Concerns with Astrologian in Endwalker

[lisaa]

Firstly design:

First the most glaring problem is the new Minor Arcana which gives a 50/50 chance of a heal or a damage spell. I'm sorry but this is just the worst design. There is no situation where you are happy to have an RNG heal vs dmg spell. Either you need a heal and are disappointed if you get a Lord or you don't need a heal and are disappointed if you get a Lady.

The only way to use it is if it replaces a gcd heal, to match the damage of Lord. But it is also only 400 potency so it is not even so simple as replacing an aspected helios, it would have to replace helios casts, but that is very rare to cast. So instead you have to shift a bunch of ogcds and instead of one healing plan for a fight we need to have a branch every 60s for whether we get a Lady of Crowns heal or not. In an 8 minute fight which is rather short that is already 256 different possibilities. Of course no one can memorize that. Instead you can only hope for RNG with no input from the player.

The second problem is Astrodyne. I am sorry but this is just the saddest skill ever, to buff our personal damage as the job which has the lowest personal damage in the entire game. It is just contradicting everything that Astrologian is as a healer which supports the party. They want to make divination guaranteed 6% instead of relying on seals, and now they need a new use for seals so they add astrodyne. But that is so unnecessary because with the 5.3 sleeve draw it is already so rare to have 2 seal divination, like only 1% chance in the opening. It only happens if you are really trying to greed for optimal card plays (like double melee cards) and it backfires. Instead even that small chance could be eliminated by just changing sleeve draw to be on 120s cd so you can use it for every divination which also fits with the 60/120 design of EW. Instead we have this weak personal buff, i am sorry 5% damage on 250 potency malefics? And now imagine you draw a bad card, instead of choosing between a better card buff or a better chance for divination, you are now choosing a better card buff or a better chance for buffing your own damage. That is such an awful decision to make as a healer and support, and even more stupid when you consider how small 5% on AST's personal damage is.

I think both these problematic designs are just stem from wanting to have more dps buttons for healers, without really thinking about what it means to play healer and how the gameplay actually feels. It is adding complexity and nonsense without actually adding any meaningful or fun choice. Before, all these skills interact in such an elegant way: with just a single card, you can gain it by draw or sleeve draw, control it by redraw, choose to play or turn it into minor arcana, and finally combine it all into a powerful party buff. Astrologian was a healer with both pretty style and pretty gameplay. Now we just have a bunch of random buttons that we press every 30/60/120s.

[lisaa]

Secondly Balance:

In Endwalker WHM's glare is being buffed threefold while malefic is unchanged. First it is just getting 10 more potency to 310. Second it is reduced to 1.5s cast time, which increases the damage two ways. First this removes caster tax, which is the 0.1s extra delay a spell's cast time. Caster tax means that a 2.5s spell cast actually takes 2.6s before you can cast the next spell, while a 1.5s spell cast (1.6s with tax) will take 2.5s gcd before the next spell cast. This is basically a 4% damage buff at normal 2.4s gcds. It's as if glare did 12 potency more damage. Imagine if glare did 322 potency right now, compared to malefic's 250 potency, that is crazy. Finally being reduced to 1.5s cast time also makes it easier to cast as many spells as possible, by being able to move more freely and also weave ogcds more freely. For example you can now weave Assize whenever you want which can also potentially save healing gcds.

Does AST have anything to compensate for this? Well it is having sleeve draw and the upgraded cards of Minor Arcana changed, so it is providing even less buffs to the party, while receiving a little bit of personal damage in Lord of Crowns, Earthly Star buff, and Astrodyne. But this increase is so little every 60s compared to a well timed card which can be worth 600 potency damage which we are losing from sleeve draw. AST will also have better MP than WHM but this isn't really clear in prog, because you have so much piety anyways, and the new Thin Air can be used more frequently, and Lilybell is extremely powerful to replace the current Thin Air on repeated cure 3s (AST's Macrocosmos is big but can only heal a single wave).

On the side of healing, AST is known for its plentiful free ogcd heals, but even that is changing in Endwalker, as all healers will be able to freely weave ogcd heals on a 1.5s cast time. Ironically, AST might become to most restricted because of dealing with cards. It's only real advantage is Neutral Sect, which remains an extremely powerful skill, but do we still need it with so much more mitigation from the new Feint and RDM?

But AST is stronger than WHM, so shouldn't it be nerfed slightly? That is true, but only in more optimized play. Even though WHM does less damage right now it is still more popular because it is more simple to play, which allows you to focus more on other things. Especially in prog, what reason is there to pick the more complex job if the simpler one is just as good?

Normally it's not good to talk about a balance before release since numbers can change, and especially for healers which depends a lot on the new fight designs, but historically SE has underestimated the effect of reducing cast times, when AST's malefic was reduced to 1.5s, so I think it is important to at least build awareness for it. I'm not saying "SE needs to change this" but rather "SE please watch and be mindful if it needs change"

[lisaa]

Finally Animation:

Well after all that text this is a really simple request but the animation for switching to Nocturnal Sect is really pretty and it will be sad for it to go away. Can we please keep it as an emote?

[Sebazy]

Lord and Lady, eeeehhh I'm pretty firmly on the fence over it. I 100% agree that RNG heals are generally not great. It's also strange given that SE have typically backtracked on RNG healing abilities too. However, given it's a minute cool down and doesn't interfere with regular cards, it's not really a hinderance either. I can merrily sit on a Lady for the duration of the cooldown and it's easy enough to just throw it towards the end (If that's even needed) to try another pull. My biggest issue with the ability is why it needs 2 buttons? We've had abilities that go on cool down when initially pressed despite having a secondary press/effect since HW. I don't understand why SE are making similar mistakes Stormblood made all over again with this?

Astrodyne isn't that awful, at this point it's pretty much a given that getting the 5% personal damage is going to play second fiddle to optimising cards on the group so I just see that as gravy. It's PoM for AST in my eyes. You'll probably know this better than me, but the bit that has me puzzling with Astrodyne is how the optimal Divination phase is actually going to play out. I get the feeling that we're going to be going back to needing to hold Lightspeed again if we want to avoid clipping?

I'm with you on the 6.0 Divination feeling like a bit of a cop out for sure.

Regarding Glare vs Malefic, really this is just balancing something that should have been set straight years ago. AST damage took quite a significant step upwards when they got the faster cast and SE never really gave WHM much of anything to even that out. As you say, SE never really seemed to appreciate quite how big a change it made beyond simply helping casual players avoid stalling their GCD so much with card play.

As for AST vs WHM in progression, I think it's impossible to say until we see what direction the encounter design has gone this tier. If we see more along the likes of E8S with sporadic bursty healing and highly stern DPS checks, AST will be the pick for sure. Outside of that, I suspect it'll lean more towards personal preference.

[Liam_Harper]

I've said my piece on Astrodyne and Lord/Lady on other threads and opinions have been varied, so I'll leave it at that. Some seem to love the idea, others don't. I can respect that.

Ultimately it won't matter much and won't have a huge impact on gameplay, except for logs and 1% wipes, which will suck. For me, it doesn't add anything except extra buttons that don't really do anything useful and tedious moments when rng just says no, but I've come to terms with it. For me, I play a healer to be useful and these abilities ...just aren't that useful or fun. But that's healer design in a nutshell.

[CrimsonGunner]

Lord and Lady, eeeehhh I'm pretty firmly on the fence over it. I 100% agree that RNG heals are generally not great. It's also strange given that SE have typically backtracked on RNG healing abilities too. However, given it's a minute cool down and doesn't interfere with regular cards, it's not really a hinderance either. I can merrily sit on a Lady for the duration of the cooldown and it's easy enough to just throw it towards the end (If that's even needed) to try another pull. My biggest issue with the ability is why it needs 2 buttons? We've had abilities that go on cool down when initially pressed despite having a secondary press/effect since HW. I don't understand why SE are making similar mistakes Stormblood made all over again with this?

Astrodyne isn't that awful, at this point it's pretty much a given that getting the 5% personal damage is going to play second fiddle to optimising cards on the group so I just see that as gravy. It's PoM for AST in my eyes. You'll probably know this better than me, but the bit that has me puzzling with Astrodyne is how the optimal Divination phase is actually going to play out. I get the feeling that we're going to be going back to needing to hold Lightspeed again if we want to avoid clipping?

I'm with you on the 6.0 Divination feeling like a bit of a cop out for sure.

Regarding Glare vs Malefic, really this is just balancing something that should have been set straight years ago. AST damage took quite a significant step upwards when they got the faster cast and SE never really gave WHM much of anything to even that out. As you say, SE never really seemed to appreciate quite how big a change it made beyond simply helping casual players avoid stalling their GCD so much with card play.

As for AST vs WHM in progression, I think it's impossible to say until we see what direction the encounter design has gone this tier. If we see more along the likes of E8S with sporadic bursty healing and highly stern DPS checks, AST will be the pick for sure. Outside of that, I suspect it'll lean more towards personal preference.

depends on thin air change will happen or not, if it will then with whm mp management going to its level 50 one, ast will be the best pick even from personal preference cause you will easily run to mana issues with whm.

[Saefinn]

On the note of Lord, Lady and Astrodyne I see them as an improvement on the current kit.

This is because the current card mechanics are:

Draw -> Get The Balance with one symbol -> Play
Draw -> Get The Balance with the same symbol -> Redraw -> Get The Balance with another symbol -> Play
Draw -> Get The Balance with one of the above symbols -> Redraw -> Same Again -> Redraw -> Same Again -> Turn it into a slightly better version of The Balance with no symbol
Draw -> Get The Balance with the symbol I want -> Play
Use an AoE version of The Balance

Naturally the people who liked having variety in what cards complained about this drastic change to the card system where every card is now The Balance.

These changes alleviate that problem.

With the Minor Arcana changes, I think they could be better, but I at least don't have to immediately play that healing card and it's another DPS spell I could use in my downtime, even if it's a 50% chance, but hey, DNC get a 50% chance of getting a Fan Dance. But most that's 2 fewer chards that are "The Balance"

With Astrodyne. It's not just a DPS buff, if this mechanic was still used for Divination THEN it would just be a DPS buff. Fortunately Divination is it own thing now. I think biggest benefit I see is the cast time and recast time reductions - it could knock 12 seconds off of a Macrocosmos recast and can get in most DPS and heal moves in within a shorter space of time. There's also an MP regen benefit (though it's niche, but you're still gonna find it useful if you're raising or are in a challenging group) and also a healing boost from it.

So it's a more meaningful benefit that "I will use 3 The Balance cards to determine how much of The Balance I can get from this AoE version of The Balance". I don't mind 6.0 Divination going to a flat percentage to get something more meaningful for the Card system.

I feel like the changes to Draw/Redraw might actually feel better. Because it never feels good to me to do multiple redraws to get the card you want, it messes with my flow, but the bit that is nonsensical for me is why Sleeve Draw is gone, in 5.0 it was clunky as heck, sure, but how they fixed it I think would have be beneficial to the 6.0 kit and reduce some of the RNG fatigue.

[Risvertasashi]

Secondly Balance:

In Endwalker WHM's glare is being buffed threefold while malefic is unchanged. First it is just getting 10 more potency to 310. Second it is reduced to 1.5s cast time, which increases the damage two ways. First this removes caster tax, which is the 0.1s extra delay a spell's cast time. Caster tax means that a 2.5s spell cast actually takes 2.6s before you can cast the next spell, while a 1.5s spell cast (1.6s with tax) will take 2.5s gcd before the next spell cast. This is basically a 4% damage buff at normal 2.4s gcds. It's as if glare did 12 potency more damage. Imagine if glare did 322 potency right now, compared to malefic's 250 potency, that is crazy. Finally being reduced to 1.5s cast time also makes it easier to cast as many spells as possible, by being able to move more freely and also weave ogcds more freely. For example you can now weave Assize whenever you want which can also potentially save healing gcds.

I'd just like to point out that AST is the top damage dealing healer right now, while white mage is on the bottom. So, perhaps white mage needs a bit of a buff to keep a meta from forming against it?

But one way or another, it shows just how misleading worrying about the potency of a single spell is.

-

And even then, none of this really matters because Endwalker is turning all the damage calculations on its head and we don't know exactly how stuff is going to shake out yet.

Still, it's exceptionally silly to get potency-jealous of the lowest damage healer's nuke while playing the highest damage healer.

[ForteNightshade]

I'd just like to point out that AST is the top damage dealing healer right now, while white mage is on the bottom. So, perhaps white mage needs a bit of a buff to keep a meta from forming against it?

I suspect it's to balance that Misery is actually now an even bigger DPS loss for White Mage due to it no longer needing to create weaving spaces through "wasted" Lilies. Momo has an excellent breakdown of this in his overview of White Mage.

[Risvertasashi]

I suspect it's to balance that Misery is actually now an even bigger DPS loss for White Mage due to it no longer needing to create weaving spaces through "wasted" Lilies. Momo has an excellent breakdown of this in his overview of White Mage.

It may well be. But the point still stands. AST is the highest damage healer. WHM is the lowest damage healer.

Acting like AST is somehow far behind and only getting further by looking at the potency of one spell is very misleading and very silly. (And especially complaining about the cast tax - Glare being effectively longer than the GCD should be treated as a reduction in potency - adding potency when it's no longer there is yet another blatantly misleading number fudge)