New Astrologian's design complaints (sorry)

[Kissune]

SB iteration being the most popular speaks volumes, regardless of if in high end you would sit prepull fishing for balance or not overall it was more enjoyable across ALL content than durrr all card do dmg that it became.

So I will call it a win, I get to actually play my old main again after two years of waiting. Gutted to nothingness for me was EW where for god knows what reason we couldn't be oprah throwing a million cards at high speeds, we got the nasty business that was astrodyne and our rng mitigation tool in redraw was nerfed leaving the job more frustrating than it ever was in shb. It was slower, more annoying and dumber than ever before so I dropped it.

You do not seem to understand that you are not interacting with your cards anymore. THESE ARE NOT CARDS. They look like them, but they function nothing like what they did in stormblood. Stormblood cards were random, and they could be burned for greater effects later. These? This is no different than an aetherflow that tells you how to spend it. You are not looking at what the actual changes entail and realize that they will not function as cards except for sheer aesthetics alone.

If you think EW AST is boring, that's fine, that's whatever. But AST's identity even back in stormblood was reacting to what you got and adjusting your plan in real time. Instead what we have now is the same four cards, drawn at the same time every single fight, with zero semblance of reactivity. You press the aetherflow button, you get the 4 aetherflow stacks, and you can't

This is what being gutted to nothingness looks like, not Endwalker AST. At least endwalker astro had to actually think on the fly about which cards went where. Now? We get 2 damage cards in burst, the same two every time, and a bunch of spot healing and mit tools that you either use at the exact same time every fight or you don't bc they're completely predictable. There's no royal road, there's no spread, there's no sleeve draw. It's just play or do not play. These are not SB cards. EW cards have more in common with them.

Do you seriously not understand how removing all RNG from the job makes it essentially no longer AST? Or are you seriously enjoying having your 'card draws' (which aren't even being drawn anymore. Just handpicked from the same alternating set) be completely fixed and unchanging?

Please look up what they are actually doing to AST because I don't think you really realize what 'all RNG being gone' means for the class.

[Aravell]

You do not seem to understand that you are not interacting with your cards anymore. THESE ARE NOT CARDS. They look like them, but they function nothing like what they did in stormblood. Stormblood cards were random, and they could be burned for greater effects later. These? This is no different than an aetherflow that tells you how to spend it. You are not looking at what the actual changes entail and realize that they will not function as cards except for sheer aesthetics alone.

While we have very different opinions on current AST, I agree with this sentiment. This isn't the SB AST I wanted, it's an absolute travesty.

AST has always been about being dealt a hand and making do with it in the best way that you can, being handed every card for free goes against this core. The fast paced decision making is also entirely gone, you'll have one entire minute to think about who you want to give the 2 damage cards to as we'll be saving the odd minute cards to use 2 damage cards during burst.

As much as I dislike ShB/EW AST, I at least acknowledge that they kept some minor decision making and the fast pacing is still there. DT AST has absolutely none of what I loved about AST in SB, the diverse cards aren't everything, plus we don't even know how diverse they are. If it's just +damage dealt, -damage received and +HP, then that's honestly very boring.

[KanataNanaya]

The very definition of AST we were given is to accept the card we are dealt with and use it to alter fate and lead the party to victory.
What is even AST anymore if not a "WHM at home" after this change.

The ONLY 2 things left that have any trace of Astrologian for me is Synastry and Earthly Star, everything else is just basic healer kit rebranded with a different animation and name. You might argue Horoscope too, but I don't even think it reflect Astrologian in anyway, just another heal button.

It's just extra depressing when YoshiP said "we know some people like the random aspect, but please try this out and please try to understand, and feed back on the forum"

That's just "please cope for another 3 years, may be". I know the dev really listen, and i guess it's my fault for staying silent years after years when my favorite job get butchered. But It's just depressing looking at a job you love get reduced to this state. (for me, personally it's two loved jobs that got butchered. as DRK get turned into a WAR clone ages ago, but that's not as bad as DT's AST)

[ArtemisSeraphin]

These are absolutely NOT cards with unique abilities, and I am so tired of seeing people argue that we are getting that back. Every 60 seconds, you get 3 Aetherflow stacks. Sorry, I mean cards. You can use these stacks cards however you want--it's entirely up to you; lustrate, excog, energy drain. Wait, sorry. My producer Tara Kate is saying there isn't a choice at all. Ha. In fact, it might even be dictated to you by the game. One stack card is always mit, one stack card is always cure, one stack card is always buff.

Scholar can at least decide to dump every stack into energy drain if they want. DT Ast? Nope.

Can we please now stop saying that cards are getting their unique identity back?

[Rithy255]

" a heal card and a mitigation" Wooo astro getting their identity!!!

It's a stricter energy drain, you press button you can use a heal, mit and damage buff, once per minute. This. Is. Not. Astro.

What made astro's cards unique was random without that they're just generic cooldowns lol.

[Zaytex]

Yeah, no. The decision making got a lot more simple when our cards became phys dmg and ranged damage. It's boring and didn't take much thought at all. You DO use the other cards in casual content because shocker not every player is that great, having extra healing or defensive available for the random tank that doesn't use his mits is nice. It's nice little flavour in clutch moments during messy fights overall. I'd love more to interact with our cards like in SB and YOU and other EW ast enjoyers are no more important than I am. I loved the job for four years and EW was an annoying, boring iteration to me so much so that I swapped over to dps after giving sch a go for a tier. I was sad astro lost it's tempo when it lost sleeve draw. We're not getting it back and I much prefer this version over EW.

Saying it's changes for garbage players who enjoy WHM just shows you're salty and childish. AST still is different from WHM with wanting to preplan heals and anyone who doesn't want to think isn't going to enjoy that, they will still play WHM and glare till something needs healed. SB iteration being the most popular speaks volumes, regardless of if in high end you would sit prepull fishing for balance or not overall it was more enjoyable across ALL content than durrr all card do dmg that it became.

So I will call it a win, I get to actually play my old main again after two years of waiting. Gutted to nothingness for me was EW where for god knows what reason we couldn't be oprah throwing a million cards at high speeds, we got the nasty business that was astrodyne and our rng mitigation tool in redraw was nerfed leaving the job more frustrating than it ever was in shb. It was slower, more annoying and dumber than ever before so I dropped it.

You're literally proving my point, this rework is aimed for bad players or those who didn't want to put the effort into learning AST properly (i.e casuals) - so they screamed and kicked for it to be made easier to access. I don't understand why you're excited to even play it, when like I say, it's not the same thing as the SB AST you and other people falled in love with. There's no interaction. You press a button, and you get fixed cards. Conceptually, these aren't even cards when the literal idea of cards is RNG by nature, as you're pulling them out of a deck.

Is it still different from WHM? Of course, by the nature of its pre-planned heals which with macrocosmos, are complex to a fair degree. But the gap between WHM/AST has closed significantly, and without the card system being as high APM as it was with the 2 minute window, the malefic spam is going to feel a lot worse now. The healer role has been fundamentally simplified and stripped down over the years, and AST was gutted in favour for casual players who never touched it to begin with.

[luca20]

Whoever is doing the AST redesign has never played AST and thinks AST players don' t exist. I adore current AST, its incredibly fast paced and the 2 minute requieres you to do fast descision making. Best part is that is different every pull so for me it really lowered the sting of wipping again and again and again. I understand the need for simple jobs like WHM and the like but we also need complex jobs with high skill ceiling. The people who find AST hard can go play WHM or SGE but where am I going after DT? These changes are horrible, they not only take away all which made AST fun and engaging but somehow go in the complete oposite direction of what anyone wanted, havent they heard all the people who want StB AST back? Did they not understood what people liked about it? I don't see myself playing AST at all come DT and as it's the only healer I even enjoy this means you are losing on one high end healer completly. I want the RNG, I want the high apm, is not fair I get my favorite job taken away while pelple who already like WHM get another color palette. I want to stay a healer main but seems I gotta go back to GNB or DPS.

[Post]

So like, how do the cards differ now? I don't think we have the full picture yet because 'offensive cards' seems to include the balance and spear, defensive the arrow and bole, and restorative ewer and spire, based on job actions trailer footage.

I assume there's still going to be SOME decision making on that, potentially a bit if they just made one a short, strong buff and the other a long, weak buff for instance... Not that I think they'd attempt to do something interesting, just mean that we don't fully have the new system just from in the letter and trailer.

Also, in my mind cards being scrambled again has less of an impact on ruining AST's feel to play than shit like the loss of time manipulation, Sects and Earthly Star being made fucking gigantic. There may be lower APM again, but there may still be some randomness to the cards yet. It's not quite SMN's 1 big summ -> 3 smaller summ every minute, or Aetherflow (noting that both WHM lilies and Addersgall are just 'smart' Aetherflow already)

[SweetestLily]

I still am a firm believer that ast was at its peak in HW & Stormblood. I mained it back then and it felt amazing and fun to play. That was the best way to handle the cards IMO. After it got ruined in SHB i dropped it and never looked back.

[KanataNanaya]

So like, how do the cards differ now? I don't think we have the full picture yet because 'offensive cards' seems to include the balance and spear, defensive the arrow and bole, and restorative ewer and spire, based on job actions trailer footage.

I assume there's still going to be SOME decision making on that, potentially a bit if they just made one a short, strong buff and the other a long, weak buff for instance... Not that I think they'd attempt to do something interesting, just mean that we don't fully have the new system just from in the letter and trailer.

Also, in my mind cards being scrambled again has less of an impact on ruining AST's feel to play than shit like the loss of time manipulation, Sects and Earthly Star being made fucking gigantic. There may be lower APM again, but there may still be some randomness to the cards yet. It's not quite SMN's 1 big summ -> 3 smaller summ every minute, or Aetherflow (noting that both WHM lilies and Addersgall are just 'smart' Aetherflow already)

I doubt there will be any new and unique effect so let's see what we currently have:

ATK: raw atk dmg, crit rate, crit chance, ranged up, melee up.
DEF: Raw barrier, raw dmg reduction.
Heal: Raw Heal and Regen.

there might be some that i'm missing, but really i can't imagine anything from the def and heal cards being actually useful. ATK card will most likely be ranged or melee ones.