Thank you for the Astro changes coming in dawntrail!

[LotusDye]

Did you cheat and stack the deck so you drew the exact same cards every single time in MTG too or are you gonna admit that what we're getting are 'cards' in name and vfx alone?

I do believe functions such as "scrying" did the job of stacking quite well.
Commander always was my favorite format, where one card was "stacked," in a manner of speaking.

But none of those matters are relevant here.

The only matter of importance is whether AST receives more impacting functions as we progress further into game iteration.
The answer to that question is not in dispute.
The presentation of such functions are reminiscent to holding a hand of cards. You may not like that presentation, and by all means use whichever sequence of language you desire to mock such an idea, but no manner of choice on your part will change that presentation, nor will they contribute to elevating the game's difficulty.

I will say as I have said many times and remain resolute in so doing- If you take issue with the game lacking difficulty, address the game lacking difficulty. Your efforts are wasted if not applied to the correct issue.

[AmiableApkallu]

If you take issue with the game lacking difficulty, address the game lacking difficulty. Your efforts are wasted if not applied to the correct issue.

Job design is a part of the game's overall difficulty.

If a job had, say, an ability whose effect was, "Instantly kills enemy target and all other enemies within 5000y, always." and it was on a 2.5sec cooldown... how exactly do you make encounters more difficult?

If Essential Dignity was instead a 50y AoE ability with a 1 sec cooldown... how exactly do you make encounters more difficult?

Having to work within the confines of a restricted set of tools and resources is one contributor to the game's difficulty.

[LotusDye]

Job design is a part of the game's overall difficulty.

If a job had, say, an ability whose effect was, "Instantly kills enemy target and all other enemies within 5000y, always." and it was on a 2.5sec cooldown... how exactly do you make encounters more difficult?

If Essential Dignity was instead a 50y AoE ability with a 1 sec cooldown... how exactly do you make encounters more difficult?

Having to work within the confines of a restricted set of tools and resources is one contributor to the game's difficulty.

Adjusting incoming damage is also a part of a game's overall difficulty.
The abilities you described are intentionally unreasonable. That is not a position of good faith.
More reasonable is suggesting the developers add mechanics with a higher difficulty to solve, increase incoming damage, or deal against the players more severe debuffs suitable for the healer role to handle.

I will stand by these reasonable suggestions as my personal grounds for argumentation. As the examples you provide are intentionally unreasonable, I will kindly disregard them.

[AmiableApkallu]

More reasonable is suggesting the developers add mechanics with a higher difficulty to solve, increase incoming damage, or deal against the players more severe debuffs suitable for the healer role to handle.

The developers could do all of that without giving healers a single additional tool. Adding more tools to what they already have simply works against such changes.

That's the point.

[Heilstos]

Unfortunately I have to agree with Lotus Dye here. The greed of us raiders for DPS reinforcement has made the AST what it is now. Dad made sure that hardly anyone played an AST.

I think it's like Yoshida said. We should try it one way or another. But I can understand Leona's mood. I was also shocked when the devs made the cards DPS dispensers and killed the diversity. I was so frustrated...

We need to see the complete package. But I think there are many ways to combine the cards. Nobody here said a thought about it. Except for this Aetherflow thought, which I find out of place here.

Changes are always coming and you have to see where things are going. For my part, I think that your own damage output will now be higher again. Maybe as far as SCH level.

[Supersnow845]

The thing is that nobody disliked ShB AST, hell it was significantly ahead of SCH who was the floundering one

It was the EW changes and the EW changes alone that made everyone hate the job

Outside of divination being powered by seals which forced overuse of redraw when it still had 3 charges there was basically nothing wrong with ShB AST besides a bit of flavour that could have been added later (like adding certain effects to the existing cards

Whether you are a proponent of SB AST or later versions we all agree that EW AST is the worst version, but that doesn’t justify basically making it not Astro anymore

[Equitable_Remedy]

I think Astro will be more popular meaning it will be stuck like this. Which honestly isn't great.

A job becoming more popular is good, actually.

[Eastwall]

Are they doing this to increase play rate in high end content? I play ast because l like the flaming orb l hold(just got my pyros weapon). I forget to press divination all the time, lol

[Teno]

A job becoming more popular is good, actually.

Lol, it's really not when the gameplay is garbage. See summoner.

[Kissune]

This argument is ubiquitous on the forum, but a job becoming more popular among players is good, actually.

Eh. The popularity is an illusion. It'll just dilute the pool of healers even more and alienate the people who liked AST gameplay. Most people who will pick up AST were already healer mains already, so it may increase the amount of people playing AST but the amount of healers will likely decrease apart from the subset of people who pick it up for the aesthetics. AST isn't getting anything interesting, and it's losing a lot to be streamlined into being very similar to the other healers. The people who wanted variant cards with unique effects will try the job out and most will realize that without RNG the fun of the stormblood system isn't there. A lot of EW/ShB AST mains will be abandoning the role altogether. I predict an even more dire healer shortage, especially at the high end. I'm already seeing it. Most statics are stuck looking for 1-2 healers and there's very few healer lfgs. This continual commitment to making healers dumber and easier is just making it less appealing except for the people who don't want to think about anything but pressing one button and using bloated healing kits to tackle the frankly pathetic amount of actual healing required in current fights.