Goodbye Astro

[LariaKirin]

Having 7 abilities for an effect that other classes have with 1 ability is crap, especially if you pay for it with less healing options than the other two classes. Explain to me how that design will hold up in the future, if they we take their stated goal of "healers healing & every healer combo should be able to do the content" seriously. Either SCH & WHM excess abilities will turn out to be superflous and groups will want the % scaling Divination buff maybe even 2x, or AST will be gimped in the healing department and be dropped.

It is not gimped at all and you do not pay for it in healing options. AST's healing is very strong following the changes in patch 5.05. As I've said before, the healers are pretty well balanced right now and AST is just as strong as SCH/WHM. It will take a while for people to realize this, but it will happen.

We're overflowing with threads saying "Goodbye Astro", "AST is dead", etc... that discourage people for playing it. But soon enough some encouraging posts will surface. Such as the E4S noct AST solo heal.

As for doing more for the same effect ... Well ... Haven't people been complaining incessantly that there's nothing to do? You'd expect AST to be the darling of the community right now.

[Billythepancake]

It is not gimped at all and you do not pay for it in healing options. AST's healing is very strong following the changes in patch 5.05. As I've said before, the healers are pretty well balanced right now and AST is just as strong as SCH/WHM. It will take a while for people to realize this, but it will happen.

"Strong and balanced" will not make people want to play a class. SB MCH was "strong and balanced" but it was the least played class of the expansion because it felt like trash to play, sounds familiar doesnt it?

[Mesarthim]

It is not gimped at all and you do not pay for it in healing options. AST's healing is very strong following the changes in patch 5.05. As I've said before, the healers are pretty well balanced right now and AST is just as strong as SCH/WHM. It will take a while for people to realize this, but it will happen.

We're overflowing with threads saying "Goodbye Astro", "AST is dead", etc... that discourage people for playing it. But soon enough some encouraging posts will surface. Such as the E4S noct AST solo heal.

As for doing more for the same effect ... Well ... Haven't people been complaining incessantly that there's nothing to do? You'd expect AST to be the darling of the community right now.

What was your favorite phrase? Get over it? You really seem to be banking on this "it will happen. It will take time. My opinion is already true and everyone is wrong and slow to realize." Here's the thing, the old system wasn't as busted as you seem to be claiming it was. At worst spire needed an adjustment and heaven forbid maybe balance into something else. Now we effectively have one of the clunkiest openers and a lot of busywork for what seems to be little payoff. Patch 5.05 fixed sleeve draw feeling god awful as well as "most" healing potencies (Square seems to have missed CU) but the complaints aren't about how well the class heals.

[LariaKirin]

"Strong and balanced" will not make people want to play a class. SB MCH was "strong and balanced" but it was the least played class of the expansion because it felt like trash to play, sounds familiar doesnt it?

Two friends have switched to playing AST. I am now way more inclined to play AST. Yes, these are anecdotes, but none of us would have even considered it in 5.0. Are you willing to claim that the proportion of AST players will not increase at all in the following weeks?

What was your favorite phrase? Get over it? You really seem to be banking on this "it will happen. It will take time. My opinion is already true and everyone is wrong and slow to realize." Here's the thing, the old system wasn't as busted as you seem to be claiming it was. At worst spire needed an adjustment and heaven forbid maybe balance into something else. Now we effectively have one of the clunkiest openers and a lot of busywork for what seems to be little payoff. Patch 5.05 fixed sleeve draw feeling god awful as well as "most" healing potencies (Square seems to have missed CU) but the complaints aren't about how well the class heals.

AST being stronger now in both healing and DPS is not a matter of opinion. All you need to do is look at 5.0, then look at 5.05 and then be able to understand some numbers.

Do you think that AST being extremely weak in terms of healing and DPS had nothing to do with the low proportion of AST players?
Do you think that the cards and the opener are the only reason AST was not being played in 5.0?

If the answer to these is no, then you should be able to understand why I think the AST population will increase and why I'm optimistic about AST's future.

[Billythepancake]

Two friends have switched to playing AST. I am now way more inclined to play AST. Yes, these are anecdotes, but none of us would have even considered it in 5.0. Are you willing to claim that the proportion of AST players will not increase at all in the following weeks?



AST being stronger now in both healing and DPS is not a matter of opinion. All you need to do is look at 5.0, then look at 5.05 and then be able to understand some numbers.

Do you think that AST being extremely weak in terms of healing and DPS had nothing to do with the low proportion of AST players?
Do you think that the cards and the opener are the only reason AST was not being played in 5.0?

If the answer to these is no, then you should be able to understand why I think the AST population will increase and why I'm optimistic about AST's future.

It will increase, sure, but I dont believe for 1 second that it'll be nearly as popular as it was in SB. I have no doubt if AST stays the way it is, it'll be the MCH of this expac.

[Almostward]

Funny. You say you have 2 freinds who will now play astro and like it, but all over in the game I've seen a lot who hate it or think refuse to play it cause of how it feels. Guess what. It means nothing that some of your freinds will play it, nor when I find those many who dont because we dont know the statistics.

Astro still has a lot of issues, and I only hope SE will address these for us all.

[LariaKirin]

Funny. You say you have 2 freinds who will now play astro and like it, but all over in the game I've seen a lot who hate it or think refuse to play it cause of how it feels. Guess what. It means nothing that some of your freinds will play it, nor when I find those many who dont because we dont know the statistics.

Yes. I've literally said that these are anecdotes.

[Faxmonkey]

It is not gimped at all and you do not pay for it in healing options.

The second part of your statement is simply wrong. Both WHM & SCH have more healing tools than does AST, because our buffing system eats up 7 ability slots.

AST's healing is very strong following the changes in patch 5.05.

Simply stating something doesn't make it true. Nocturnal is still crap, Diurnal is okay. WHM & SCH are very strong healers, AST has been buffed to a place where it can do the content.

As I've said before, the healers are pretty well balanced right now and AST is just as strong as SCH/WHM. It will take a while for people to realize this, but it will happen.

Again saying something repeatedly doesn't make it so and you have completely ignored my primary argument that their healing design with one healer having less options will run into problems if they mean what they say about healing in 5.xx.
You can't design encounters that are hard for SCH & WHM to heal, because then AST can't heal it. Or healing is trivial, then SCH & WHM will be boring or you'll have the same problem with DPS healers that the DEVs wanted to get rid of, by axing what made SCH & AST fun.