How could you do this to AST?

[Yeol]

Causal players also never complained about the percentage of ASTs versus WHMs in speed runs because the vast majority of casual players ignore that kind of stuff. They simply don’t care. So I don’t know where you’re getting that idea from.

casuals raiders couldn't care less about speed runs. As for logs, the community as a whole practically enforced a "meta"

Then remind me why were the forums filled with WHM and AST topics during HW?

Even if all jobs can clear Week 1 Savage or Ultimate doesn’t mean you should let some remain overpowered while others feel like garbage—and have garbage damage to go along with it.

Others did not feel like garbage at all. This is how people felt when their Job was not taken into speed kills and they did not see their favorite YouTuber/streamer playing their job.
I remember when someone asks which healer job should they pick, and the answers were mostly AST or SCH.

Even if you look at the number of clears on healers during HW. WHM had the least number of recorded clears. It did affect peoples' mentality.

This is primarily because Astro was complete garbage until 3.2, being the only job to date that straight up wasn't viable. You literally couldn't clear Gordias until geared due to its underpowered heals.

This was the devs mistake with both Goridas design and AST.

It was buffed adequately enough in Midas to be decent, however White Mage remained the best healer.

No problems here, This is where AST should be.

Granted, Astro had an enormous stigma. Hence why the devs, in a desperate bid to convince players to give Astro another chance, overbuffed it to kingdom come.

And this is where the Devs went wrong. Thank-you.

It didn't last, as by arguably 4.3 but undeniably 4.4, Astro was once again considered the best healer. With CU instantly applying, buffs and free mobility, White Mage had almost no answer to Astro's kit.

In 5.0 this is no longer an issue.

Purposely allowing certain jobs to be overpowered is bad design.

Answer in color blue above. AST power was supposed to be buffs.

The cards always needed a complete overhaul due to the direction Shadowbringers took.

This I agree with. We no longer have TP and MP so card effects must change. But this still doesn't mean we shouldn't have damage buff cards. At the moment all AST cards give a damage buff but they card system is very poor.

[ForteNightshade]

Then remind me why were the forums filled with WHM and AST topics during HW?

Because Astro was initially terrible, then incredibly overpowered? We're talking about a period with some of the worst healer balance in this game's history. Which is saying something since healer balance has always been a crapshoot. Naturally, you're going to see a lot of complaints in general.

Few, if any, of those topics had to do with AST's speed ranking and more to do with how grossly imbalanced it was throughout HW.

No problems here, This is where AST should be.

You're misunderstanding. White Mage wasn't the best healer in terms of heals. It was simply better than Astro in 3.2 despite several buffs the latter received.

And this is where the Devs went wrong. Thank-you.

They overbuffed Astro because so few players were willing to give it a second chance. It was literally them begging people to play it. Had they night made such a desperate decision, Astro would have gone an entirely expansion as effectively being worthless. Considering it was a new job, they wanted it to at least finish strong.

In 5.0 this is no longer an issue.

Actually, no. Astro was underpowered until 5.1. From that point onward, it is generally viewed as having the much better healing kit due to its sheer abundance of oGCDs. White Mage leans more towards being the DPS healer.

Answer in color blue above. AST power was supposed to be buffs.

Which didn't work. Partly because, at the time, FFlogs ranked based on pDPS. Since people care about their percentages, Astro was always preferred. Had their ranking system not changed to rDPS, White Mage would continue to live in Astro's shadow.

This I agree with. We no longer have TP and MP so card effects must change. But this still doesn't mean we shouldn't have damage buff cards. At the moment all AST cards give a damage buff but they card system is very poor.

What do you purpose they change it to? Of the six cards, five would be worthless nowadays. Even if they split Royal Road to have an offensive and defensive card slot so Bole no longer competes with Balance. The devs still need a system where Balance, Spear and Arrow aren't just "Damage, less damage and even less damage."

Unfortunately, this game lacks in the way of interesting gameplay when it comes to numbers. Bard used to interact with Crit, however they removed all that due to its immense power creep. Haste buffs, as noted in my previous post, cause a myriad of issues with far too many jobs. This doesn't exactly leave many options for card expression without fundamental design changes.

[HyoMinPark]

Then remind me why were the forums filled with WHM and AST topics during HW?

Because AST was bordering on unplayable at 3.0 launch. By 3.2, it was doing better, but still had a stigma attached to it that caused the developers to buff it once more in 3.3, and then we have the 20% Balance in 3.4 - which killed WHM completely.

As for WHM, WHM was the worst healer by the time Creator released. Couldn't compete with AST in utility, damage, and had terrible MP management (which AST was a god at managing their mana in HW). The forums had healer topics because one of them was underpowered or one was simply too strong. They were never balanced, and a lot of that was due to AST being broken.

No reasonable poster was fine with AST being as strong as it was. Especially WHM mains. And yet, you would rather them remain overpowered, as per your post that I replied to? That makes no sense.

Others did not feel like garbage at all. This is how people felt when their Job was not taken into speed kills and they did not see their favorite YouTuber/streamer playing their job.
I remember when someone asks which healer job should they pick, and the answers were mostly AST or SCH.

Were you intentionally trying to contradict yourself with this comment? You said that you think AST should have been "let be" and remained overpowered...but now you're saying that WHMs would feel bad when people would tell them to just play AST and not WHM because AST craps all over it? Was this intentional?

Even if you look at the number of clears on healers during HW. WHM had the least number of recorded clears. It did affect peoples' mentality.

And yet, you're still advocating for it to remain overpowered.

They should change AST cards & abilities to the way they were before.
Yes AST was OP, Let it be.

Again, were you willingly trying to contradict yourself here?