Thread: AST Adjustments 6.2

Maybe Undraw will stay forever. Don't see why they'd wait until 6.2 to remove it.

Something I'd like to see is Benefic/Cure's critical/freecure become available until used - on the rare moments I've used either past a certain level nobody will need it within 15 seconds enough to justify hitting the button and the thing goes to waste.

Originally Posted by Cygnia

Something I'd like to see is Benefic/Cure's critical/freecure become available until used - on the rare moments I've used either past a certain level nobody will need it within 15 seconds enough to justify hitting the button and the thing goes to waste.

What's hilarious is I haven't actually seen either of those procs since HW quite literally. I haven't had Cure or Benefic on either healer's hotbar since like 3.5. I don't really play either WHM or AST anymore, but I played both plenty during Stormblood at least. If I ever had to synch down I just swapped it manually.

Originally Posted by ty_taurus

What's hilarious is I haven't actually seen either of those procs since HW quite literally. I haven't had Cure or Benefic on either healer's hotbar since like 3.5. I don't really play either WHM or AST anymore, but I played both plenty during Stormblood at least. If I ever had to synch down I just swapped it manually.

Go without using it for the most part, just if Square *does* want us to retain the lower level spell for niche use it'd be good to bolster the payoff. On quality of life features its way down the list - right now the overbusy nature is number one concern.

Originally Posted by SieyaM

No they listen to DPS feedback and they all said they didn't like AST cards because they weren't getting enough balance cards to pad their logs with. The reason AST fished for balance so often was because it would give the DPS players they were feeding cards to better logs to post, it was never impossible to clear a run without them nor was it significantly easier to clear with a bunch of balance draws.

As mentioned, fflogs runs on rdps now so cards have zero impact on a dps players log.

Also you seriously don't believe that the developers, who have a strong anti-parser policy, designed their class entirely to please a small handful of parsers? Like, seriously?
AST fished for Balance so often because Balance is always useful and in team based content a good player always wants to be useful to their team. I don't get why this concept is so hard to understand. High end players want to play to the best of their ability, that's what they find fun. They also love flavor and utility, but don't want that to come at the sacrifice of being as useful to the team as possible.

It shouldn't be a choice between flavor or being optimal. It should have been both available separately.

Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Also you seriously don't believe that the developers, who have a strong anti-parser policy, designed their class entirely to please a small handful of parsers?

i cant put anything past the devs anymore considering they butchered sam because of "damage variance"


you know, the thing that only parses are even aware about lmao

If I only got one change for 6.2 it would be that the 2-Sign Astrodyne effect (Harmony of Body) changes from Haste to instant cast effect (effectively a 2nd Lightspeed). Gives me more mobility and lets me use all the oGCDs. I could put up with everything else as is if I had two 15 second bursts of instant casts and it addresses my biggest complaint about AST: too many oGCDs without the ability to efficiently double weave outside of Lightspeed.

Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

As mentioned, fflogs runs on rdps now so cards have zero impact on a dps players log.

Also you seriously don't believe that the developers, who have a strong anti-parser policy, designed their class entirely to please a small handful of parsers? Like, seriously?
AST fished for Balance so often because Balance is always useful and in team based content a good player always wants to be useful to their team. I don't get why this concept is so hard to understand. High end players want to play to the best of their ability, that's what they find fun. They also love flavor and utility, but don't want that to come at the sacrifice of being as useful to the team as possible.

It shouldn't be a choice between flavor or being optimal. It should have been both available separately.

How would flavor and utility come at a cost of not being useful?

And frankly classes shouldn't be changed because a small portion of the playerbase wants it to. People will support a class being gutted for others if it means higher numbers for them. Ast rn is a basic and frankly boring class rn as it's just dps buffer that requires little to no thinking or planning.

Originally Posted by VictorSpoils

Maybe Undraw will stay forever. Don't see why they'd wait until 6.2 to remove it.

You know, I've had a thought I've been tossing around in my head, lately. I believe button bloat is a requirement to facilitate the low skill floor that the dev team desires.
By which I mean, these YoshiP approved skills, as they are now (or will be, after 6.2) would be a basic implementation, meant to facilitate the easiest gameplay for all.
And so, to that end, I think they should consider adding in more buttons, which could, instead, be used in place of other buttons that do not see as much use by those players who no longer have any use for them. This would enable the low skill floor to remain the same, while allowing players to venture into a more risky but possibly more "rewarding" territory as they see fit.
Will there be a meta of what's "strongest?" Yes, but that already happens anyway, and results would vary based upon the players who use whatever combinations. The meta isn't actually the problem, it's the variance in battle length/difficulty posed by having a player with different capabilities presented with a skillset that enables capitalization.

With regards to AST, I think that's another avenue they could take, regarding their cards. Just throw us a deck of various effects, make us pick 6 we like, and have at it. Let Undraw be replaced with Toss (which deals a low potency physical ranged damage to a target), or let players who don't like Synastry replace it with something else. Maybe let them replace Celestial Opposition with the old variant. Just leave the basic implementation as the "leveling" version and let players pick out variant spells/abilities as they please.
But that's just my idle wishful thinking.