New AST from a New Player

[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

[Makeda]

AST of old faced an impossible to solve problem. A series of highly situational buffs coupled with one always useful buff and tied to random chance.

There were three solutions possible here:

1. Make them all do the useful buff and remove the situationals.
2. Remove the always useful buff and leave the situationals. If the useful buff is desired out it into a non-random skill.
3. Leave the cards but remove the random.

All of the old cards were actually good useful buffs. But 99% of the time only 1 of them was useful, and the others were vital at key moments but you had no ability to ensure having it when needed.

You don’t need an MP refresh or a buff to crit chance until you MEED it and then you really need it (the crit buff for instance, to squeak past an enrage timer on a progression raid in that first week when you just barely have it... that happens, and when it dies your a super hero if it was you that got your group over the line. But that’s a rare moment...)

Of the three ideas I noted, they chose the first; probably the worst possible choice for job flavor but best for matching how players adapted to the older broken system. I think the second fits the job flavor the best, and the third is lore violating but the most useful.

[Kuwago]

AST of old faced an impossible to solve problem. A series of highly situational buffs coupled with one always useful buff and tied to random chance.

There were three solutions possible here:

1. Make them all do the useful buff and remove the situationals.
2. Remove the always useful buff and leave the situationals. If the useful buff is desired out it into a non-random skill.
3. Leave the cards but remove the random.

All of the old cards were actually good useful buffs. But 99% of the time only 1 of them was useful, and the others were vital at key moments but you had no ability to ensure having it when needed.

You don’t need an MP refresh or a buff to crit chance until you MEED it and then you really need it (the crit buff for instance, to squeak past an enrage timer on a progression raid in that first week when you just barely have it... that happens, and when it dies your a super hero if it was you that got your group over the line. But that’s a rare moment...)

Of the three ideas I noted, they chose the first; probably the worst possible choice for job flavor but best for matching how players adapted to the older broken system. I think the second fits the job flavor the best, and the third is lore violating but the most useful.

TBH, Cards were situational, if you don’t optimize where you use it. There were 3-4 cards that I found myself using most of the time, Top ones were Balance, Spear, Arrow and the occasional Ewer mostly for me and my co healers. I admit, Spire and Ewer were mostly RR fodder for me since I like to give everyone the buffs.

But I was able to use each cards I pulled into something albeit maybe not to the best but I made it useful. Whenever there RNG in play there will almost always be fishing no matter what it was. Before its Balance for aoe balance and now its fishing for seals.

If they want to keep this every card is balance then they need to take out the melee/range restriction and come up with something else.

[Nhala_Levee]

AST of old faced an impossible to solve problem. A series of highly situational buffs coupled with one always useful buff and tied to random chance.

There were three solutions possible here:

1. Make them all do the useful buff and remove the situationals.
2. Remove the always useful buff and leave the situationals. If the useful buff is desired out it into a non-random skill.
3. Leave the cards but remove the random.

All of the old cards were actually good useful buffs. But 99% of the time only 1 of them was useful, and the others were vital at key moments but you had no ability to ensure having it when needed.

You don’t need an MP refresh or a buff to crit chance until you MEED it and then you really need it (the crit buff for instance, to squeak past an enrage timer on a progression raid in that first week when you just barely have it... that happens, and when it dies your a super hero if it was you that got your group over the line. But that’s a rare moment...)

Of the three ideas I noted, they chose the first; probably the worst possible choice for job flavor but best for matching how players adapted to the older broken system. I think the second fits the job flavor the best, and the third is lore violating but the most useful.

I totaly agree with that, need just the only one useful card from the deck. That was the defense buff. As a healer, it is not its role to give dmg buff, but defense it is. If dps is too noob to do dmg, just delete the game, thats all.

[Side-Eye]

All of the old cards were actually good useful buffs. But 99% of the time only 1 of them was useful, and the others were vital at key moments but you had no ability to ensure having it when needed.

Both of these assertions are untrue.

First, 99% of the time it was possible to make use out of whatever cards were drawn.

Second, we DID have an ability to ensure that a particular buff was ready when we needed it. For example, if the tank was gung-ho on pulling wall to wall and/or wasn't quite geared well enough for the content, we could put a BOLE on hold and use that for a big pull or just before a tank buster.

I'm sorry that you didn't play the job extensively enough to learn these things before SHB. It was a blast, and one of the most engaging jobs of them all.

[Nhala_Levee]

Both of these assertions are untrue.

First, 99% of the time it was possible to make use out of whatever cards were drawn.

Second, we DID have an ability to ensure that a particular buff was ready when we needed it. For example, if the tank was gung-ho on pulling wall to wall and/or wasn't quite geared well enough for the content, we could put a BOLE on hold and use that for a big pull or just before a tank buster.

I'm sorry that you didn't play the job extensively enough to learn these things before SHB. It was a blast, and one of the most engaging jobs of them all.

Oh, finaly someone who can understand my pain. AST was the perfect class with perfect spells and a perfectly mastercrafted gauge. AST was perfect as that was in stormblood. And the devs broke it cause some kiddo dont want to use it as a real class, just want a dmg dynamo on its raids. Poor choice. >.>

[Saefinn]

Now that I've got used to AST (never picked it up proper prior to ShB as I've always had SCH/WHM levelled and AST never felt right coming from them), I'm kinda lamenting I didn't get it to 70 before ShB hit. Whilst I am liking it at 80 and find it less boring than my former main, SCH, I think I'd still have preferred how the cards used to work, especially with how it improved for SB. And whilst less boring than my SCH, it still suffers and needs its variety back.

[Side-Eye]

Now that I've got used to AST (never picked it up proper prior to ShB as I've always had SCH/WHM levelled and AST never felt right coming from them), I'm kinda lamenting I didn't get it to 70 before ShB hit. Whilst I am liking it at 80 and find it less boring than my former main, SCH, I think I'd still have preferred how the cards used to work, especially with how it improved for SB. And whilst less boring than my SCH, it still suffers and needs its variety back.

Don't get me wrong; AST is (post 5.05) a sufficient healer, but not as good as it was before. The 'situational' utility it brought was just useful enough to overcome any heal shortcomings and provide value to groups/raids, and it was just RNG-reliant enough to keep it from being overpowered.

Now, the job's usefulness is limited to inconsequential damage buffs (invisible to the naked eye -- gotta have a parser to even notice), and the utility of extending buffs has been stripped away... so even the tiniest of buffing can't be enhanced by making smart timely choices with CDs.

If Squeenix isn't willing to give back our "time mage" abilities -- like Time Dilution and the previous version of Celestial Opposition -- it needs to do two things: 1. acknowledge that rDPS and utility do NOT make up for lesser healing so heal potencies need to be increased again; and 2. change heal-based abilities like Collective Unconscious to either be click-and-go (instead of requiring us to stand still and inactive) or its benefit needs to be quadrupled.

[ZeroFool]

... 2. change heal-based abilities like Collective Unconscious to either be click-and-go (instead of requiring us to stand still and inactive) or its benefit needs to be quadrupled.

I'm hoping that a change would feel more like the latter; it should be as powerful as it looks when it's channeled. Seeing CU used in cutscenes and how awesome it was whenever Y'shtola took a defensive stance, I looked forward to how that power would be translated to an active ability. It translated poorly, with 10% damage reduction and piddly regen, combined with a small radius which encouraged turtling.

I personally really like the channeling aspect because it sets it apart from the other support bubbles. Something to actually justify being rooted in place could be rapidly regenerating shields for everyone inside the bubble which disappears if players step outside, to reinforce its 'protection' aspect.

Just anything that makes it more interesting and not just another set and forget bubble that people may or may not even step in.

[Sylvain]

I'll be honest, while the new system may feel less exciting because there are no surprise, it is true that in the end, we were fishing for balance (which is the exaxmxt same as fishing for divination symbols).
Using a single target card was always a dps loss. While it could have been exciting for a BLM to get a 150% arrow, it was still a bad draw.
The situational utility of cards, mostly Bole and Ewer were... Well very situational. The only time I was happy to get a Bole spread was during hello world 2. While it could give some comfort on other boss, it was useless,. We killed those bosses with less ilv so more mitigation was never properly useful. At best it would made me sqvd a helios. Same for ewer, never up when I or my cohealer died... Making it again something I would just royal road or minor. The most frustrating part was having the spread effect ready and drawing a ewer, that I could have used for mp but couldn't because..., ell I had the spread buff.

The old card system was maybe more diverse, but in a dps centric game, because it was rng the only thing u were actually aiming for were dps cards. The odd that the Bole or Ewer would be drawn at the right time were very slim (altough, I have to admit it made it all the more exciting)

Perhaps they could rework and give cards double effect, a dps effect and a support effect. You would then either pick what effect would be the most useful, either raw number on your dps player or utility (mostly on tank / healer) that's the closest compromise I could see and, would bring back a bit the excitation of randomness, like drawing the right supportive card at the right time.

But beside this, I dont see much of a difference between the old systeme and new, I was fishing for balance, now I fish for divination symboles...
My only issue is the opener. Too many weaving at once it's not fun