LIVE Letter Regarding DRG & AST Postponed Reworks

[Jeeqbit]

"We're not going to fix our god-awful 6.0 AST design until 2 years later because players rightfully raked us across the coals over our harebrained decision to remove Kaiten"

I preferred the 5.0 version of AST. Astrodyne preserves some of how the 5.0 version made me feel, but it's a worse version of it because it only affects my damage and without a Royal Road-type system like Lord/Lady to dump unwanted cards into, it doesn't feel as mentally-stimulating to play.

Whatever changes people do or don't want to AST, most people can probably agree it needs to be something other than what it is now. I think they should just go back to the 5.0 version and work from there with faster cast times and seeing what features from SB and HW could work in the new version of AST.

[Supersnow845]

I preferred the 5.0 version of AST. Astrodyne preserves some of how the 5.0 version made me feel, but it's a worse version of it because it only affects my damage and without a Royal Road-type system like Lord/Lady to dump unwanted cards into, it doesn't feel as mentally-stimulating to play.

Whatever changes people do or don't want to AST, most people can probably agree it needs to be something other than what it is now. I think they should just go back to the 5.0 version and work from there with faster cast times and seeing what features from SB and HW could work in the new version of AST.

They also absolutely need to do something about the difficulty gulf between console and M&K players, AST Is the only class that has it and it’s not a small difference either, this game was no designed for septuple weaves but console AST is expected to do them semi frequently to play optimally

5.0 AST is far better than 6.0 AST (though please dear god keep astrodyne over having seals affect divination) but both still struggle with the console problem because of the prevalence of single target buffs, honestly I think every cars needs to do damage and have a secondary effect, base card effect is single target but they bring back royal road and make RR make cards AOE, so you fish for the correct secondary effect with RR but you are always better off royal roading for the AOE damage than single targeting which removes the console disadvantage

[Aco505]

If the difference between "LotD" and "DRG-Enshroud" is, as you've posited in the thread you linked, whether the state ends after you've used the 3 Nostrand casts and Stardiver --and the only difference between that and the current version is that you don't lose the ability to queue the post-LotD Gierskogul-- I have to wonder why that would matter.

If LotD actually had some passive benefit over its duration or returned to a HW-BotD-like mechanic whereby you want to maintain it as long as would allow you to spend the absolute minimum amount of duration/resource on your final Nostrand cast, I could see why you'd want to protect LotD's duration, but... LotD has no benefits outside of access to Nostrand. (Which, as I mentioned there, would benefit DRG's flow, through the ability to queue the follow Geirskogul, if you just had LotD end after it has consumed all its benefits.)

Having LotD end right after using the 3rd NAS is Enshroud 2.0 and that is bad because instead of working with LotD's timer in some way, this would just make it RPR 2.0. I can easily picture us having the ability to pool 4 eyes or the like for a double LotD in a row. At that moment, you wonder what's the difference between jobs besides the animations.

GSK being unqueueable could be fixed by removing its cooldown, but allowing it to be used only with two eyes. Something would have to be given to DRG so that the opener is not missing a button, but that could ease rigidity (as well as a longer Litany), since the only oGCD that would require hard use on cooldown would be HJ. As long as they increase the skill ceiling somewhere else, I'd be fine with this.

Another option would be to have some use to the LotD timer in a similar way to Enochian or old GSK in Heavensward, where it consumed the BotD timer that you built with positionals.

However, yes, LotD should have more interaction with the rest of the kit. It could buff our GCDs, give them a different animation, whatever. I want our kit to evolve, not turn into a mechanic or gauge that is almost a copy of another job, and RPR tends to be the main comparison.

These are just some ideas, I'm sure there could be better ones, but anything that makes LotD/DRG a copy of Enshroud/RPR or any other job is going to reduce the uniqueness of DRG.

Not against this, but wouldn't this ultimately just feel like Mirage BiggerDragon? Is there a way this could be used, in DRG's wider context, to improve kit interaction, or add theme/cohesion to surrounding systems?

While secondary actions (B unlocked by A during A's CD, such that B requires no additional buttons) do improve button efficiency and increase APM, it would seem a waste to have no further benefit there.

Just an idea, could be something else like, for example, an oGCD combo: Dragonfire Dive increases the potency of/modifies a specific oGCD. It could also grant two scales, or if following my suggestion of turning Life Surge into a weaponskill a la Sonic Break/Soul Slice with two charges that grant a scale, DFD could return one or two of these charges, increasing the use of this action during bursts and creating more GCD/oGCD interaction.

My point is that DFD feels good aesthetically but weak otherwise for a 120s capstone ability. It has to hit harder and/or have a role of its own.

[QooEr]

AST has massive APM problems on controller though, without forcing target macros into the system (which still gives AST higher APM on controller) then AST has such disgusting APM it blows right past NIN into a class of its own, this game really isn’t designed for septuple weaves

giving cards on controller was fine in shb. it only became awful in ew because of the charges on draw and the removal of sleeve draw

[RyuDragnier]

Isn't MCH still ping-reliant?

A lot of jobs are sadly, due to double weaves and weaving during 1.5s GCD recasts (gods is Enshroud annoying on RPR due to that).

[Gemina]

Whatever changes people do or don't want to AST, most people can probably agree it needs to be something other than what it is now. I think they should just go back to the 5.0 version and work from there with faster cast times and seeing what features from SB and HW could work in the new version of AST.

All you're saying here is to revert AST back to SB, and not every healer wants that for AST. SB AST was even more APM heavy back then, and that's what continues to be problem with AST today. They will never revert it back to that salad. It was a mess.

While AST does have issues, this will be yet another rework for this bane of a job, and that's what pisses me off more than anything. Meanwhile, both SCH and WHM play nearly identical to their ARR versions with a lot less management of their kits.

Ah well. Nature really never saw fit or much need to evolve dragonflies, and perhaps that's the devs approach to the original healers. They feel they are perfect.

[Shurrikhan]

Having LotD end right after using the 3rd NAS is Enshroud 2.0 and that is bad because instead of working with LotD's timer in some way, this would just make it RPR 2.0.

You'd still need it to be held for Stardiver (i.e., until one has consumed ALL the benefits of LotD) regardless, but so long as those benefits are more than just the 3 NAS and 1 Stardiver, then sure, having a fixed duration would make sense. Otherwise, though, it's just an awkward obfuscation.

Personally, I'd probably most enjoy returning to the HW BotD design there.

My point is that DFD feels good aesthetically but weak otherwise for a 120s capstone ability. It has to hit harder and/or have a role of its own.

It's not particularly weak for a level 50 skill, though, which does indeed give good reason to simply augment it later via a trait or follow-up skill.

my suggestion of turning Life Surge into a weaponskill

Personally, I much prefer that Life Surge is not something we hit on CD and has had, depending on SkS tiers, different optimal attachments by which to get the most bonus value per average minute out of the skill, so I'm not fond of that idea, especially as I don't think DRG's APM is remotely excessive and replacing oGCDs with GCDs would reduce APM.

I'd be cool with LS granting a bonus Scale, especially if Scales were increased only to a max of 3 such that one still has to be mindful of the scales to be generated within a LS-using combo, but I like it being a slightly less straightforward oGCD, and would prefer its CD be tuned to provide it more options in practice across viable SkS tiers.

That said, because normal LS may want to be used later in the opener than DFD, having DFD grant a charge of LS might be a bit awkward. On the other hand, if DFD were empowered by Scale-granting hits or Dragon weaponskills or the like, up to a point, and thus already had reason to be delayed, it'd have less conflict, but DFD would also feel less responsive, etc., etc., so it may be better just to leave burstyjob's burstyskill without prior attachments/constraints, be they direct or indirect.

[Jeeqbit]

All you're saying here is to revert AST back to SB, and not every healer wants that for AST. SB AST was even more APM heavy back then, and that's what continues to be problem with AST today. They will never revert it back to that salad. It was a mess.

I actually said it should be reverted to 5.0. It was APM heavy in 5.0 until the frequency of card use was reduced, but it was fun being that APM heavy as well.

[Tlamila]

This news was honestly the best news of this expansion.
People are happy for island sanctuary, I'm happy that for now two of the few fun jobs left aren't getting ruined.

Seriously, I had to drop RDM this expansion after 2expansions maining it, now remove also my new dps main and my healer main, and all I'll ever do again in this game is tanking. I was tryng to get better at ninja to replace the dps slot, but really it's too much for me. And I can't imagine anymore playing a healer who has nothing to do but spam 1 button when heals are not needed (which in normal content is pretty often).

There are already countless simplified/low apm jobs, this expansion more got gutted that way and the new jobs they keep adding aren't exactly very exciting either. Just focus on all those and leave the few left that are different be, if you can't play them. Not every single job needs to be for everybody.

If anything I hear MCH could use a nice rework...it's not doing exactly well and it's still a finger-breaking class for really low pings. And I'm not sure how many actually enjoy it now. And yeah SCH is..whatever.

[Jeeqbit]

If anything I hear MCH could use a nice rework...it's not doing exactly well and it's still a finger-breaking class for really low pings. And I'm not sure how many actually enjoy it now. And yeah SCH is..whatever.

I enjoy MCH a lot. It's one of the DPS I currently play. It's simple but fun.