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.

[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.

[Kuwago]

I like where AST is right now, but definitely feels a bit weaker compared to how they were back in ShB. Definitely needs to be buffed more since every healer got a 1.5 cast time now for their GCD spells, and the buffs they give out doesn't cover they silent nerf it got. Right now the only thing that separates AST to WHM is that it has a bunch of MP Regen which is nice, but WHM seems like it does what AST do in less buttons.

What do you like about it?
I like the new heals and visual effects and new skills added on with EW. I like the Mana Regen and the job mechanics, it's busy and keeps me pressing different buttons.

What do you dislike about it?
I dislike how we have to do so much more in order to keep up with WHM who does less, in terms of healing and contributing to damage.

What would you like changed about it?
I'd like to bring back Old Celestial Opposition and Time Dilation for more regen and such as well as increasing buff times for mitigations like CU and Exaltation. Lord and Lady are fine but needing a heal and then getting a DPS instead feels bad at times

[Katish]

Some changes needed or would be good to see:
[Section Not Exclusive to AST]
- The unnecessary healing bloat in the healer skills
- Useless skills that don't contribute to anything other than boosting healing or could be upgrades to available skills [Benefic I, Horoscope, Helios in this example] (You can combine the potency of what Horoscope would offer into the other skills)
- Change or delete Repose

[AST only]
- Remove the RNG between Lords and Ladies (Suggestions below)
- Remove Undraw or change it. (Suggestions below)
- Remove Synastry or change it. (Suggestions below)
- Remove Redraw (Unneeded in a system where every card would be good).
- Remove Play (Just have Draw handle everything)
- Draw should have at least three possible draws. Damage, maybe Critical and Direct Hit for the other two.)
- Astrodyne needs to be changed from symbols to just when you play three cards. (Or changed to some burst phase for AST.)
- Combine Celestial Intersection and Exaltation effects but only keep one button with both effects.

[Suggestions with De-homogenizing]
- Return Spread but make it so that the target you use it on, spreads the card effect applied on that target. (Makes it more logical given the name)
- Have Malefic prock Draw at a percent instead of being on a cooldown. [Anti 2 minute meta]
- Combine Draw, Play, and Minor Arcana into one button, so every time you play a card you have a chance to prock a Lord and have the ability to repress the draw button to execute.
- Change Undraw so when when you discard a card you prock Lady. (This removes RNG of getting Lady and makes it so you basically can always do it if needed)
- Synastry to heal 40% on any spell or to make it a pairing skill like Dancer where any card drawn has its effect applied to the target while not consuming the card (let's you put on two instead of one)

[Add More Skills From the Series]
- Add Astra, it fits the nomenclature, but give it a new effect. (Or keep it the same although would be a niche use case)
- Add Meteor, it fits the aesthetic and would be an additional damaging skill (perhaps a finisher to some burst window) [I understand it exists in blm LB but they could rename that to maybe something like Astral Flare lel.]

Doing these would remove unnecessary bloat and create a more unique AST. With lots of button space available for unique buttons for the future. For reference this would at minimum remove 7 buttons at maximum remove 9 buttons (Almost half the buttons lel, not even changing the job structure when it comes to healing, and also allowing a more unique AST experience when it comes to damage provided either through combo or effects).