New Astrologian's design complaints (sorry)

[Kissune]

Having dropped AST in EW due to hating the state of it these changes make me hopeful to regain SOME feeling of SB ast cards back. Having every card be damage only was just boring. I do love the higher pacing of the job and it seems we lose that somewhat but we will see. I also like the proactive healing it does compared to whitemage. Hyped to try AST again after hating the EW iteration of it. Stormblood astro is still my fave by far.

But these fundamentally are not Stormblood cards if you look at what we're getting deeper. They are not cards anymore. You know exactly what tool you're going to get at every specific moment on a strict 60s timer. You know what that is? It's not cards. It's aetherflow but somehow even more restrictive. They look like cards, sure, but they share nothing in common with what stormblood cards were and how they played other than just aesthetics.

Just because they have different effects doesn't mean they're Stormblood cards. Stormblood cards were interesting bc of how they interacted with eachother, and how you couldn't predict which one you got. There is no fundamental difference between cards that have no RNG and buttons that just say 'do X'. There's no decision making involved, no reacting on the fly. From start to finish you know exactly what cards you have at any given time. The most interesting aspect of Astrologian is dead.

[ArtemisSeraphin]

Just because they have different effects doesn't mean they're Stormblood cards. Stormblood cards were interesting bc of how they interacted with eachother, and how you couldn't predict which one you got.

Exactly this. At peak play, a good AST could make any card combo work in SB. Sleeve Draw, Royal Road, etc., combined with Time Dilation and/or the (SB) effects of Celestial Opposition, could all work in harmony so that there were never any "bad draws" and you could make amazing draws last longer. It's why I dislike the Seal system and am, at the very least, glad that it is gone--you can end up with bad draws with the Seal System and there's no way to make a bad draw decent. The ways in which you could combine cards made it so that you could make a decent lemonade.

And that's what I really loved about it: having to THINK. There is no other healing job now that has the skill ceiling that AST had. I'm fine with low skill floors, but some jobs need to have high skill ceilings to challenge players who want that challenge and to push themselves. But instead of listening to actual AST players and taking advice from us about what we like about the job play style, they've listened to people who like AST for the aesthetic. Now we have White Mage (Flower Version) and White Mage (Sparkles Version).

[Kissune]

Exactly this. At peak play, a good AST could make any card combo work in SB. Sleeve Draw, Royal Road, etc., combined with Time Dilation and/or the (SB) effects of Celestial Opposition, could all work in harmony so that there were never any "bad draws" and you could make amazing draws last longer. It's why I dislike the Seal system and am, at the very least, glad that it is gone--you can end up with bad draws with the Seal System and there's no way to make a bad draw decent. The ways in which you could combine cards made it so that you could make a decent lemonade.

And that's what I really loved about it: having to THINK. There is no other healing job now that has the skill ceiling that AST had. I'm fine with low skill floors, but some jobs need to have high skill ceilings to challenge players who want that challenge and to push themselves. But instead of listening to actual AST players and taking advice from us about what we like about the job play style, they've listened to people who like AST for the aesthetic. Now we have White Mage (Flower Version) and White Mage (Sparkles Version).

I didn't even like the stormblood system, and I still feel like it just wouldn't work in current ffxiv. But fuck, I'd take it over whatever this is. At least I'd recognize it. I'd feel at home, I'd feel in my element, I'd fulfill the niche I've always loved filling since I started playing. I literally will not have that option in Dawntrail and I'm sorry but I think me having fun with an archetype that has been here since Heavensward is more important than some people who haven't touched the class in their lives after getting turned off by its gameplay identity getting their preferred flavour of white mage aesthetics.