Yoshi-P's Interview with Famitsu includes a few comments about AST

[Ghishlain]

Original Article posted August 11, 2015 @ 7:40PM JST

Short translation from Reddit

Reddit post quoted below for those not wanting to go to Reddit:

The current problem with Astrologians is the luck based party buffs and lack of healing potency compared to other healers. One step forward may lead to overpowering Astrologians so it's taking time to finalise the decision for balancing issues.

Since Astrologians can switch stances before combat, there's a possibility people will start using two Astrologians in the same stance instead of other healers so they need to be careful.
They are almost complete with collecting the data so after watching over savage for a week or two they will start considering solutions which won't crush the current balance.

The reason why they are being so cautious is because there was a chance where the top players aiming for world first might find tweaks the Devs didn't notice and use Astrologians better than expected. So if they buffed Astrologians in that state it would have made Astrologians far more over powered.

The devs are aware that the lv60 DPS are dealing a huge amount of damage and some tank are having trouble keeping hate.

After looking at the A3 savage clear party set ups they consider there are no situations where people can't beat it because of a certain job is in the party.
However they also noticed that there are bumps in which jobs are being used over others, so they will be aiming towards balancing out the jobs used in savage by continuing to watch which jobs are being used the most/least.

The first A3 savage clear was a few days earlier than they expected. Yoshida said that he thinks they were able to clear it first because they weren't afraid of trying new things out (like Dark knight) . When it comes to claiming world first he thinks flexibility is really important and just like team sports, having one great player doesn't allow you to be the best.

During the next live letter included in the 2nd anniversary 14 hour live broad cast(August 20th?) they will have a patch 3.1 introduction part 1. Part 2 will be revealed at Toky game show 2015. The next F.A.T.E event will be in kagoshima(sout west of japan) The date for patch 3.1 will be announced in one of the 3 evenst above.

A reddit post for the same article with a different translator and more detail can be found here

Here are the bits relevant to AST

Please tell us about the update roadmap for the near future.

Y: On July the 21st, we released patch 3.05 which included a new Frontlines mode as well Alexander (savage). Later we will be releasing small bug fixes to these contents, as well as job balance adjustments based on players' feedback.

Will you be adjusting the new jobs as well?

Y: Our biggest focus right now is adjusting Astrologian, which I think is also something players are very interested in.

Please tell us a bit more about how you see the current job balance.

Y: We've been continually looking over our players' feedback, and we made adjustments to the things we believed were the most urgent before the release of patch 3.05. However, in the particular case of Astrologian we felt that it would be too risky to do that without first looking at the job's performance in Alexander (savage). We are currently looking over play logs for Alexander (savage) and reading player feedback as we decide which changes to make.

There have been may requests regarding Astrologian's card system.

Y: I think the players' comments on the random factor are completely on point. However, the Astrologian's cards have the power to increase the party's strength as a whole. If they also had the same heal output as a White Mage or Scholar, then those two jobs would have nothing to offer to match the increase in party power. The two problems we are focusing on are the unreliability of the cards' RNG and Astrologian's lack of healing output compared to the other two jobs, however a single misstep could end up making the job overpowered, which is why this is taking so long. We apologize for making you all wait.

In order to keep things balanced, every time you increase something you have to reduce something else.

Y: Since Astologian can use two different healing stances, there is a risk that double Astrologians could become the optimal party makeup, which is something we absolutely wanted to avoid. If the top players progressing through savage found something we didn't think of, that allowed them to use Astrologian better, while we at the same time balanced it upward, then the job could have become overpowered. It pains us to force Astrologian mains to wait like this, but data collection should be over very soon. We will observe the situation for another 1-2 weeks, and then start carefully addressing players' concerns in a way that doesn't endanger the game's balance.

[DarkmoonVael]

You beat me by 3 mins. Was coming to post this as well. Nice to see our concerns are being listened to. Less RNG or no RNG on buffs would be good, as would looking at the lack of healing potency AST has compared to WHM and SCH. Looking forward to seeing how they are going to buff AST now .

[Saseal]

Less RNG or no RNG on buffs would be good, as would looking at the lack of healing potency AST has compared to WHM and SCH.

It would be awesome to be able to choose our buffs, depending on the situation T^T. We could easily pre-prep fights (Royal road a AoE buff, spread a spear, draw a bole.... right before boss pull or first dungeon pull, toss the spear on all, use Bole on the tank..... hells, in a mid-fight known for a raid-wide AoE (megaflare, etc), Royal Road an AoE card, spread a bole sometime earlier..... use the Bole right before the AoE hits (even if SCH/Noct AST can use shields...). Just extra mitigation. Heavy DPS checks - pre-Royal road an AoE card, spread a Balance, draw an Arrow... AoE the party with Balance, Arrow the slowest or lowest DPS to give them a boost (BRD/MCH/PLD). Or AoE Ewer on healers in something like A4. Or throw a RR'ed potency buff with a spread or drawn whatsitsface TP card on WAR/Constantly AoEing melee DPSes, knowing there's a WAR tank in a dungeon with big pulls.
But it's just not that easy to plan when it's all RNG. I've had fights where the only thing remotely useful drawn was a bole. For the entire fight. Spears and ewers e'rrywhere! I ended up just Royal Roading everything or just throwing Spears on tank/DPS in hopes of catching a CD not yet used. It would be a lot of planning and predicting and timing if they let us choose our cards.

Unfortunately, I don't see this happening ._.

I would so take being able to pick my cards over buffed healing power - if in a party with another healer, I can easily help the other healer out, using the buffs... throw extended or potent Bole on the tank if they're getting slapped around and we're having a hard time keeping up, throw raised potency ewer on the healer if their MP is low. Throw a spear on them right as someone dies if they're the type to SC+Raise right away (or, even better, if they indicate BEFORE they pop shroud and I can throw a spear on them so Shroud comes back sooner.... assuming I have one in spread or Draw isn't on CD)...

In this case it would still be a wanted healer for the buffs, but would not overwrite the need for healing ability from WHM or SCH...

But I really shouldn't say much about the healing potency, as I haven't hit anywhere near end game content on AST, yet x.x It's just all I got, on keeping the balance

[Parawill]

Looking forward to the buffs/changes to AST. Hopefully they'll offer their own specialized type of healing in their healing kit, but that goes beyond buffs into complete overhaul.

Whatever direction it takes it will most likely be a good one, considering how passionate many players are with this class.

When it comes to claiming world first he thinks flexibility is really important and just like team sports, having one great player doesn't allow you to be the best.

Too much truth in this. =/ Sadly my raid's first AS1 clear involved our Scholar going off to a trip, us getting a sub WHM and I (the AST in the WHM role) switching to SCH for the very first time.

[Eudyptes]

I'm happy they are working to make changes. However it also bothers me they have walk on eggshells to balance the class properly w/o it becoming overpowered. It baffles me they made it half a whm and half a sch in the first place instead of just making it its own unique class/playstyle. I feel like so much of this drama with the class could have been averted from the beginning if they weren't stupid about designing this class from the ground up.

[Daws]

I'm happy they are working to make changes. However it also bothers me they have walk on eggshells to balance the class properly w/o it becoming overpowered. It baffles me they made it half a whm and half a sch in the first place instead of just making it its own unique class/playstyle. I feel like so much of this drama with the class could have been averted from the beginning if they weren't stupid about designing this class from the ground up.

I'm baffled that you find it baffling. Honestly. It seems pretty obvious to me. In creating a healer that can swap between regen and shields, they created a unique healer. Plenty of people love ast, it's just a matter of balancing and ironing out the rough edges.

They weren't stupid, they just approached a new healer differently than you would have. Doesn't make them stupid.

[Eudyptes]

I'm baffled that you find it baffling. Honestly. It seems pretty obvious to me. In creating a healer that can swap between regen and shields, they created a unique healer. Plenty of people love ast, it's just a matter of balancing and ironing out the rough edges.

They weren't stupid, they just approached a new healer differently than you would have. Doesn't make them stupid.

I like ast quite a lot too, but that's in spite of it being a hybrid. In a game like this where there is only two healer spots (on top of the fact that hybrid classes almost never work in MMO's), it's a very bad idea to make a class that can only be a watered down version of either at any given time. Imo, that's stupid. Especially considering most could have probably seen this coming.

And by unique I didn't mean "technically unique", I meant give it it's own playstyle. Something that would have given them a lot more freedom in situations exactly like this where they can balance w/o fear of making it OP.

[EchuKayu]

I'm baffled that you find it baffling. Honestly. It seems pretty obvious to me. In creating a healer that can swap between regen and shields, they created a unique healer. Plenty of people love ast, it's just a matter of balancing and ironing out the rough edges.

They weren't stupid, they just approached a new healer differently than you would have. Doesn't make them stupid.

Lol. Really? You define unique on the ability to switch between sects? That's like saying all of the tanks are unique because they can change between defensive and offensive stances, but there's that one tank that can't, so they're unique.

Unique are cards, unique is Synastry, unique is that side of AST. It is most definitely not creating a job that is a ripoff of a WHM/SCH, while leaving out the things about those two healers that give them their strength. (Crit shields/High potency spells and aoes)

[Kumori_Kumo]

it also bothers me they have walk on eggshells to balance the class properly w/o it becoming overpowered.

It's much easier to introduce buffs to a class that needs it than to introduce nerfs. Just look at how they handled the fairy healing for Scholars- it's a pretty obvious nerf, but they did their very best not to even mention it. It's more of a PR move than a pure gameplay one.

[Risvertasashi]

It's much easier to introduce buffs to a class that needs it than to introduce nerfs. Just look at how they handled the fairy healing for Scholars- it's a pretty obvious nerf, but they did their very best not to even mention it. It's more of a PR move than a pure gameplay one.

Yup yup. And lustrate... really a net buff for the ability, but those that cry nerf... what the really cared is about their ability to use it in cleric stance. Between that and the fairy, SE's make it harder for SCHs to DPS and heal... although they still do pretty well at DPSing, just not as easy to do both now.