I made a mistake by ignoring the dev discussions (AST changes)

[ForteNightshade]

White Mage is supposedly a powerhouse right now. So if you're looking to stay on Healer, I recommend giving it a good. Otherwise, Dancer is tons of fun. Friend of mine can't stop raving about it. May be worth giving it a whirl.

[MOZZYSTAR]

I feel you, OP. I didn't like the changes in theory while watching the livestreams and I definitely didn't like them in play. I was also fairly disappointed by how "empty" my other class, BRD, is and how boring my only tank glass is. So, I decided to forego all my main classes in favour of something else. I liked how Gunbreaker felt a lot, but I don't have the confidence to tank in raids and such (weak, I know!). So, I decided on DNC. It, to me, is more boring than bard was before 5.0 because it doesn't have a lot of strategy to it (thus far, at level 66), but it's a "fresh start" so I don't have anything to go by that led to me to disappointment.


I do like the MSQ so far! So, once you find another class to play (if that's the route you choose, I know there are some ASTs playing but it's mostly WHM with the very, very rare scholar [much rarer than AST]), I hope you can enjoy it.

[DiznypKC]

yea... i have no clue where people are getting this from
i mean, yes, they give a crit buff and direct hit buff, but that's also only to them and their dance partner on a 120s cooldown or something... so, like............?
they definitely were not given astro buffs

Soooooo...a damage buff, a crit buff, a shield, regen...these are not buffs Astro had pre 5.0? Am I missing something? /s

Yes I was exaggerating a bit. But my point was why give the healer a pure damage buff and give the DPS shields and cures?

[Yakugami]

a damage buff

what is Devotion, then?
what is Embolden, then?

a crit buff

what is Battle Litany, then?
what is Chain Stratagem, then? (though, at least a little differently, for this one)

a shield

literally where
it's troubadour and tactician, if you mean the damage resist

regen

again literally where
DNC gives a small aoe heal, that's more like medica than anything

exaggerating a bit.

that's much more than a "bit" at that point
EVERYONE is over exaggerating, that was my point

everyone is freaking out a lot more than they need to, it's not necessarily just directed to you, so don't take that part too personally
(though i may have over-sassed in this post, which i guess i apologize for maybe a little bit)

some of their choices this expansion ARE concerns to cause an uproar about, i'm not trying to dismiss that, and imply that everyone should blindly accept the developers point of view, especially when it's met with a huge community backlash

it's just...i just think people need to make better arguments for their concerns over WHY it needs fixing and what's actually wrong

[CarnivalNights]

"Aww man, another useless Spire card."
"Aww man, there goes another useless Bole card."
Aww man @ anything that isn't a Balance card.

The community got its wish.

Maybe you didn't, but this was general sentiment around AST and now they're complaining again about it.

[Seoulstar]

"Aww man, another useless Spire card."
"Aww man, there goes another useless Bole card."
Aww man @ anything that isn't a Balance card.

The community got its wish.

Maybe you didn't, but this was general sentiment around AST and now they're complaining again about it.

Can we please stop grouping the AST's that solely fished for balance with the AST's that actually enjoyed the class and used all the cards? I'm getting tired of seeing that same repetitive comment. Most of us didn't whine when we didn't get a balance.

[CarnivalNights]

Can we please stop grouping the AST's that solely fished for balance with the AST's that actually enjoyed the class and used all the cards? I'm getting tired of seeing that same repetitive comment. Most of us didn't whine when we didn't get a balance.

Yeah, I'm sure the reasoning for the change was that the community didn't mind it so much that it had to be changed.

[Yakugami]

Can we please stop grouping the AST's that solely fished for balance with the AST's that actually enjoyed the class and used all the cards? I'm getting tired of seeing that same repetitive comment. Most of us didn't whine when we didn't get a balance.

i'll start by saying, again, i still disagree with the way they handled cards this expansion

however, to be fair, it definitely should have changed, regardless of the community "whines" or not

expansions will mean classes evolve

just because some people enjoy their classes and doing the same thing for years and years and years each expansion, doesn't mean it's healthy for the game to have classes that don't change and evolve their rotations and mechanics over time, especially when they're outdated, or are completely overwhelming compared to other options, even with minor tweaks, simply because of how mechanics directly affect the game

them wanting to change the card mechanic made perfect sense, they just.... yea, kinda also didn't exactly do it very well, but, still

you know what else is "the same repetitive comment"?
people going around saying that "wE uSeD aLl OuR cArDs"
that's great for you and those who accepted being inefficient

but an entire class shouldn't be balanced around "muh nostalgia" and "i have "options" even though those "options" are really just unnecessary fluff"
(again, yes, i dislike what they currently did; i don't find it entertaining to have 7 buttons dedicated to sub 10% damage bonus, that IS bad, i agree)

but basically it was also pretty bad even before when you actually look at it
(as a mechanic, i get that AST was still top pick healer due to what they offered, but that's not what i mean here, it's trying to fish for damage to be efficient that caused the mechanic itself to be bad as a concept)

(cont....)

[Yakugami]

(cont...)

Spire would be useless now, because TP is gone

Bole is basically a bad concept overall, because giving ONE healer a damage resist would either mean "if the other healers can't out-heal the mechanics/tank busters/pressure from mobs, then this one can because it has damage mitigation in a form the others don't have" and that makes it mandatory, otherwise, the damage resistance is unnecessary fluff, because none of the other healers have a problem with it
and this "fluff" comes at the cost of getting clogged up with a damage boost mechanic, and that, simply put, is clunky

Balance/Spear/Arrow, no matter what you want to pretend about your "utility" being lost, were simply all damage buffs

yea, sure, you could put arrow on a healer for them to heal faster to deal with mechanics, but this is another bole situation: the healers should be able to deal with it, without needing an RNG-proc from a specific class, otherwise, it's trashy, or the healers are trashy (role-wise, not player skill-wise)

same thing if you were trying to argue it's for the BLM; if the BLM can't cast because of mobility mechanics, then "evolve" BLM as a class for the expansion in order to handle it, don't lock them behind needing a haste buff from an RNG-proc from one specific class

the only real argument i can think of that i'd agree with about the loss of "utility" from cards is Ewer, as it IS pretty unfortunate that SCH/WHM can refresh MP, yet AST can't, i think that's a pretty garbo concept, but it's still not the end of the world
though this ties in why i (personally) dislike what they did with the card mechanic; we have so many buttons dedicated to this, we end up losing other real spells, and one of those spells could have been an MP refresh of some kind

Lord/Lady could also be debatable, but even those were barely useful, as again, you lost out on using those "niche" cards for another 30s, such as bole and ewer, and again turns into "well the other healers don't have these on an rng basis, so they can't be mandatory", though i wish those were on a separate draw/card mechanic that you could use alongside the current card mechanic, and were still damage/heal, that would have been fine in some form

and yet again in case of TLDR, no, i don't agree with what they did with current cards, but they certainly are well within acceptable limits to change them in the first place