What are the AST changes that everyone wants, realistically speaking.

[Aelin_Ashryver]

If they did delay the rework because Samurai's rightfully complained about their rubbish job changes, then it's a good thing. Unless you wanted the big AST rework to make the job even worse still.

The core of the issue is nothing to do with Samurai players anyway, it's the fact they have a ridiculously small, inexperienced job design team in one of the biggest MMO's on the market with 20+ jobs. They simply can't design good jobs with their current resources, but they've been stubbornly trying to push it along for years while they fall further and further behind. They need to wake up. Job design is in a dire state.

I don't disdain the Sam's their complaining, I disliked the kaiten removal also. But the fact astro was already due to change in 6.2 and is now just pushed back to 7.0 just means I am left waiting for what I was already going to get. Do you think they are going the make big changes to what they had planned in 6.2 for the job? If the ast rework sucked guess what, I hate the endwalker iteration and shb also pissed me off. I have dropped the job already, if it stays dead to me at least I know earlier rather than waiting another 18months until next expansion.

People from another job complaining should not have impacted me waiting on my healer to get a MUCH needed adjustment. If it was good or bad was yet to be seen and now I cannot see that for ages. I very much doubt they are going to expand their job design team either, they already removed their experienced healer from their testing because he was too good. Hardly bodes well for us now does it.

They don't need to wait till 7.0 to start explaining in detail the reasoning for their changes either. They can put them in patch notes easily enough.

[ThorneDynasty]

The fact Square might be taking the wrong lesson from criticism every single time is not the fault of criticism though.

[Deceptus]

The fact Square might be taking the wrong lesson from criticism every single time is not the fault of criticism though.

Reminds me of a thread I created 2 years or so ago

They come around eventually, it just takes them forever to do it.

We've been asking for Role "visions / direction" for a while now and they've stubbornly refused

[Liam_Harper]

"For Astrologian, the changes are related to the cards. It is difficult to decide on adjustments to the cards since there are voices for and against the RNG element to them."

So, the "big AST rework" is just changing the cards and they're literally relying on the players to do their job for them and are confused because we're not telling them what to do clearly enough. Please look forward to it.

I don't know, I guess I didn't expect anything better...

[HyoMinPark]

Ultimately it's most likely not even the developers' fault, SE as a producer is ridiculously stingy with servicing one of their most reliable source of income. . . . And yeah, you can make the valid point that simply throwing more designers and programmers at the project isn't an immediate panacea. But some of the prominent points of criticism go back several years already

I disagree. You have to hold the developers at fault to a certain extent because healer balance has been wonky ever since HW when AST was first introduced. It and WHM have always been at odds with one another because WHM has nothing to compete with AST’s raid buffs; suggestions to give WHM something like Bravery were repeatedly ignored. AST itself has always been a balancing nightmare, be it because of the card system or because of its old Sects.

The development team have no dedicated healer mains. I don’t think it’s impossible for them to find at least one person to dedicate to healer design and healer combat—but if they’re unwilling or unable to do that, then perhaps they should listen to the repeated feedback given from the people who play the role and play it extensively. I don’t think there’s ever been a period where the healers weren’t getting rightful criticism; AST especially.

I don’t consider the dev team entirely blameless when it comes to the state of the job, or the state of the healer role altogether.

So, the "big AST rework" is just changing the cards and they're literally relying on the players to do their job for them and are confused because we're not telling them what to do clearly enough. Please look forward to it.

I don't know, I guess I didn't expect anything better...

I’m not even surprised that it’s just the cards. That seems like the highest point of contention when it comes to veteran ASTs and people that have only been playing the job since ShB or EW. And that they don’t know what to do really doesn’t surprise me because that’s been obvious for several years now when it comes to healers in general.

A part of me can’t help but hope this might mean the return of Royal Road or some other old elements if the changes are related to the card system. But I’m sure it will just be card effects or durations, and any aspect of AST’s original job will stay in the bin. :/

[Mortex]

So, the "big AST rework" is just changing the cards and they're literally relying on the players to do their job for them and are confused because we're not telling them what to do clearly enough. Please look forward to it.

I don't know, I guess I didn't expect anything better...

It’s classic square and healer jobs. They don’t know what too do about them in any way, shape or form. I mean we only need to look at how long dmg neutral blood lily took them.

[SweetPete]

I think players have given them amazing ideas on the card. They didn’t have to remove Royal road etc. Just change balance and they didn’t listen. Instead they destroyed the job in shadowbringers and kept on it in Endwalker. Now they want us to give them more ideas. Well if they would of listened the first time Wynette wouldn’t be in this mess now. Quite unfortunate.

[ASkellington]

So, the "big AST rework" is just changing the cards and they're literally relying on the players to do their job for them and are confused because we're not telling them what to do clearly enough. Please look forward to it.

I don't know, I guess I didn't expect anything better...

How hard is it to understand that we like AST's cards in PvP with varied effects vs how it is in EW and Shb currently when:

1. In both systems you built up to Divination (Shb)/Astrodyne (EW) and both feel extremely underwhelming despite the work you put into it (a maximum of 6% damage, hooray!)
   
2. None of the cards do anything other than half are melee/half are ranged
   
3. None of the seals REALLY impact game play

I get you don't want our buffs to be so powerful we're a staple of any high end comp because ExTrA DaMaGe! But c'mon there HAS to be a better middle ground than what we have now and what we had last expansion because NO I don't want to go back to 4/5/6% Divination. Keep that thing separate from the cards please.

[SweetPete]

How hard is it to understand that we like AST's cards in PvP with varied effects vs how it is in EW and Shb currently when:

1. In both systems you built up to Divination (Shb)/Astrodyne (EW) and both feel extremely underwhelming despite the work you put into it (a maximum of 6% damage, hooray!)
   
2. None of the cards do anything other than half are melee/half are ranged
   
3. None of the seals REALLY impact game play

I get you don't want our buffs to be so powerful we're a staple of any high end comp because ExTrA DaMaGe! But c'mon there HAS to be a better middle ground than what we have now and what we had last expansion because NO I don't want to go back to 4/5/6% Divination. Keep that thing separate from the cards please.

The middle ground is give the other healers special skills too that will make them equally desirable. I mean I know they don’t wanna go back to Astro having a guaranteed raid spot well this is the mess they made and they need to fix it. I’m glad they waiting until 7.0 to show us what they came up with. It will also give them time to give the other healers hopefully equally nice stuff too so we can have our pick in high end raids and not just Guaranteed Astro spot.

[Semirhage]

The middle ground is give the other healers special skills too that will make them equally desirable. I mean I know they don’t wanna go back to Astro having a guaranteed raid spot well this is the mess they made and they need to fix it. I’m glad they waiting until 7.0 to show us what they came up with. It will also give them time to give the other healers hopefully equally nice stuff too so we can have our pick in high end raids and not just Guaranteed Astro spot.

Since giving WHM anything other than boring damage spams and vanilla heals is ~l i t e r a l l y~ impossible, the sustainable way to fix the healer role is forever out of reach.