Quote Originally Posted by Silver-Strider View Post
If by overhaul you mean how much more they can kill the job as a warning to other healers. I don't see any possible future that won't end in the death of AST as we know it. I fully expect them to remove all 6 base cards and just leave Lord/Lady of Crown as the Melee/Ranged buff cards so that they can remove Minor Arcana/Crown Play; Wouldn't be the first time they destroyed AST's lore to make the job more "approachable".

To be honest with you, I kinda expect that, but I think it will be done out of necessity and not because the dev is lazy or incompetent.

I know a lot of people are not happy with the SMN change because it's too simple now. But if you look on the bright side, it means SMN has room to grow for the next 10 years, on a path that's more inline with its identity (actual summoner instead of a Warlock with pets). I don't think the dev expected FF14 to hit its prime 10 years into the game when historically that's where most MMO start dying off. But it means at this point most classes have suffered from power-creep and button-bloat. Without a total re-invention SMN style, I struggle to think how they can bring most of the current job forward.


Sure, people may say "just do this and that and it will be perfect" and let's just say SE listens and do just that ... it will be only a bane-aid for now, what gonna happen next expansion? It's fair to say the majority of players will definitely get mad if a job remain absolutely the same in a new expansion even if it was already perfect. So change for the shake of change and new abilities add just gonna repeat this vicious cycle.


In a way, SMN is like a testimony SE is willing to do a full re-imagination of a class. Yes, a lot of people will not be happy when it happens because it will naturally simplify the classes at the beginning. But like I said, it will be necessary for the classes to meaningfully grow for the next decade. And just like SMN who had an identity crisis, AST is right next on the list of having ill-defined identity. AST has never feel like a proper pure astrologist, but more like a mash up of an astro and a time mage. If it gonna receive a make over SMN style, I expect SE will strip away the "time mage" stuffs from it.