Yoshi-P's Interview with Famitsu includes a few comments about AST

[Geardagas]

What if the cards themselves had a small healing potency attached to them? Like "here's an attack boost and a mini cure" all in one move. That way if you drew a card you didnt need, you could still throw it on someone who needs a (mp free) hp boost. That could also make up for the lower potency of all the other heals.

That's been discussed, but it still doesn't change the fact that 3 of the cards are useless, and you'd still be always praying for balance.

We have 3 cards that benefit DPS (two of which aren't nearly as good as balance), two cards that benefit the tank (bole and spire), and one card that benefits the healer. The three DPS cards aren't situational; all three simply increase DPS. Therefore the best thing to do would be to completely remake spear and arrow into a unique effect that doesn't just increase DPS less than balance would. I also think that, should a secondary healing potency increase be implemented, it should last much longer than the main buff. Being on par with other healers 50% of the time sounds really frustrating.

[Muahbec]

And that is what some of us want. I dont want the job to change.I hope they just do a few tweaks.

What the?
Taranok just changed some of the AST aspects to bring more originality to the job his idea wouldn't change the whole job concept.
Also, why do you want a whm/sch jr? what's the point of that? Every healing job should be unique.
Seriously, i can't understand your mind.
AST doesn't need just a "few tweaks" it needs balancing if not some SERIOUS balancing, but as i said before, since SE decided to "brilliantly" make a hybrid job instead of a new and fresh one balancing this mess will be a problem.

[Nihility]

It doesn't need a total overhaul. If we had a way to buff our own healing temporarily or a way to shove our missing healing to the other healer, our healing would be fine. If cards were more reliable or more effective, they would be fine, too. Neither of those need a total reworking of the class.

They really do though.
The whole problem with astro right now is it's stances are very nearly a direct copy of WHM and SCH, even their dps kit is a lesser version of aero, aero 2, stone 3, and holy
They are so close to the classes they mimic that as it stands now with nothing but number tweaking AST will either be inferior to the classes it mimics giving it no real place or it will be superior and replace both of them. Both outcomes are terrible for the game as a whole

If they made it a unique healer with similar output capabilities to the other healers instead of a mimic it would be more balance-able

I have played it on all levels and outside of being an oddly amazing pvp healer it really falls short of the other healers by a mile. It's kind of funny how it's weaknesses get highlighted when you play the same content with it and other healers. Like oppressor in savage when i'm on scholar i absolutely love being targeted by the prey, it's like he's trying to make it easy on me. When i'm on astro it feels like a worst case scenario to be the prey target

[Taranok]

To be the devil's advocate, it's easy for us to play backseat developer..

This is definitely correct, and your followup on their chief design is the source of the Astrologian's woes. They need to design the class to its role assuming that it will work with either without being a "replacement" for it, which they did the opposite, that it is a replacement.

EDIT: I think the source of the misunderstanding here is that we consider "major redesign of the class" to be different. It seems we are in agreement in which abilities need to be changed and to what extent.

It's likely stemmed from something semmantical. Regardless, it was a misunderstanding and I apologize if I misconstrued your intent one way or the other.

I have played it on all levels and outside of being an oddly amazing pvp healer it really falls short of the other healers by a mile. It's kind of funny how it's weaknesses get highlighted when you play the same content with it and other healers. Like oppressor in savage when i'm on scholar i absolutely love being targeted by the prey, it's like he's trying to make it easy on me. When i'm on astro it feels like a worst case scenario to be the prey target

After leveling summoner up to 60, I went to Scholar not having played it in near-literally a year. I was utterly baffled at how much easier it was to heal even the expert dungeons when I had no clue how to efficiently play the class. Now I'm raising White Mage, presently at level 53, and it's so much easier than Astrologian to play that I wonder why Astrologian is even given "healer" as a role at this point. I can keep groups alive in content that the AST would definitely wipe in simply because I have actual options when everything starts going south. Primarily, the option is literally just Divine Seal by itself.

The AST desperately needs cooldowns.

[Assirra]

What the?
Taranok just changed some of the AST aspects to bring more originality to the job his idea wouldn't change the whole job concept.
Also, why do you want a whm/sch jr? what's the point of that? Every healing job should be unique.
Seriously, i can't understand your mind.
AST doesn't need just a "few tweaks" it needs balancing if not some SERIOUS balancing, but as i said before, since SE decided to "brilliantly" make a hybrid job instead of a new and fresh one balancing this mess will be a problem.

It is Vlady, the one man "i boost dragoon dps by 400, transfer to my server for proof" crusade.
Everyone should just throw him on ignore since he never has anything useful to say.

[nyttyn]

It is Vlady, the one man "i boost dragoon dps by 400, transfer to my server for proof" crusade.
Everyone should just throw him on ignore since he never has anything useful to say.

You mean boost dragoon DPS by 1000 right?

[Pentacus]

You mean boost dragoon DPS by 1000 right?

if you're making reference to the "bard 1000 DPS per second" meme, sadly he isn't.

Vlady has actually claimed to be able to boost a dragoon's DPS by 400.

(of course when anyone asks him to back the claim up, he tells them to transfer to his server rather than just posting a parse, and on the one occasion someone WAS on his server and arranged a time to meet him, he was mysteriously "unavailable")

[Waterdeep]

If they really want the AST to be a unique support healer they have to do something like the BRD in XI and have them juggle buffs. Get rid of shield stance and make it literally buff stance and allow the AST to switch during combat.

Nocturnal Sect
-swapps MND and INT like Cleric, same cd as well
-Card Draw cd is 10 seconds
-adds 5 seconds on card buff duration
-gets rid of the -50% on spread
-Disable lasts now 10 seconds
-boosts AST acc
-10% shield on Collective

There, AST now has a stance where they can DPS and dish out buffs. Yes the random would still hurt them, but being able to have 2 card effects run for most of the time should do well. Works well with WHM and SCH.

[Ametrine]

You all are putting forth fantastic suggestions, and I've benched my lvl 50 AST on the simple fact that weaker heals means I literally have no time to do any card drawing or dps. This is compared to my SCH main, which never feels underpowered.

It's so frustrating to never feel like I can heal fast enough. The heals are so tiny, and aspected heals, despite mitigating the main heal's lack of potentcy, cost so much mana you can't rely on them.

The stances either need to make a larger impact, or need to be entirely rehauled. Perhaps make one reduce MP costs, and one reduce CDs/increase spell speed, and allow us to swap freely.

Essential Dignity needs a shorter CD.

Synastry doesn't last long enough.

I'm in the camp that finds the cards to be fine as they are. I don't mind the RNG or potency, but, as I said earlier, I don't get to full with them as much as I feel I should since I can rarely pause from actually healing @_@

[Ametrine]

If they really want the AST to be a unique support healer they have to do something like the BRD in XI and have them juggle buffs. Get rid of shield stance and make it literally buff stance and allow the AST to switch during combat.

Nocturnal Sect
-swapps MND and INT like Cleric, same cd as well
-Card Draw cd is 10 seconds
-adds 5 seconds on card buff duration
-gets rid of the -50% on spread
-Disable lasts now 10 seconds
-boosts AST acc
-10% shield on Collective

There, AST now has a stance where they can DPS and dish out buffs. Yes the random would still hurt them, but being able to have 2 card effects run for most of the time should do well. Works well with WHM and SCH.

I fucking love this idea.