AST Adjustments 6.2

**deusdormit** · 06-07-2022 05:40 PM

I think they should remove minor arcana and seals, make all cards aoe, make two of the cards a heal and a damage and have up to 3 separate draw/play buttons each with their own draw so you can strategically hold them when you need something like a heal or defense increase. I'd be fine with that I think

**glamazon** · 06-08-2022 03:44 PM

Make cards aoe: dmg up mit up mp gen lb gen debuff and combat runspd

**glamazon** · 06-08-2022 04:24 PM

I use synastry so don’t take it away. Give the cards aoe effects:
Spire 5% lb generation
Bole 5% dmg reduction debuff
Arrow run speed in combat
Balance 5% dmg increase
Ewer 5% mp gen
Spear 5 % crit chance up

Lose astrodyne
Tie minor arabica a back into cards to burn. Lord aoe dmg lady aoe shield
Tie divination back into seals

Make undraw an aoe dot that makeS cards unavailable for the duration

**Denji** · 06-09-2022 05:22 AM

Originally Posted by Amh_Wilzuun

I’m not super experienced with this job but here’s my humble suggestion for a reworked card system if AST is indeed getting major adjustments soon.

I feel that there needs to be a middle ground between the pre SHB card system and now. Reduce the damage buff to somewhere around 3% regardless of melee and ranged but now every card has a unique effect on top of the small damage buff. This means that you are dealing out cards based on the situation and the other jobs which sounds more interesting than just “got a blue card, give to the Sam, now it’s a pink card give it to the MCH” (I do know there is higher level skill expression with card timings).

Some of these effects could be:

-small regen/heal
-small mit/shield
-short movement speed buff (throw it on a melee during mechanics)
-a small MP restoration (healers and RDM would appreciate if they are rezzing)
-increase to healing received for a limited time, 10% or less (could be put on a tank or someone with vuln stacks)
-an Esuna or a status effect protection like Bard’s (would be pretty cool to esuna without using a GCD if the situation comes up)
-etc.

These effects aren’t crazy impactful enough so that ASTs who just wanna focus on damage buffs can’t just do that but it could be a fun way to contribute party utility. Some cards will inevitably be better than others, but it won’t be like pre SHB when the Balance was by far the best option because of how invaluable higher damage is.

The problem with making cards do different things is that the randomness makes most of those benefits useless unless you're in a very specific situation. You'd either be forced to hold onto a crappy card OR you'd just have to deal with mediocracy.

The only way I could see this working is either to allow one to redraw far more often — which might cause people to just hyperfocus on 1-2 cards because they're the meta — or to give a flat, generic boost to damage when you undraw so that it at least isn"t wasted.

**glamazon** · 06-09-2022 09:43 AM

Originally Posted by Denji

— or to give a flat, generic boost to damage when you undraw so that it at least isn"t wasted.

Great idea

**Renathras** · 06-10-2022 06:41 PM

Originally Posted by SweetPete

All good suggestions. It’s just whenever SE says “Major Adjustments” it usually means they are most likely changing the job almost completely like they did with summoner. If it was just consolidating buttons I think Yoshi P would of most likely of just said that. I have a worry that whatever they are doing it’s going to completely change Ast from what we know now.

Have they ever done a rework of that level outside of a major expansion, though?

MCH and SMN changes/reworks were both X.0 patches. I think they did some fairly major AST ones in HW, but that was because it was new and initially...not so great.

EDIT:

Also, for the record, I think the reason AST has historically been less played is a bit more complex.

WHM starts as a level 1 CNJ. So anyone who wants to start the game as a healer probably has one. And until SGE, anyone who didn't like SCH tended to probably make one and level it. It also has a pretty well defined and loved aesthetic to Final Fantasy fans in general. When you look at healers' Classes/Jobs leveled, ALMOST all of them have CNJ at least to level 70 or 80, if not 90. Everyone's spent some time on it, and most every healer has one at maximum level, both the WHM mains and the others. In ARR, HW, and I believe SB, you had to level CNJ to 15 to unlock SCH as well, and it had useful cross-class skills, so everyone had at least some levels in it if they were a healer in general. So there are just a ton of them.

SCH is notorious for being "the hard one" (other than AST), but you also have a lot of DPS players that level SMN and get SCH for free. And prior to EW, SMN mains were already galaxy brains anyway. SCH has also always been powerful - CLUNKY, but powerful - in basically all expansions and iterations of FFXIV since it was introduced in ARR. So there are a lot of SCH mains and a lot of "Well, I have a SCH" DPSers when they get gang pressed into service as a healer.

SGE, on the other hand, is the new kid on the block, but is the first healer introduced since 3.0; three whole expansions (SB, ShB, and just now in EW). It's complexity is somewhat akin to SCH, but the flipside is it also starts at level 70. So for anyone that doesn't have a SMN at level 70+ and wants to get into healing relatively quickly, SGE is the choice since there's not much leveling involved (yes yes, 70 levels isn't hard to get, but we all know that IS a factor to a lot of people), and it also just has an aesthetic that a lot of people find cool. It's RELATIVELY easy to play, while still being a smidge up from WHM, and is the new toy of the healers. So there are a good number of them around.

You also have that "inertia" factor (less of a factor, but still a factor), that people can start as CNJ or ARC, but cannot start as AST, and not everyone, especially new players, wants to get 20 levels before continuing their quest when they get to HW. This is especially true of people that have been playing the game for a long time (ARR) that still like to fall back on their old mains.

Then you have AST. While some people love the aesthetic, many people don't care for it. If you're leveling your first character, it's a 20 level step backward where you have to put the story on hold to catch it up. For existing players with high level characters, it's far further from level cap than SGE if they're picking up healing for the first time or picking up a healing alt from their WHM/SCH mains. And its power comes with the caveat that it's probably the more complex of the healers to play at high levels.

I think when you combine all these factors, it's kind of obvious that AST would be the least played.

The flipside of that, though: ALMOST every time you see an AST in a PF/DF party, they're going to be at least competent. Because anyone who levels and plays AST probably does know quite a bit about healing (they didn't just pick up the Job like SGE new healers or SCH DPS mainers who realized their SMN came with a bonus Job) and that the person who leveled it basically went out of their way to do so. Again, ALMOST, as there are exceptions to every rule, but it does tend to be true pretty frequently.

**glamazon** · 06-14-2022 03:43 AM

When will they preview these changes

**AnotherPerson** · 06-14-2022 08:41 AM

Originally Posted by Denji

The problem with making cards do different things is that the randomness makes most of those benefits useless unless you're in a very specific situation. You'd either be forced to hold onto a crappy card OR you'd just have to deal with mediocracy.

The only way I could see this working is either to allow one to redraw far more often — which might cause people to just hyperfocus on 1-2 cards because they're the meta — or to give a flat, generic boost to damage when you undraw so that it at least isn"t wasted.

Or, they can take a page out of PvP and make fights less scripted. Less focus on "proper mechanical execution done in a specific manner to survive" and more "randomness damage that healers adjust on the moment" will only make RNG a lot more viable rather than a burden if there are multiple layers that cannot be optimized in every fight - thereby letting healers actually hold onto some skills on reserve for emergencies due to high incoming spikes of damage that cannot be accounted for rather than just sticking to a specific mapped out usage of their healing toolkit for each mechanic.

**SweetPete** · 06-14-2022 03:14 PM

Originally Posted by glamazon

When will they preview these changes

Not sure. Maybe the next live letter. They may speak on some of the changes. I don't think they will show us anything though.

**Mimilu** · 06-14-2022 08:12 PM

Originally Posted by SweetPete

Not sure. Maybe the next live letter. They may speak on some of the changes. I don't think they will show us anything though.

That's if they don't try to skip or glaze over it like they usually do with healers during live letters. =w=

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