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

[Ghishlain]

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.

I've updated the OP with this information as well.

[GideonHighmourn]

It makes me happy to see SE continuing to listen to it's player base. I understand the need to not be hasty with balancing, but I have faith they will make the proper adjustments to AST like they did with WAR in 2.0. SE has always been pretty good with balancing and listening; I can't wait to see how they balance AST.

I don't envy the work they have to do, though! ;P

[Ghishlain]

It makes me happy to see SE continuing to listen to it's player base. I understand the need to not be hasty with balancing, but I have faith they will make the proper adjustments to AST like they did with WAR in 2.0. SE has always been pretty good with balancing and listening; I can't wait to see how they balance AST.

I don't envy the work they have to do, though! ;P

I don't envy them either. Considering the amount of thought a lot of posters on this forum has put towards AST changes, I don't envy the dev(s) who will eventually need to pull that balance trigger and make the changes. Regardless of what the dev(s) do, they'll have a large amount of happy healers and at the exact same time make a whole different sect of healers extremely angry.

But, that's the nature of the beast. Regardless of what they do, I will probably analyze it and break my head theorycrafting with it. lol.

[NorthernLadMSP]

I'm very excited to read this. Makes me very happy for whatever future patch we see these changes in!

[Assirra]

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.

This is the part i honestly don't like.
As cool as buffing a party can be, astrologian is a healer first. If this game had an actual support role i would have no problem with it but we need to pull our weight in healing.
Make the card system part out of healing output but don't have another system tagged along.

Buffing the card system so the buffs increase will basically turn us into the "farm content" healer when the progress is done and people are farming gear/items.

[Luvbunny]

I am just wondering, have any one else try double AST with a bard or machinist? I mean, on paper, and on theory, those triple combos can potentially do massive damage with both AST powering Bard MP recovery so they can sing more. As well as double the chance to draw balance card to push damage on the top two DPS job (on top of Raging Strike bonus). Summoner with raging strike + balance card will be dealing 30% more damage on Deathflare, turning 400 potency into 520 potency AOE on all mobs...

[Risvertasashi]

I am just wondering, have any one else try double AST with a bard or machinist? I mean, on paper, and on theory, those triple combos can potentially do massive damage with both AST powering Bard MP recovery so they can sing more. As well as double the chance to draw balance card to push damage on the top two DPS job (on top of Raging Strike bonus). Summoner with raging strike + balance card will be dealing 30% more damage on Deathflare, turning 400 potency into 520 potency AOE on all mobs...

I don't quite have what you're asking for but I can say that, leveling AST and trying it out in some level 60 dungeons-- timed buffs can be quite powerful. It's not particularly reflected in encDPS but it can be very bursty. If you're curious to try it yourself, try running stuff with DPS you know well and maybe have ACT help you track their rotation (but you'll still need to be somewhat familiar with it).

[Akyio]

Im happy that its acknowledged, however i feel a bit pain now to be playing 3-4 or maybe even 5 more weeks until AST will be fixed..

[MidnightTundra]

I am just wondering, have any one else try double AST with a bard or machinist? I mean, on paper, and on theory, those triple combos can potentially do massive damage with both AST powering Bard MP recovery so they can sing more. As well as double the chance to draw balance card to push damage on the top two DPS job (on top of Raging Strike bonus). Summoner with raging strike + balance card will be dealing 30% more damage on Deathflare, turning 400 potency into 520 potency AOE on all mobs...

% Damage+ buffs scale multiplicatively if I remember correctly (If I'm wrong someone correct me please). So Balance * Raging Strikes * Dreadwyrm Trance = ((1.1)*(1.2)*(1.1)) = 1.452. That comes out at a 45.2% increase in damage instead of an additive value of 40%. Throwing the balance card on a SMN with these buffs gives him a 13.2% increase in damage instead of a base 10%. Now that I think about it, this is probably why enhanced Royal Road is 150% instead of 200%. They probably wanted to prevent the scaling of stacking buffs from getting out of control.

[Geardagas]

This is really, really strange for me to say, since I've played wow for so long and I'm used to completely incompetent devs thst don't listen to a word you say...but I am in complete agreement with everything yoshi-p said about ast and I'm willing to wait until they get it right.

My only issue is that he seems focused on fixing the rng issue of the cards as opposed to the cards themselves, many of which are extremely underpowered. I really hope there is a rework to spear and bole, and perhaps a touch up to arrow to address its tp burning issue.