Bring Back Stormblood AST - A Call Out To Everyone

I would like to address the AST rework as someone who has played, main and loved Astrologian since 3.0 Heavensward.

First and foremost, to those of you who expect every job to be easy and "accessible", work on your skills and get good instead of dragging everyone else down to your level of pitiful skillsets. It is thanks to you guys, the loud minority who wants everything to be "accessible", that we have a botched AST job, not to mention SMN and SCH which I'm sure many has complaints about on their respective threads.

Stormblood AST was fine. The RNG of the cards along with the Nocturnal and Diurnal stances were what made AST stand out, but thanks to the "accessibility crowd", it has lost that identity. It was a healer job with a higher skill ceiling, and many prided themselves to be the top of that pyramid, and rightfully so, just like Black Mages.
Sure, one can say that the removal of TP altogether was what caused the entire overhaul in Shadowbringers, but I would argue otherwise. SE could've just changed Spire into a movement speed card and that would have sufficed, but no, it is because of you guys, ALL the cards became damage buffs instead, making it a not only lore breaking from the job quests, but also braindead.

To those like me, who kept quiet, who were complicit with the change, and are now complaining about it, you guys brought this upon yourselves as well. I hold myself responsible and accountable for not voicing my opinions sooner and being part of the silent majority just to stay out of "drama" because we all know how things can escalate, but not anymore. I know that people from the "accessibility crowd" will start calling me an elitist and labelling me whatever names they can muster, but I no longer care about that. All I care about now is the Astrologian job and bringing back its former glory days as the highest skill ceiling among the healer jobs.

And to those who have always been fighting the good fight, pushing back against these unwanted, unfun, unengaging changes, I thank you for your hard work, and sincerely apologize for not fighting alongside you guys sooner. I truly understand how it feels to have a beloved job have it's identity stripped away and left with only an empty shell. With that said, I want you to know that your voices have been heard, and that many of us, the silent majority are now voicing out, and we will pushback against those who only want the job to be easy, without putting any effort in learning the job itself and ruining job after job for all of us.
(1/2)

To Square Enix, thank you for always taking our suggestions and opinions into consideration, however, there is a fine line between listening and pandering. I believe that criticism can come in two forms when it comes to jobs and classes; from those who want the job to be engaging, and from those who want the job to be easy for themselves. I understand that it is hard to balance both sides and take both sides into consideration, however, sometimes, you as the dev should also stand your ground and defend your own original design choices. Now that many of us are against the changes not only for AST, but also SMN and SCH, I trust that there is work to be done, and hopefully you are able to go back to your roots, your original design choices as those were what made the jobs fun. It was those choices that made the jobs have their own unique identities.

Lastly, I hope that in the near future, Astrologian will have these cards and skills back in their arsenal:
https://i.redd.it/ydxsg2g5p0g01.jpg
**Note: These were the original card effects from Heavensward to Stormblood.
***Change Spire to a movement speed increase buff since we no longer have TP as a resource.
-Bring Draw back.
-Bring Redraw back.
-Bring Royal Road back.
-Keep the existing Lord and Lady cards
-Umbral/Astral Draw -> Sleeve Draw @ 120secs cooldown
-If possible, let us also have our stances back. Both Nocturnal and Diurnal Sects as those are part of their core indentity.

MAKE ASTROLOGIAN GREAT AGAIN
(2/2)

If they will do that, that means SCH will have to lose Chain Stratagem since it is exactly what an AoE RR Spear does. I like it.

It wouldn't work..

But I beleive that they go too far into accessibility aspect..

Not all jobs should be easy.. not all job should be straight forward.. high risk high reward think of it

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Originally Posted by rawker

If they will do that, that means SCH will have to lose Chain Stratagem since it is exactly what an AoE RR Spear does. I like it.

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Why not have both? We used to have Chain Strategem in Stormblood anyway. I remember always switching to Selene for her CD Reduction buff whenever I use Chain Strategem, then back to Eos when I need the heals and regens.

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Originally Posted by Tunda

It wouldn't work..

But I beleive that they go too far into accessibility aspect..

Not all jobs should be easy.. not all job should be straight forward.. high risk high reward think of it

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Those are cards from the Heavensward to Stormblood expansion though, the original 6. It worked back then, and it will work again. It's the players that will need to adapt and get good at using cards instead of wanting it to be streamlined. And yes, AST used to be a high risk high reward job which many of us loved.

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Originally Posted by BUNNYisaac

It worked back then, and it will work again.

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It literally didn’t though and that’s why they had to change it lol. You had 6 cards, yeah, but in practice you had one (Balance) and two cards that existed to make it aoe (Spire/Ewer).

Arrow’s GCD Haste cannot exist in ffxiv as an ally-granted support effect under any circumstances because of how fixed rotations are (see: black mage timers getting thrown off in HW/SB because the AST arrowed them).

Spear’s Crit rate increases would scale exponentially (I think); either it’s useless next to balance, or it’s so powerful it’s not worth using anything else.

MP Regen as an ally-granted support ability isn’t allowed to exist in FFXIV anymore (see: ranged dps having fixed raid spots in HW/SB because of songs/autoturret promotions / refresh). No job can have it.

Bole has the exact same problem it has now (an effect literally nobody needs that we can already grant with a plethora of reliable, non-rng abilities).


I’m all for giving Astrologian more varied and unique cards, but let’s not pretend the original versions didn’t have a bunch of their own problems; not to mention they existed in what’s essentially a completely different gameplay design to what we have now.

I loved Stormblood version honestly I thought it worked fine when I played lol

I honestly think we should get a mix of Stormblood and shadowbringers ast.
The issue i have with stormblood ast is the mixture of DPS and utility cards, outside of that RNG is fine.

How to make Astro both RNG but not also lose out on major damage? Split the card systems from stormblood.

This can easily be done considering we already had a second card system named Minor arcana, which instead of uninteresting "do damage or heal" rng could have been where you placed the damage buff cards, Astro would keep its frequent damage buffing aspects with this, it's also pretty simple as Lords & ladies can serve the same purpose as one buff goes to range/caster/healer and one buff goes to Dps/tank which is still RNG, You wouldn't really need a redraw for this as it wouldn't have "astrodyne" or any other annoying effect attached to it.

For your "utility cards" I think you could also add a cooldown on 90-120s that turns a card into a AOE it's effect to the team, so you could turn a 10% mitigation card into a aoe mitigation, or a strong aoe regen ect. This would add some interesting depth to the "RNG Support" astro could provide.

For Job space, this would be removing play 2 & 3, so redraw can be added back for utility cards & theirs enough space for a new skill such as the AOE Card, Their also might be the need for a minor arcana draw So this would be one extra button, It's clear that synastry should be removed, but ill go a step further and say removed benefic 1 (upgrades into 2) and repose on all healers, that would even leave room for more skills... mayhaps one that would extend buff timers like a regen... or something perhaps x)

Also to note i really want Nocturnal back, i doubt it because they're intent on having "barrier/pure split" (which is funny because all healers now have aoe barriers, group mits and barrier healers are starting to have pretty high "pure healing" I don't even get this) but I would hope they can add this back at least whenever they decide on a 5th healer...

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Originally Posted by Connor

It literally didn’t though and that’s why they had to change it lol. You had 6 cards, yeah, but in practice you had one (Balance) and two cards that existed to make it aoe (Spire/Ewer).

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First off, they streamlined it because it was the least played class due to people not knowing how to use the card mechanics.
Second, anyone who only fishes for balance either don't know how to use their cards, or are very shortsighted.
I have never had anyone complain to me about getting an arrow card, rather they like it because they want to go fast, so I have no idea what you mean at all. Besides, if you really do have a concern for GCD timers being thrown off, what's the harm in using that arrow on yourself instead for faster heals?
Again, if you're going to fish for cards, this time spear if it's scaled exponentially, you're not using your cards right.
MP regen is still a viable card as everyone literally uses MP.
Bole isn't always only used on tanks, but then again what's the harm in stacking on extra defense when you can?
If efficiency is all you want, well I'm sorry to tell you that AST is not all about efficiency, but rather deal with diversity.

Let's not forget that you are not always going to get the same cards, and you can only draw them once every 30 secs. Not every card has to be a damage buff either, and and that's the beauty, the identity of the job itself. It's all in the matter of how the player utilizes them. If they are smart, they'll know when and how to use those cards. As Tunda stated above, high risk, high reward. Not every class has to have a raid wide buff that is streamlined for everyone. Just because AST introduces some variance in a raid, and now you're like ants on a hot wok? Give me a break.

It seems like a lot of people forget or don't know that the cards can be used not only on their teammates, but also on themselves, or they just straight up don't know what to do with the cards and use them recklessly, and I really don't want to trash on EN players, but I've ever only heard EN players complaining about EVERYTHING being hard for them... like... how? From FF14 to Elden Ring, it's always EN players that are complaining. Maybe it's just my perspective as a JP player, but seriously, stop making games dull.

I started the game on Endwalker's launch, so I didn't have the opportunity to play old astro. It looks even better than the job I already liked, and at this point any changes are better than this DT fiasco.

Pls don't thank SE for taking into account our feedback, they don't (only JP matters).

How would it exist within the current framework? In the pic you posted, one of the cards gives back MP/TP. But resources in 2024 have been sort of smoothed out of existence, you know? Everyone's able to sustain themselves in that regard. Nobody cares about having their MP restored, and TP doesn't exist. Then you look at things like skill speed. I mean, maybe? Maybe someone would want to be buffed in a way that skews their entire rotation? Or maybe they'd just get mad and beg you to keep it off them because it ruins their muscle memory. Even when it was current, if I recall, people just fished for the %dmg card and then complained when they didn't get it. Hell, in DT look what they did. Gave us more of these "incomparable" style cardbuffs, but the game's so sanitized at this point that what could they even provide? A single target shield. Some additional healing. Big whoop.

I agree with the spirit of your post, OP. I think AST would be more enjoyable in an older form, because the current version of it basically strips away all of its card mechanics. You draw the same cards. You don't shuffle anymore. It feels very railroaded and consistent now, and I don't like it. But in considering where the game is right now, I think the SHB version is the happiest combination of "personal enjoyment" and "how the game actually is at the moment." It has all the fun of drawing and shuffling and even gives some buffs through the minor arcanas, but the buffs are all %dmg because this game's so watered down that that's all there's even room for anymore. Your HW rollback would require a revamp of how parties interact with each other in order to be viable, because now things like MP and TP resources would need to return and be in constant use. Personally, I think those sorts of dependencies are important as well, but look at where the devs are taking this game. There's no way they'll roll it back to that. They want everyone to be an island.

https://files.catbox.moe/zxui8j.png

Here's shb ast for anyone curious. Less unique cards, but still a very robust system and 2 fun sects that blows the current kit and the EW kit out of the water imo.

In any case, I'm genuinely curious to pick your mind on what kinds of buffs they could include that aren't strictly damage but would still feel relevant in the current game.

Nah, I’m in agreement. Bring back Stormblood AST. Bring back Royal Road and Time Dilation. Heck, bring back the sects at this point, even if Nocturnal constantly suffered from being objectively worse than Diurnal for the job. I haven’t been able to play AST with nearly the enjoyment that I had back in Heavensward and Stormblood, so if I woke up and saw that SB AST was back, I’d be over the moon. And, at this point, I feel like developers are highly selective about “job balance” in this game; so why not just let one job be broken with its AOE Balance capabilities.

I can appreciate the new variety of cards, but there are still “useless ones” in the bunch. I guess if I have a WAR I can give them new Arrow, but I already have so many healing resources and healers are so overpowered in terms of their healing versus incoming damage, a buff to healing potency was the last thing they really needed. Especially if content isn’t going to do more damage and actually challenge healers from a healing perspective in a party of merely average skill.

I don’t know. Maybe I will just always be salty that my favorite healer was gutted and all the fun aspects I enjoyed removed from it. I can recognize that at least.

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Originally Posted by Connor

Spear’s Crit rate increases would scale exponentially (I think); either it’s useless next to balance, or it’s so powerful it’s not worth using anything else.

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Spear’s crit rate would be a lot more valuable if they had kept certain jobs that benefited from crit scaling (e.g., SB BRD and SB MNK, both of which had job mechanics that relied heavily on critical hit percentage for procs). There were situations in SB where it was better to give the BRD a Spear over a Balance due to the crit scaling—especially when we reached Alphascape and crit scaling was at its highest. Besides, crit has always been the best substat. The can’t seem to balance any of the others against it. If jobs still had those nuances and weren’t so streamlined and braindead, old Spear would still have its uses and applications over Balance.

But all of this “BALANCE ONLY” was purely from the speedrun meta perspective. This would not affect the average player—and while balance should ideally be done with higher skill in mind versus lower skill, balancing purely for speedrun metas is not a good idea, in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Teno

Pls don't thank SE for taking into account our feedback, they don't (only JP matters).

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Several JP threads are asking for it back to.

I want HW AST back....

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Originally Posted by Avoidy

In any case, I'm genuinely curious to pick your mind on what kinds of buffs they could include that aren't strictly damage but would still feel relevant in the current game.

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Not OP. My fav AST was HW/SB. I miss Time Dialation and Old Celestial Opposition and Nocturnal Sect. I saw someone mentioning turning Lord/Lady into DPS buff for RNG and DPS buff For Melee instead of heal/dmg and I like that idea a lot.

For the other six cards, potential actions:
* Played on enemy for 15% decrease in enemy DEF for 15 seconds. (If we are bringing back Royal Road, variants could possibly include: 30% decrease in DEF for 10 seconds, 7% decrease in DEF for 15 seconds plus 5% decrease in DEF on all nearby enemies, and 10% decrease in def for 30 seconds, or something along those lines)
* Played on enemy, removes enemy immunity to status ailments for 15 seconds (see above for some ideas on Royal Road Variants)
* Played on enemy, halts auto-attacks for 15 seconds (again, Royal Road could increase the duration or make it spread to multiple enemies for shorter time)

* Played on party member: makes immune to bleeds and status ailments for 15 seconds (royal road extend duration, make aoe for shorter time, etc) (perfect for that first AOE in every single final floor and/or the first tank buster in the first three floors because the devs cannot think of any other way to open a fight -- but I can't think of a lot of other places this would get used in casual content soooo probably not the best idea--i'm just salty that the opening of every fight is this predictable.)
* MP Regen. Yes, please, just bring it back because almost every healer is now out here in this awful MP Economy
* A card that is essentially Old Celestial Opposition/Old Time Dilation. The base draw is to extend current players' buffs by 20 seconds. Royal Road variants: AoE, longer duration but only for buffs applied by the AST, etc

Also, I am of the opinion that people who did "fish for balance" were either 1.) Casual players and that was FINE. That was absolutely fine. They were playing content where it didn't matter, let them fish for balance in peace. 2. People who wanted speedruns and numbers of a certain hue and would wipe for a "bad" draw. The "average" high-end player / savage runner knew how to make the best situation out of the draw. Both as part of the "job fantasy" and also just a knowledge of other classes and how a card could make up for that classes weakness, play up its strengths, and/or awareness of the fight in general.

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Originally Posted by BUNNYisaac

Why not have both? We used to have Chain Strategem in Stormblood anyway. I remember always switching to Selene for her CD Reduction buff whenever I use Chain Strategem, then back to Eos when I need the heals and regens.

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Heavensward SCH didn't have Chain Stratagem and it was fine. If anything, I'd rather have Eye for an Eye back and just give all the damage buffing to AST.

I Would love for thise to Happen tbh.

Sadly never got into AST too deeply during StB as I was just starting to reach endgame during that time, and barely unlocked Royal Road before Shadowbringers hit.

But even so, it was interesting during dungeons to figure out "what do these people do again so I can give the cards to the right people."
There were tanks not using mits that made every bole worth it's weight in gold. Similarly for ewer in runs that needed all the rezzes.
It didn't work out that way all the time, but when it did, you really felt like a mage grasping fate and making it work for you.

I'd prefer ShB AST to come back but honestly, I'll take anything over the current AST.

I agree with your feeling but I still think that no matter what you say, the reality is that the meta was royal road fodder for balance and spear cards when balance couldn't be fished. I do think support cards and damage cards need to be detached from each other, but otherwise the system is sound and I do miss it.

I however do not agree with the fact that nobody complained about being fed an arrow card. I played MCH and I can assure you that not only this was a DPS loss for that job (yeah the AST could have fed it to someone else, but sometimes it was AoE), which was indeed a peculiarity in the roster, but I still had to click this shit off my buffs in order not to upset the heat rotation.

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Originally Posted by Connor

It literally didn’t though and that’s why they had to change it lol. You had 6 cards, yeah, but in practice you had one (Balance) and two cards that existed to make it aoe (Spire/Ewer).

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While your approach is valid, you are seeing the gameplay as a mathematical equation only.

A game can be approached from different angles. And while numerical superiority might be one for people, other reasons do exist.

For me it was using the cards I was dealt (heh) to adapt around a given situation. That's where the fun for me was. It wasn't [damage up] for the sake of it.

And as an aside, the game is fundamentally going in the wrong direction by appeasing only people who look at numbers.

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Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

Several JP threads are asking for it back to.

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Ah nice, then we have a shot at it.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

While your approach is valid, you are seeing the gameplay as a mathematical equation only.

A game can be approached from different angles. And while numerical superiority might be one for people, other reasons do exist.

For me it was using the cards I was dealt (heh) to adapt around a given situation. That's where the fun for me was. It wasn't [damage up] for the sake of it.

And as an aside, the game is fundamentally going in the wrong direction by appeasing only people who look at numbers.

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I mean, I understand the point, but simplistic mathematical equation is essentially all ffxiv gameplay is now and the devs have made it abundantly clear they want to keep it this way. Hence the constant removal/reduction of things that may cause dps loss or variations, like standardising ‘support buffs’ into just ‘increases damage up’. Can’t lose dps using the wrong card if there’s only card after all. Look at what they done to Black Mage and Monk because of ‘non-standard rotations’. For the ffxiv developers there simply cannot be ‘more than one way to play’. There is the ‘right way’ and the ‘wrong way’, and they will be extremely vague about which is which (or the times they were literally just wrong like with release Ninja lol).

As I said I’m all for more varied support options for Astrologian (and all ‘support oriented’ jobs like Bard and Dancer). But unfortunately everything in the history of the games design supports the idea that there simply is no space in ffxiv for varied support abilities. Especially not things generally associated with ‘supporters’ like Haste, MP Regen, sub-stat increases over basic damage boosts, etc. Those (when they’re allowed to exist) are consigned to the ‘optional side-content with unique progression system’ like Bozja.

Again I’d love to have interesting support effects, actual control over them and their deployment, rng for AST so you’re constantly having to consider how best to leverage what you have access to.
I mean, my favourite iteration of Bard was still HW, I loved the control and thought you had to put into Bard songs because of the MP cost/Cast times/encounter context. I even liked being able to cast Warden’s Paean as an actual Esuna spell and not yet another boring ‘press here for support and never think about me again’, even if it was completely useless outside of PvP. Current Paean as a gcd-cast song would genuinely make me happy lol.

Sadly, with how both job and encounter design are, I simply to have to accept that these things just aren’t ever going to happen. I’ve already spent every expansion being extremely disappointed in how ffxiv handles ‘support’ in general and I just don’t see that changing anytime soon sadly. I feel like the main message the devs have sent this expansion is ‘if you don’t like you can always leave’

Not just AST but almost every class was better in SB. The combat in general was at it's best back then.

Just commenting to agree. The class doesn't have to totally go back to the way it was, but I loved the RNG aspect of the class because it kept me thinking on the fly. LOVED what the old Stormblood cards did, but I also loved the addition of things like Astrodyne to make my DPS "rotation" a little more fun and fast. The rework is slow, boring, and I don't use half my cards anymore at all. Just a 111111111 2 bore. And I completely agree with the initial post - I am fine with different classes being more difficult to learn than others, it's why I picked up AST in the first place. If you're struggling with a class, watch some videos and practice!

Somehow they managed to make the card system take even more buttons than before. Playing this job on keyboard already requires a decent level of finger skills - can't even think how stupid must be on gamepad.


We've moved from all +dmg cards to a system where you get fixed draws. I'd much rather have a sorter cooldown on draw and to only draw 1-2 random cards per round than this. It makes no sense to draw cards and know them before pulling them!!! it goes against the nature of any card game lol

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Originally Posted by Sani2341

It didn't work out that way all the time, but when it did, you really felt like a mage grasping fate and making it work for you.

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And that's exactly what AST is all about, which many have forgotten or seem to neglect. Thank you for pointing this out!

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Originally Posted by BahamutxD

Somehow they managed to make the card system take even more buttons than before. Playing this job on keyboard already requires a decent level of finger skills - can't even think how stupid must be on gamepad.


We've moved from all +dmg cards to a system where you get fixed draws. I'd much rather have a sorter cooldown on draw and to only draw 1-2 random cards per round than this. It makes no sense to draw cards and know them before pulling them!!! it goes against the nature of any card game lol

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omg The extra buttons really threw me off! I use a gaming mouse with TWELVE extra buttons on it, and it doesn't feel like enough now (,:

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Originally Posted by BUNNYisaac

The RNG of the cards along with the Nocturnal and Diurnal stances were what made AST stand out

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This. ^

My main issue is the whole flavour of AST has been removed. The flavour of diving/tarot should mean the cards are random. Cards from any kind of deck are not fixed, so I'm not sure what strange fixed deck the devs are playing with. And looking to the stars, day or night, gave us our sects.

The original lore and flavour of AST is the reason I, and many others, have been maining AST since HW... but now it just feels like a shell of itself, not to mention that the excitement and thinking-on-your-toes gameplay is gone.

I disagree with the approach the developers are taking to make all jobs totally accessible, because they're all getting blander and generic. There should absolutely be different skill levels in different jobs, to suit players of all abilities, but I don't think all jobs should be watered down to be 'equal'.

I'm pushing through to 100 with AST but this xpac I'm struggling to enjoy it.