How could you do this to AST?

[Recon1o6]

Which is why I took like 8-9 months off of the game (would've been more but, house is hostage once more). I played AST/some SCH in Stb, and DRK. The expansion was almost ruined for me if not for Viera (even though I swapped off due to no new hairs etc) and the story being good.

The job changes was the biggest gut punch to my enjoyment of the expansion. I'm not even healing right now anymore unless I absolutely have to (which I've gone weeks without). Sad since I used to be a healer main.

I'd also like to point out that every Heavensward job has been reworked at some point, be it good or bad. Just something I've noticed.

Same, this expansion's job changes basically made it so the only reason I logged in was my house and the story, and once I was done with the story in 5.1, I've been putting the game down until it came to 5.4 and I been slowly levelling monk again since it has turned into 2.0 monk.

I stopped healing barely a couple of weeks after 5.1- whm was interesting for a little bit then I got bored of it and thus stopped healing. I didn't even switch to astro until I needed a dress for an eternal bonding.


Its easier to find a job that has been reworked from its old and usually preferred gameplay style than one that hasnt. There's pretty much only blm and samurai left that haven't undergone an overhaul and its certainly doubtful the former ever will being yoshida's pet.

Oh and yoshida is also the reason we dont have damage types visible without 3rd party tools.

[SweetPete]

totally agreed pete, i feel it for the bards, we ast and sch got hit bad but bard got brutalized. Respects to the bards who still plays it and hope yall get some love back I mean it.

Seeing as Ast, Sch and bards have the most forum complaints as far as jobs go, I am hoping SE finally understands what they did was a huge mistake and tries their best to correct it in Endwalker. Just because they wanted to make every job viable and have no priority jobs it doesn’t mean they had to destroy those 3 jobs the way they did. It’s been an aweful almost 2 years for Astros, sch and bards.

[Irenia]

Better in some ways, worse in others.
They seem to have largely traded one set of flaws for another.

What is a flaw to one person or demographic can be a boon to another. In the end, the dev team wants to make the game as a whole enjoyable to the most amount of people possible. It's how they get subs.

Unlike, say, Bard, where the design seems to be a conceptual mistake on the design, the healers' changes seem mostly deliberate. For example, they simplified dps across the board and even removed energy drain... which was shortly walked back due to bad design. But then, it was recently nerfed. It really feels like whatever their goal is requires energy drain to be gone, but just removing it breaks other things. They said that this was a springboard for 6.0... so what does ED have to do with 6.0?

Honestly, I think all I really can do is continually remind them that enfranchised healers exist. We want to have fun whether in the ultimate encounter or doing the 1st expansion trial the 30th time. Unfortunately, I also feel like this game is becoming more and more a DPS game... in all sense of the word.

[Irenia]

This is why I don't like some of the kinds of complaints people make, people who don't play certain jobs disliking how at its core plays complaining about it so that SE addresses it. I feel like the advantage of multiple jobs was to suit multiple playstyles and preferences. Like with DRK, I loved DRK when it was technical and had MP management, it was a part of the appeal, before HW I used to tank with WAR, if I wanted to stay with WAR, I'd have stayed playing WAR but I didn't because I liked the technical aspect of DRK and that interested me more. If people didn't like DRK from conception, then you had WAR instead.
If you didn't like SCH's DPS management or its shield focus, you had WHM instead. And I'm seeing another thread with a non-MNK player complaining that MNK has too many positionals, when it's one of the things that's appealing about MNK, when you have SAM, NIN or DRG who have fewer of them, it's better to play those. Why appeal to people who don't like the job from conception at the cost of those who love it at conception? If people are finding no job meets their needs and are complaining, then try to make something that appeals to them or to accommodate it in an existing design if it fits.

The problem is that people don't *only* play for the job design, but visual aesthetics, as well.

Also I never really heard of people wanting to have DRK me WAR lite; the major complaint in StB was that you pressed Dark Arts button way too much - MP management could have been kept, but it was the dev team that decided to solve the problem the way they did. Don't villify people for having an opinion on a job they want to play.

[Saefinn]

Maybe saying "I don't like people making these complaints" was a bit much, so I'll take that bit back as I ended on the note that Devs should either try to make a job that suits them or find a way to accommodate both if possible.

But I feel like if they've designed a job a certain way and it's not broken then that's the design philosophy they should stick with because they've given it it's identity. You're gonna get people who fall in love with it, sure, try to accommodate more people but don't trample on those who were already happy. They will struggle to please everybody and I think it makes more sense to be consistent. At least then people know what to expect. Taking the current healer position, we know for the pure/shield healer distinction to work we'd need to revive the old design philosophy where it worked, we don't know if they'll revert to that or continue with the new one we currently have which won't work for what they want to do or whether we get something new entirely to accommodate it.

When really we should have a consistent vision for what each job is and where they fit in the grand scheme of things. By not doing so, they're now in a position where it's about "who do you please?" At least with staying consistent with design you make the decision more easily, because you've already made the decision in design. And then see who you can accommodate on top of that.

[IceBlueNinja]

soon it be like sch/ sch ast/ast gg lol if all shields gone as ast dirunal regens cant stack with each other.noct regens will work with dirunal regens as dirunal shields will work with noct. Though its not a meta but 2 ast is so godly since then then there can be 7 regen 4 shields total if both use the co/ci/cu neutral stuff at once as they all stack, only cards dont.Think this over SE. Also please can anyone tell me why 2 ast would not be the best comp for alot of things since they can stack up on everything but cards, with their amazing weaving mobility?

[Grimoire-M]

soon it be like sch/ sch ast/ast gg lol if all shields gone as ast dirunal regens cant stack with each other.noct regens will work with dirunal regens as dirunal shields will work with noct. Though its not a meta but 2 ast is so godly since then then there can be 7 regen 4 shields total if both use the co/ci/cu neutral stuff at once as they all stack, only cards dont.Think this over SE. Also please can anyone tell me why 2 ast would not be the best comp for alot of things since they can stack up on everything but cards, with their amazing weaving mobility?

LB generation penalties and SCH is genuinely a better healer than a Noct AST in every respect that would matter to a Diurnal AST. SCH is the only one of the three healers that genuinely functions as a good cohealer. Mostly due to flexibility and free passive healing. Despite it being broken historically it’s still designed around supplementing another healer with a large toolbox of cooldowns. I wish SE hadn’t buffed its DPS the way they did for that reason.

[IceBlueNinja]

LB generation penalties and SCH is genuinely a better healer than a Noct AST in every respect that would matter to a Diurnal AST. SCH is the only one of the three healers that genuinely functions as a good cohealer. Mostly due to flexibility and free passive healing. Despite it being broken historically it’s still designed around supplementing another healer with a large toolbox of cooldowns. I wish SE hadn’t buffed its DPS the way they did for that reason.

oh understood about the LB part never knew that same jobs makes lb regen slower thanks for that info truely but... the whole sch shield/better than noct not true, cata is only single target and happens only 15% chance while ast can noct field+ noct celestial for 250% entire party immediately. sch need to hope on cat and then have to spread it, ET has a horrible long cd while CO only has 60 second cd, only time aspected benefic noct loses to alqo is if the cata happens because alco has a 300 pot but if it do not crit even aspected benefic slighty win with its already set 250% migi. succor use to win aspected helios via the cata spread tatic but since CO became a shield that even ET shield is losing also the thing that netrual sect boast heals of ast by 20% too. in 60+ content ast is winning naturally on migi as all sch has is succor unless they do a algo and it cata to spread it, then the 80 skill fairy they got , ofc she wont be available at that time to sch strict lvl 80 which maybe they want to probably have seraph at a lower lvl and give sch a new 80 spell. think what would still make succor/alco win noct field/aspected noct is if the sch use that illuminate and disspiate spell which then grants em a 30% heal boost which idk if they do that or not, tried that healer but its just not my cup of tea vs whm/ast itself. I credit those who play it it however I will even throw noct under the bus this rare time because dirunal shields via netrual sect/ci using aspected benfic=450% single migi vs noct field + co for 350% via aspect benefic. Since most say overall regens are better and I acknowledge it, from what I see too most heavy content tends to be whm/ast whether dirunal or noct vs ast/sch whm/sch. Also yes while not the meta indeed cause the slow lb thing dirunal shields and noct ones stack up nicely compared to a sch shield stacking with a dirunal or noct ast shield(ofc field and gal dont since they do not work with each other). SCH won indeed on migi in stormblood but to me barely is on sbh when they gave co shield and added CI for dirunal whos shield too was 250% but they nerf it to 200 % to make up for that sloppy mess 100pot only heal they had put on ast heals e.e