Endwalker Job Actions- Astro

[Beddict]

The only example of where I could see these sub roles actually mattering is in wanting at least one Barrier Healer during the early stages of Savage or Ultimate prog where having an AoE barrier on the GCD can help the party endure mechanics longer and thus learn the fight more quickly, but that's it.

Or mechanics that require shields to survive. A low damage AoE with a knockback that can't be ignored with Arm's Length but can be blocked if you take zero damage because of a shield, or a two part AoE where the first hit deals low damage and applies a Vuln Up Debuff that needs to be blocked by a shield to survive the high damage second hit. There's some things they could do to make shields mandatory, but the frequency of damage is low enough that I wouldn't be surprised if Seraph and Shake It Off handle such mechanics, assuming SE even bothers to create such mechanics in between the various stack/spread/protean.

[ty_taurus]

Or mechanics that require shields to survive. A low damage AoE with a knockback that can't be ignored with Arm's Length but can be blocked if you take zero damage because of a shield, or a two part AoE where the first hit deals low damage and applies a Vuln Up Debuff that needs to be blocked by a shield to survive the high damage second hit. There's some things they could do to make shields mandatory, but the frequency of damage is low enough that I wouldn't be surprised if Seraph and Shake It Off handle such mechanics, assuming SE even bothers to create such mechanics in between the various stack/spread/protean.

In theory, there are lots of situations in which barriers could be extremely helpful if not mandatory. That said, there has never been a situation where barriers were intentionally required to survive (there was that whole midas issue, but that was due to poor testing and was quickly nerfed). Also, many of the barrier interactions we've had in past content have failed to make any reappearances in recent content. It's pretty unlikely at this point to assume that anything like that will actually be utilized, though. They're pretty dead set on keeping the game as approachable as possible. I won't say it's impossible, but I'd say to not raise your expectations in that regard at this time.

Who knows, maybe I'll eat my words. They did drastically increase the amount of barrier actions and usage across all healers and tanks, so it's entirely possible they're preparing us more more barrier-intensive mechanics, but it could also just be more fluff without actually matching the content to the level of our support options. We'll just have to see come November.

[Beddict]

In theory, there are lots of situations in which barriers could be extremely helpful if not mandatory. That said, there has never been a situation where barriers were intentionally required to survive (there was that whole midas issue, but that was due to poor testing and was quickly nerfed). Also, many of the barrier interactions we've had in past content have failed to make any reappearances in recent content. It's pretty unlikely at this point to assume that anything like that will actually be utilized, though. They're pretty dead set on keeping the game as approachable as possible. I won't say it's impossible, but I'd say to not raise your expectations in that regard at this time.

Who knows, maybe I'll eat my words. They did drastically increase the amount of barrier actions and usage across all healers and tanks, so it's entirely possible they're preparing us more more barrier-intensive mechanics, but it could also just be more fluff without actually matching the content to the level of our support options. We'll just have to see come November.

Yeah I don't have any expectations either, and I am in agreement that the dev team is dead set on keeping the game as approachable as possible. I was just tossing out some possible ways they could make that on demand GCD shielding mandatory, but I just don't believe the raid team will properly execute the split between Pure and Barrier Healers given the Eden series. They don't design content for Tanks because if they did we'd likely see more mechanics involving Tank Swaps, more boss manoeuvring out of danger areas rather than bosses that just auto-position themselves, and more add spawns while the boss is active to keep the OT occupied. I don't think they don't design for Physical Ranged either, since there are no baitable mechanics like Liquid Hell from UCoB, nor do they take advantage of light CC such as Leg Graze and Foot Graze which could be used to Heavy or Bind an add that will do something bad if it reaches a certain place (think True Heart from A7S, something that could've been useful to maybe Bind an Aqueous Aether in E8S). I'd love to see them design mechanics that require a Barrier Healer, I just don't think they will and I ain't about to get my hopes up. Time will tell though.

[AnotherPerson]

Considering how few shields the game's only shield healer has right now... and how many HoTs Sage was revealed to have, I'm honestly not entirely sure what the pure/shield healer labels are supposed to even mean.

The frequency to reduce damage as opposed to healing raw damage, it seems. Not so much as soaking raw damage like shields. Shields are just one aspect of a healer. Sage has more low cd mitigation + overall more mitigation than pure healers. Scholar has a bit more shields it looks like (consolation x2, Seraph's Embrace shield, GCD shields), as well as more cd mitigation (soil, fey illumination) + new AoE mitigation in Endwalker.

Sure, AST and WHM has shields, but they're all tied to a pretty long cd generally (Neutral Sect, Temperance). Everything else seems to be mainly healing potency output, so pure healers just have more tools in healing damage whereas shield healers have more tools at lowering or reducing incoming damage. Both healers still have the general healer toolkit though - which is to heal damage.

[LanFangHua]

I don't know. They are reducing, instead of expanding the job and giving it one new skill. It really felt like they are not changing much, other than giving it an "updated" visual effect to some habilities we already are familiar with.

After writing all this, I feel like if the job indeed hasn't changed much, it will be the last nail in the coffin for me and drop the class completely to the point of not even acknowledging its existence. Same with scholar.

[MintnHoney]

Considering how few shields the game's only shield healer has right now... and how many HoTs Sage was revealed to have, I'm honestly not entirely sure what the pure/shield healer labels are supposed to even mean.

I suppose that it's possible for 2 of the healers to be somewhat "hybrids" in the Pure/Shield "system" (in this case, Astrologian and Sage respectively), while the other 2 healers to lean in heavier on the Pure/Shield distinction. But that still means that their labels are kinda-sorta bullshit.

As for Astro specifically, I'd been sending in a single suggestion once a month for a long while (probably since Stormblood, but I don't really remember when it started), specifically to introduce a starfall-type of ability. So that much, I'm excited for. I also like that they've minimalized some of the spell FX a bit, so that they're pretty but not intrusive, for the new/reintroduced abilities and spells.
Otherwise, since we don't know exactly how the stat squish is going to affect gameplay, and since we don't really know potencies across the board just yet, I'm not exactly "excited" for Endwalker just yet.

[Side-Eye]

AST has lost more of its identity than any other job. If it gets a few "time" abilities in 6.0, as well as some sort of variety in card play, the job might survive another expansion. Otherwise, it will fade into obscurity.

[Jandor]

My best guess is that Pure Healers are meant to have high-potency GCD healing and Barrier Healers have barrier GCD healing, but if that's literally what the difference is supposed to be exclusively, then the devs are just really out of touch with how healers play. GCD healing is what we actively avoid using as much as possible and thus the least defining qualities of our gameplay. The only example of where I could see these sub roles actually mattering is in wanting at least one Barrier Healer during the early stages of Savage or Ultimate prog where having an AoE barrier on the GCD can help the party endure mechanics longer and thus learn the fight more quickly, but that's it.

I mean, as far as I can tell, shield healers have some shield GCDs and pure healers can only shield with oGCDs. Which... yeah.

[SweetPete]

AST has lost more of its identity than any other job. If it gets a few "time" abilities in 6.0, as well as some sort of variety in card play, the job might survive another expansion. Otherwise, it will fade into obscurity.

It won’t fade. Astrologian is a very popular job. Allot of the veterans and newer players love the card system. I don’t but hey I’m just one person lol. Yeah, the job won’t fade though.

[ty_taurus]

I mean, as far as I can tell, shield healers have some shield GCDs and pure healers can only shield with oGCDs. Which... yeah.

Actually, with Neutral Sect, AST can still apply barriers on the GCD and to the whole party. WHM is the only healer who will not be able to apply a barrier to the whole party. Granted, Neutral Sect is on a long cooldown, but in some cases that might really be all you need.