Bring Back Stormblood AST - A Call Out To Everyone

[HahnDomica]

I started the game on Endwalker's launch, so I didn't have the opportunity to play old astro. It looks even better than the job I already liked, and at this point any changes are better than this DT fiasco.

[Teno]

Pls don't thank SE for taking into account our feedback, they don't (only JP matters).

[Avoidy]

How would it exist within the current framework? In the pic you posted, one of the cards gives back MP/TP. But resources in 2024 have been sort of smoothed out of existence, you know? Everyone's able to sustain themselves in that regard. Nobody cares about having their MP restored, and TP doesn't exist. Then you look at things like skill speed. I mean, maybe? Maybe someone would want to be buffed in a way that skews their entire rotation? Or maybe they'd just get mad and beg you to keep it off them because it ruins their muscle memory. Even when it was current, if I recall, people just fished for the %dmg card and then complained when they didn't get it. Hell, in DT look what they did. Gave us more of these "incomparable" style cardbuffs, but the game's so sanitized at this point that what could they even provide? A single target shield. Some additional healing. Big whoop.

I agree with the spirit of your post, OP. I think AST would be more enjoyable in an older form, because the current version of it basically strips away all of its card mechanics. You draw the same cards. You don't shuffle anymore. It feels very railroaded and consistent now, and I don't like it. But in considering where the game is right now, I think the SHB version is the happiest combination of "personal enjoyment" and "how the game actually is at the moment." It has all the fun of drawing and shuffling and even gives some buffs through the minor arcanas, but the buffs are all %dmg because this game's so watered down that that's all there's even room for anymore. Your HW rollback would require a revamp of how parties interact with each other in order to be viable, because now things like MP and TP resources would need to return and be in constant use. Personally, I think those sorts of dependencies are important as well, but look at where the devs are taking this game. There's no way they'll roll it back to that. They want everyone to be an island.



Here's shb ast for anyone curious. Less unique cards, but still a very robust system and 2 fun sects that blows the current kit and the EW kit out of the water imo.

In any case, I'm genuinely curious to pick your mind on what kinds of buffs they could include that aren't strictly damage but would still feel relevant in the current game.

[HyoMinPark]

Nah, I’m in agreement. Bring back Stormblood AST. Bring back Royal Road and Time Dilation. Heck, bring back the sects at this point, even if Nocturnal constantly suffered from being objectively worse than Diurnal for the job. I haven’t been able to play AST with nearly the enjoyment that I had back in Heavensward and Stormblood, so if I woke up and saw that SB AST was back, I’d be over the moon. And, at this point, I feel like developers are highly selective about “job balance” in this game; so why not just let one job be broken with its AOE Balance capabilities.

I can appreciate the new variety of cards, but there are still “useless ones” in the bunch. I guess if I have a WAR I can give them new Arrow, but I already have so many healing resources and healers are so overpowered in terms of their healing versus incoming damage, a buff to healing potency was the last thing they really needed. Especially if content isn’t going to do more damage and actually challenge healers from a healing perspective in a party of merely average skill.

I don’t know. Maybe I will just always be salty that my favorite healer was gutted and all the fun aspects I enjoyed removed from it. I can recognize that at least.

Spear’s Crit rate increases would scale exponentially (I think); either it’s useless next to balance, or it’s so powerful it’s not worth using anything else.

Spear’s crit rate would be a lot more valuable if they had kept certain jobs that benefited from crit scaling (e.g., SB BRD and SB MNK, both of which had job mechanics that relied heavily on critical hit percentage for procs). There were situations in SB where it was better to give the BRD a Spear over a Balance due to the crit scaling—especially when we reached Alphascape and crit scaling was at its highest. Besides, crit has always been the best substat. The can’t seem to balance any of the others against it. If jobs still had those nuances and weren’t so streamlined and braindead, old Spear would still have its uses and applications over Balance.

But all of this “BALANCE ONLY” was purely from the speedrun meta perspective. This would not affect the average player—and while balance should ideally be done with higher skill in mind versus lower skill, balancing purely for speedrun metas is not a good idea, in my opinion.

[OliviaLugria]

Pls don't thank SE for taking into account our feedback, they don't (only JP matters).

Several JP threads are asking for it back to.

[Ayer2015]

I want HW AST back....

[ArtemisSeraphin]

In any case, I'm genuinely curious to pick your mind on what kinds of buffs they could include that aren't strictly damage but would still feel relevant in the current game.

Not OP. My fav AST was HW/SB. I miss Time Dialation and Old Celestial Opposition and Nocturnal Sect. I saw someone mentioning turning Lord/Lady into DPS buff for RNG and DPS buff For Melee instead of heal/dmg and I like that idea a lot.

For the other six cards, potential actions:
* Played on enemy for 15% decrease in enemy DEF for 15 seconds. (If we are bringing back Royal Road, variants could possibly include: 30% decrease in DEF for 10 seconds, 7% decrease in DEF for 15 seconds plus 5% decrease in DEF on all nearby enemies, and 10% decrease in def for 30 seconds, or something along those lines)
* Played on enemy, removes enemy immunity to status ailments for 15 seconds (see above for some ideas on Royal Road Variants)
* Played on enemy, halts auto-attacks for 15 seconds (again, Royal Road could increase the duration or make it spread to multiple enemies for shorter time)

* Played on party member: makes immune to bleeds and status ailments for 15 seconds (royal road extend duration, make aoe for shorter time, etc) (perfect for that first AOE in every single final floor and/or the first tank buster in the first three floors because the devs cannot think of any other way to open a fight -- but I can't think of a lot of other places this would get used in casual content soooo probably not the best idea--i'm just salty that the opening of every fight is this predictable.)
* MP Regen. Yes, please, just bring it back because almost every healer is now out here in this awful MP Economy
* A card that is essentially Old Celestial Opposition/Old Time Dilation. The base draw is to extend current players' buffs by 20 seconds. Royal Road variants: AoE, longer duration but only for buffs applied by the AST, etc

Also, I am of the opinion that people who did "fish for balance" were either 1.) Casual players and that was FINE. That was absolutely fine. They were playing content where it didn't matter, let them fish for balance in peace. 2. People who wanted speedruns and numbers of a certain hue and would wipe for a "bad" draw. The "average" high-end player / savage runner knew how to make the best situation out of the draw. Both as part of the "job fantasy" and also just a knowledge of other classes and how a card could make up for that classes weakness, play up its strengths, and/or awareness of the fight in general.

[rawker]

Why not have both? We used to have Chain Strategem in Stormblood anyway. I remember always switching to Selene for her CD Reduction buff whenever I use Chain Strategem, then back to Eos when I need the heals and regens.

Heavensward SCH didn't have Chain Stratagem and it was fine. If anything, I'd rather have Eye for an Eye back and just give all the damage buffing to AST.

[Sani2341]

I Would love for thise to Happen tbh.

Sadly never got into AST too deeply during StB as I was just starting to reach endgame during that time, and barely unlocked Royal Road before Shadowbringers hit.

But even so, it was interesting during dungeons to figure out "what do these people do again so I can give the cards to the right people."
There were tanks not using mits that made every bole worth it's weight in gold. Similarly for ewer in runs that needed all the rezzes.
It didn't work out that way all the time, but when it did, you really felt like a mage grasping fate and making it work for you.

[Zaytex]

I'd prefer ShB AST to come back but honestly, I'll take anything over the current AST.