Thread: Astrologian 5.0 Discussion

Originally Posted by heynowjose

It feels like all healers are essentially the same except our “identity” is preserved by our aesthetics nothing else.

We all do the same except we draw cards that are pretty pointless while the other guy has a fairy. It’s pretty sad

Funny how you completely forgot WHM even exists. Or not, I guess, since it got NOTHING.

Im actually really angry about the card changes. So now we are just a 6% damage boost? I loved being able to literally turn the tide of a fight with cards. Something hard hitting is about to happen bole. Someone needs a bit more MP got it. All while healing it was a lot to keep up with which made it exciting to me. I loved how different ast felt im considering just going whm its sad really.

Originally Posted by Cheremia

But the cards are the tiniest problemchange in my opinion since it's a tastething and we can't really talk about a TASTE thing without being able to actually TEST it. SInce looking is still different than playing yourself.

AST main here.

I don't need to taste dog poo to know that I don't want to eat it. They not only gutted the card system, they also gutted the class fantasy. The Ewer, whose waters replenish life? Yeah, that helps you kill things faster. The Bole, whose roots and branches provide shelter? That helps you kill things faster too. Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition rewarding players for intelligent use of buffs and regens? Gone, and with it, AST's manipulation of time as part of their lore.

And the general defenses of the AST changes that people give make no sense to me:

"But Balance was OP!"

Balance was bad for the game, therefore every card should be Balance?

The proper response would be to nerf Balance or rework it. Make it a +Det buff or something. Change Expanded to let you give a 75%-potency buff twice instead of a 50%-potency buff to the entire party, and now it's no longer strictly better than everything else in 8-mans, and it also becomes usable in 4-mans. None of this requires nuking the card system from orbit, as they've done for 5.0.

"But the new card system is better!"

Current AST cards require making decisions quickly when you don't get Balance. Nu-AST cards can be thrown out at random with no real penalty. Throw a card on the wrong DPS type and oh noes, it's +3% damage instead of +6%, how terribad . Save seals properly and you get a whopping +3% damage on a 3-minute cooldown. Whoopdee-freakin'-doo.

There's no decision-making. No reacting to the state of the raid. You're just a Balance Bot now, and a brain-dead hamster can play the class because the skill ceiling has been obliterated. And given the new Trust system, where ASTs would have to be pilotable by the AI, maybe this was a deliberate design goal.

"But we'll totally need MOAR HEALZ in 5.0 content!"

After six years of tightly-scripted encounter design revolving around predictable damage spikes, there is no way Square is going to suddenly change to WoW-style constant incoming damage. Square seems intent on putting all the complexity into the DPS jobs, and making healing the role for people who want to catch up on their Netflix.

Since DPSers get all the shiny new toys every expansion, while healers get homogenized and dumbed down every expansion, I'm no longer going to heal. I'm going to switch to a DPS main. Probably DNC, because their buff system is more complex than Nu-AST, and they have an actual, honest-to-goodness DPS rotation that doesn't boil down to spamming Malefic until your eyeballs bleed. Queue times? Meh, that's what gathering and crafting are for. And those are more interesting than Nu-AST ever will be.

You're talking like i don't use Spears or arrows either.
I do, since i'm not going to waste my time fishing only for balances. I like spear and arrow.

But there is only so much a bole/spire/ewer can do. And those uses are really niche other than royal road/minor arcana them. I do also spire dps that go nuts on aoe pulls if i get no other cards on big pulls.

But that isn't a complex choice, that's me getting annoyed at the rng for not giving me a card that actually makes a big difference of anything?

But you're talking like you always can ewer a healer that died other than that one point where it happens and you just happen to have an ewer somewhere.

Also, lucid dreaming cooldown will be 60 seconds and stronger, so recovering from a death will be easier. (for whm it doesn't matter either way tbh)

The thing is, it's all rng and spear/arrow/balance are the best and ALL THE OTHER CARDS are minimal use only. Do you really want to hold on to a bole for a transition phase where the most damage goes out? I wouldn't. Does a spire help you in trials?
Bole? There's 2 healers in trials and chances are, you can shield them or the sch can shield. Bubble it, problem solved.

I also NEVER said that only all balances is good thing, don't get me wrong. I've been saying that people just scream over ALL of their cards being useful now, no matter what. In every situation. But that is just because balance is broken and buffs all damage so it outshines arrows/spear.

They could easily made the melee/ranged divide while ALSO giving all the cards different seals and ALSO different effects. So you get different effects and different seals.
Or give the different cards different effects while also randomizing the seals on each of them.


The card system is STILL just a taste thing. It's an opinion. That balance is and always WILL be broken is another.
That is a problem, but as long as balance exists, all other cards are a little useless in comparison other than the 3 classes that can use it well (brd/mnk and blm)

So the ACTUAL problem is that the cards are just the same. But Balance just has the best effect so they're all balance now. Take it out and make it direct hit/Crit/Speeeeeeeed
The card system itself is a taste thing


If it seems like i'm back pedaling, i'm not, i'm still the opinion that the system itself is fine, but may need some tweaks here and there, which needs to be tested first (divination cooldown is too long i think, could be shorter, or seal randomizing instead of it being set). I still think people are screaming about the wrong thing there.

This change is unnecessary shit.

Spire was the only card that no longer had a purpose, and that's easy to fix. Could have made it an AoE debuff on enemies. The card game was nice to keep the brain occupied between heals and such, it gives variety. Now? There's no variety, there's no weaving and bending of Fates. Just the Oprah meme with "damage boost".

Is it because Dancer exists that they felt they had to remove the buffing ability of AST? If they want healers to focus on healing they need to remove all those self-heal abilities that they gave the other classes.

Homogenization kills uniqueness, the card changes are super bad and must needs be totally rethought.

i think this is what they mean with being "pure healer" back on live letter.

its not that we are doing heal only, as AST we are going to be busy playing cards in between. the best we can do is just contribute some dot to enemy and back to play cards lol