Astrologian: what is your understanding about it?

[Zaytex]

As I've only played EW seriously and into end-game, I don't have any experience with the previous iterations of AST, even if they all sound more engaging, skillful, and fun. However, at the moment I am enjoying AST the most out of the healers due to its more brain stimulating gameplay compared to the other three healers. You actually have something to do outside your ''111111111'' rotation and the 3 cards + divination + lord crown + earthly star window every 2 minutes is very fun for me. That incredibly tight and busy window is pretty much my cope right now for healer design lacking an actual dps rotation. All of it's healing need to be pre-planned which requires active thinking (unlike WHM, just turn brain off and press button when needed) and it has the most interesting healing button as well, with Macrocosmos. Neutral sect is a big benefit too in tight situations or when you need to cover for your shield healer (PF experience of incompetent co-healers go crazy).

It still has flaws of course: Card RNG is such a kill joy at times, especially with Lord/Lady where I will never get the one I actually want for a given situation. Lightspeed is basically a must-have for the 2 minute window for optimal card usage (3 cards + divination), leaving AST as the most immobile healer where certain mechanics make you have to move a lot, OR if you decide to save LS for those mechanics you are hindered on your optimal 2-minute window. Obviously, the lack of more dps buttons is a problem too as outside the 2 minute window, and one card draw 30 seconds from your last divination, you are going back to spamming 11111131111 for an extended period of time. It's also garbage at recovery situations, especially when progging savage as it has no on-demand burst healing like WHM.

The upcoming rework is making me worried, because whilst AST, is definitely not as nuanced and full of depth as it used to be from my understanding, it's still definitely the hardest healer by far and the only one which has an engaging job mechanic that takes genuine effort to pull off optimally every 2 minutes, as well as a clear and differentiated role from WHM. Comparing SCH/SGE and seeing how similar they are in so many ways.. yet you look at AST/WHM and they're extremely different to one another, and that's very good IMHO. I'm terrified this rework will just strip away the remaining complexity and ''depth'' of AST and simply make it a WHM with a star/galaxy aesthetic, as every rework seems to make it more simpler and easier.

[Sylvain]

AST went through many iteration, both on the healing front and the card front.

Healing, it seems to have taken the direction of preplaced healing. Exploding Star, Horoscope and Macrocosm are prime examples (Exaltation too).

Which thematically works well with the divination healer. You "forsee" what's going to happen and set heals to occurs into the future, you plan ahead basically. Which is a stark contrast with the whm.


The card system however, doesn't work well with FF14.

Essentially, we got two system. One where each card had a unique and powerful effect and the current where all cards are functionnally the same, making a slight distinction between range and melee in an attempt to preserve the 6 symboles and tied to the lore.

The first system was fun, but fundamentally broken.
Being able to do 10% for 30s every minute made it so that any other option was just not worth it. Which, depending on the RNG, made your rdps contribution widly vary between a good run with many AoE balance and a bad run with little to 0.
The thing is, while 10% raid mitigation was strong, it was essentially useless because you were suppose (and able) to be able to deal with anything the game would throw at you without random based healing/mitigation. Therefor, any extra mitigation/heal coming from RNG was unnecessary. Leaving only room for extra DPS which is the only thing you never have too much, especially in harder content.
The harder the content, the more important that DPS becomes, making your performance widly RNG. They fxed this with the new system, all cards are %DPS boost, so no more need to fish for that one specific card. In a sens, it is much more balanced and in line with how the game works in end game... but it is also more boring, basically, you cannot have your cake and eat it too.

The only remnant of that DPS/HEAL rng are the crown, which we all know the result, the Lady is useless. It follows the same logic, I cannot base my ability to heal a specific portion of the fight on the Lady, because I won't have it half the time. Therefor, because I need to be able to do it without it, whenever I draw a Lady, it is useless. AT BEST, if I was making a gcd heal it could allow me to do a Malefic instead. And I said could, because if you did an Aspected Helios, odds are you needed more than 400 potency. The end result is that only the DPS matters.

The RNG healing/mitigation is fundamentally incompatible with the way FF14 raiding works.

The current system is less fun, less interesting, it sparks less joy and it does feel (and is) less impactful than the previous one. But it is more balanced.

I don't know what they will do with it. It seems the crown stays, unfortunately. (unless they somehow allow to redraw it or use both... but then it's not really RNG is it?)

I feel it is important to consider tho that the system needs to be balanced because this will impact how much the job is played in the hardest instances of the game. Who cares about a broken system when you're doing roulettes or even extreme trials? What matters is that your job is balanced so that not only is it viable in more difficult content, but it is also not the only options. Again, job balance only matters for Savage (early weeks) and recent ultimate, anything else, you could gut half the kit and it wouldn't matter. And while some people might feel "who cares about ultimate, they're only played by 1% of the population". It matters because it is the only place where balance matters. No matter how bad a job is, in any other content, it doesn't matter.

I don't want the old system back, because it would make AST the "go to" job in any fight having a tight DPS check. Worse, if they were to bring it back but make your RNG vary wildly between "big contribution" and "low contribution" depending on your RNG, I wouldn't want to play a job which could make my group wipe at 1% because "I didn't get any DPS AoE card for 5min straight... sorry guys"

However, something needs to change, the cards do feel very unimpactful. When you consider that a card brings about 1.5-2 malefic worth of DPS depending on crit/who receives it... you're just like... "woohoo...."

[Theox]

The main problem with ast is how busy it is but at the same time it makes the job much more interesting than whm. It's a blessing and a curse tbh. If you want to play optimally you kinda have to use macros for cards, without the macros I felt the burst window felt too overwhelming. You get used to it, of course, but why make your life harder on purpose?

The next problem is, of course, card buffs. They're so boring and uninspired, but realistically it's not going to change 100%, because every job is balanced with the game's encounters in mind, and they won't be able to come up with a fresh interesting solution that actually works, they're just not adequate enough.

Ogcds are one thing that I actually really like, but I do agree that sometimes it's just too much even in hardest encounters. If you use your heals properly you won't ever have to gcd heal.

That being said, I think ast is the best healer class when it comes to gameplay, it's not as straightforward and actually involves some randomness (albeit not gamechanging) and rewards game knowledge. I hope the devs won't butcher it next expansion.

[rawker]

We all know what happened before when Bole got drawn... it was immediately turned to Royal Road and then continue to fish for Balance for the juicy 15% damage dealt.

In my opinion, the old AST card system was fine as it is. The only downside to it was there were no reliable TP refresh, even if you 1.5x RR Spire, it will not cut it. If these card mechanics are to be returned, Bole and Spire need to be updated. Spear is already great.. with that restored, we can remove Chain Stratagem from SCH. Arrow is no longer that problematic, seeing that BLM will gush over the insane spell speed buff it gets from it.

[Kissune]

Honestly, for AST I would condense it by focusing on the card system itself and dropping a lot of the bloat. People say that the burst is too busy and high APM, but if you cut out everything that isn't cards, you can dump out a lot. If you tie lightspeed to divination, remove MA and dyne, you have just dropped 3-4 weaves in the window. Given that the absolute max amount of weaves regular cards will give you in the window are 7, that's a third of the weaves gone. 2xdraw, 3xplay, with 2~ishxredraws. (Assuming you draw at 60s and redraw during filler). I think I actually really like how AST cards are currently tied to buffs, but I would like to see it get spread out more. All the solutions I see to draw (make it a gcd, make cards not dps buffs, hell even removing draw and just having it auto pick you a new card) are really bad ideas. I think the best way to take care of the burst window being too much, while also keeping the reactive and busy gameplay of AST is to simply force you to be constantly using your cards, rather than stockpiling them. It turns 15s of extreme apm with 105s of low apm into 120s of somewhat high apm, with maybe a minor increase around 2mins bc why not? I always loved AST bc it felt like I was always doing something instead of just pressing my singular dps button in filler. Constantly having to think about and react to my cards is something that no other job provides.

I expect the job to be ruined in DT, but I can be hopeful that they at least somewhat understand what actual AST mains want, and don't bow down to the people who are scared to admit they'd probably just have more fun playing white mage. A return to ShB AST (the best iteration if you ask me, you cannot convince me stormblood cards are fun) would be a good start, but we'd need something more bc ShB AST just does not work well with the current design philosophy of Endwalker and presumably Dawntrail.

The problem btw with making cards unique and providing utility instead of damage is that it ends up where they're basically useless because you can't rely on them. And if you take the RNG out of it, then what's the point of having the cards? MA is already a 50/50 between a heal and dps, and that's bad enough for plans. How could you plan around 1/6? Would they just be bonuses on top of your current healplan? That's not useful. Heal and mit plans are always designed to function as if the worst case, minimum output scenario occurs. I design my AST plans as if I will draw lord of crowns 100% of the time, because in the case that I do, I do not want to wipe. So if you make cards RNG healing, mit, etc. then they're useless to me. I might as well not even draw, because I have to plan everything around the idea that I will never draw what I need. TThat's why I have an issue with utility cards. Damage, at least, is ALWAYS useful, and if it's always damage, you only need a small bit of reactivity to determine where it goes, and when. That's it!

[Moqi]

I really like the concept of delayed heals and hope they keep it and lean on it. I'd like auto-draw of cards because it feels like one extra button to press that doesn't really do anything except create busywork for no reason where I'd rather press the same number of buttons to do more stuff. Astrodyne also feels weird thematically becuase I'd rather buff the party than improving my own DPS if I'm playing Astro. As for the buff the cards give you, that is way too complex for me to touch. I don't mind as they are right now but they are not very interesting ether (but all support in this game is insipid).

Minor Arcana just feels terrible no matter what. It can't feel worse than what it is right now so it might be the only thing to get better with the rework. I like the idea of a second sets of cards to use and that's about it.

Overall though I don't have much hope for the rework. I quite like Astro the way it is right now, it's the most interesting healer to play. I don't think it needed a rework that badly to be honest.

[Kissune]

I'd like auto-draw of cards because it feels like one extra button to press that doesn't really do anything except create busywork for no reason where I'd rather press the same number of buttons to do more stuff.

But consider! Pressing button to draw card feels satisfying. It'd be like, idk, gunbreaker without continuation. Dragoon without high jump. Scholar without aetherflow (so, Sage, which is part of why I don't like it). If they got rid of it, yeah, it does TECHNICALLY buff the class and reduce bloat, but I can't help but feel like it would really lose something. Some of that feedback.

[Moqi]

But consider! Pressing button to draw card feels satisfying. It'd be like, idk, gunbreaker without continuation. Dragoon without high jump. Scholar without aetherflow (so, Sage, which is part of why I don't like it). If they got rid of it, yeah, it does TECHNICALLY buff the class and reduce bloat, but I can't help but feel like it would really lose something. Some of that feedback.

But High Jump and Continuation do stuff. And yeah I feel the same way about Scholar. I don't find it satisfying at all, but cards are even worse because it's Play and Draw are two different buttons so you have meaningless button pressing and bloat (as if anyone would rather draw again than press a suboptimal card).

[Supersnow845]

But High Jump and Continuation do stuff. And yeah I feel the same way about Scholar. I don't find it satisfying at all, but cards are even worse because it's Play and Draw are two different buttons so you have meaningless button pressing and bloat (as if anyone would rather draw again than press a suboptimal card).

I’m pretty sure they are saying SGE was the unsatisfying one not SCH

[Kissune]

But High Jump and Continuation do stuff. And yeah I feel the same way about Scholar. I don't find it satisfying at all, but cards are even worse because it's Play and Draw are two different buttons so you have meaningless button pressing and bloat (as if anyone would rather draw again than press a suboptimal card).

High jump is a bit of damage that gives you mirage dive. Continuation is a bit of extra damage on top of gnashing fang/burst strike. Why couldn't they just make it so, say, high jump gave the stack of dragon gauge and just had higher potency. Or make it so gnashing fang just had higher raw potency and you didn't have to press an extra button to do it? They do about as much as play does. Play draws you a card. Having it not just be instant and automatic means that the class is more reactive rather than just... have your timeline set up for you, and press play at key moments. You have to actually work with your cards, instead of them just... being there, I guess.

I find drawing and playing cards very fun bc I like pressing a lot of buttons, and it really makes me feel like I'm actually pulling from a tarot deck. The draw animation is gorgeous, and the satisfaction of pulling the card, reading it, and then quickly playing it in the same weave window is something no other class will give me. Like idk, if you don't like a lot of weaves maybe... AST isn't the class for you? I genuinely feel like people would be a lot better off if they could just look at a class and think 'hm, maybe it's not for me' instead of trying to get what makes it interesting and unique to play stripped away all the time.

If AST loses the ability to draw, then play will just feel... weird. It's not bloat, it's literally how the class works. It's always been the high APM healer, and that is a niche that does need to exist bc every other role has that, except maybe caster. The more people advocate for stripping away the busyness the class the less I think people understand why the people who DO enjoy astrologian like it so much, just why they in particular don't like it.