Why so much complain on AST?

[Gemina]

TBH, optimizing things in general can just strip a ton of enjoyment out of games. Especially, if it's an aspect that's like totally forced and hen-pecky

The way I see things, is that if doesn't feel rewarding or fun to try and play your job optimally then something's not right. That doesn't necessarily mean the job is designed poorly as sometimes how a job plays is in contrast to a player's playstyle, but I don't feel this is the case with AST. The card mechanic is atrocious and literally strips all enjoyment out of this job.

[Mhaeric]

AST-specific complaints that I've seen are almost all about the cards being simplified from before. I.e. most people who complain about it either don't like that they are all the same effect now and/or lost the royal road mechanic.

The only other complaints I really see are how AST isn't as good at healing as the other two, but those have mostly gone away as people figured out that AST is effectively guaranteed a spot in the meta with SCH and WHM splitting the other spot.

[EaMett]

They simplified everything. Made healing skills much stronger across the board. All healers are overpowered when it comes to the healing aspect, it's irrelevant to really look into who heals better unless you're really struggling with healing in general. They made the dps skills two button wonders. Dot then nuke. It used to be that WHM was your beginner go to and once you got a little better you had other options. Right now AST is essentially the only healer that requires half a brain, all the while SCH got huge dps gameplay nerfs (half the amount of timers to keep track of, no more melee gameplay, only one fairy, etc.. list goes on).
So all healers currently heal better, and DPS super easy. These changes will affect different players in two ways:

- You're either a good healer (in terms of tiers of skill, so career healers and/or raiders) and this made healing so effin easy that once you've dabbled a tad in content you're bored out of your mind playing healer right now. Some may push for parsing but 90% of the time a bad parse run is the fault of other people so that can sap the fun out of you real fast.
- You're a beginner to casual healer and these changes made your life easier (keeping tanks/party alive is much easier), less anxiety, meeting dps requirements isn't as tedious as it was etc. etc.

Part of the issue people have with the AST's current state has to do with cards and the card mechanics (sleeve draw for example) + the loss of the lore. Having every card be a balance basically removes a lot of options ASTs had before. It's psychological but options = fun and that one run you used ewer properly during prog on someone who died, or that bole that pulled you through some mechanic (or dungeons) 100% made up for the balance fetching. Honestly, they could have kept the old system and rebalanced spear/arrow+ made spire Direct hit and everyone would've been satisfied.

All in all it boils down to something called cognitive flow in game design. Which is a fancy way of saying that gameplay has to offer both an accessible skill floor and a high skill ceiling to make sure players getting better at their class have a challenge as they go but are never overrun with anxiety from it being too hard. Right now it's really, really, easy to cap out the skill ceiling for the healers. Which is a travesty considering this is a game with high player retention so most of your base is going to get pretty damn good at it given enough time.

[Risvertasashi]

For a endgame play, should I prefer AST or scholar?

AST is the basically guaranteed spot at the moment. Really you can play any healer and easily get a group, but if you like AST anyways, that doesn't hurt - AST is strong enough even to solo heal ultimates (the only healer that can do so).

AST also has the highest APM of any healer, if you like to be kept busy. But for some this is not a positive, especially given card targeting.

The downsides mostly come down to people not liking the card system, and that you might have to meld piety.

[Crushnight]

Have to ask when were the complaints about Ast healing made? If before 5.05 yea they were undertuned compared to both sch and whm on healing and rDps but the 5.05 buffs sorted Ast's healing out.

If they are complaining about Noct Ast then yea Noct Ast is inferior to Diurnal Ast in every possible way, healing output/mp conservation/freedom to dps more all better on Diurnal and atm there are very few fights in the game where Noct shields are needed over Diurnal cd shields. People still enjoy Noct Ast due to the extra work or the shielding/preventive playstyle but most still understand it is inferior to Diurnal and needs working out (going on 6 years so I don't hold my breath anymore )

If it's about the card system then yea the card system is a hot topic always will be now (Thx SE no matter what you do now constant complaints will be a thing) due to them reworking it, taking away all the buff manipulation which helped Ast standout more, outright say not going to touch it(back in 5.05 no word since) due to those who like it now which opens up the can of worms that is the people who liked it before they changed it (very stupid move to say this), and generally having major controller issues at high end play.

If it's healer complaints in general then yea

[Crushnight]

Have to ask when were the complaints about Ast healing made? If before 5.05 yea they were undertuned compared to both sch and whm on healing and rDps but the 5.05 buffs sorted Ast's healing out.

If they are complaining about Noct Ast then yea Noct Ast is inferior to Diurnal Ast in every possible way, healing output/mp conservation/freedom to dps more all better on Diurnal and atm there are very few fights in the game where Noct shields are needed over Diurnal cd shields. People still enjoy Noct Ast due to the extra work or the shielding/preventive playstyle but most still understand it is inferior to Diurnal and needs working out (going on 6 years so I don't hold my breath anymore )

If it's about the card system then yea the card system is a hot topic always will be now (Thx SE no matter what you do now constant complaints will be a thing) due to them reworking it, taking away all the buff manipulation which helped Ast standout more, outright say not going to touch it(back in 5.05 no word since) due to those who like it now which opens up the can of worms that is the people who liked it before they changed it (very stupid move to say this), and generally having major controller issues at high end play.

If it's healer complaints in general then yea

People are bored that their downtime has been reduced to 1,1,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,1,1 etc, on top of the downtime having been increased due to the highly unneeded new ogcds we got given, combined with the tank changes and the fight design that will never stop being scripted, starts to make healer gcd skills redundant ala benefic/cure which is a big problem.

All this on top of the devs actively avoiding as much talk about healers as possible just makes things worse as the negativity is just piled on and on as no way of knowing if they actively care about such feedback, it doesn't even need to anything other than acknowledgedment that they see our feedback, that alone would placate some people.

[Truen]

People are bored that their downtime has been reduced to 1,1,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,1,1 etc, on top of the downtime having been increased due to the highly unneeded new ogcds we got given, combined with the tank changes and the fight design that will never stop being scripted, starts to make healer gcd skills redundant ala benefic/cure which is a big problem.

All this on top of the devs actively avoiding as much talk about healers as possible just makes things worse as the negativity is just piled on and on as no way of knowing if they actively care about such feedback, it doesn't even need to anything other than acknowledgedment that they see our feedback, that alone would placate some people.

Exactly. +1
This summarizes everything perfectly.

[Lilseph]

For a endgame play, should I prefer AST or scholar?

If it's regarding harder endgame content like the Savages and Ultimates, it really depends on the encounter. A White Mage and Scholar pair generally can make progression significantly smoother because of the strength of their kits paired together. Beyond that specific type of content, it shouldn't really matter for general endgame. Just play what you are most comfortable with and/or have the most fun with.

[Mesarthim]

AST now is fine (not perfect, but fine) but I still want nothing to do with it despite maining the job for like 3 years. I had a main role identity crisis between 5.0 and 5.2 but eventually settled on tank. The fact it needed a page long list of buffs when savage dropped is pretty telling on how much attention healers were given.

I drew a line with AST with new sleeve draw + loss of stun for celestial opposition (which wasn't even spammable). I mostly just play SCH for healer in Shadowbringers despite the dysfunctional kit at 60, 70 and 80.

[Truen]

AST now is fine (not perfect, but fine) but I still want nothing to do with it despite maining the job for like 3 years. I had a main role identity crisis between 5.0 and 5.2 but eventually settled on tank... I mostly just play SCH for healer in Shadowbringers despite the dysfunctional kit at 60, 70 and 80.

Yeah I can't handle the SCH kit, kuddos for you for having the patience to deal with the clunky play. And, I can relate to what you said about 5.0 - 5.2. As a prior Scholar main, I quit the game for months after 5.0 release and only recently came back after buying the expansion on discount for my wife, son, and I after all this time.

I was shocked they still haven't reverted the changes they made to healers. It's one of the worst set of nerfs/redesigns I've ever seen in an MMORPG.

Sub-80 end-game play has devolved to"Broil, Broil, Broil, Broil, Bio, Broil, Heal, Broil, Broil, Bio, Heal, Broil, Broil, Broil, Broil..." <facepalm>