Please continue bringing up AST and SCH issues.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

they won't, but I don't care any more ...

And this is why I don't bother bringing up any WHM issues. Just because it's doing well atm, people act like you can't complain about it's issues.

Nevermind Temperance mitigation taking 3 seconds to appear on party members.

Nevermind still not having any reliable weaving tools and having to clip unless we want to throw out a Lily heal for no reason.

Nevermind our DPS feeling just as boring as the other healers, if not moreso now that SCH has energy drain back.

WHM is basically the same as it was in SB,with the same issues it had. Only now it can output enough dps to warrant dealing with it. And SCH is catching up fast on that...
The only thing they could argue is fixed truly is mobile healing, and even that was lazily done by sticking instant heals on our GCD.
I can't quite explain how horrible it feels to throw out this weak aoe heal and have absolutely nothing else to weave in-between it.

But, since WHM is doing fine right at this moment, no one can bring anything up. You'll get shut down instantly while we slowly go back to AST and SCH being the undisputed kings of the raid.

[KanameYuuki]

And this is why I don't bother bringing up any WHM issues. Just because it's doing well atm, people act like you can't complain about it's issues.

Nevermind Temperance mitigation taking 3 seconds to appear on party members.

Nevermind still not having any reliable weaving tools and having to clip unless we want to throw out a Lily heal for no reason.

Nevermind our DPS feeling just as boring as the other healers, if not moreso now that SCH has energy drain back.

WHM is basically the same as it was in SB,with the same issues it had. Only now it can output enough dps to warrant dealing with it. And SCH is catching up fast on that...
The only thing they could argue is fixed truly is mobile healing, and even that was lazily done by sticking instant heals on our GCD.
I can't quite explain how horrible it feels to throw out this weak aoe heal and have absolutely nothing else to weave in-between it.

But, since WHM is doing fine right at this moment, no one can bring anything up. You'll get shut down instantly while we slowly go back to AST and SCH being the undisputed kings of the raid.

Pretty smart by SE, gutting SCH and AST just so WHM "looks to be in a good place" so we focus on the other 2 while forgetting all 3 are just as boring.

[tesni_g]

It's taken me a while to really pin down why I don't like the new cards so much.

At first, I said it was because each card doesn't feel impactful. It's more than that, though.

I can't remember too clearly how much targeting was required in SB cards, but I can say it was "a lot less targeting" than now. I used single target cards when it was the best option, but in general, I'd wind up doing that a few times a fight? Compared to now, which is seven times every two minutes, with three of those happening in quick succession. Controller player here. 3x in quick succession is doable but it's not fun and it's not satisfying, it's just stressful. I will echo the sentiment that I no longer look forward to drawing a card. Playing it is a chore and it's only reward is that I avoid the punishment of not using it.

The other complete but subtle change was the burst of cards. The goal of getting a card and an effect took a minute to build up, 90 seconds if you got a bad redraw or whatnot. Sleeve draw helped push out cards more often, but for the most part 1x a minute, you burst out cards and then build up again. Only the end result of this required targeting, and not every time. Often, we used aoe road effects which we used our own character as the center point for it, just like an aoe heal. Even then, targeting one player every sixty or ninety seconds for a powerful buff didn't feel bad. Clunky, but worthwhile.

There were "bad cards" but that's not a problem when there are plenty of ways to use bad cards. Worst case scenario was a bunch of Crowns. Less than optimal, but still worth using. Lord of Crowns never once felt bad to use.

The system now took the backloaded burst and sprayed it throughout the fight. This cycle requires most of the card shuffling as before with the added burden of putting each tiny buff on players to build a non-interactive gauge. Each card is little, the buff is little, and the burst is a yawn. Maybe it adds up to the same buffage as the old card system, but every moving part feels like nothing, so the whole thing feels like nothing.

Add in that Play as an ability is "spongey" makes this even less fun.

I could have adjusted to the "little buffs to little burst," because a strong burst is completely personal preference, but the targeting kills me. I could switch to keyboard and mouse, but that seems so unsatisfying. Why should I have to change my whole mode of operation to search for joy in the class I once loved so much? AST in its current iteration is broken for PS4 players. That's seven player targets every 2 minutes (with minimum six button presses to put one tiny buff on the first melee dps, more with redraw and arcana), on top of all the targeting we do for tanks/tethers/etc.

And again, it "can be done." I'm sure there are AST players on controllers who like the new system, who don't mind that it takes 4 presses just to target the first melee in the raid, or two for the last caster, seven times every two minutes, on top of the spot healing required. I've thought about making a macro where Melee cards go to Player 4 and Ranged cards go to Player 8 (sorting party so BLM goes in the last spot, SAM in the first). Less than optimal, sure, but it's probably less clipping for me (and less frustrating) to use a macro than to actually choose a meaningful target.

That's broken.

I realize that part of this is entirely subjective (how much targeting other players is too much?) but it's too much for me. Buffs are supposed to be fun, not a chore trying tab down to the right target and pray that my ping will let the card "play" the first time in the span of a gcd.

I switched to SCH because Eos might be laggy but at least I don't have to change targets while I spam the button for Fey Blessing. Still not as buggy as Play!

And now that I fully understand why the system doesn't work (for me), I can't go back, not till 6.0, maybe not ever. Let the PC players have AST. It's clear the developers never once thought about what AST might feel like on PS4, because anyone paying attention would realize that six+ buttons to execute a single ability so frequently was not going to work out for the majority of players. I'm stubborn; I tried.

Six or more buttons (with four of those relegated to navigating the player list) to execute a single ability is not good game design.

[KanameYuuki]

...

I can't wrap my head around people who think Nu AST is better because you can now throw cards more often, as you mention a lot of the times you would either AoE RR from yourself or if it was a single card each 60s since you usually wanted a RR single cards instead of a raw one and you knew going all the trouble of playing each card would have an impact, meanwhile you have a lot of people still complaining Dragon Sight is too annoying but suddenly doing a DS each 30s + x3 each sleeve draw every 3m is great.

Supposedly this was to stop people from getting useless cards (that could always be RR or Minor so its just plain wrong, you literally needed to draw ewer and spire to RR balance), yet on my 4 years I was never bothered with a draw but now I keep getting the same seal over and over and over that's makes me feel I can't even accomplish what little is expected from me, and even if I go all the trouble there is no big payout.

Buffing with cards doesn't feel any more like something that you actively want to do, but something that is expected of you and so you have to.

The fact that 5.0 AST was released on such a bad state on both its healing and major system shows how much time, thought and care they put into it, I can't believe someone on testing tried Sleeve Draw and said "yeah, this is great", Even now Minor Arcana cards feels just as bad (Should have been a play that changes it automatically ffs).

[Blueyes]

Although this is a relatively minor issue compared to all the troubles Astrologian has going for it, I want to take a moment to talk about Draw and Play being separate buttons. Supposedly, this was done so that Draw immediately goes on cooldown. However, as many have pointed out, we already have actions that behave that way, such as Earthly Star and Horoscope. There's only one real reason I can think of that explains why it has been split across two different actions and that is visibility. Unlike Earthly Star and Horoscope, it's possible to hold a card past the point when Draw comes off cooldown. For as long as a card is held, it isn't possible to see when Draw is ready to be used again.

So here's a solution: Put the recast timer for Draw on the job gauge. We would then have a way to view the recast timer without taking up the space of a whole hotbar button just to display information.

[Billythepancake]

Although this is a relatively minor issue compared to all the troubles Astrologian has going for it, I want to take a moment to talk about Draw and Play being separate buttons. Supposedly, this was done so that Draw immediately goes on cooldown. However, as many have pointed out, we already have actions that behave that way, such as Earthly Star and Horoscope. There's only one real reason I can think of that explains why it has been split across two different actions and that is visibility. Unlike Earthly Star and Horoscope, it's possible to hold a card past the point when Draw comes off cooldown. For as long as a card is held, it isn't possible to see when Draw is ready to be used again.

So here's a solution: Put the recast timer for Draw on the job gauge. We would then have a way to view the recast timer without taking up the space of a whole hotbar button just to display information.

TBF, it's a pretty bad thing if you're holding a card for THAT long, but yes, that would certainly be a better solution.

[Brarry]

They didn't test new ast they made changes based on data, numbers, and spread sheets. Without a care for lore flavor and gameplay.

[MintnHoney]

But, since WHM is doing fine right at this moment, no one can bring anything up. You'll get shut down instantly while we slowly go back to AST and SCH being the undisputed kings of the raid.

I have recollection of that happening a lot from White Mages, on these forums, over the years, on other job's complaints or criticisms. I actually remember an AST wishlist thread that was started and almost immediately pounced upon and screeched at for daring to exist while White Mages were dissatisfied.

Meanwhile, you have a single emotionally immature brat, who is (or was, I guess) a White Mage, say that they don't care about White Mage problems anymore, and suddenly we're all shutting you down.

Ok.

[Dyvid]

Clearly SE needs to ask for help for developing the healer role because they keep mess it up over and over. It's not just AST, or SCH, or even WHM. It's the entire design approach that is flawed.

The community has been asking for jobs that aren't boring, fun to play, and play differently from one another. The community has been asking for them to help with DPS, but that help doesn't mean it has to be direct damage. Support utility damage is just as effective in the grand scheme of things.

Our community representatives need to deliver a simple request back to the development team. Release a poll asking the community on how they would like to see in Healer Role design. Only after a consensus is reached can they use the rest of the 5.XX series to design working healer jobs, don't wait 2 more years for 6.0 to come out. You guys screwed up and you owe it to this community to make it right.

[Acidblood]

Release a poll asking the community on how they would like to see in Healer Role design. Only after a consensus is reached can they use the rest of the 5.XX series to design working healer jobs, don't wait 2 more years for 6.0 to come out. You guys screwed up and you owe it to this community to make it right.

Design by committee rarely results in anything good. That said, I do agree that it is long past time that the developers started truly listening to feedback, understanding it, and using it as a guide for designing the healer role (and the individual jobs within it).

Or simply understanding their own game and why the ‘pure’ healer design utterly fails when most encounters have 0 outgoing damage for the majority of their duration. And that the #1 focus of any serious encounter is rDPS and will always be rDPS due to strict and hard enrage (and the least they could do, if they are committed to such encounters*, is to design their roles / jobs accordingly).

* NB: I generally disagree that hard enrage is a good philosophy for encounter design, as it forces every class to be measured only on rDPS contribution, and I would much rather see them expand encounter design to be at least 2-dimensional (i.e. DPS vs. Survival) as this would allow a broader range of job designs (including pure healer).