New AST from a New Player

[EaMett]

What I am most curious about is why they changed it; to whom were the devs listening to that when brought about these changes? Was there an absolutely vocal crowd who simply despised what AST has been since release? It's been mentioned that the simplification was to attract the influx of new players who were brought in by the expansion, but while I cannot speak for anyone but myself, I felt like AST on its own was already appealing enough. In fact, it was being disillusioned by the changes which drove me to voice my opinion.

They were listening to themselves. The core of the issue seems to be that they don’t have a separate class balancing team and instead it’s an effort put forward by the content designers with limited ressources.

Balancing dps is easy enough but once you need to do two-three-more way balancing (utility-enmity-healing-dps-mobility-ressource management) where one can directly affect the others, you really need dedicated people to the art and dedicated tools. It implies having a lot of hands on experience with all tiers of skill as well. I doubt the current team has much time to play at all tbh.

As a result they’ve been struggling to balance the game a lot and move away from meta and whatnot. This especially with healers whom they seem to have very little experience with in the first place.

As a result they made their life easier by homogenizing everything so all healers have «*equivalent*» skills, removing significant utility from many classes, removing enmity management, removing TP, etc. It all happened this expansion.

They made these changes to suit themselves while seemingly ignoring the player base that was asking for more complexity.

It’s a real problem and I’m amazed no influencers have gotten around to asking them the hard questions regarding this. Though it isn’t surprising considering none of them play healer.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

Everytime the word "Pure Healer" is associated with any healer it just brings disappointment. SE wanted SCH and AST to be more like pure healers, and here we are.

[Astrololol]

They didn't even bother to patch up what they removed from the AST questline? NICE.
I miss the time buffs AST had. I could even make my sprint last 10 seconds longer, since celestial opposition gave every self buff +10 on their timers.
If they were that lazy with editing the AST quests, they probably rushed to make every card a balance, especially since they got rid of tp, and spire was a tp regen before Shadowbringers.

[Side-Eye]

It’s a real problem and I’m amazed no influencers have gotten around to asking them the hard questions regarding this. Though it isn’t surprising considering none of them play healer.

That's the crux of the problem: the so-called influencers weren't there trying to find out information about all the jobs and roles, only their favorites. If even one of them had played AST even secondarily, they'd have asked WTF was happening with all the utility being removed -- or at the very least, why potencies of all the job's heals were being reduced to significantly LESS than other healers. I mean, if devs had truly intended to make heal jobs roughly equal, that was a piss poor way to start.

[Nhala_Levee]

LunarShadow67

This is something you cant understand, until you dont play the real astrologian.
In final fantasy, every character made for having fun and meanings by they own ways. Now, astrologian is what you see. A healer with dmg buffs and without a realy helping spells.
In the old times, astrologian had a system that was fascinating, fantastic. Gived you the feeling to yell when you made a nice buff combination. As every 6 card had diferent buffs, those was useful even as they own, you could combined them for being more helpfull.
I learned all the cards and they every effects even alone or in "royal road spell" and when i draw a card, no matter which one, i saw every possibility of it and had the feeling "YAY now i made this combo, or that combo". It was a realy nice feeling and enjoying one.
But players nowadays just want a buffer for they raid content. Yes, raids are part of the game. But a very little part. And reworking a class to be just for that, is a very bad idea.
Now, when i draw a card, i just dont feel anthing, just drop it on someone, cause no matter anymore. No more possibilities, no more combinations. Astrologian simply lost that very nice feeling to "being completed something".

And no, it was not easy to play it. But it was much more satisfaction when you played it well. Now just feeling "eh, put card", cause every card is just the same. No matter what you do with it, just need to do it 3 times and boom aoe dmg buff. ONLY dmg buff.
I miss the possibilities, the ways as you can guide the fate with your cards. The utilitys.
Sadly as i told, you never can understand this, as you didnt played the real astrologian back in those times. It just a weak shadow of that. :/

[Nhala_Levee]

About uselessness, yeah, its healing capability is very low compared to the other healers or even to the old astro.
As not everything rolling around hardcore raidings and premade groups, i many time met tanks in daily roulettes whos rushing forward and pulling too many monsters, cause they think astro is whm or sch. But its not. So we wipe. No matter what lvl we talking about.
In old times i simply avoided this with the "The Bole" card, what will gives 10% dmg reduction, and with combined that with the tank def CDs, it was enough to let me heal out that tremendous dmg he takes. (Yes, i always had one stored for this situations.)
Now, i simply cant do anything to save the bold tank. Spaming heal and hope its enough. But mostly not cause its heals not that much as the other healers. As that, sch have the skill to still gives 10% reduction with her dome looking spell (sorry i dont know the exact name) and still have a fairy with her who will heal, not so high heals but still a help. Meanwhile she capable of putting double shield on the target what is a huge utility for her. And even have a spell that instantly heals a high ammount if the target fall under 50% hp.

So, now get a better look, what have the astro. DMG buff. Hmm... it will dont save anybody. Have a hot. Not realy a big help. Or if the dungeon is high lvl enough, then can be shielded as Nocturnal sect. But far not that strong as the schs shields. You have the 10% redu aoe, but that is a stationary spell, so until you channel it, you cant cast anything else otherwise you broke your own casting. And what else you can do? Hm, nothing. Watch, spam, hope. And meanwhile, not even enjoyable too for me. Dont have the feeling as the old one when i pull the card and see the possibilitys in it. Lost the feeling "YAAAY".
So overall, i simply lost interest and yes, as the astro have the most smaller dmg spells and the most smaller healing spells, advancing in MSQ or just open world things are very hard or even impossible with it.

[Nhala_Levee]

I love playing a buffing type healer over a straight up healer. So if they brought that system back to make it interesting or change it up. I would be down.

I dont think so. I think you would love the old astro. Thats WAS the real buffing type class. Yes, not only dmg buff, but more situational and more completed. And with that many combination, if you like buffing and mixing buffs into new ones or stronger ones, the old astro is for you.
For more dps supporting, there was the Bard. Bard had many party buffs whats mostly orinted to support the damage dealers. I didnt realy tryed bard now, dont know if it changed.

[Kuwago]

I dont think so. I think you would love the old astro. Thats WAS the real buffing type class. Yes, not only dmg buff, but more situational and more completed. And with that many combination, if you like buffing and mixing buffs into new ones or stronger ones, the old astro is for you.
For more dps supporting, there was the Bard. Bard had many party buffs whats mostly orinted to support the damage dealers. I didnt realy tryed bard now, dont know if it changed.

Bard kinda changed they lost their Crit from the songs and Requiem so now they deal more dmg closer to Machinist, they still have Battle Voice but other than the ones that I can think of whilst Dancer got all the utility for low damage.

Old AST WAS the epitome of a buffing healer class, there was so many things you could do with your cards, along with being able to increase Buff Durations with Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition. How badly I want those two to come back or at least come back under a different skill or as an added effect since AST buff durations are hella short ESPECIALLY for Divination, I thought they increase it to 30s so that it actually makes an impact.

[Nhala_Levee]

Bard kinda changed they lost their Crit from the songs and Requiem so now they deal more dmg closer to Machinist, they still have Battle Voice but other than the ones that I can think of whilst Dancer got all the utility for low damage.

Old AST WAS the epitome of a buffing healer class, there was so many things you could do with your cards, along with being able to increase Buff Durations with Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition. How badly I want those two to come back or at least come back under a different skill or as an added effect since AST buff durations are hella short ESPECIALLY for Divination, I thought they increase it to 30s so that it actually makes an impact.

For me, astro was the life in this game. It was my favorite, but that exact one. Other classes was nice and all, but my everything was astro. Now im mostly just running around or talking with my friends online.
Sadly im loving unique games too much. And Final Fantasy 14 was unique. I liked every class as they was. And now, they becomed so similar to WoW classes, i lost my interest about the game. :/
Healers just do buffs. DPS classes dmg boosts are mostly usable once / bossfight. And there is just one, just like in wow. Tanks are becomed very similar to WoW tanks too, with these mechanics, and with that so many lost skills.
Dont know, everywhere in this game i see WoW now. Classes lost their meanings. But realy... a bard... singing, telling tales, inspireing they team mates to become more. Lost them skills? Becomed so called "balanced"? Balance means we rework all classes to be "equal"? Even if cause this the game loseing its very thing that made it diferent from the others? I don know anymore...
I simply lost my interest in this game...
Sad thing...

[Nhala_Levee]

But the worst thing about all this, i cant even have any options to play that what i loved in this game.
There is no diferent kontent servers. And sadly there is not any private servers too, to have just a little chance to go back to stormblood, where the whole game was that good as i loved it so much.
Damn shame...