Question from a new player - can AST change back to what it was before ?

[ColaSama]

Hello fellas,

I started the game 1 month ago. I tried nearly every mmo on the market, but never FF14 strangely, it was a friend of mine that hyped it up for me. Tbh, when I started, I didn't even know about ShB release. When my friend introduced the different classes, I knew I would like AST, because of the card system.

I leveled up slowly to 50, enjoying the story. But a week before ShB release, my friend told me "are you still into AST ? because the card system is no more, all the cards are just dps buffs". I... I kinda lost the will to play for like 2 days, because playing AST was my main goal : I did all the boring fetch quests between the end of ARR and Heavensward knowing that I would finally play this goddamn AST. And they removed the most interesting part of his kit ? That's frustrating to say the least.

I want to know : why did they do that, was it a lazy attempt to balance a rng based class by transforming his iconic mechanic into "here is a damage buff lol" ? can it change in the near future or are the devs at SE as stubborn as the ones at Blizzard ? they ruined the class I wanted to play for the next years of the xpac, no hope at the horizon ?

It's not the end of the world, I will continue on my tank... but still, what a bummer really. 50 levels and a shit tons of quests with this damn Alphinaud (bless you Estinien for putting him at his place btw) and "we ended the class you wanted to play". Fuck.

[Loki]

For those who hate all those changes we feel the same by having played our job during years and getting that shit.

I think/hope they will change some aspects of AST/SCH for 5.05 but i don't know if they will change the cards system....

Anyway there are lots of bad comments on healers from EU/US/J so let's see....maybe

[Gemina]

We are stuck with this card system as is until the next expansion, that is for sure. They may however, make some adjustments to Divination and possibly the cards too, but they will only be made to the current card effects and not changed back to how they were. I also imagine AST will get some healing potency buffs by 5.1 as well.

As for if the old system will ever return? I highly doubt it, but I've been wrong plenty of times. I really don't want to get into how OP I felt AST was last expansion, so I will just say that I don't see it's previous iteration making a return for the simple matter that it has been scrapped, and things tend to stay that way once they are.

[Risvertasashi]

Typically major changes take a new expansion, with only relatively minor changes (potencies, cast times, maybe an overhaul to a single ability, etc) available during the normal patch cycles.

As for if the old system will ever return? I highly doubt it, but I've been wrong plenty of times.

Things looked pretty bleak for Bard in Heavensward too, with a number of people believing we'd be stuck with "bard mage" indefinitely. But the dev team did relent with Stormblood.

So, with enough feedback it's definitely possible. But it won't be quick.

[gnatters]

It's incredibly disappointing that we'd probably have to wait a whole year or more to have certain changes either reverted or redone. I'm not going to play AST as it is. :/

[FoxyAreku]

I knew this would happen as soon as I saw the AST changes, and it's one time I wish I hadn't been right.
It's really sad to see this class basically be killed off like this. Not only is it just highly ineffective now and being hailed as one of if not the worst job in the game, but it's just flat out boring to play.

I'm praying SE does something about it a lot sooner than 6.0.

[KittenMittens]

Hopefully, they reconsider the card system changes as this new system is just straight out awful compared to the previous one. The old one had character and situations for bad RNG, but that came with the job. This new one is infinitely more boring, yet somehow far more busy and for little to no reward. It feels as though you need to work twice as hard, yet still, come short of White Mage and Scholar.

No other job is at the complete mercy of their party composition like Astrologian is currently. There are many times where I'll end up in a party only carrying ranged DPS, causing half the deck to lose out on potency unless you throw them at the tank. Sleeve Draw is in an incredibly poor state as the only way to manage it is through Lightspeed, removing a lot of the versatility to that ability. Divination feels like a complete joke with a three-minute cooldown for fifteen seconds of use. If they refuse to balance Nocturnal Astrologian with Scholar, can they not just remove it? I'd gladly take back Time Dilation and old Celestial Opposition for it.

[Fawkes]

I can't really see them reverting the changes. I don't have much faith in them making positive changes for any healer in an expansion again, and I think they probably feel justified with this one. Since everyone always wanted a balance card they just made all the cards balance, that's their solution. Also I don't think they could just revert it, they'd need to come up with all new things for cards to do, especially spire, and also do something about their perceived button bloat that they 'solved' by deleting things like royal road and spread.

[Insertcoins]

It can't go back to SB ast. Why? Tanks have way better defense and more importantly there's no tp. Half those old cards are useless now with the overall battle changes. To want old ast back means you also want tp and everything else they changed. It's not happening like you want it to.

[Rhyn]

While the card system is more generalized now, and is inherently a bit clunky (there are too many button presses to produce what other classes would just press a CD to get, when it comes to the buffs), it's not why I don't like AST anymore. I can work with the new card system. It's the change to the overall kit that's the problem. I used to love playing AST in dungeons in early SB, the kit just worked so well. Drop a bunch of hots and buffs, extend them + stun the enemies, spam gravity etc. I feel like they just removed all kit synergy and...frankly the fun of playing AST. They only good thing left is earthly star. Imo it would take introduction of old abilites and playstyle to make AST fun again, and that's not gonna happen. 5.0 AST is not gonna be a good job no matter what potencies they buff.