Did people even ask for changes to AST, like they do / did for MNK and MCH?

[Recon1o6]

Good grief if this happened the healer shortage would be over in an instant. The 3 changes people wanted on AST was to change spire into something more useful (which they needed to do anyway with tp removal), nerf balance to 10 or 15% and bring gravity in line with the other spell cast times.

The new AST actions are pretty good for the most part and they would synergise wonderfully with the old system (though horoscope and divination should get tweaks)

[Reyna_Balmore]

Good grief if this happened the healer shortage would be over in an instant. The 3 changes people wanted on AST was to change spire into something more useful (which they needed to do anyway with tp removal), nerf balance to 10 or 15% and bring gravity in line with the other spell cast times.

The new AST actions are pretty good for the most part and they would synergise wonderfully with the old system (though horoscope and divination should get tweaks)

When they mentioned the removal of TP and changes to MP, I though the only thing they would change were both the Spire and Ewer card. Having reworking the whole entire card system instead of making those two "simple" changes, was a head scratcher.

It literally seems like the "balance" team or whoever idea it was to make the changes, have quite a disconnect with the healing community. They saw a "problem" and when in there really wasn't one to begin with, just minor changes to adjust to the removal TP and changes to MP were needed.

[Recon1o6]

It literally seems like the "balance" team or whoever idea it was to make the changes, have quite a disconnect with the healing community

More like they just have a disconnect with the playerbase as a whole, but especially healers its most prominent given they never answer urgent questions and the huge threads we have since 2 expansions in a row all 3 got shafted in someway majorly.
Look at how dark knight, summoner and monk have been ignored as well, the devs have a massive disconnect because they are focusing too much on "balance" and homogenisation for accessability rather than diversifying and improving skillsets and identities

The devs really need to implement some sort of in game feedback, because at this rate their experimentation and dumbing down is going to cause more problems than they can ignore, particularly when there are lots of other big issues that are riling players that haven't been answered. The playerbase is gaining new players but at this rate, all they will be doing is replacing long time fans who have become too disgruntled

[Reyna_Balmore]

More like they just have a disconnect with the playerbase as a whole, but especially healers its most prominent given they never answer urgent questions and the huge threads we have since 2 expansions in a row all 3 got shafted in someway majorly.
Look at how dark knight, summoner and monk have been ignored as well, the devs have a massive disconnect because they are focusing too much on "balance" and homogenisation for accessability rather than diversifying and improving skillsets and identities

The devs really need to implement some sort of in game feedback, because at this rate their experimentation and dumbing down is going to cause more problems than they can ignore, particularly when there are lots of other big issues that are riling players that haven't been answered. The playerbase is gaining new players but at this rate, all they will be doing is replacing long time fans who have become too disgruntled

Yea, it's pretty unfortunate they're making changes to make things "easier" / "dumbing" it down to "please" the entire base by lowering the skill ceiling. There are enough classes for people to pick if they want an easier time. People who want to excel will study and look at guides to become better. People who want to play more casually will choose to play at the bare minimum will continue to do so. Those casual players may get some heat from other players, but hey, it's an MMORPG, somebody is going to say something you may not like.

The "dumbing" down of classes seem to have hit both the tank and healer role pretty hard. 5.0 looks like it was a great expansion for the DPS.