How could you do this to AST?

[CrioChamber]

Coming from another Astrologian main who did BOTH Diurnal AND Nocturnal (I flipped based on my partner), my god they were both good in their own right! Regens are handsome, but in Nocturnal stance with Celestial Opposition and Collective Unconscious made for some dang good damage mitigation. Combine that with Aspected Helios, and the party barely took any damage. A single Helios would've topped everyone off after the raidwide.
On that flip side, after the raidwide, combine Aspected Helios and Celestial Opposition and the party would be full or nearly full before the next one. If not, you could throw out your Collective Unconscious for a little damage reduction and a little extra regen.

My BIGGEST argument is that, especially when solo-queuing 8-24 man content, if I had a WHM or SCH was in the party, I could easily swap and complement my healer. I.E. Regens and Shields. WHM/NoctAST or SCH/DiurAST. Making AST a pure (regen) healer is going to make why I chose AST null and void. The cards were just a bonus. I LOVE(D) being able to swap on a moment's notice to complement my partner healer.

I will admit, I did prefer Diurnal stance in 4-man content simply because I could get a new and squishy tank to full quicker, but I loved being able to just swap depending on my healing partner. Basically, them saying they're making AST a pure healer is making me extremely worried.

[Xelanar]

My main concern is that they might treat this transition the same way they treaded the card system, specially in the lore / jobquest department.
Up until now every update to Astrologians has taken away something I liked, replacing it with something dull or nothing at all.

- Time Dilation had a really nice feel to it, and I liked the time-related aspect in general.
- Cards shifting from situational support functions and distinct flavor to a dull 6% increase in damage. And for people like me, who care about job flavor and lore, this was even worse, since beforehand each card sort of reflected its constellation and what it stands for. Astrologian Job quests do not even make sense in regard to constellations anymore.
- Sleeve Draw drawing only one single card to make the job's opener easier to handle, without compensating for my loss of DPS and screwing my opener in every single fight where no one cares about a 30 second pull-timer beforehand.

So considering how Astrologians have been treated in the past, of course I'm going into this with a lot of skepticism. I do wonder though, if they at least are going to care about adapting the Job's background story this time around, instead of just making its skillset more streamlined.

As of now they are going to take away something I liked - again. Its adaptability. What are they going to replace it with? Who knows - hopefully with something nice! But all of the above is making me kind of anxious about it >.<.

[Sylvain]

I don't see the issue.
AST were mostly diurnal throughout HW and SB.

People keep complaining about identity and that AST was both at the same.
Here, problems solved, it's a Regen healer with occasional shields (assuming neutral sect doesn't change)

[Xelanar]

I guess the issue is that there are people who play AST as nocturnal, or like to have the option to switch into barrier mode if party composition benefits from it.
I did E5s-E8s as nocturnal and TEA as well, because I happened to be partnered with a Whitemage.

This will no longer be an option in the future, unless someone is willing to switch jobs.

[IceBlueNinja]

Honestly the term sage to me sounds more of a pure healer than a barrier shielder for me. Ast with their time mage like feeling which in some games time mages has reflect which is a barrier kind of magic to me fits more a migitator. I would want it to be the opposite go away with dirunal and keep noct and make sage be pure healer and as another person say at least give us back our own stormblood system cards back. Oh well in the end if I must go sage I will, love barrier healing over regen anyday. I use to love regen more when it was 30 seconds lasting than this mere 15 second. by time u apply helios then aspected or visa versa one seem to come off 5 seconds after lol. I feel I burn more mana in dirunal vs noct. Love when I have a drk night as tank in light party stuff and stack celestial and noct field with CU wheel of fort noct effet (cancel it immediately) and on their blackest night and I get plenty of time to dps the trash mobs out. Either sect is fine once lvl 74+ cause of celestial intersections and netrual skill is still 3 regen/2 shields

[MartaDemireux]

I highly doubt they will be removing shields from WHM and AST completely. They'll still be wanted in dungeons for tank busters. The same is true for SCH's Emergency Tactics.

If anything I expect to see Nocturnal and Diurnal become cooldowns.

[KDSilver]

I highly doubt they will be removing shields from WHM and AST completely. They'll still be wanted in dungeons for tank busters. The same is true for SCH's Emergency Tactics.

If anything I expect to see Nocturnal and Diurnal become cooldowns.

Well that's something we all wonder.
Does drawing the line between regen/barrier healer will make the existing one loose their counterpart spell (sch whispering dawn, Soil, whm benison, mitigation on temperance, ast neutral sect, intersection...)

I imagine it wouldn't hurt too much to have a bit of option on the other department.
Or they can totally make healers specialized in one category.

For now it's hard to say what they're planning

[ty_taurus]

Well that's something we all wonder.
Does drawing the line between regen/barrier healer will make the existing one loose their counterpart spell (sch whispering dawn, Soil, whm benison, mitigation on temperance, ast neutral sect, intersection...)

I imagine it wouldn't hurt too much to have a bit of option on the other department.
Or they can totally make healers specialized in one category.

For now it's hard to say what they're planning

This. There's so much that's open and in the air regarding what pure healer and barrier healer really mean that it's impossible to know what the end result will actually be. We know they are aware of the problems, so we know they have a chance at trying to approach them with some sort of solution, but who knows what that solution is or if it will end up working. AST's playstyle moving forward is something that can't be predicted right now.

[MintnHoney]

We know they are aware of the problems

While I acknowledge that there's a lot up in the air right now, this is something that we very much do not know, as they have yet to really acknowledge that there are even problems to begin with.
For all we know, they don't think there's an issue at all. In fact, considering they brought up that "player skill" bullshit again, history has made me more inclined to believe that's what's happening.

[ItMe]

I am SO UPSET about this change that we know NOTHING about!
Fix it NOW!

Hahahahhaa