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.

[RinaShinomiya]

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.

Double weaving would certainly be a loss but i dont see how it would be impossible to have a skill be on cooldown while it also changes into its respective play button. In fact i think Dragoon already has that with greiskrogul and Nastrond.

[HyoMinPark]

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.

I think this is incorrect. The developers have proven that they can consolidate while also immediately triggering the cooldown of an ability—and on AST, no less. The second you place Earthly Star, its button changes into Stellar Detonation. Regardless of when you detonate it, if you do it manually or let it go off naturally, the cooldown has already been ticking down for the next Star usage. It’s not like HW or SB Draw where holding a card delayed Draw’s cooldown reset.

Minor Arcana could absolutely be programmed the same way as Earthly Star.


Re: Cure I/Benefic I having niche usages—

All of the base single-target heals (Cure I, Benefic I, Physick, and Diagnosis) stop being useful around level 40—a bit higher for WHM due to their poor MP economy pre-Assize and Solace, but you really shouldn’t be using Cure I beyond level 50 at the very latest. It is impossible to maintain a tank in leveling dungeons beyond ARR with Cure I spam. The potency simply cannot keep up with the incoming damage the tank is eating. Even for SGE you spam Eukrasian Diagnosis over regular Diagnosis (if you’re ever in a horrible situation where you have to resort to that); Diagnosis is way too weak to sustain.

[rewd]

I think this is incorrect. The developers have proven that they can consolidate while also immediately triggering the cooldown of an ability—and on AST, no less. The second you place Earthly Star, its button changes into Stellar Detonation. Regardless of when you detonate it, if you do it manually or let it go off naturally, the cooldown has already been ticking down for the next Star usage. It’s not like HW or SB Draw where holding a card delayed Draw’s cooldown reset.

Minor Arcana could absolutely be programmed the same way as Earthly Star.


Re: Cure I/Benefic I having niche usages—

All of the base single-target heals (Cure I, Benefic I, Physick, and Diagnosis) stop being useful around level 40—a bit higher for WHM due to their poor MP economy pre-Assize and Solace, but you really shouldn’t be using Cure I beyond level 50 at the very latest. It is impossible to maintain a tank in leveling dungeons beyond ARR with Cure I spam. The potency simply cannot keep up with the incoming damage the tank is eating. Even for SGE you spam Eukrasian Diagnosis over regular Diagnosis (if you’re ever in a horrible situation where you have to resort to that); Diagnosis is way too weak to sustain.

Earthly Star works because the detonation timer is shorter than the cooldown of the skill. As you said, the star will explode after 20 seconds, regardless of what you do, and the cooldown of the skill will be at 40s at that point. This wouldn't work with Minor Arcana because cards don't have a timer. You could draw a card and hold it for the whole fight. With MA and CP merged, you would draw a card and be unable to see how much is left on the cooldown because nothing would force you to use the card in the span of 60s. This would be easily fixable by giving cards a timer (something like 50s), but that was my point: simply merging the two buttons would be problematic without an additional fix/change.

Regarding healing spells: I'm not saying those skills are enough to heal whatever you want to heal or that you should use them. I'm saying that if we are getting nitpicky enough to say that Helios totally deserves to be a skill because there are those niche scenarios in which you really, really need that additional potency from Helios or need to spam so many GCD heals (on AST, of all healers), then we can make similar arguments for things like Benefic and Benefic II and I've been in those situations (usual cursed mentor roulettes). Still, I would be more than happy to see Benefic gone, merged or whatever, as well as other skills. We simply don't need so many healing skills - especially skills we don't want to touch -. Just take the Blue Mage approach.