How is new AST feeling?

[Xalvador]

I’ve been maining this job ever since its release in HW, back when the old card buffs only lasted 15s and it had lower healing potencies. After making it my 1st 90 job here are my thoughts:

- Release ast, which was genuinely terrible, was a ton more fun than current ast.

- The card system is terrible. Divination not requiring seals makes using cards just feel like button bloat, even if I am buffing other party members. On top of that, even if the utility was “useless” to people who optimized everything in the game, old ast cards were infinitely more fun.

- The only good thing about Astrodyne is the MP regen, and even then that’s only in scenarios where you’ve had to res a LOT of people. This is compounded by that fact that lucid dreaming was buffed.

- Earthly star takes 0 skill now. I get that it was changed to alleviate people standing outside of it, but I hate this change. They could’ve just gave it some sort of bubble effect to indicate the range, while also increasing the range slightly.

I would write more but I don’t wanna beat a dead horse anymore than it’s already been beaten. They managed to make sage feel incredibly fun for me, so at least there’s that.

[snipski]

if you can handle the button bloat astro absoutly shit on whm it has so many tools now.

Also it's basicly impossible to go out of mana now you dont even need to use the mana regen skill draw card and astrodyne is enough.

You can remove Benefic and Helios from the hotbar if you need room for skills since you dont even need them anymore aside from low level content.

[BahamutxD]

How to fix AST:

1/ Play is a 2 part action. It will trigger Draw on first press and Play on second press. The icon will display as Draw at first and turn into the card logo after.
♦ To keep it simple, it should do what this macro does but without the macro delay and updating the spell icon to reflect the card drawn.

/ac Play
/ac Draw

2/ Exactly the same as above but with Minor Arcana and Crown Play.

3/ Combine Divination and Astrodyne into 1 skill (both level 50 spells granting a buff) - simply add the Divination damage to Astrodyne. Tweak numbers to balance the x3 30secs (3cards) cooldown if needed.

4/ Combine Exaltation with either Celestial Intersection or Synastry
♦ Else Celestial Intersection needs a buff/change, can increase CD to 60secs but increase cure potency to atleast 350.
♦ Synastry can be removed completely or reworked. IE - make it a passive trait that triggers its actual effect on anyone affected by some of your spells (IE - Celestial Intersection, Aspected Benefic, card buffs...)

C'mon Square, making AST awesome is just 2 steps away. The class is not bad, its the little detaills that are failing.

[Jybril]

Hey guys! Been a while. Hope everyones enjoying the expansion or trying lol.

So anyways, I pretty much quit SHB because of AST. Won't lie, because of this one job I subbed maybe a total of 5 times, and played 2 weeks each time
because of AST and how terrible it's been for the last several expansions while being a boring balance bot and continue to see it turn to crap.
Bring back the Time Mage aspect and bring back my cards or I'm pretty much capping and never touching again.
I'm still incredibly disappointed in AST and seeing the EW version, I really do not care if AST can heal better than WHM.
What made it fun is gone.

Don't wanna beat the horse forever so:
PLEASE return the Time Mage aspect and Old cards FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLEASE.
I may sound a bit dramatic but it hurts to see one of my fave jobs in the many MMO's I played
constantly get pooped on every 2 years man lol! Please HW AST! Someday?

[FrauEcken]

I picked up AST during Shadowbringers and I'm still levelling it to 90. But here are my thoughts so far:

- I'm fine with how they reworked cards and Redraw, and I get why seals now matter for Astrodyne instead of Divination
- On the other hand, I don't see the point in Astrodyne since I don't care about buffing myself, making the whole card minigame a bit pointless. Divination being just a button you press on cooldown makes me sad.
- Minor Arcana being unrelated to the on its own is... weird.

[Heilstos]

Hey Guys and Dev Team,

here are my ideas to give the AST some QoL.

1.Redraw

The Cards are great till them now. I like the SB but that will never come back, but its better than this in ShB (no more 24 macrocardsystem ty SE btw)^^

But let "Clarifying Draw" stack till 3 times, pls. I understand also appreciate that Redraw doesn't give 100% Astrodyn on his best form and thats okay the future is not set in stone. Yep you can play a round in 120 min Windows, but the people, dont want to play it. I play around that but I am only ast player here.

2. Minor Arcana
First of all to everyone who says that the skill only needs one button. It can be done. ^^ For that this skill needs less RNG and my Idea is to make it dependent form that.

So Minor Arcana chnages to Lord of Crowns if you use a DPS skill like Fall Malefic, Gravity II befor you use Minor Arcana.

And if you use Aspected Benefic, Aspected Helios, Helios also Healing MAGIC than Minor Arcana is going to be a Lady of Crowns.

If you want only 2 bottons than make a buff like Lady or Crown rdy. If should be one (hey Crontroller player ^^) than let it be one that changes all times.

The Rest is okay for the Moment in terms of not knowing the heavyness of healing.

greeedings

Marius Heilstos

[Jirah]

Earthly star range is stupid huge, almost pointless in a way. Kinda takes the fun out of it and I know dam well they’ll never revert it. As they have never made any logical reductions unless it’s a rework

[milosralevic]

I said this on another post and I'll just copy/paste because I really hope they see my feedback.

As an Astrologian main, I completely dislike what they have done to the job. They added way too many buttons to press for the sake of more RNG and very little reward. There are now three RNG factors; Draw, Seals (for Astrodyne), and Minor Arcana.

Seals and Astrodyne: It feels lackluster. The chances of you getting all three different seals is very minimal and the speed boost is awful.
Minor Arcana: It's like the old Astrologian again; no one wants to pull Lady of Crowns when you have to prioritize DPS.
Draw: I like it. Having two cards ready at the start of the fight feels nice.
Redraw: Why does it still exist? With the changes to Astrodyne and Divination, it feels so unimportant.

Landing your cards right should be an Astrologian's priority and part of its DPS rotation. I would totally remove Redraw, Undraw, Minor Arcana, and possibly Astrodyne or perhaps revert how seals used to work in Shadowbringers.

[Mansion]

Landing your cards right should be an Astrologian's priority and part of its DPS rotation. I would totally remove Redraw, Undraw, Minor Arcana, and possibly Astrodyne or perhaps revert how seals used to work in Shadowbringers.

My position almost.
I've healed a bit on AST and SAG on extremes, and AST feels so burdened by all the weaving you have to do (to great effect, let's not forget that.) Healing potencies are great and Earthly Star / Macrocosmos / Horoscope are great.
Astrodyne is just frustrating most of the time. The MP recover is great, the other two buffs aren't that meaningful.
New Minor Arcana is fine, I just think having two buttons for that is pointless.
I really like Exaltation, I do use both Celestial intersection charges.
But every minute I have Opposition, Horoscope, Earthly Star, two Draws (perhaps Redraws in), two Play , one Minor Arcana, one Minor Arcana Play, Essential Dignity, two Celestial Intersection, Lucid Dreaming... And then Divination, Collective... I like the busy nature of it but I do admit some of it (Redraw, Play, Astrodyne, Seals) could just go and I wouldn't mind.

I don't want AST dumbed down, but I do think Seals were a bad idea from the start. At this point I'd rather have them (and Astrody) go. Or make a Seal effect apply directly to the AST (if I play a sun seal, I get a MP recover, if I play a moon seal I get a speed buff etc.)

[Szylver]

to many buttons, as a Healer/buffer i wanna buff my party not myself (useless because AST has the lowest DPS and i will always be healing, buffing others DPS or adding a little bit of damage), way to much RNG, not as fun as it was back in Shb. Probably the healer with the coolest spells because i don't like the futuristic/gundam style.