AST feedback

This going to be a short post i think and i don't know if someone already made this but there we go.
I think AST really needs at least a buff if they plan on reowking it again while we wait and i don't even know if its going to be good or bad and as someone who plays this job for years and watched it got chaotic atm.

so there is my thoughts on what i would like to see on AST and think its fair

1: A buff to Fall Malefic making it 270 at least.
I don't know why it have the same potency as Malefic IV back in ShB kinda doesn't make sense to me even with Minor Arcana and a 100% chance of Lord of Crowns

2: Light Speed should be a 60 Second CD and a addition of a second charge.
with how busy AST is and how much they incrested the movement tools for the other casters (WHM, SCH, SGE,SMN haveing 1.5s cast and RDM,SMN and BLM getting a super boost on movement tools and i can not see BLM being the immobile turret anymore)on and the abmount of movement needed i feel like its fair and i played about all jobs and it just feels kinda unbalanced and awful to play sometimes while the other healers do just as good with no headache.

and i guess that's for my post, like i thought they would do the things i mentioned already so that's why i just waited and didn't see anything but they really didn't do anything to make this job feel better to play so i kinda head to let it out and speak my thoughts , and thank you for your time

AST doesn’t need a buff right now people just need to optimise the fights better and get some more gear and AST will pass WHM like it generally does due to gear scaling, SCH the other buff healer just generally doesn’t rely on gear scaling as much because chain is a good buff regardless of how badly the party performs

I agree lightspeed because locked to the div window makes its 90 second CD pointless but I think 60 seconds and 2 charges is a bit too strong considering SCH also has no lossless movement, just decoupling the forced connection between the two would be better by not forcing so many weaves would probably fix the problem better

AST is perfectly fine as it is. They fixed usual card doubles. They combined minor arcana draw and realese and i have no complaints here.

Well, fine in terms of balance. The healing role still needs to be reworked entirely of course.

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Originally Posted by Vukimukinukiduki

AST is perfectly fine as it is.

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I dunno about the use of the word "perfect" in this context. I'll agree that it's "fine," sure, in that "it works," but AST is just a shell of what it used to be, and will continue to be as such as long as the development team are afraid of going one way or the other with our use of RNG.

IMO, of course.

AST functions.
But LS is still married to 2min burst, MA doesn't have a timer, Astrodyne and praying for Lord is unrewarding, the 2min burst is bloated with weaves making it the least mobile healer outside burst while everything between 2min bursts is 1111 spam with little else to do. It functions and is competetive, but it's still poorly designed.

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Originally Posted by Rilifane

AST functions.
But LS is still married to 2min burst, MA doesn't have a timer, Astrodyne and praying for Lord is unrewarding, the 2min burst is bloated with weaves making it the least mobile healer outside burst while everything between 2min bursts is 1111 spam with little else to do. It functions and is competetive, but it's still poorly designed.

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Even as someone who doesn't play AST at all, the delay on the rework is giving me anxiety. Maybe I'm reading too deeply into things, but it sounds like this is supposed to be a fairly significant rework, and that holds a lot of weight as to where their headspace is in terms of healer direction. Not that I have much hope that the design team is responding to feedback, but we've had a bit more time since EW launched and healer frustration is growing and becoming louder, and not specifically on the forums. We've had more larger name FFXIV players start to talk about the healer issues, like Lucy Pyre and Misshapen Chair. Healer population is clearly dropping in NA at least. I feel like these are difficult metrics to ignore in their entirety. I feel like there will be some kind of shift come 7.0. Whether or not that shift happens and if it actually addresses the real issues is another story, but it has me on edge regardless.

Someone else brought this up as well somewhere else which is "where else can they even go with the current healer design? Give us even more OGCD heals?"

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

"where else can they even go with the current healer design? Give us even more OGCD heals?"

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Another round of ability level ups. "Glare XIV" "Gigadia" "Summer Malefic" "Art of Not War"
All with the description:
"The ultimate form of glare/dia/malefic/combust/art/etc., brought into fruition by breaking limits like only a true warrior of *insert flavor here* can."
...and a total potency increase of 5, except for dia, which sees a potency decrease of 10, both in the description and actual dps dealt, for reasons that the dev team will call a "miscellanious never-before-seen bug."

A new trait that grants a free cast of an AOE if you hit with your basic heal.

And they'll distract everyone with a "personal limit break" at level 100, which will just be a strong ability with a very long cooldown with a dumb name like the "100 ability" or something. All they would need to do is steal the PVP limit breaks and alter them to fit PVE content, or it'll create a new "burst window," at will, on a very long cooldown.

So, you know, it'll all be "ok."

Here are my issues with it. Keep in mind this is purely from my own head and you might not agree or you might find things fun that I find awful and that's fine:

Square removed the sigil system from divination and applied it to Astrodyne, a really unsatisfying self-buff with worse rng than old div that I know I never asked for, but I won't speak for others. They removed lady/lord of crowns and replaced it with an random chance at a really wimpy feeling hit, or an okay feeling heal, but since it's random you can't strategize or plan around it, you just sort of draw and hope it's a damage dealer for the burst and if it's not, "oh well". They removed the sect system instead of just improving upon it to address people's issues with noct sect. They expanded earthly star's range so much that you don't even have to plan where to place it since it's just the size of the whole damn arena at this point. Its two minute window is full of unsatisfying skill-vomit. Much of the thought and fun are gone. The planning that made me feel like I was divining the future is gone. I miss using sleeve draw to cheat the odds. I miss putting Lord of Crowns on my friends while Div was up and I knew they were bursting. I miss switching to noct sect in bad groups that genuinely needed on demand shielding because they were taking too much unnecessary damage too often and heal over times weren't cutting it. I miss knowing where the boss would be in 10 seconds and putting my earthly star there in advance, and people would be like "why'd you put it there???" and then the boss would move there and they'd understand. I miss just using noct sect in casual content and shielding like crazy because I could; now if I want to play with shields, I have to either rely on neutral sect and its long cd, or play sch/sge which I'm not fond of. I miss feeling like my entire job was centered around using cards to get a good divination; now I just feel like I hold cards for the 2m burst. Old ast was satisfying and no matter how much I try to enjoy new AST, I just can't. I have no faith in the rework, since Square continues to believe that the reason people aren't playing AST is because of button bloat and not because they spent several years stripping all the fun out of it.

I unironically have more fun just playing WHM now.
edit: And before someone misses the point, I'm not talking about AST's viability. It's objectively good and has a solid kit. But playing it optimally, to me at least, feels like shit.

Just give back stormblood ast cards. Other than the cards I feel its good with its kit.The cards are just my hate since shb and I will never touch ast until the 5% boring cards are looked over. most dps who also provide buffs make ast cards a joke. * Waves to bard*

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Originally Posted by Avoidy

Here are my issues with it. Keep in mind this is purely from my own head and you might not agree or you might find things fun that I find awful and that's fine:

Square removed the sigil system from divination and applied it to Astrodyne, a really unsatisfying self-buff with worse rng than old div that I know I never asked for, but I won't speak for others. They removed lady/lord of crowns and replaced it with an random chance at a really wimpy feeling hit, or an okay feeling heal, but since it's random you can't strategize or plan around it, you just sort of draw and hope it's a damage dealer for the burst and if it's not, "oh well". They removed the sect system instead of just improving upon it to address people's issues with noct sect. They expanded earthly star's range so much that you don't even have to plan where to place it since it's just the size of the whole damn arena at this point. Its two minute window is full of unsatisfying skill-vomit. Much of the thought and fun are gone. The planning that made me feel like I was divining the future is gone. I miss using sleeve draw to cheat the odds. I miss putting Lord of Crowns on my friends while Div was up and I knew they were bursting. I miss switching to noct sect in bad groups that genuinely needed on demand shielding because they were taking too much unnecessary damage too often and heal over times weren't cutting it. I miss knowing where the boss would be in 10 seconds and putting my earthly star there in advance, and people would be like "why'd you put it there???" and then the boss would move there and they'd understand. I miss just using noct sect in casual content and shielding like crazy because I could; now if I want to play with shields, I have to either rely on neutral sect and its long cd, or play sch/sge which I'm not fond of. I miss feeling like my entire job was centered around using cards to get a good divination; now I just feel like I hold cards for the 2m burst. Old ast was satisfying and no matter how much I try to enjoy new AST, I just can't. I have no faith in the rework, since Square continues to believe that the reason people aren't playing AST is because of button bloat and not because they spent several years stripping all the fun out of it.

I unironically have more fun just playing WHM now.
edit: And before someone misses the point, I'm not talking about AST's viability. It's objectively good and has a solid kit. But playing it optimally, to me at least, feels like shit.

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Honestly I don't disagree. As skeletal as WHM is as a job and as a healer, the Misery buff ironically gives WHM one of the most interesting and satisfying healer mechanics in the game: intentionally not using Glare on occasion. It's quite literally the only healer rewarded for prioritizing healing over damage. That's not to say that WHM is great to play or fun to play, mind you. It just speaks to how bad the healing role is designed as a whole.

In regards to AST, though, the star sign/seal system is just terrible and always has been. It's an obnoxiously convoluted system that bends over backwards to accomplish what could very easily be accomplished by a single action. Imagine this:

Bravery - Ability
Cooldown: 30 seconds (2 Charges)
Increases damage dealt by self or target party member by 6%
Duration: 15 seconds

Done. There you go, the entire draw system exists to do what this one example of an action does, taking up several buttons in the process.

My issues with AST:

• Astrodyne feels as useless as a seals system mechanic as old Divination if not more so. Frankly I want the seals system gone. It wasn't good in 5.0 and it isn't good now. And I doubt you can make it good, SE, in 7.0.
  
• I want diverse cards back. I don't care if they are 3 different buffs like in PvP mirrored for Melee/Range, but 6 soulless cards that as the poster above me proved could be replaced with a single button is dumb design.
  
• Earthly Star being as big as it is is dumb. Do I want old ES back? Kinda. Do I miss people not being in it? No. Do I miss feeling rewarded for placing it in the right place? Yes.

Anything else I want requires a much bigger overhaul.

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

My issues with AST:

• Astrodyne feels as useless as a seals system mechanic as old Divination if not more so. Frankly I want the seals system gone. It wasn't good in 5.0 and it isn't good now. And I doubt you can make it good, SE, in 7.0.
  
• I want diverse cards back. I don't care if they are 3 different buffs like in PvP mirrored for Melee/Range, but 6 soulless cards that as the poster above me proved could be replaced with a single button is dumb design.
  
• Earthly Star being as big as it is is dumb. Do I want old ES back? Kinda. Do I miss people not being in it? No. Do I miss feeling rewarded for placing it in the right place? Yes.

Anything else I want requires a much bigger overhaul.

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Its really funny how they they actually had use all old stormblood ast cards for pvp ewer = mp restore spire=limit break restore, now they replace those two and its bole=10% migi arrow 10%=weapon cd/skill/spell speed cd and slap on even movement speed to boot. They literally used all 6 cards with stormblood effects!!!!!! cept making spire instead give limit break.

So why not give back old stormblood cards then cept let spire give dh buff and balance gives movement speed not damage, this way entitle people dont cry balance balance balance balance balance.

I really enjoy playing AST, I just absolutely hate Astrodyne and the seals system.

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Originally Posted by IceBlueNinja

Its really funny how they they actually had use all old stormblood ast cards for pvp ewer = mp restore spire=limit break restore, now they replace those two and its bole=10% migi arrow 10%=weapon cd/skill/spell speed cd and slap on even movement speed to boot. They literally used all 6 cards with stormblood effects!!!!!! cept making spire instead give limit break.

So why not give back old stormblood cards then cept let spire give dh buff and balance gives movement speed not damage, this way entitle people dont cry balance balance balance balance balance.

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the stormblood cards are not equally beneficial in PVE vs. PVP. Skillspeed and Cooldown reduction are either really nice for a job or more often really terrible for a job. It would actually be extremely bad for everyone in PVE right now with the 2m meta.

Bole is a bad card in pve as well because its damage reduction was not impactful enough to adjust how you healed encounters. The result of using it was almost always the same result as not using it.

Crit card was good because it was a damage gain.
Balance card was broken. you can't balance a damage gain against non-damage gains.

The old cards were really bad. It was fun to be able to cycle them and turn some cards into buffs for other cards but ultimately the system was impossible to balance.

That is why we have all damage cards now. The alternative is to have none of the cards be damage cards. The problem with no damage cards is people could not play them and things would be relatively the same. role specific damage cards mean you have to actually play them correctly to do well at least.

edit2:
Cards could be way more interesting however if they were mostly personal. There is a lot of potential in changing cards from buffing party members to effecting the astrologian. You could do anything from augmenting astro spells, to opening up access to certain ast spells, or just buffing the astrologian. Minor Arcana affecting other party members would also have a place in that system. I wonder if they have thrown these ideas around at all to see what kinds of intersting things they could come up with.

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Originally Posted by Zolvolt

the stormblood cards are not equally beneficial in PVE vs. PVP. Skillspeed and Cooldown reduction are either really nice for a job or more often really terrible for a job. It would actually be extremely bad for everyone in PVE right now with the 2m meta.

Bole is a bad card in pve as well because its damage reduction was not impactful enough to adjust how you healed encounters. The result of using it was almost always the same result as not using it.

Crit card was good because it was a damage gain.
Balance card was broken. you can't balance a damage gain against non-damage gains.

The old cards were really bad. It was fun to be able to cycle them and turn some cards into buffs for other cards but ultimately the system was impossible to balance.

That is why we have all damage cards now. The alternative is to have none of the cards be damage cards. The problem with no damage cards is people could not play them and things would be relatively the same. role specific damage cards mean you have to actually play them correctly to do well at least.

edit2:
Cards could be way more interesting however if they were mostly personal. There is a lot of potential in changing cards from buffing party members to effecting the astrologian. You could do anything from augmenting astro spells, to opening up access to certain ast spells, or just buffing the astrologian. Minor Arcana affecting other party members would also have a place in that system. I wonder if they have thrown these ideas around at all to see what kinds of intersting things they could come up with.

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One thing I think would help utility cards have use is rather than the effect of the card being immediate, you're instead laying that card on someone for later, then you can activate all cards on all party members at once. Like laying a trap card in Yugioh, fittingly.

That said, offense and support cards can both exist, but need to exist as separate resources. Any time they compete, it creates an unhealthy interaction where offense is superior as the support cards are not and can never be essential for survival.

Ultimately though, I would much prefer something that is unbalanced but fun to play over something that's perfectly balanced but stale and inconsequential to gameplay feel. At the end of the day it's a game that's meant to be enjoyed, and that should be all the time, not only some of the time. I agree that the old card system doesn't work, but I would be willing to sacrifice some amount of consistency if necessary to create something that feels more fun and engaging to play and work with. It still needs to be mostly balanced, but even the old card system didn't throw old AST out of whack. The Balance buff of 3.3 was overkill, but that was eventually retconned, and the main thing against WHM during SB was it constantly feeling like Diet AST rather than offering some type of unique support, utility, or advantage over AST or SCH.

My main frustration as a controller/console player is simply that distributing cards feels so clumsy, especially with full parties. My heart is with astrologian but I have considered shifting to white mage simply because it feels more accessible, and that doesn't seem fair to controller/console players. Hoping the overhaul irons out these wrinkles. I did some level ninety trusts and had such a blast with astrologian regardless of the damage it did [but heals were so potent I was never worried about losing anyone], but I know I would feel more anxious about time if I were doing high-end content with real players, which I hope to progress to eventually.

Shouldn't the draw cast be 40 second cooldown to align with other raid buffs?

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Originally Posted by Gorondu

Shouldn't the draw cast be 40 second cooldown to align with other raid buffs?

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longer draw CD's would delay opener further. Its already a PITA to get tanks to do 20sec CD when playing ast.

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Originally Posted by hastile

My main frustration as a controller/console player is simply that distributing cards feels so clumsy, especially with full parties. My heart is with astrologian but I have considered shifting to white mage simply because it feels more accessible, and that doesn't seem fair to controller/console players. Hoping the overhaul irons out these wrinkles. I did some level ninety trusts and had such a blast with astrologian regardless of the damage it did [but heals were so potent I was never worried about losing anyone], but I know I would feel more anxious about time if I were doing high-end content with real players, which I hope to progress to eventually.

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I would agree that playing with trusts, an AST has plenty of heals so you don't have to worry on that count, however should you want to solo some content on an AST, depending upon what you want to do - even compared to the other healers, its personal damage is so low it can be a fairly miserable experience.

I would like to petition for shield-astro to return to the game. There are so many whitemage players in the game that it is difficult to get the opportunity to play my favorite job, astrologian. I often flex to shield healer to make healing comps with whm work since there are so many "one-trick" whitemages. I have no issue with people playing what they want to play but can we bring back the ability for astro and whm to play together please?

for data btw the most common played healer is whm and the least is astro. Which makes sense since you usually can't use both of them on difficult content.
FFlogs data has over 100k whm parses for savage this tier and astro is at 54k. both shield healers are are above 70k.

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Originally Posted by Zolvolt

I would like to petition for shield-astro to return to the game. There are so many whitemage players in the game that it is difficult to get the opportunity to play my favorite job, astrologian. I often flex to shield healer to make healing comps with whm work since there are so many "one-trick" whitemages. I have no issue with people playing what they want to play but can we bring back the ability for astro and whm to play together please?

for data btw the most common played healer is whm and the least is astro. Which makes sense since you usually can't use both of them on difficult content.
FFlogs data has over 100k whm parses for savage this tier and astro is at 54k. both shield healers are are above 70k.

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There are a lot of reasons as to why AST is less played over WHM than just that "WHM takes its spot".

• People prefer WHM's aesthetic over AST's
• Veterans of AST from HW-SB hate the card changes vs the seals system ShB-EW have insisted on and refuse to play it
• AST is a busy healer and people prefer WHM over AST's business whether its because they don't like that its busy or because they find the business to be absurd for the reward you get (me)
• AST is cumbersome for people to play be they keyboard or controller
• People have stopped playing healer altogether and some of them were ASTs mains
• People have switched to SCH or SGE because they miss Nocturnal Sect that was removed (and replaced with nothing) to make way for SGE
• AST is debatably seen as a complex/hard healer and players are turned away from that

And yeah, some statics or PF want either WHM or AST and not both, but it isn't the only reason why AST is the least played healer. Just one reason.

As for Noct Sect coming back, I don't see it happening unless SE man's up and demolishes the Pure vs Shield healer mentality and breath new healing styles into the existing four healers to where AST can be a hybrid who regens and shields like it does in PvP.. sort of.

I'd like it to be a stance dancing healer where you toggle Noct vs Diurn in combat and your healing abilities (not just GCDs) change and Neutral Sect was removed in place of it, but I don't see it happening.

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Originally Posted by Zolvolt

longer draw CD's would delay opener further. Its already a PITA to get tanks to do 20sec CD when playing ast.

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Let draw have 3 stacks and you're done. Additionally remove draw as an active ability and just automatically draw the card if it's ready. Move the 5% mana reg to play and that's solved too. Increase the card buffs and astrodyne a little to compensate for 40 seconds cooldown.

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Originally Posted by Gorondu

Let draw have 3 stacks and you're done. Additionally remove draw as an active ability and just automatically draw the card if it's ready.

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???
Can we play the game and not let it play by itself thank you?