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

[Geardagas]

What if the cards themselves had a small healing potency attached to them? Like "here's an attack boost and a mini cure" all in one move. That way if you drew a card you didnt need, you could still throw it on someone who needs a (mp free) hp boost. That could also make up for the lower potency of all the other heals.

That's been discussed, but it still doesn't change the fact that 3 of the cards are useless, and you'd still be always praying for balance.

We have 3 cards that benefit DPS (two of which aren't nearly as good as balance), two cards that benefit the tank (bole and spire), and one card that benefits the healer. The three DPS cards aren't situational; all three simply increase DPS. Therefore the best thing to do would be to completely remake spear and arrow into a unique effect that doesn't just increase DPS less than balance would. I also think that, should a secondary healing potency increase be implemented, it should last much longer than the main buff. Being on par with other healers 50% of the time sounds really frustrating.

[Waterdeep]

If they really want the AST to be a unique support healer they have to do something like the BRD in XI and have them juggle buffs. Get rid of shield stance and make it literally buff stance and allow the AST to switch during combat.

Nocturnal Sect
-swapps MND and INT like Cleric, same cd as well
-Card Draw cd is 10 seconds
-adds 5 seconds on card buff duration
-gets rid of the -50% on spread
-Disable lasts now 10 seconds
-boosts AST acc
-10% shield on Collective

There, AST now has a stance where they can DPS and dish out buffs. Yes the random would still hurt them, but being able to have 2 card effects run for most of the time should do well. Works well with WHM and SCH.

[Ametrine]

You all are putting forth fantastic suggestions, and I've benched my lvl 50 AST on the simple fact that weaker heals means I literally have no time to do any card drawing or dps. This is compared to my SCH main, which never feels underpowered.

It's so frustrating to never feel like I can heal fast enough. The heals are so tiny, and aspected heals, despite mitigating the main heal's lack of potentcy, cost so much mana you can't rely on them.

The stances either need to make a larger impact, or need to be entirely rehauled. Perhaps make one reduce MP costs, and one reduce CDs/increase spell speed, and allow us to swap freely.

Essential Dignity needs a shorter CD.

Synastry doesn't last long enough.

I'm in the camp that finds the cards to be fine as they are. I don't mind the RNG or potency, but, as I said earlier, I don't get to full with them as much as I feel I should since I can rarely pause from actually healing @_@

[Ametrine]

If they really want the AST to be a unique support healer they have to do something like the BRD in XI and have them juggle buffs. Get rid of shield stance and make it literally buff stance and allow the AST to switch during combat.

Nocturnal Sect
-swapps MND and INT like Cleric, same cd as well
-Card Draw cd is 10 seconds
-adds 5 seconds on card buff duration
-gets rid of the -50% on spread
-Disable lasts now 10 seconds
-boosts AST acc
-10% shield on Collective

There, AST now has a stance where they can DPS and dish out buffs. Yes the random would still hurt them, but being able to have 2 card effects run for most of the time should do well. Works well with WHM and SCH.

I fucking love this idea.

[Taranok]

The problem is that that idea cannot happen. With perfect luck, you could have a permanent 10% damage boost to the entire party (not quite permanent, but pretty close.)

Furthermore, it does nothing to making Diurnal actually good when you are healing, and prevents the class from having a barrier ability on a single GCD. Yes, they have stoneskin, but all 3 healers need a reliable barrier that they can cast, and that half second is already unreasonable.

In order for that to be viable, they'd have to nerf the cards into the ground, and the cards are already clunky to use on a 30 second rotation due to GCD clipping with casting and how horrid the healing of the class is presently, so it'd only make it worse.

They may as well make a 4th class type called "support" at that point, as well.

[Yumi_umi]

Ok so how did a bunch of u derail this thread with ast vs whm/ sch and what you want changed with ast.
Isn't this thread ABOUT YOSHI'S INTERVIEW WITH FAMITSU.

Also half of these ppl r jokes at playing ast and just theory craft.
Maybe the devs should listen to ur ideas cuz u clearly know how to balance classes.

[Sylentmana]

After I get SCH to 60, AST will be the next class that I level so hopefully they will have the kinks worked out by then. I'm pleased that they have been working on this and I figured it would take them a bit. I played the class a little when I first got to Ishgard and found it to be really fun and its probably the most visually pleasing of the jobs, imo. I look forward to playing it again.

[PiedPiper]

I think we can all agree a class we like needs some help in two major areas:

Giving the class it's own identity, and making us feel like our cards are worth having us around.

Aside from potency tweaks, which while needed won't solve everything, I think they should give Astro the signature of being the HoT / Synastry healer. Make it a near permanent buff in the way that has already been suggested so that it is our defining feature (instead of burst healing or shields.) Maybe even make it so you can cast it only once in combat, you scri the heavens and forsee the dangerous fate ahead for one party member. Our signature would then be that we would be the stand out sustainer. Whm excels at burst and Sch is a hybrid.

Secondly, playing a card extends all current heal over time effects created by the Astro by 15 seconds (or maybe the duration of the card). This will also help on our mama issues while making our aspected heals actually worth casting.

[Anatha]

Really all that they need to do is buff card potencies, change shuffle so that you can't get the card you're discarding, give lightspeed a recast reduction element, Slightly lower LA's cooldown, do SOMETHING about CU and CO, as one is completely worthless and the other is never optimal.

Nocturnal needs some tweaking as well, but in what way is largely entirely up to how SE intended it to be used.

But people lobbying for these massive dynamic changes.... I can't get on board with that. It's ridiculous. The job is decidedly bad off, but at the level of WAR 2.0, not XIV 1.0. They can fix this with tweaks, it does not require an overhaul.

[Assirra]

You are missing the point of people wanting huge changes.

Once again this has nothing to do with the numbers but with the design of the class itself.

Fairy feels a part of the scholar, hot's/about a million healing cd's feel part of whm/a wonky card system that is clearly intended for a dps and not a healer feels like just that, a wonky system tagged along.

Cards should be part of our healing, it is our only thing that we got different. Except that we are a carbon copy of a scholar or white mage with some potency nerfs. Yet what does our thing that (supposed) makes us stand out? some random rng 10% buffs that take away 4 whole spell slots that should have been using to build our lacking healing base.

You know what just buffing potency will do?

Turn us into the farm healer you bring together with a "real healer" when stuff is on farm and everyone is out for gear. You can buff people and heal a bit while the other healer does the real healing work.