Astrologian Cards Can't Be a Coin Flip: A petition

[Melichoir]

I would like to know where you got this nugget of information.

Some anecdotal, some of what is observable in game, some of it based on how devs are treating the changes. The strongest case here is that when you watch players (theory crafters, guides, people who specialize in min maxing) the general thread you see is prioritization of Balance, how 'worthless' some cards are and the RNG involved with getting the better cards (particularly Balance, if not Arrow/Spear). Speaking to raiders on this subject, the idea of having to choose who gets the balance was also an issue. Considering Uptimes on Bosses, whos got the better skills, whos better geared, which class overall does better dps. These factors contributed to an oddly more meta-issue when using the cards.This gets even more complicated when some of the core positives related to the class was the buffing mechanic - How Asts were buffing stuff (this is reflected in Zyrk's own opinions on the class.) The Dev's changes seem to pretty much address that itself. The class now puts out cards more often with the overall focus of AST to provide a damage buff window (Sling out your cards by drawing 4 in a row, then pop divination for extra damage and LoC to create burst windows about every 3 minutes.)

Furthermore, for the raw sake of balance, youre gonna have to simplify the card buff effects. Spire is now obsolete, Ewer may become OP or UP too easily, Bole was heavily situational as a card, Arrow and Spear were decent sub stat boosts but were more limited in scope of who could use those cards effectively so not only were you fighting card RNG, but also your comp RNG. Balance was good no matter who your DPS was. Flat damage increase is to valuable and flexible a buff, which is why it was best card. The choice wasnt whether to use Balance - you were gonna use it - but which DPS was the best geared with best rotation and most uptime. A very meta aspect.

As for Zyrk, from the Balance discord, and his or her thoughts: they're interesting, but the perspective feels like it comes from believing that the mechanics of XIV's gameplay are so deep that a player needs to understand the nuances of every class and have extensive knowledge into the gear and builds of each player on the party to provide different effects that would be actually "beneficial." It's really not all that deep and difficult, this game we play.

I think this is a mixed thing. I mentioned earlier that I typically wont use this argument cause its stupid, and it is usually, but this is something that boils down to content experience. Im not sure you do get into savage content or not, but I will say from my own personal experiences, that doing savage has made me appreciate some of the more complex aspects of the game. Im not saying this is some extreme universe brain level game, but when it comes down to min maxing and optimization, there is a bit of room for it in this game. You can see it pretty quickly in savage content. If you approach savage (pre-echo) like you do 4 man dungeons or regular trials, youll get stomped. You do need a better level of play and understanding to do some of the savage content. Im not saying that you have to do savage content to understand that, but it becomes a lot easier to see when you do savage content, at least for me personally.

For using cards like Balance, for good optimization, knowing who knew how to do high DPS + having good uptime on boss + gear checks was a (soft) requirement. You werent gonna put your balance on someone who was more clearly undergeared/not as good/having less uptime on boss.

Which is the counter point to all this - Cards like Bole, Ewer, Spire, and etc had broader play in lower tier content cause the checks werent as tight. When you dont have to optimize to the max, playing the cards and buffs become more about fun rather than min/maxing and efficiency. Bole became more practical if you had a tank who had lower gear score and was squishy for basic busters from dungeon bosses. Players who less optimized their DPS rotations and run out of TP would benefit from Spire. If youre ressing more often, Ewer becomes useful. Etc. The lower the skill floor, the more useful those cards become.

[Physic]

Some anecdotal, some of what is observable in game, some of it based on how devs are treating the changes. The strongest case here is that when you watch players (theory crafters, guides, people who specialize in min maxing) the general thread you see is prioritization of Balance, how 'worthless' some cards are and the RNG involved with getting the better cards (particularly Balance, if not Arrow/Spear). Speaking to raiders on this subject, the idea of having to choose who gets the balance was also an issue. Considering Uptimes on Bosses, whos got the better skills, whos better geared, which class overall does better dps. These factors contributed to an oddly more meta-issue when using the cards.This gets even more complicated when some of the core positives related to the class was the buffing mechanic - How Asts were buffing stuff (this is reflected in Zyrk's own opinions on the class.) The Dev's changes seem to pretty much address that itself. The class now puts out cards more often with the overall focus of AST to provide a damage buff window (Sling out your cards by drawing 4 in a row, then pop divination for extra damage and LoC to create burst windows about every 3 minutes.)

Furthermore, for the raw sake of balance, youre gonna have to simplify the card buff effects. Spire is now obsolete, Ewer may become OP or UP too easily, Bole was heavily situational as a card, Arrow and Spear were decent sub stat boosts but were more limited in scope of who could use those cards effectively so not only were you fighting card RNG, but also your comp RNG. Balance was good no matter who your DPS was. Flat damage increase is to valuable and flexible a buff, which is why it was best card. The choice wasnt whether to use Balance - you were gonna use it - but which DPS was the best geared with best rotation and most uptime. A very meta aspect.

the point of savage content is to min max while executing, making it easier to min max defeats the purpose.

Astroligian was not mostly changed for Qol. It was most likely changed because they wanted to reduce synergy in the game, and it made the game more difficult to balance. Skills that scale on crit or skill speed had potentially strong, and unique interactions. A defensive buff like bole that not every healer has could alter high end play.

basically astroligian was a class with a class with a lot of potentially interesting and unique synergies, and they no longer want people to have those. Especially a healer. So, they hand out a generic 6% to 3% dps buff calculating the loss of dps for an astro being in the party.

its fine if the most important part of the game is competitive balance, but i dont think it is. Fun, interesting, and unique classes are way closer to what attracts and keeps players playing.

[Melichoir]

the point of savage content is to min max while executing, making it easier to min max defeats the purpose.

Astroligian was not mostly changed for Qol. It was most likely changed because they wanted to reduce synergy in the game, and it made the game more difficult to balance. Skills that scale on crit or skill speed had potentially strong, and unique interactions. A defensive buff like bole that not every healer has could alter high end play.

basically astroligian was a class with a class with a lot of potentially interesting and unique synergies, and they no longer want people to have those. Especially a healer. So, they hand out a generic 6% to 3% dps buff calculating the loss of dps for an astro being in the party.

its fine if the most important part of the game is competitive balance, but i dont think it is. Fun, interesting, and unique classes are way closer to what attracts and keeps players playing.

Reducing dependency was definitely a goal the devs had, but QoL problems the class had was also something that needed to be addressed. If it was a 'synergy' only issue, they wouldnt have made some of the changes to the kit considering what other class changes were made (meaning, keeping substat bonuses in cards instead of a flat damage increase would be viable if other classes do not benefit extremely hard from substats like some do now.)

Beyond that, The class still has, at least from my perspective, "Fun, interesting, and unique" characteristics. I think that one of my issues with some of the criticism in this thread is the conflation between cloning the healing classes and bringing them in line. There is a fundamental difference between having all three healers be exactly the same healer except with different names, and having healers who all do healing/support in different ways but ultimately achieving the same end. As an example I used previously, you cant say DRG and MNK are copy/pastes of one another just because their end goal is to deal damage. They have different playstyles (and themes) that lead them to the same end result. I feel to many people are so caught up in the wrong thing and are incorrectly conflating the issue.

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The problem with substats is that theyre % increases on your stats. So for easy numbers, lets say a card you get grants 10% increase in DH. Well if you have 100 DH, youll be at 110. But if you only have 20 DH, youll be at 22. Your card delivers a lot less DH if the target does not have great DH to begin with. This gets to be a problem because now you have to be inspecting your allies gear to see what theyre actually geared with. They might not be stacking DH. Maybe they are. Maybe theyre stacking SkS. Maybe its all crit all the time. To optimize the use of the card, youll need to know your party member's gear. this results in a lot of that meta thinking that Zyrk was pointing out.

Unlike balance, it doesnt matter the sub stat build, just the end output number. If youre doing 1k DPS, it doesnt matter if you achieve that with hard crit or SkS, a 10% increase to damage benefits you regardless of build. This also means, again, youll have tiered cards. depending how substats play out, SkS might be useless outside of maybe 1 or 2 classes of 17, making it incredibly niche. Crit and DH will be the better go to cards, but will dependent on what they stacked up on. Early in SB, Crit was no where near as good as DH, but that inverted late in the xpac. So your DH/Crit cards will invert usefulness as the gear lvl changes if substats remain the same. This is part of the reason why Balance is where it went. You dont have to worry as much about your allies gear. Youll get more consistent results as long as the party is moderately geared, regardless of the card.

[Physic]

Reducing dependency was definitely a goal the devs had, but QoL problems the class had was also something that needed to be addressed. If it was a 'synergy' only issue, they wouldnt have made some of the changes to the kit considering what other class changes were made (meaning, keeping substat bonuses in cards instead of a flat damage increase would be viable if other classes do not benefit extremely hard from substats like some do now.)

Beyond that, The class still has, at least from my perspective, "Fun, interesting, and unique" characteristics. I think that one of my issues with some of the criticism in this thread is the conflation between cloning the healing classes and bringing them in line. There is a fundamental difference between having all three healers be exactly the same healer except with different names, and having healers who all do healing/support in different ways but ultimately achieving the same end. As an example I used previously, you cant say DRG and MNK are copy/pastes of one another just because their end goal is to deal damage. They have different playstyles (and themes) that lead them to the same end result. I feel to many people are so caught up in the wrong thing and are incorrectly conflating the issue.

any sort specific benefit on cards potentially may cause synergy that other healers dont have access to. The problem with your theory on drg and mnk is that nothing has suggested healer will have drastically different means of achieving the goal of healing.

Also, i would say mnk and drg could be even more different, but thats a different debate.

As far as conflation, somethings are conflated, the developers have multiple motivations for changes they make. The homgenization of abilities and the pruning and simplifying of classes are sometimes both motivators for a particular balance change.

[Ceasaria]

So what I have understood so far, within our community, we have 2 types of Astrologian :
- Sharlayan Astrologian who use every card based on their priorities/beliefs.
-- Some have no particular objective and use them all depending of the situation.
-- Some have for the optimal objective to throw Balance AOE, but are willing to use the others to minimize the waste or taking advantage / recover from a situation.
- Ishgardian Astrologian who use only Balance AOE (and discard/minor arcana the others).

Sharlayan Astrologian love to deal with RNG, love to have many choices and evaluate the possibilities depending of their belief and actual situation in the fight.
They are not happy with the cards system rework.
Ishgardian Astrologian are bored with RNG and live for the sake of Balance.
They are happy with the cards system rework (and no more Time abilities I guess).

Based on the OP post :
Astrologian from HW to SB is using the precepts of Sharlayan.
Astrologian from ShB is using the precepts of Ishgard.

It's clearly a new direction and I'am quite sceptic.
I mean we have two different Astrologians right here who could be two different jobs (if tweaked a bit more).

Would Tanks and DPS be happy if their identity shift to another one ?
I don't think so.

My suggestion is to separate the two iterations of AST in Sharlayan Astrologian and Gambler, which mean adding a 4th healer job during this expansion.
Keep everything Sharlayan Astrologian has and enhance him.
Take the seals system from Ishgardian Astrologian and give it to Gambler, and design the job around it.

[Iscah]

So what I have understood so far, within our community, we have 2 types of Astrologian :
- Sharlayan Astrologian who use every card based on their priorities/
- Ishgardian Astrologian who use only Balance AOE (and discard/minor arcana the others).

That's not at all the difference between the two astrology schools.

Ishgardian astrology only involves (as far as we're made aware) observations of the stars, primarily the Dragon Star, and using it to predict the activities of the Dravanian Horde.

Cards and battle/healing astromancy are entirely Sharlayan, however you use it. We spend the entire Lv30-60 questline trying to spread these techniques to the Ishgardians.

[SpiritMuse]

My suggestion is to separate the two iterations of AST in Sharlayan Astrologian and Gambler, which mean adding a 4th healer job during this expansion.
Keep everything Sharlayan Astrologian has and enhance him.
Take the seals system from Ishgardian Astrologian and give it to Gambler, and design the job around it.

If we wanna go that route, I'd suggest Geomancer instead of Gambler, as Geomancer has already been introduced as Astrologian-adjacent in the job quests.

[CaperAntagonist]

Now that everyone has played it, what do you think? Honestly it feels garbage to me and I hate it. I feel so weak, I have to use a rotation rather than being able to adapt to each situation... I legitimately hate it.

[Seraphor]

Now that everyone has played it, what do you think? Honestly it feels garbage to me and I hate it. I feel so weak, I have to use a rotation rather than being able to adapt to each situation... I legitimately hate it.

I'm not so annoyed at the new card effects, as I am about how seals can only be played in combat. It seems like an unnecessary limitation, all it does is delay your first Divination by 60-90s, and I've lost so many seals to cards that I've used just before or after combat starts/ends.
The fact that they're all balance? Not a problem, given that balance is all you ever wanted to draw before anyway.
I get the lack of variety seems dull, it did for me at first too, but really, Balance, Arrow and Spear were all just dps boosts, so they're accounted for. Spire was used for RR, that's replicated with Divination, Bole was Minor Arcana fodder which was situational at best, and Ewer was RNG MP regen, now replaced with a more functional Lucid dreaming.

[DynnDiablos]

I picked up healing thanks to the changes and now no longer feel intimidated to play one. This game should be fun not an over complicated professional job.