DPSing as AST

[Maku]

WHM is just stronger like everyone else has said.

That being said, AST also has simply more to do than the other healers. All healers have heals and DPS, but AST has a full third system (our cards) that they have to worry about so our time for DPSing does go down slightly due to that. SCH has a little bit of extra stuff with Fairy control but it doesn't take up the time that the card system does.

[Connor]

All healer jobs are expected to contribute as much DPS as possible and as little healing as possible. Astrologian is no exception to this, and very often in higher level non-Savage content you're going to find yourself with literally nothing else to do. Dealing damage as a White Mage is easier in situation me with many enemies because of Holy's stun, but you're just as capable of contributing the same proportion of damage.
It's an unfortunate part of FFXIV's battle system that healers are more easily described as 'DPS with lots of healing or utility and not much damage abilities', as opposed to, well, healers

[Miste]

It's open to luck, is messy, cumbersome, and goes away from playing a class purely based on skill - not an out of your control electronic roll of a dice that decides what skill you are going to get when you press the button.
Remove the rng and let players pick which card to use - and of course some would never be picked - which just underlines the impact of this misplaced rng in the current set up.

SE isn't going to change AST and break their lore just to make the job into what you want just to cater to you alone.

You are forgetting there are tons of people playing AST right now who like it. Based on the amount of people playing AST and the fact I've never seen anyone else ask for this idea but you (constantly; I swear I've seen you post the same thing in every AST thread I've decided to read and I haven't even read them all)...it seems you are likely the minority if not the single only person complaining about this.

There are many people who like AST cards how they work now. If you don't like the cards you have two other healer jobs (that don't have cards!) to pick from that will suit you better.

I mean AST is just a hybrid WHM/SCH with cards. So if you like Nocturnal AST but don't like the cards? Play SCH. If you like Diurnal AST but don't like the cards? Play WHM. It's pretty simple. You know, Instead of trying to change AST to something all the people who enjoy it now probably won't like just to cater to you alone.

[Sebazy]

The RNG is absolutely fine and in the best place it's ever been thanks to both the Balance nerf and Spear buff imo.

My only beef with AST is 'need' for 9 hotkeys specifically for cards alone now. That's just absurd and goes entirely against SE's stated aim with SB.

[Teraluna]

There are many people who like AST cards how they work now. If you don't like the cards you have two other healer jobs (that don't have cards!) to pick from that will suit you better.

I mean AST is just a hybrid WHM/SCH with cards. So if you like Nocturnal AST but don't like the cards? Play SCH. If you like Diurnal AST but don't like the cards? Play WHM. It's pretty simple. You know, Instead of trying to change AST to something all the people who enjoy it now probably won't like just to cater to you alone.

People like online rng gambling - good for them. Poker.com and the like is keeping them happy. Doesn't mean rng should have a place in a skill based class.

[Miste]

People like online rng gambling - good for them. Poker.com and the like is keeping them happy. Doesn't mean rng should have a place in a skill based class.

Like someone else said right in this thread. AST's primary role is to heal and the cards are simply support and just give an extra bonus. The main function is still to keep the party alive.


Reason 1 why your argument is flawed: Cards being RNG doesn't make or break your ability to do your main role, heal.

Cards are only a support mechanic and are technically unnecessary for an AST to fulfill their main role of healing the group (it is simply a perk of the job, an added bonus) and honestly you can pull good cards a lot of the time now since 3/6 are good for boosting party DPS. I mean every time you use Draw you have a 50% chance to pull either Spear, Balance, or Arrow.

50% is really high (it means one in two draws will likely net you a DPS boosting card) and that can almost hardly be called RNG at that point except in the technical sense. In 8 man content you want to setup a royal road AoE then you need one Spire or Ewer so those two cards are also useful then it becomes 5/6 of the cards are desired at some point. That's 83%.


Reason 2 why your argument is flawed: The cards being RNG actually increases the skill needed to play AST because it adds a layer of critical thinking and fast reaction/decision making to the job.

Having the cards being RNG actually increases the skill needed to play AST to fullest potential. You need to quickly decide the best use of each card you get when you get it and all available options to maximize the usage of every card you pull in an encounter. You say it is skill based class but uh....who came up with that definition anyway? You did? I don't remember SE saying anywhere that the jobs in this game are "skill based classes". I mean if you want AST to take "skill" to play then changing the card system to your way actually makes it less so. So that logic is backwards I think?

If you change the cards to what you suggest then it is simply one best use for each card which means you just memorize who to use each of them on and it removes any critical thinking or the need to make quick decisions to use cards. It would require zero skill, just memorization, and would also lose the lore of what AST is supposed to be.


Reason 3 why your argument is flawed: RNG is everywhere in this game. Why is it that only AST needs their RNG aspects removed, but every other job is fine?

RNG is present in every single job in this game. Why do you only advocate that AST can't have RNG? WHM has Freecure procs, SCH has crit shields, all healers can RNG crit heal, all heals in the game heal for a RNG lowend-highend amount even! (have you not noticed that sometimes you don't heal for exactly the same amount every time you cast a cure or a regen ticks? You guessed it! R-N-G!) All DPS jobs have RNG crit damage. A lot of DPS jobs have RNG procs (looking at you BRD, MCH, and RDM where almost their whole toolkit is RNG in some fashion).

RNG is everywhere. It is a huge part of MMO's and video games of all kinds so at this point you are fighting against the normal order of this game and for some reason in your mind "only AST cannot have RNG", but every other job is fine? Huge hole in your reasoning if you think RNG doesn't belong. If other jobs are okay to have RNG in their toolkits then AST can too.


PS. I've never gambled in my life, but I still like AST because most of the time you end up getting favourable results anyway unlike real gambling where it seems to me people lose a lot of the time :x

[Trunks]

The RNG is absolutely fine and in the best place it's ever been thanks to both the Balance nerf and Spear buff imo.

My only beef with AST is 'need' for 9 hotkeys specifically for cards alone now. That's just absurd and goes entirely against SE's stated aim with SB.

It's basically a necessity dictated by the mechanics, though. The only way to fix that is to reduce the number of cards you have access to (not going to happen, and shouldn't). I'd be interested if you have an idea for how it could be changed, because I've given it a considerable amount of thought and have come up empty.

[Teraluna]

It's basically a necessity dictated by the mechanics, though. The only way to fix that is to reduce the number of cards you have access to (not going to happen, and shouldn't). I'd be interested if you have an idea for how it could be changed, because I've given it a considerable amount of thought and have come up empty.

As a previous poster has already said, the current set up involves around 9 slots on the skill bar and goes directly against the skill bloat mentioned by Yoshi when he talked about the Stormblood changes.

This bloat is entirely a result of the introduce rng/mitigate rng of the pot luck card gimmick. For me it needs slimming down, and to do this, the removal of some cards completely.
As I have said, rng should not be there for cards. Your performance - with any class - should be based on skill, not I'll press a button and wait to see what skill pops up.

Slim down the cards to three, it's less of a problem then to keep these equally useful and desirable. It removes the skill bloat. No rng. Pick the one you want, which then has a longer cool down than the other two.
This gives you intentional abilities, allows the player to make known, pre-planned and structured decisions on when and where - and that is how it should be with any class.

[Sebazy]

I'd be interested if you have an idea for how it could be changed, because I've given it a considerable amount of thought and have come up empty.

Yeah it's tricky as the overall system is a bit of a mess now, I do think there is room to streamline things tho, but perhaps not as much as I'd like.

Draw, redraw, royal road and spread are pretty much unchangeable. Sleeve draw is a longer cooldown so that's a fair addition.

This leaves us with 4 hotkeys where I think work can be done (Undraw, Minor Arcana, Empty Road and Undraw Spread)

First up, I think Minor Arcana should have been rolled into Undraw's functionality whilst also streamlining the lord/lady cards into existing abilities.
So for example, undraw gets auto upgraded to minor arcana at 66 rather than being 2 separate hotkeys, pulling a lord card could double the damage potency of your next offensive ability whilst a lady card could reset the cooldown on Essential Dignity. That makes minor arcana a bunch more appealing and gets rid of one hotkey.

Secondly, for Undraw Spread and Empty RR, the easy solution there is to put the cards back on the buff bar as well as the new AST ui element and allow us to manipulate them with macros again. Another option that might be a step too far would be to have Empty RR and Undraw Spread's functionality on the same ability hotkey.

It could be something like a long or short press deciding which gets removed.

Even just a toggle that highlights each Card UI element in turn, leaving that element highlighted and then hitting undraw/minor arcana would chew that selected element instead of the middle drawn card adding further functionality whilst also streamlining 4 hotkeys down to a more palatable 2.

[Jollyy5]

...

You've brought this up on other forum posts as well, and each time your arguments have been pretty much stomped to the ground, not sure why you bother trying anymore.

Not to mention they have nothing to do with what this post is originally about: Astrologian DPS.