4 Paired Threads: AST - How do you feel about it?

[Renathras]

Do you ____ it?
(love, like, neutral, dislike, hate)

What do you like about it?

What do you dislike about it?

What would you like changed about it?

EDIT:

WHM thread: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-feel-about-it

SCH thread: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-feel-about-it

SGE thread: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-feel-about-it

[Supersnow845]

Artificial button bloat isn’t a job design

[ASkellington]

Likes:

1. APM, card weaving
2. Tarot/Stars aesthetic
3. Macrocosmos, Exaltation, Horoscope, Earthly Star/delayed heals

Dislikes:

• Earthly Star/Collective Unconcious's radius
• Lord/Lady of Crowns (would be better if I could choose to sacrifice a card to become one of them instead)
• Synastry being purposefully useless. Let it work on oGCD single target heals.
• Neutral Sect and removal of Nocturnal Sect. Because AST could have been a stance dancer but no, because SE.
• Being a WHM clone. What? We couldn't be a stance dancer or a regen/delayed healer sub-50?

Hates:

• Astrodyne. It wasn't good when it was Divination and its worse somehow now.
• Undraw. Still. EXISTS.
• All six cards are basically the same buff. Why have 6 cards then? And why consider us the buffing class when we only give one (1) buff?
• AST is by far the worst class in the game to solo in a game where the devs are pushing for it to have a solo experience.

What would I like changed? Almost everything?

Either bring back Noct Sect and make AST a stance dancer in combat (link half the cards if you want), or make it a regen/delayed healer. (remove Neutral Sect while your at it for either)
Update Synastry or remove it. It doesn't belong in the current era of this game.
Remove Undraw we have no need of it.
Bring back Time Dilation for HoTs/DoTs and compiles (Exalt/ES/Macrocosmos) ONLY no buffs.
Add in a Reverse of Time Dilation for a potential burst option (if going regen/delayed healer AST)
For the love of Nymeia give me another attack. AST is painful to do anything solo.
Allow us to sacrifice our unneeded cards to the graveyard (or w/e the hells the YGO term is) for a Lord/Lady so we can pick which one.

And of course: GIVE US BACK OUR TWELVESDAMNED CARDS.

I'd go more in depth, but honestly that would look like a mock up page for a class skill kit.

[IceBlueNinja]

Pretty spells, good mobility, use to be bullied by people as the copied wannabe whm/sch but now that its just a copied whm as sage is the copied sch its been out of the bully state. Good mobility and way too many powerful heals of half of them not being used.

I hate that its not what it use to be in stormblood, it feels so watered down and boring and only barely more acceptable than whm and tbh I just didnt really mess with it in ew I played it like maybe a rare 3% if I feel to just do something over sage. Its personal dps always being so low to solo things as a healer will always be an issue. It lost its lore badly and just feels all over the place with boring cards and lost stances. Still will have a place in my heart. I am curious if they even change the story which I havent had an answer to because it lost its dual stance and hw=was dirunal and stormblood was =noct using for story battle purposes.

[Marxam]

What would I like changed? Almost everything?

Either bring back Noct Sect and make AST a stance dancer in combat (link half the cards if you want), or make it a regen/delayed healer. (remove Neutral Sect while your at it for either)
Update Synastry or remove it. It doesn't belong in the current era of this game.
Remove Undraw we have no need of it.
Bring back Time Dilation for HoTs/DoTs and compiles (Exalt/ES/Macrocosmos) ONLY no buffs.
Add in a Reverse of Time Dilation for a potential burst option (if going regen/delayed healer AST)
For the love of Nymeia give me another attack. AST is painful to do anything solo.
Allow us to sacrifice our unneeded cards to the graveyard (or w/e the hells the YGO term is) for a Lord/Lady so we can pick which one.

And of course: GIVE US BACK OUR TWELVESDAMNED CARDS.

I'd go more in depth, but honestly that would look like a mock up page for a class skill kit.

The irony is that you asked for 4.0 AST. It literally solved everything (other than potency and card balancing). Just some examples of what 4.0 AST did right:

-Minor Arcana replaced Undraw because it was a 1 sec recast, active when Draw was used, gave access to lady/lord by "discarding" a card you didn't want.
-Royal Road put Draw on a 1 min timer. You had to RR a card first (assuming you didn't MA) then the next draw you would use the effect (assuming you got the card you want)

A compromise to the cards would have been to just limit it to three effects, melee/ranged for a total of 6 cards. Increase Crit, direct hit, defense. This would allow them to still keep RR in the game while making sure all card usage was beneficial. Imo they should remove the dmg increase and simply have it affect sub stats so AST dmg doesn't have to be balanced around the fact it can aoe dmg up as a healer.

It was also a missed opportunity for AST and SCH to be dual stance healers, with the former having the sects and the latter having faeries. They can even give Neutral Sect a buff that allows you to change to a different sect during battle, if you chose to. It would avoid the toxicity that is double shield helaers in DF. Nothing is more annoying that putting up shields as SGE to proc addersting but then a SCH overwrites it. WHM should have been the "pure" healer and SGE the "shield" healer while AST and SCH can simply complement them both or each other.

[IceBlueNinja]

The irony is that you asked for 4.0 AST. It literally solved everything (other than potency and card balancing). Just some examples of what 4.0 AST did right:

-Minor Arcana replaced Undraw because it was a 1 sec recast, active when Draw was used, gave access to lady/lord by "discarding" a card you didn't want.
-Royal Road put Draw on a 1 min timer. You had to RR a card first (assuming you didn't MA) then the next draw you would use the effect (assuming you got the card you want)

A compromise to the cards would have been to just limit it to three effects, melee/ranged for a total of 6 cards. Increase Crit, direct hit, defense. This would allow them to still keep RR in the game while making sure all card usage was beneficial. Imo they should remove the dmg increase and simply have it affect sub stats so AST dmg doesn't have to be balanced around the fact it can aoe dmg up as a healer.

It was also a missed opportunity for AST and SCH to be dual stance healers, with the former having the sects and the latter having faeries. They can even give Neutral Sect a buff that allows you to change to a different sect during battle, if you chose to. It would avoid the toxicity that is double shield helaers in DF. Nothing is more annoying that putting up shields as SGE to proc addersting but then a SCH overwrites it. WHM should have been the "pure" healer and SGE the "shield" healer while AST and SCH can simply complement them both or each other.

God it turns me off when I get another sge/sch as more co healer when am sge specially double sage, I hate doing a big crit E diag and the other sage presses that icky pepsis button u.u That is one thing for sure that I love with ast having two stances, but honestly when its whm/ast lol ast are still going dirunal with whm so (I always go noct when is a whm) cause Idk why we need 10k regens at once vs some slight migitation. Honestly I do secretly wish that normal raids/alliance raids just make sure that its 1 shield healer and 1 pure healer unless for some strange reason say some how slight low change its a 6 pure healer/shield healer party cause god its annoying seeing one party alliance with 2 pures and the other with 2 shields, least pure healers can stack though.

[Raikai]

What do you like about it?
- Aesthetics
- The idea of being a buffer

What do you dislike about it?
- The insane amount to target cycling required to perform your tasks, egregious especially during burst windows
- The cards buffs being generic dps boosts
- Minor Arcana heal versus dps being problematic

What would you like changed about it?
- Play being turned into a GCD, Draw could still be oGCD. Or the other way around.
- Cards having secondary utility effects tied to the dps bonus.
- Card pairs being sorted between Tanks / Healers / DPS instead of card triples being Ranged / melee.
- Lightspeed being converted into an actual movement utility tool rather than a burst weaving component.
- Minor Arcana completely overhauled into anything other than the undesired situation that Lords is always better and Lady isn't drawn when it's actually needed.

[Darnath]

Do you ____ it? : Love
(love, like, neutral, dislike, hate)

What do you like about it?

• Infinite mana between Lucid, Card Drawing and Astrodyne
• Less death penalty (keeps Astrodyne charges on death)
• Cards to keep busy from the DoT/Nuke/Nuke monotony during boss battles or when tank isn't tanking.
• Faster cast timers for GCD heals to allow for better glidecasting

What do you dislike about it?

• Weaker potency on DPS spells compared to other healers.
• RNG on Redraw getting the same role card (I'm the only ranged in my group along with the other healer and get ranged and then ranged again).
• Minor Arcana not having a redraw option.

What would you like changed about it?

• Get rid of Undraw!!!
• Add back 2nd charge to redraw or have redraw also change role of card along with sign
• Have Synastry be affected by oGCD spells.

[Shyverin]

Ast main since HW:

Very much like:
APM, Target switching, Fast GCD, lots of ogcd heals

Delayed heals, Star, Horoscope, Macro, Flashing collective pre-buff in just the right spot to hit everyone

Very strong recovery toolkit. If your shield healer dies you can burn neutral to live a mechanic that requires shields. Best MP economy + Lightspeed resses + Most damage comes from buffs = you are punished the least for chain ressing half your party.

What I miss:
Old celestial opposition/time dilatation, this could be brought back to extend all non damage related buffs. Need a longer 10%? use it on collective. Need macro to hit more things? use it on macro. Just want a super regen? go for it. Stack all 3 and cash in for some big value. Make it a 2-3, maybe even 4 minute cooldown.

Having more control over the RNG of seals like in shadowbringers. With sleeve draw and the charge system on redraw, you could always get 3 seals. Now it just feels far too much up to chance. Bring sleeve draw back.

QOL fixes:
Please add a timer on minor arcana when you are holding a lord or lady similar to how soul slice looks when you are holding one charge. We need that orange wheel to see when our next chance at a lord is coming if we are holding a lady just in case we need some extra adjust healing. Better yet, split it into 2 buttons that each have a 2 minute cooldown so ladies stop feeling so bad to draw and you always draw lords when you need the emergency heal.


Silly things I miss:
Old luminiferous aether animation (it was so pretty)

[AmiableApkallu]

Like:

Super pretty visual effects and sound effects.

Dislike:

The cards. Draw, Astrodyne, Minor Arcana... these are all buttons without flavor. Oh noes, another tiny damage-up buff on someone... If only I cared about spreadsheets and colored numbers.

What I'd change:

Is this a job that's supposed to manipulate fate (rng)? time? I have no idea, and I'm not sure I care either way. Pick one, and embrace it.