Endwalker AST has too many buttons, and other issues

[DBriggs304]

Last thing some classes need are less buttons. They've dumbed some of them down enough.

[HyoMinPark]

Last thing some classes need are less buttons. They've dumbed some of them down enough.

Consolidating Draw and Crown Play would not be dumbing the job down. It would remove needless button bloat that really doesn’t need to be a thing. There’s zero reason for Crown Play to even be an ability, since Minor Arcana in SB functioned as >press MA to generate Lord/Lady >press MA again to deploy Lord/Lady. Why they decided Crown Play was needed is beyond me.

But I’ve taken issue with the card system since ShB changes. Astrodyne is just terrible design with the new Redraw and I hate it so much. Personally, I never saw the need for AST to really have a single target buff on itself.

[RinaShinomiya]

Last thing some classes need are less buttons. They've dumbed some of them down enough.

This isn't a case of of dumbing the job down. There are at least 6 buttons that don't need to exist in AST's toolkit because they aren't doing anything other than bloat the hotbar.
- Why does Benefic I need to be a separate button, nobody is gonna use it when Benefic II is available. I'm sorry but Freecure and Ehanced Benefic traits are really bad.
- Crown Play and Play are unnecessary and the cool stuff you can do with Play suffers from macro queuing system (or lack there of).
- Why does Undraw still exist, its literally less than useless since 5.0.
- Post-SGE its really hard to justify Aspected Spells and the Dot existing as separate buttons, like AST is the easiest Job to apply this QoL Sage introduced. Add a "Aspection" button that turns Benefic II into Aspected Benefic, Helios into Aspected Helios, Malefic into Aspected Malefic (Combust).

There 6 button removed and only 1 added and the class plays exactly as it does now. And i didn't even mention Redraw or Astrodyne which honestly just makes the Job twice more busy than it has to for virtually no benefit.
Feel free to add more buttons via this free'd up space. How about we add AoE Dots again? Aspected Gravity lets go! So much room for new stuff!
And thanks to this fat trimming controller players don't have to deal with 34 abilities when 32 is the most they can comfortably use via the XHB and WXHB.

[CrimsonGunner]

This isn't a case of of dumbing the job down. There are at least 6 buttons that don't need to exist in AST's toolkit because they aren't doing anything other than bloat the hotbar.
- Why does Benefic I need to be a separate button, nobody is gonna use it when Benefic II is available. I'm sorry but Freecure and Ehanced Benefic traits are really bad.
- Crown Play and Play are unnecessary and the cool stuff you can do with Play suffers from macro queuing system (or lack there of).
- Why does Undraw still exist, its literally less than useless since 5.0.
- Post-SGE its really hard to justify Aspected Spells and the Dot existing as separate buttons, like AST is the easiest Job to apply this QoL Sage introduced. Add a "Aspection" button that turns Benefic II into Aspected Benefic, Helios into Aspected Helios, Malefic into Aspected Malefic (Combust).

There 6 button removed and only 1 added and the class plays exactly as it does now. And i didn't even mention Redraw or Astrodyne which honestly just makes the Job twice more busy than it has to for virtually no benefit.
Feel free to add more buttons via this free'd up space. How about we add AoE Dots again? Aspected Gravity lets go! So much room for new stuff!
And thanks to this fat trimming controller players don't have to deal with 34 abilities when 32 is the most they can comfortably use via the XHB and WXHB.

to add to the options of button removal, i would throw astrodyn to the mix and simply make it a trait that automatically activate instead due to how redraw and the current seal system is right now.

[rewd]

- Post-SGE its really hard to justify Aspected Spells and the Dot existing as separate buttons, like AST is the easiest Job to apply this QoL Sage introduced. Add a "Aspection" button that turns Benefic II into Aspected Benefic, Helios into Aspected Helios, Malefic into Aspected Malefic (Combust).

You could simply merge Benefic, Benefic II and Aspected Benefic together and make it heal and apply a regen, similarly to how Adlo heals and applies a shield. Same for Helios and Aspected Helios.

[RinaShinomiya]

You could simply merge Benefic, Benefic II and Aspected Benefic together and make it heal and apply a regen, similarly to how Adlo heals and applies a shield. Same for Helios and Aspected Helios.

No. Benefic 2 and Aspected Benefic, Helios and Aspected Helios actually have a reason to be separate buttons. You can't spam Aspected versions of these spells and heal nearly the same amount of HP as using Aspected version once + multiple regular ones. It works exactly the same on Sage. Your suggestion would actually worsen the jobs healing capabilities.

[rewd]

No. Benefic 2 and Aspected Benefic, Helios and Aspected Helios actually have a reason to be separate buttons. You can't spam Aspected versions of these spells and heal nearly the same amount of HP as using Aspected version once + multiple regular ones. It works exactly the same on Sage. Your suggestion would actually worsen the jobs healing capabilities.

Which is why you would obviously adjust potencies so that already redundant skills would become even more redundant...

Yes, I imagine AST would be a bad healer without Helios, it's such a key skill in its kit...
We really, really don't need 5 GCD heals that all do the same boring thing with small differences, especially because they are skills we don't even want to use at all.

Why are Benefic and Benefic II different? Well, for the reason you think Helios and A. Helios totally need. There are very niche situations in which Benefic (and Cure) can be useful. Are they very niche scenarios? You can bet on it, just like with the other GCD heals you really, really think need to exist.

Your suggestions also have important implications. Giving AST the Eukrasia treatment would be awful because you would give up on the double weave from Combust.
MA and Crown Play are different buttons because that allows you to draw a card and start the cooldown of MA. You don't need two different buttons to get that effect, but simply merging them together wouldn't make it possible.

[anhaato]

- Post-SGE its really hard to justify Aspected Spells and the Dot existing as separate buttons, like AST is the easiest Job to apply this QoL Sage introduced. Add a "Aspection" button that turns Benefic II into Aspected Benefic, Helios into Aspected Helios, Malefic into Aspected Malefic (Combust).

Sure, if you don't want SGE to be unique anymore, and you want to lose double weave opportunities, since out the healers AST and SCH double weave the most.

As far as button reduction and fixes goes I would:
-Consolidate draw and play to one button
-Delete undraw, please
-Bring back 5.3 sleeve draw to help mitigate rng
-Give 2 charges of clarifying draw

Regarding the issues with astrodyne and minor arcana:
-Consolidate minor arcana and crown play
-Make minor arcana function as it did pre-5.1(?), swap a drawn card to lord or lady that you hold
-Make astrodyne 120s to make it fit 120 burst like we used to (sorta), as it is now it's effectively a 90s cd

The reason I want that to happen is so it could work thus: After using astrodyne and putting it on cd, you can use your extra cards by turning them into lord or lady by hitting minor arcana, which then turns into crown play on the same button. Having to press minor arcana and then play it on a separate button press was an issue in 5.x because all of our cards were targeted, but new lord and lady are both aoe so by removing the targeting from the equation it would be a lot easier to minor arcana then crown play on the next weave opportunity. This in conjunction with redraw charges gives us more agency in pulling a lord or lady based on what we need at the time, and having crown play would give us flexibility in when it's used.

Example: you prepull draw, play, draw (redraw as necessary), play, then sleeve draw, then astrodyne. And now you still have an extra charge of draw sitting around, so you use that to get a seal, wait 30s, seal, 30s, then you come upon your 3rd draw usage before astrodyne and sleeve draw come off cooldown. In that moment, you may want to draw and then minor arcana so you can use sleeve draw for guaranteed 3rd seal. Then you can think about what's about to happen, is there about to be some heavy damage going out? In that case, say you draw a balance, you redraw, get an arrow, redraw again, and you get a ewer. Then you minor arcana it and hold it until the damage goes out, then crown play your lady for the heal. Then it's time for your 120 burst, so you sleeve draw, then astrodyne again.

I feel that changes like this would do a great job for reducing button bloat by at least 2 buttons, while also making the playstyle more exciting despite that and giving you more agency in what happens and avenues for mitigating rng.

[Kanehana]

Same. I've been rearranging my buttons as of late and at the very least I think the Minor Arcana and Crown Play card would work fine as one combined button. I don't mind redraw if I'm fishing for a different seal, and undraw seems to be useful for controller players, though (or so I've heard in the past).

[Vesah]

I loved my AST, now I am so conflicted on my AST OR SGE as my Main job for EW