn't get a chance to play AST til Shadowbringers released (and we were well into 5.1 anyway) I do have a lot of fun playing AST. I feel like I always have something to do when I'm playing the class and I like the new abilities it got in 5.0.

I just want to express some positivity for the job given all the dislike for its 5.0 incarnation that gets thrown around.

I'm disqualified from the topic by virtue that I'd started playing shortly into Stormblood, but I still feel I can give a fair two cents in either direction.

AST now is... Fine for what it is, compared to the other two. It's very versatile, and the cards can be given to anyone instead of having some that were situational. When I play healer myself, I do so with AST - the downtime issues folks talk about is mitigated on my end, half because of the carding and the other because I'm very rusty so my optimization is whack... But I get enjoyment out of the class nonetheless.

That being said, I also can't help but just deeply miss what the job used to have and how the cards worked then, either. I'll watch videos recorded back in SB and get those pangs of want for how the cards used to feel, and I'm not really sure how to describe that to anyone who hasn't played it's older iterations.

Nonetheless, if you enjoy it, don't let a veteran of the older expansions make you feel that you're wrong for having fun with how it is now. We should be appreciative that folks are having fun, even if it's easy to be bitter about something we cared deeply for.

I played astro since HW back then so I’m also disqualified, but in that regard they made astro the healer with the most things too do and being the one that feels uncluncky and fluid in comparison too sch and whm. The shadowbringer version is atm feeling wise the best version it had (but they made the cards pretty flavorless and took away the time aspect of the job) . But that entire process always takes what feels like it takes the first and second raid tier too get to that point (it’s like a running gag how bad astro is at the start of every expansion only too outshine the rest)

AST is hands down my favorite healer and I love it despite normally being quite adverse to busy classes.
It's got some really cool moves (like the one where you can heal two targets at once, very cool for keeping yourself alive, but not at the expense of the tank), weaves for days, and it's glam game is quite interesting and strong thanks to that weird, unique, tarot orb thing it has.

I just wish I had more opportunities to use my "oh shit" buttons because they're so strong I always hold onto them to keep them available, then since I never use them I always forget about Neutral Sect and Lightspeed.

Especially since it's MP problems got patched away (thank god) I can't seem to stay away from the class.

As someone who is qualified (as I just levelled my AST recently) and who used to main SCH (until it was butchered) I'll say that I find it to be a very versatile heal/support job with good mobility, and one that is a good co-healer with WTH and to a fair extent with SCH as well, even 2 AST work well- mind you , disclaimer- for what it's worth, as I don't heal the bleeding edge content.

ShB AST has a wonderful healing toolkit. I’m pleased with its healing kit and always have been—it’s just the card system that I dislike, and the removal of time aspects from the job. I’m disqualified as I played AST back in HW (around 3.2 or 3.3 is when I leveled it), but it has always been my go-to healer of the three, and I have healed in every kind of content from dungeons to Ultimate. The card RNG never really bothered me—I actually found it funny to get crappy Sleeve Draws of Spread Spire, Drawn Spire, and AOE Royal Road. They certainly made the god-tier Sleeve Draw feel super good. Especially if you got it in the opener. I would have preferred a way to make the old system work rather than reduce it to what it is now.

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

As someone who is qualified (as I just levelled my AST recently) and who used to main SCH (until it was butchered) I'll say that I find it to be a very versatile heal/support job with good mobility, and one that is a good co-healer with WTH and to a fair extent with SCH as well, even 2 AST work well- mind you , disclaimer- for what it's worth, as I don't heal the bleeding edge content.

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The nicest thing about double AST is you'll probably never need to use Neutral Sect because you've got one on regens and the other on shields.

As someone who's played AST since 5.0 I want the old cards back if for no other reason than to play with them since the literal whole reason I decided to play FFXIV at all was old AST.

Having played the class for about a year now its my most comfortable healer. I'll be the first to say I don't like Neutral Sect. In my opinion its the first step Square will take in removing Nocturnal sect and I won't be surprised if they do remove it and say "well you have Neutral Sect, you don't need to worry about shields". Horoscope I use. I don't like it, I don't hate it, I just use it. Same with Celestial Intersection, save for the fact that I like it a bit more than Horoscope.

All that said, AST is FFXIV's version of a busy healer right now which is usually my go to in MMOs. I like its tarot/star theme (and wouldn't mind having its time elements back either), I like its animations, I like its mobility and for the most part I like its lore. I'm not happy with the job, there are plenty of improvements to be had (cards excluded), but I enjoy it the most of the healers.

I enjoy it way more than the other 2 healers. Also I prefer the current card system over the previous one. I wouldn't mind one more button to press during my dps rotation though.

I started sometime in late 5.2, and so far I'm loving AST, 2nd to only SCH in my list. I miss the triple Sleeve Draw, but it doesn't take away the whole enjoyment from me so I just need to adjust :)
Then again, after browsing the old card system, they do seem to be pretty fun to play with. Makes me wish I started playing this game sooner.

The only ability that I feel it never make any sense is the capstone [Neutral Sect] which I often forgot it exist outside raids. But hey, it's just another button to press & and a buff, so I won't say no to that :)

I played AST in Stormblood, and honestly think it's better now.
Yes there's some variety missing from the card effects, but the system is way better tuned and streamlined now, especially with a regular full party damage buff and the recent sleeve draw changes.
If there was a way to bring back some variety without going completely back to the old system and undoing the progress made this expansion that'd be great, but frankly, having Ewer and Bole's old effects just didn't work, and the less said about Spire the better.

Also, in light in the WHM and SCH changes with 5.0, taking all healers at their current form and disregarding what any of them might have been in the past, AST is by far the most fun healer to play and the only healer with a more indepth dps rotation, given that the cards are a dps contribution.

I started healing savage in Shadowbringers, and i have a love/hate relationship with the class.

On one hand, compared to WHM and SCH, AST is waaaaay more fun, enjoyable and complex. Both dps wise and healing.

On the other hand, the cards are super boring in their own way, it is fun that you have to sort through different party members and give them cards(especially on controller), but the cards themselves all doing the same thing sucks, and is boring and bland.

I never played old AST in savage stuff because i was scared of the healer stress, but i played the class casually, and my god back then it was so great. Royal road and having cards not all be the Balance was super fun. Along with funky unique stuff like time dilation.

But of course it had to be changed because the top 0.00001% of L33T ASTmeta mains wanted min/maxing and didn't like fishing for balance.
So to cater to them, now every card AST has is balance...and we have to fish for seals instead.

Boy it sure is fun getting the same seal 4 times in a row, especially in a group with all the same type of dps and a have to settle for 3% buff instead of 6%, i can't imagine why some old AST mains would be angry.

But yeah, ultimately i do adore the class, i tried leaving it, but i can't stay away. I think it's just healing in general is so much more fun to me than tank/dps, mostly due to the randomness of people making mistakes and taking damage.

I have played it minimally in all expansions. I gave it more of a shot in Shadowbringers primarily because of the ill review it had, and it helps to play something before you can have some feedback on ways to improve it.

I didn't really care about losing the card variety. There was a clear hierarchy and once your mental flowchart was established, it killed the illusion of choice for them, as well as knowing that nothing will ever require the cards because you'll never be guaranteed to have them. There were some places where having the 90s or 30% bole was good clean meme fun, but it all devolved into balance, or not-as-good-as-balance.

At the start of Shadowbringers it was weak, or rather while leveling it felt weak. This was prior to the potency buffs it received, but during the leveling process I either had the squishiest tanks alive, or I was doing something severely wrong. This was alleviated as more abilities were gained, but Holminster after leveling White Mage was rough.

The loss of time extenders was kind of meh, but without the fundamental differences in the cards, I didn't miss them that much. Sleeve Draw was annoying, and divination was weak.

Horoscope is the kind of ability we need more of, but in a more flexible and expanded way. More spell interactions will be the way forward for healers. If you only get between two and five abilities within one part of the kit, then they need to have interactions with each other and other parts of the kit.

Example: Earthly Star already creates an entity. Make it targetable, and let it be loaded with single target spells. This is a basic concept and can be expanded in a number of ways.

The dual sect set up was minimized in importance as more cross-sect abilities were added. This is a good change, but also a half measure. It would not surprise me if sects were gone next expansion and their effects baked into the healing kit - and I'd prefer this. No one wants to be the third wheel.

C+.

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Originally Posted by Wolfsbane706

Do you enjoy it?

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No. I do not.

I love it.
I actually first tried it in SB, but the cards mess discouraged me from actually even levelling it, so it ended up being one of my last classes to be levelled.
I mained WHM for a long time but dropped it in ShB as I didn't like it anymore, I thought it was a problem with the new state of healers in general but AST changed everything and got me back to healing after a hiatus from it. SCH almost got me as well, but I found at some point it gets clunky and disconnected.
Current AST is really fun. You never get bored with cards and all, buffing people in general feels great as this game doesn't have actual support classes it has great mobility, and in general the way it works requires some planning which is satisfying when you get it right (ex. star timing). And the current state of cards make it so that you don't have to focus too hard on them too much and get distracted from actual healing. Plus come on, we're all made of stars.

My issue with astro isnt with the cards at all, the old cards were fun, but they were changed for understandable reasons.

My issue with astro is the same as all healers in the game. There's not enough required healing in the game unless you're doing end game raiding(even then not really since theres two healers), so playing a healer always ends up just pressing your one dps button, And healing with off globals when needed, which I find really boring as I can do it, and the required healing with one hand, and not really feel engaged or required.

Hopefully healing gets reworked next expansion, or healers get interesting dps rotations to make the role better.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

The loss of time extenders was kind of meh, but without the fundamental differences in the cards, I didn't miss them that much. Sleeve Draw was annoying, and divination was weak.

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I didn't care one bit about the loss of extending spread balance.

What I did care about was the other things you could do with Time Dilation and old Celestial Opposition, like extending Aspected Benefit on the tank to turn it into the most powerful heal in the entire game (~2400 potency), extending Collective Unconscious to turn it into a 1200 potency raid-wide heal, extending your Lucid Dreaming and Lightspeed by 10 seconds or extending the timer of Earthly Star by 10 seconds if you misjudged the timing of the next raid-wide damage. You know, fun and useful interactions between abilities in your healing kit...


I think in casual play even Bole was quite useful. Ever had one of those duty finder tanks that couldn't use a defensive cooldown even if their life depended on it and instead expects you to just heal through their binary health bar? Well no worries, with Bole you can just do their job for them!

"It functions in ShB", is probably the best thing I can say about it. There's nothing wrong or right about the job currently and it performs its job well and removes most of the randomness of drawing a desired card. It is also much more easier to understand for newer players which ultimately is a good thing, given FFXIV's shift towards casual and RP. However I'm sure some jobs like BLM are probably raging at what AST used to be able to do with royal road and the arrow card and how BLM are aiming to break 4k sps, and that's one example.

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Originally Posted by Marxam

"It functions in ShB", is probably the best thing I can say about it. There's nothing wrong or right about the job currently and it performs its job well and removes most of the randomness of drawing a desired card. It is also much more easier to understand for newer players which ultimately is a good thing, given FFXIV's shift towards casual and RP. However I'm sure some jobs like BLM are probably raging at what AST used to be able to do with royal road and the arrow card and how BLM are aiming to break 4k sps, and that's one example.

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The thing I don't really get is why mmo devs always think that casual = braindead easy. Sorry but I would find that insulting. A casual player in my definition just means that they do not have the time or simply don't want to invest 6+ hours every day into a game, they want to play it "casually". This doesn't mean that they're the absolute lowest common denominator, someone so inept that they can't press more than 2 buttons.

No, casual players could just as easily be some of the best players, arguably even more so since they can potentially reach the same level of skill with less time invested.

And no, spending 12 hours in Limsa and "totally not having time to learn your job" does not make you a casual player, you're basically living in the game at that point, just too lazy to improve.

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Originally Posted by Marxam

"It functions in ShB", is probably the best thing I can say about it. There's nothing wrong or right about the job currently and it performs its job well and removes most of the randomness of drawing a desired card. It is also much more easier to understand for newer players which ultimately is a good thing, given FFXIV's shift towards casual and RP. However I'm sure some jobs like BLM are probably raging at what AST used to be able to do with royal road and the arrow card and how BLM are aiming to break 4k sps, and that's one example.

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BLM don't give a damn about the loss of the old arrow effect. They know that balance was overall a superior card and that no decent astro would try to fish an arrow just for them.
Also the previous card system was just as easy as the current one. You had a very well defined priority system and if rng didn't favor you, you simply settled for the second best or third best alternative.

Nobody was ever fishing for Arrow, it was simply a thing you could put on your BLM or freestyle SAM without completely screwing them over, if you had no redraw for something more useful.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Nobody was ever fishing for Arrow, it was simply a thing you could put on your BLM or freestyle SAM without completely screwing them over, if you had no redraw for something more useful.

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Folks who mained AST were never really "fishing" very often ... the JOY of the job was being able to turn less favorable draws into something that worked for the group. There was real satisfaction in being able to convert less desirable card draws into a beneficial effect, and even more satisfaction in learning when/how to do exactly that. The new card system not only destroys lore behind the job, it is also very simplistic. It feels like Squeenix didn't want a healer with any learning curve at all, and that is the most disappointing aspect of heal jobs since 5.0

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Originally Posted by Side-Eye

Folks who mained AST were never really "fishing" very often ...

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Then they were playing it wrong.
I can accept the lore argument, but card variety was only illusory and that became clear after graduating from "casual AST randomly mashing buttons" to "good AST that tries to play efficiently (albeit in probabilistic terms)".
And no job should have that amount of rdps locked behind a rng mechanic. It was just bad design, plain and simple.

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Originally Posted by Lastelli

Then they were playing it wrong.
I can accept the lore argument, but card variety was only illusory and that became clear after graduating from "casual AST randomly mashing buttons" to "good AST that tries to play efficiently (albeit in probabilistic terms)".
And no job should have that amount of rdps locked behind a rng mechanic. It was just bad design, plain and simple.

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While it was bad design to have that much variance between good rng and bad rng they shouldn't have scrapped the whole system entirely, elevating the other cards or giving you more options to manipulate the rng (like the current Sleeve Draw) would've probably done the job as well, just without destroying their own lore.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

While it was bad design to have that much variance between good rng and bad rng they shouldn't have scrapped the whole system entirely, elevating the other cards or giving you more options to manipulate the rng (like the current Sleeve Draw) would've probably done the job as well, just without destroying their own lore.

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The problem is there were too many options.
Bole and Ewer were a no-go. You can't have your healing kit on an rng system because the it becomes unnecessary. You need to be able to keep everyone alive just as well without them, and so for high end play where you just want your highest possible DPS, they're useless.
Spire was Spire.
That just left you with three viable options, one of which was only viable for two jobs.

Fact is, once you started fishing, it became a job of correcting all of the rng 'mistakes', and sometimes you just couldn't correct them.
So you've redrawn and still only got Ewers and Spires? Gotta RR it then.
Next you get a Bole, crap, can't use it because you already RR'd, can RR it because you want the AoE damage buff... you've used your redraws and sleeve draw, you're fucked, you've lost a 60s card rotation and have no damage buff to apply.
Fishing for big payoffs is one thing, but fixing the mistakes of an rng system isn't fun.

The old system had a Great option, and Good option, a Meh option and complete Bust.
The new system has just situationally Good and Meh options, but at least you don't go bust, and no matter what you draw, you still charge up to a Great AoE buff to base your burst phase around.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Nobody was ever fishing for Arrow, it was simply a thing you could put on your BLM or freestyle SAM without completely screwing them over, if you had no redraw for something more useful.

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I did because Arrow was nearly as powerful as Balance and it was better to throw both of them than waiting only for Balance (which reduce largely your chance to give AOE cards to party). AOE Spear was only useful on burst so opener mostly.
Solo Arrow was wonderful on BLM or even on some other jobs. My friend WAR and NIN loved this.
Solo Spear was wonderful on BRD. My friend really loved it.

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Originally Posted by Lastelli

Then they were playing it wrong.
I can accept the lore argument, but card variety was only illusory and that became clear after graduating from "casual AST randomly mashing buttons" to "good AST that tries to play efficiently (albeit in probabilistic terms)".
And no job should have that amount of rdps locked behind a rng mechanic. It was just bad design, plain and simple.

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No, the card variety wasn't illusory excepted the Spire which was not really used since Stormblood because of the TP facility.
But it was okay, because it became the must card for Royal Road AOE.
Every card has a used and it varied in function of the content and the party you got and the actual situation (any death and mistake would increase greatly your chance to use Bole and Ewer for example).

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Fact is, once you started fishing, it became a job of correcting all of the rng 'mistakes', and sometimes you just couldn't correct them.
So you've redrawn and still only got Ewers and Spires? Gotta RR it then.
Next you get a Bole, crap, can't use it because you already RR'd, can RR it because you want the AoE damage buff... you've used your redraws and sleeve draw, you're fucked, you've lost a 60s card rotation and have no damage buff to apply.
Fishing for big payoffs is one thing, but fixing the mistakes of an rng system isn't fun.

The old system had a Great option, and Good option, a Meh option and complete Bust.
The new system has just situationally Good and Meh options, but at least you don't go bust, and no matter what you draw, you still charge up to a Great AoE buff to base your burst phase around.

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Good point actually. I guess I would've just prefered if they kept those niche buffs in while also giving you tools to get that guaranteed good rng when you need it. I generally don't like it when they remove abilities that can situationally be very useful just because "hurr durr, you're not using it all the time".


Or just remove dps buffs from those cards entirely, make them defensive buffs, resource regeneration, selfheal, movement speed, etc and put the dps increase into Divination only. In that case you can still play around with rng buffs while reducing the impact they have on party dps.

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Originally Posted by Ceasaria

Solo Arrow was wonderful on BLM or even on some other jobs. My friend WAR and NIN loved this.

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I do not know how that NIN, the job that basically wanted 0 sks to not fuck with it's roation, could love Arrow and even on Warrior it was basically useless since you never ever built your sks required for 5x FC inside IR around outside buffs.
Although we might be talking about HW here and not SB, in that case just ignore me.

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Originally Posted by Ceasaria

Solo Arrow was wonderful on BLM or even on some other jobs. My friend WAR and NIN loved this.

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Arrow was actually detrimental to NIN's damage output.
There's a reason NIN BiS avoids too much SkillSpeed.

NINs most definitely did not like Arrow. The jobs that preferred Arrow in SB were BLM and SAM primarily. MNK and DRG could make it work, but MNK would prefer Spear since, like BRD, they had Crit reliance. But NIN didn’t want it at all. Same for MCH. BRD could make do with it, but it sucked in Army’s Paeon (especially if your BiS already had a high GCD to maximize crit, as Sigmascape’s BiS did). They preferred Spear.

I'm so tired of hearing people disregard old AST and keep whining on the rng aspect. Dont want the rng? pick Whm or sch and you're set, nobody forces you to play AST with a gun on your head.. it's late here and i don't have time or patient to' go on a tangent, i'll Just Say this: AST was my main and for me It was killed with Shb, i Just dont find It fun anymore.

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Originally Posted by Garten

I'm so tired of hearing people disregard old AST and keep whining on the rng aspect. Dont want the rng? pick Whm or sch and you're set, nobody forces you to play AST with a gun on your head.. it's late here and i don't have time or patient to' go on a tangent, i'll Just Say this: AST was my main and for me It was killed with Shb, i Just dont find It fun anymore.

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I don't like WHM's forced full cast times, and I can't stand pet management. Always been a Time Magic fan, so AST was my main healer back in SB too, but I find ShB to be an improvement in almost every way.

I would like it to have retained some form of Time Dilation, even if it only applied to some select effects, and it was nice to have a stun on Opposition.

I personally would tweak the current card system a little bit.
Rather than choosing between a 3/6% buff with a Seal or an 4/8% buff without a seal, I would just make it a straight choice between Seal or a 5/10% buff. Make it an all or nothing choice between applying a single target buff, or charging up your AoE damage buff.
Buff Divination in line so that the sacrifice is paid off, a full 6/8/10% damage buff for the party maybe.
In 4-person parties this would make it a fair choice with no real wrong answer, in 8-person parties you want to prioritise Divination.
This would not only make your choices seem more meaningful, but it would reduce the amount of player targeting that's required.
I'd probably give Sleeve Draw 2 charges as well.

But otherwise, I'm fine with the new effects.
Bole and Ewer had no place in the card table, Spire was flat out useless, and from your standpoint as the one giving out the buffs, there's virtually no difference between Balance/Spear/Arrow, they're ultimately all just damage boosts with different ideal targets. You've just traded the "Balance=Anyone, Spear=MNK/BRD>Anyone, and Arrow=BLM/SAM-only" for "Balance/Spear/Arrow=MNK/SAM/NIN/DRG>DRK/PLD/WAR/GNB and Bole/Ewer/Spire=BRD/MCH/DNC/BLM/SMN/RDM". Similar choices, just different targets. At most I'd concede that you've gone from three choices to two, but if you didn't have a BLM/SAM then that Arrow was almost worthless anyway.

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Originally Posted by Garten

I'm so tired of hearing people disregard old AST and keep whining on the rng aspect. Dont want the rng? pick Whm or sch and you're set, nobody forces you to play AST with a gun on your head.. it's late here and i don't have time or patient to' go on a tangent, i'll Just Say this: AST was my main and for me It was killed with Shb, i Just dont find It fun anymore.

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Then play something you do enjoy.
Nobody forces you to play AST with a gun on your head.
I'm so tired of hearing people disregard ShB AST. With ShB I finally found it fun.

While i enjoy new ast, i still really hate the new card system despite playing it for more than a year. even if the new cards are better for balance and consistency, the playability is awful. having to scroll the party list every time you want to use a card is so annoying that people both in computer and controller made macros to make it easier on them. and if you dont like the clunkiness of macros you have to deal with the clunkiness of the job. I want old ast back just so i dont have to target party members so often; i remember that before sleeve draw got changed my hands tendons would hurt from all the targetting, and while its better in that regard now, that was still only a bandaid fix.

I think the past card system couldve been improved by cycling the cards (makes it consistent) and by giving alternate uses to the "useless" cards instead of just minor arcana and hope its a lord. Or if they let us use a card without using up royal road, a lot of cards wouldve seen more use.

And there was also no reason to get rid of time dilation.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

Then play something you do enjoy.
Nobody forces you to play AST with a gun on your head.
I'm so tired of hearing people disregard ShB AST. With ShB I finally found it fun.

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While I get the whole reversal purpose of a statement like this (and it does work in a lot of instances), I find the argument a bit flawed here as it’s coming from someone who didn’t enjoy a job that effectively existed the same for 4 years, but now does after it was radically changed. How is it really fair to tell original AST mains—mains that played the original iteration of the job, either from HW or SB—to “just go play something else” because (general) you now find it fun after it was drastically altered? Seems a bit unfair to the original ASTs that enjoyed the job as it was originally designed, and even more so that stuck with it through the dark days of early HW where literally no one wanted AST in their parties.

I have the same sentiment towards ShB BRD lovers that completely disregard old BRD mains that stuck through the job all through every overhaul and condemn criticisms of the latest iteration, and basically tell them to bugger off and go play DNC or something else so that these newer BRDs can enjoy a job that is a bard in name only. I don’t know. Seems like a flawed argument to me.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

While I get the whole reversal purpose of a statement like this (and it does work in a lot of instances), I find the argument a bit flawed here as it’s coming from someone who didn’t enjoy a job that effectively existed the same for 4 years, but now does after it was radically changed. How is it really fair to tell original AST mains—mains that played the original iteration of the job, either from HW or SB—to “just go play something else” because (general) you now find it fun after it was drastically altered? Seems a bit unfair to the original ASTs that enjoyed the job as it was originally designed, and even more so that stuck with it through the dark days of early HW where literally no one wanted AST in their parties.

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You're right, but they're no more obligated to the job than I am.
They enjoyed the original design, but so what? That doesn't make their perspective more legitimate.
It's no more fair to tell them to play something else than it is to vaguely blame the rest of us for ruining "their" job.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

You're right, but they're no more obligated to the job than I am.
They enjoyed the original design, but so what? That doesn't make their perspective more legitimate.
It's no more fair to tell them to play something else than it is to vaguely blame the rest of us for ruining "their" job.

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I personally didn’t see any vague blame when it came to Garten’s statement—he was mostly just stating something most newer ASTs/ShB AST fans say: “I like AST now because I hated the RNG in HW/SB”. Which, fine. They are completely entitled to have that opinion—but he is right in saying that there were two RNG-free healers readily available.

Personally, I would disagree and say that players that have been playing a job for longer likely have more weight to their opinions because they have been actively playing the job. They know the job. Perhaps they even optimize/min-max on it. I truly think that the developers should listen more to them rather than the players that don’t actively play the jobs when it comes to job adjustments and feedback. It would be like me, who is not a DRK main, coming in and demanding the developers change the job into what I want it to be, and completely ignore the people who actually love and play DRK—and then subsequently telling them that they aren’t entitled to tell me to just go play something else that more suits my tastes instead of asking their job to be changed into what I want. I don’t offer feedback on roles that I don’t play simply because it’s not really my place, and I don’t think developers should take my opinions into consideration being as that I don’t play the job I’m offering opinions on (and I don’t think I could form a thorough opinion on it anyways).

People are allowed to give feedback. But I think the developers should listen more to those who actively play the jobs rather than the ones who don’t, or who just play it on occasion. And this is for more than just AST; it’s for all jobs in general.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

Personally, I would disagree and say that players that have been playing a job for longer likely have more weight to their opinions because they have been actively playing the job. They know the job. Perhaps they even optimize/min-max on it. I truly think that the developers should listen more to them rather than the players that don’t actively play the jobs when it comes to job adjustments and feedback.

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In general, yes. For balance, yes.
In this case it's not relevant.
Just because you enjoyed the first version of this class doesn't mean you're entitled to love every version of the class or SQEX is being bad. You don't get some higher say in what's fun just because you dug the prototype. Hence my comment about how (in this case of people whining about the RNG) your "seniority" with the class doesn't elevate your perspective. SQEX wanted to change the job. They changed it to something someone doesn't like. That's unfortunate. But I'm as tired of people whining about ShB AST as they are tired of people whining about the RNG. I don't know what it is about that comment in particular that caused me to flip, but their "pick a different job if you don't like it" really got under my skin. I didnt like it in Stormblood, so I did play something else. I rocked SCH. I'm sorry we both can't have fun now but if you don't like it now, don't make yourself miserable and consider taking your own advice.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

While i enjoy new ast, i still really hate the new card system despite playing it for more than a year. even if the new cards are better for balance and consistency, the playability is awful. having to scroll the party list every time you want to use a card is so annoying that people both in computer and controller made macros to make it easier on them. and if you dont like the clunkiness of macros you have to deal with the clunkiness of the job. I want old ast back just so i dont have to target party members so often; i remember that before sleeve draw got changed my hands tendons would hurt from all the targetting, and while its better in that regard now, that was still only a bandaid fix.

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I understand a lot of complaints about ASTs current cards but this is something I have to disagree with.
Healers involve target switching by nature. And depending on the content/ party, lots of it. AST is designed as a busy, high APM job with more target switching than the other two. But "clunky" isn't something it deserves to be called.
A free weave after every Malefic. High baseline mobility with more mobility on demand. Coolowns naturally lining up.
And then we have WhM with the awkward PoM cooldown, forced clips, little mobility.
Or SCH with fairy skills still ghosting unless spread to seperate instants, fairy generally being fairly slow, DT requiring a seperate weave to properly catch the shield, Seraph shield requiring two weaves.

I'm not saying your tendon problems didn't exist and it's unfortunate that you couldn't find a way to make it work for you without hurting your hand but a lot of complaints about old SD were not coming from people with actual health problems but people who didn't want to put the effort into learning to target switch (which really isn't rocket science on M+K) and instead of being content with not using it optimally but simply to the best of their abilities wanted to see it nerfed. Another layer, that was completely optional in most types of content, is now gone.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

I do not know how that NIN, the job that basically wanted 0 sks to not fuck with it's roation, could love Arrow and even on Warrior it was basically useless since you never ever built your sks required for 5x FC inside IR around outside buffs.
Although we might be talking about HW here and not SB, in that case just ignore me.

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In SB.
It was really rare I do this anyway, but to give more precision, my WAR friend had fun with an Arrow 150%, not saying it's better on him.
For my NIN, yes he noticed a good dps increased. I didn't do this many times, so maybe it was lucky pulls.

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Originally Posted by Rilifane

I understand a lot of complaints about ASTs current cards but this is something I have to disagree with.
Healers involve target switching by nature. And depending on the content/ party, lots of it. AST is designed as a busy, high APM job with more target switching than the other two. But "clunky" isn't something it deserves to be called.

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i know ast isnt "clunky" in everything else, which is why i enjoy it, but i was specifically talking about the cards here. i admit i target switch as a healer by nature, but usually when play healer while i do have to scroll up to heal a random dps, most of the time who i have to single target heal is a tank. targetting the tank is 1 or 2 presses on the dpad at most; whereas a dps could be up to 4.

Usually scrolling a lot isnt an issue because i can switch target while casting, meaning i have 1.5s (or more if im playing another healer) to target a party member. However if i have lightspeed up and i need to use many ogcds in a short amount of time, such as the (re)opener, if i dont want to clip when double weaving play, i have to somehow scroll up to 4 times in 0.1 seconds to be able to double weave without clipping. i could take longer to get buffs up but then theyd be misaligned with other's burst windows.

When i called the card system clunky i meant that, while other jobs might clip because they dont have weave windows, with ast i clip because i physically cannot move my finger fast enough sometimes. this was never an issue when royal road existed, and thats why i dislike the playability of the current card system.