Astro change I’d like to see ih 7.0

Hello fellow eorzeans,

How would you feel if the ability draw was removed all together? Like it’s just an unnecessary extra button at this point that we don’t even need.

Why not just take a page from Whm/Sge and even lost ark. What if it’s all automatic. You can hold up to 2 cards and as you use them they go on cooldown and once they are up again you can just play them accordingly. It takes away having to press draw itself and all you need to do is play the card.

Allow it to work mostly like sage. When the gauge fills around maybe every 30 seconds a random card appears inside the gauge and you just play it.

I like that more than having to press draw and play. And for those who are gonna come for me and say “Why do we wanna keep making jobs like other jobs” “keep draw as it is, it will become to easy if draw was gone” Then fine but it will cut down on some of the busyness of Astro which we all know has been an issue with Astro especially for controller players.

I’m not saying completely destroy the job but let’s be honest. Look at summoner. It’s super easy now and also very popular amongst the player base. We know what’s about to happen to Astro and Drg. We just have to wait and see if these reworks are going to be as successful as summoner.

I've thought the same, there's no situation where a card is ready to draw and you decide not to draw it, besides 'I already have a card'. If you need to pool them, you draw one and then start pooling, so having them automatically draw would achieve the same effect. It'd also help with the opener, as you'd not need to press Draw twice in there, allowing you instead to change that doubleweave into eg Play Minor Arcana. Or opening up more opportunity to make use of Redraw (since we want to avoid it atm because it delays the rest of the opener too much)

Making the cards autodraw is a reduction not in complexity, but in APM. It's not 'complexity' really to press Draw when the button says it's time to press it imo. Throw the MP restore effect onto Play instead. I'd do the same with Minor Arcana, and also make Minor Arcana more interesting than 'its an OGCD Malefic, or an OGCD Helios and you don't get to choose which'

Can't say I'd like to see the change. Especially if we get more diverse cards again, there's no way to choose which one plays first.

I'm also not a fan of building up a gauge to generate a card.

The whole draw/play/buff target is macro'd to me..
it's literally just 2 buttons,
and i don't have to change target during fights.

The only abilities i wish they could change would be:

-Astrodyne buffs (seal system/effects)
-Minor Arcana.

Also Buff our dmg abilites..
If your base dmg is low..
the added % from cards is low too.

I know it's silly but I like manually drawing the cards, it's a small idiosyncrasy that adds to the job's fantasy. （*´▽｀*）

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

Can't say I'd like to see the change. Especially if we get more diverse cards again, there's no way to choose which one plays first.

I'm also not a fan of building up a gauge to generate a card.

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I thought about this actually. So if we can hold 2 cards. Let’s say the first card is arrow and the second card is balance. Arrow is attack speed and balance is damage. You will want to most likely use balance first so we can get a new ability to swap them so balance becomes first and arrow would be second. They could just replace redraw with this. Maybe call it “Rearranged” or “Switcheroo” or something similar lol.

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Originally Posted by Mimilu

I know it's silly but I like manually drawing the cards, it's a small idiosyncrasy that adds to the job's fantasy. （*´▽｀*）

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I think that’s great and all but I just feel it’s a bit played out now.

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Originally Posted by Zeastria

The whole draw/play/buff target is macro'd to me..
it's literally just 2 buttons,
and i don't have to change target during fights.

The only abilities i wish they could change would be:

-Astrodyne buffs (seal system/effects)
-Minor Arcana.

Also Buff our dmg abilites..
If your base dmg is low..
the added % from cards is low too.

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I just feel cards will be more efficient if it was just auto drawn. However, I do agree with you about Astrodyne. Just change it to where after your 3rd card played you’ll automatically get the self buff based on the seal combination. Just increase the damage/healing of it since you won’t be able to redraw anymore.

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Originally Posted by Zeastria

The whole draw/play/buff target is macro'd to me..
it's literally just 2 buttons,
and i don't have to change target during fights.

The only abilities i wish they could change would be:

-Astrodyne buffs (seal system/effects)
-Minor Arcana.

Also Buff our dmg abilites..
If your base dmg is low..
the added % from cards is low too.

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What did you find the best way to do that? Something like...

/macroicon Draw
/ac Play
/ac Draw

...? Just thinking off the top of my head on that. Will have to test it out later. But the logic flow of "cast Play first; if you have a card drawn, plays it, if not, cannot play, so; cast Draw" makes sense to me. Not sure how well that weaves, though, being a macro and all.

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Originally Posted by Mimilu

I know it's silly but I like manually drawing the cards, it's a small idiosyncrasy that adds to the job's fantasy. （*´▽｀*）

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Same. While I certainly complain a lot about how absurd the carpal tunnel syndrome you (general you) get in its short 15s reopeners, what I'm personally asking for is to have that busy work to be more spread out across entire 120s cycle so I don't fall asleep in its 105s remainder. Making them draw cards automatically for you will probably just force them to make Play comes with 1s cooldown to accommodate "oops I click 1 time too much" which I know I will 100% hate, based on what happened to MA > Crown Play adjustment. I hated that adjustment because I can no longer double weave Minor Arcana + Crown Play on top of not having any visible timer when you have Lady/Lord drawn...!! (You can still do Crown Play + Minor Arcana though)

Moreover, the last thing I want to see is having even more automatic resource generation with little to no agency on how to manipulate it, and that's what SGE's Addersgall & WHM's Lily gauge felt to me.

To make draw redundant they would have to remove charges on draw because the system doesn’t have the capacity to draw automatically but not draw a second card until the first one is played but then draw that second card automatically once the first one is played if draw was off “cd” like how we interact with draw right now

The closest they could simulate it would be to change cards into a coda style gauge where it tracked how many of each card you currently have stacked up to a max (similar to addersgall) that you had to play in a specific order

Honestly while I don’t like healers losing any more complexity if I was to try to fix AST’s burst window problems I’d probably just make draw and play damage neutral GCD’s (or leave draw as an oGCD and play as a GCD), the card could just do it’s effect plus do a =fall malefic 2 potency AOE around the target of the card (which would also fix AST trash AOE damage), to compensate for the slower burst window they could decrease DIV’s percentage but increase its length, so you are rewarded for having all 3 cards running in the period of the div window that most aligns with the other shorter buffs like tech step

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

I just feel cards will be more efficient if it was just auto drawn. However, I do agree with you about Astrodyne. Just change it to where after your 3rd card played you’ll automatically get the self buff based on the seal combination. Just increase the damage/healing of it since you won’t be able to redraw anymore.

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I don't like this suggestion. There are times when I don't want Astrodyne to activate immediately. I don't want my job to be automated. That would take half the fun out of it.

Personally, I don't like any suggestion that reduces the APM of AST. I agree with wanting to spread out the APM more widely, but I do not agree with anything like GCD Draw or GCD Play. I play AST for the busy gameplay and would hate to see it made much slower when they could just do something to alleviate the crammed burst window (Like deleting Astrodyne (Seriously, why does Astrodyne exist?)).

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Originally Posted by Aravell

Personally, I don't like any suggestion that reduces the APM of AST. I agree with wanting to spread out the APM more widely, but I do not agree with anything like GCD Draw or GCD Play. I play AST for the busy gameplay and would hate to see it made much slower when they could just do something to alleviate the crammed burst window (Like deleting Astrodyne (Seriously, why does Astrodyne exist?)).

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Deleting dyne makes almost no different to AST’s burst window other than removing the occasional redraw and the use of dyne itself, you are still stuffing 3 cards, div, star and minor arcana into a 5 second window (though I don’t disagree that dyne is useless as a skill)

Really the only way you can spread AST’s APM would be to remove the second charge of draw, don’t allow you to draw outside of combat then put draw on a shorter CD (say 20 seconds), that way your opener has one less card, you can no longer pool draw charges for the div window and basically just have to play a card as soon as you get it

As long as you allow people to pool resources you are never going to reduce AST’s burst APM

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Originally Posted by PercibelTheren

I don't like this suggestion. There are times when I don't want Astrodyne to activate immediately. I don't want my job to be automated. That would take half the fun out of it.

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Draw doesn't generate Seals. Play does. There's no suggestion to make Play automatic.

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On the broader topic:

If you want to spread out AST's APM without reducing it, your answer is simply to remove the second charge from Draw or remove its ability to recharge between its being Drawn and being Played (which currently gives Draw, in effect, 3 charges, while also unfortunately delaying pulls by 30s). Removing Draw itself instead simply reduces AST's APM by 2 rather than dealing with the busyness.



Some Accordant Suggestions, in decreasing order of importance:

• Draw no longer cools while Drawn, only after being Played, reducing Draw charges from effectively 3 to truly just 2. This also means that the raid no longer needs to wait 30s for a 3-Card pull; such a pull is now impossible. This does mean that players are more pressured to play their first Card immediately, but given that they can Draw before combat starts and can thereby preselect a target, this seems a non-issue.
  
  
• Astrodyne now always generates buffs based on the particular Seals included, rather than the number of different Seals. Lunar always grants MP, Solar always grants Damage and Healing, and Celestial always grants Haste. Each additional of the same type has a halved effect (10|15|17.5% Haste, for instance), but it now has a 45s CD, to keep players from always hitting it from a single Seal. Solar Sign increased to a 8% damage and healing increase.
  
  This means that players are free to hit Astrodyne earlier, rather than needing to plug in 3 Cards, while Astrodyne itself is also capable of feeling more impactful. Note that this would tune AST's rDPS higher if not for it needing more MP.
  
  
• Needlessly low MP costs increased so that Lunar Astrodyne can be of occasional value. Aspected Helios MP cost increased from 800 to 1100 (barely above Medica II). Helios MP cost increased from 700 to 900 (equal to Medica). Aspected Benefic MP cost increased from 400 to 600. Benefic II MP cost increased from 700 to 900 (still somehow lower than Cure II). More importantly, Essential Dignity and Celestial Intersection now cost 400 MP and Celestial Opposition and Horoscope 600 MP.
  
  Aside: Cure II MP cost decreased from 1000 to 800. Medica MP cost reduced to 800.
  
  
• Enhanced Draw II will attempt to grant its Solar, Lunar, or Celestial Sign just slightly later, allowing the buff itself to draw enmity if used upon a target already engaged in combat. In this way, one no longer needs to enter combat, themselves, before using Cards without wasting Seals; using a Card on any engaged party member will already be sufficient.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

don’t allow you to draw outside of combat

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That would be the clunkiest solution while also being unnecessary (compared to just not having Draw recharge before its Card is played, which is essentially just reverting its cooling procedure).

Therefore it's probably what the devs will go for.

So in a best case burst window, AST would have:

2 Draws (1 card already held)
3 Plays
2 Astrodynes
2 Lord of Crowns
1 Minor Arcana
1 Divination
Potentially 2 Redraws
Lightspeed and Tincture are used beforehand, so it doesn't contribute to the business of the burst window

So that's 13 OGCDs, 6 double weaves. If Astrodyne is deleted, you remove 2/13. But you also eliminate needing to Redraw wrong seals, so you potentially eliminate 4/13 weaves. I wouldn't exactly call that an insignificant amount.

7 double weaves on PC, an inordinate amount of weaving on console, which is part of AST’s problem, and that’s assuming you would ever redraw 3 times which is exceedingly unlikely due to clarifying redraw, so likely 3/14 at best ignoring console

I am seeing lots of different suggestions. I guess we will just have to see what they have in store for us.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

What did you find the best way to do that? Something like...

/macroicon Draw
/ac Play
/ac Draw

...? Just thinking off the top of my head on that. Will have to test it out later. But the logic flow of "cast Play first; if you have a card drawn, plays it, if not, cannot play, so; cast Draw" makes sense to me. Not sure how well that weaves, though, being a macro and all.

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You need 1x bar free, and you need to create macro for each party member
and line it up near your party frames. (8 members)

First Macro:

/micon "Play"
/ac "Play" <1>

Second macro:

/micon "Play"
/ac "Play" <2>

..ect

Do this to you reach 8 macros.

I use Draw, and i click ( with my mouse button) on the macro next to the party memeber i want to buff...
All my direct/non-aoe heals are also mouse-over macros..

Agreed, I changed my UI as well to apply cards, it's quite easy and effective. However I don't know if that applies to console players?

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Originally Posted by Zeastria

You need 1x bar free, and you need to create macro for each party member
and line it up near your party frames. (8 members)

First Macro:

/micon "Play"
/ac "Play" <1>

<snip>

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Out of curiosity, why not at that point just use soft-targeting for Play itself and use the macros for quick targeting of party members, and/or at least let the macros double-up as means of quickly swapping to the given party member without DPad scrolling?