New AST from a New Player

[Nhala_Levee]

I love playing a buffing type healer over a straight up healer. So if they brought that system back to make it interesting or change it up. I would be down.

I dont think so. I think you would love the old astro. Thats WAS the real buffing type class. Yes, not only dmg buff, but more situational and more completed. And with that many combination, if you like buffing and mixing buffs into new ones or stronger ones, the old astro is for you.
For more dps supporting, there was the Bard. Bard had many party buffs whats mostly orinted to support the damage dealers. I didnt realy tryed bard now, dont know if it changed.

[Kuwago]

I dont think so. I think you would love the old astro. Thats WAS the real buffing type class. Yes, not only dmg buff, but more situational and more completed. And with that many combination, if you like buffing and mixing buffs into new ones or stronger ones, the old astro is for you.
For more dps supporting, there was the Bard. Bard had many party buffs whats mostly orinted to support the damage dealers. I didnt realy tryed bard now, dont know if it changed.

Bard kinda changed they lost their Crit from the songs and Requiem so now they deal more dmg closer to Machinist, they still have Battle Voice but other than the ones that I can think of whilst Dancer got all the utility for low damage.

Old AST WAS the epitome of a buffing healer class, there was so many things you could do with your cards, along with being able to increase Buff Durations with Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition. How badly I want those two to come back or at least come back under a different skill or as an added effect since AST buff durations are hella short ESPECIALLY for Divination, I thought they increase it to 30s so that it actually makes an impact.

[Nhala_Levee]

Bard kinda changed they lost their Crit from the songs and Requiem so now they deal more dmg closer to Machinist, they still have Battle Voice but other than the ones that I can think of whilst Dancer got all the utility for low damage.

Old AST WAS the epitome of a buffing healer class, there was so many things you could do with your cards, along with being able to increase Buff Durations with Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition. How badly I want those two to come back or at least come back under a different skill or as an added effect since AST buff durations are hella short ESPECIALLY for Divination, I thought they increase it to 30s so that it actually makes an impact.

For me, astro was the life in this game. It was my favorite, but that exact one. Other classes was nice and all, but my everything was astro. Now im mostly just running around or talking with my friends online.
Sadly im loving unique games too much. And Final Fantasy 14 was unique. I liked every class as they was. And now, they becomed so similar to WoW classes, i lost my interest about the game. :/
Healers just do buffs. DPS classes dmg boosts are mostly usable once / bossfight. And there is just one, just like in wow. Tanks are becomed very similar to WoW tanks too, with these mechanics, and with that so many lost skills.
Dont know, everywhere in this game i see WoW now. Classes lost their meanings. But realy... a bard... singing, telling tales, inspireing they team mates to become more. Lost them skills? Becomed so called "balanced"? Balance means we rework all classes to be "equal"? Even if cause this the game loseing its very thing that made it diferent from the others? I don know anymore...
I simply lost my interest in this game...
Sad thing...

[Nhala_Levee]

But the worst thing about all this, i cant even have any options to play that what i loved in this game.
There is no diferent kontent servers. And sadly there is not any private servers too, to have just a little chance to go back to stormblood, where the whole game was that good as i loved it so much.
Damn shame...

[Summer_Iris]

Hi. I've only recently been levelling AST and like it - the mobility, support, lore etc.

However, I can sympathise with the jarring nature of how it plays and the "missing skills".

Whilst I'm new to AST (and as such will not pretend to know the ins and outs of endgame play), I have played with many ASTs through different types of content (been playing since ARR). I've also been reading a few threads to better understand the class, and it seems the main concerns are: loss of identity, nocturnal stance; the cards and the loss of time mage-type skills. I thought I'd share some of my ideas on these issues (I like thinking about these things).

1) Make diurnal sect the default state of AST. Then make nocturnal sect an early version of neutral sect i.e. it starts as a cooldown that changes the diurnal effects to nocturnal effects for a period of time and then later grants both when upgraded to neutral sect.

2) Cards
- keep the draw and play distinction
- draw starts off a 60 sec cooldown with access to all 6 cards. After a certain point - maybe 60 you learn how to read the arcana more effectively creating 2 different cooldowns with access to 3 cards each - offensive draw and defensive draw. These would share a recast timer.
- offensive card effects change - balance is a dhit and crit up, spear is just crit up, arrow is just dhit up - could be balanced to grant same rdps in ideal situations.
- defensive cards - bole is increase in heal potency for abilities and spells, ewer is a heal potency on just spells and spire is a heal potency on just abilities
- redraw could be stripped of charges and just redraw from current "play" pool - combined with the smaller pools the need for "balance" fishing would be negated
- minor arcana - a third kind of draw - on the same 60 sec draw CD - but a 50% chance of returning lady or lord. lord is DMG ogcd ability, lady is an ogcd single target heal
- add back spread - has the effect of spreading a card and resetting the CD on draw. However, to avoid doubling up if offensive card in spread already can't use offensive draw. if defensive in spread then can't use defensive draw. if minor arcana in spread can't use minor arcana
- divination - possibly could be gotten rid of but if kept then it could require 3 seals and increases the potency of the next play. 3 different seals being slightly more potent than 2 types vs 1 type of seal.
- using defensive, offensive and minor arcana each grants a separate seal i.e defensive always gives a lunar seal, offensive always a solar etc. - avoids rng
- sleeve draw could be a skill that just grants one of each seal. Only use in combat. overrides current seals

3) Time mage type spells
- add slow effect to gravity
- add back time dilation as an aoe effect that resets timer of any diurnal or nocturnal field effects granted by the astro to those in range