Astrologian: what is your understanding about it?

[Zolvolt]

Where are you getting the idea that ast lost it's identity? It hasn't. The ast identity is getting double-downed on. Theres more cards to play. You are playing more cards then ever before. Idk how else to say it. The card class is getting more cards to play then every before. You say ast is going to be slow now when the APM is only lower by one action per minute. ONE action per minute is still faster than other jobs. I am struggling to get through your post because anytime you don't like something you act like the reason behind it's change is "game play doesn't matter. ooh stars pretty" Can you get serious please? Every single one of the changes was for gameplay reasons. Please stop pretending that isn't the case. "dozens of people lose their playstyle" Hello welcome to mmo's. All long-time players have lost the playstyle we used to have in previous expansions. If you play an mmo that is guarenteed, 100%, going to happen to you. I'm sorry if this is your first time, but you're taking it a little bit too hard.

I'm sorry I can't get past this idea that you think you have to think about the cards in any capacity. One is for melee. one is for ranged. It's not rocket science, it's not tactical, you draw a card, you hold it for burst if you can without losing a charge. you use it during burst. It's really, really thoughtless. You don't manipulate the cards at all like in the past, which was the only thinking you ever had to do about it. But redraw, which you don't even use during the burst window, is all that was left of card manipulation in EW.

Yeah so you don't like healing and mitigation tools, then you should probably go play a dps class.It's a bit insane you're complaining that astro, a healer, is getting healing/mit cards. "we're bloated in the final part of the expansions" Congratulations, you won't be for the first two tiers. Even in the final tier of savage you still used ALL of your orgcd's. You never just didn't use them. Yeah I just see you complaining that you're losing dps tools. You only like scholar's AF because of energy drain, which is it's own problem entirely. And then you're saying ast is like whm, because it spams malefic. Thatg is a "every healer problem" not an ast turning into whm problem. Not to mention that the malefic spam 1.5s gcd was an astro exclusive in shb. Every other healer was homogenized to astro.

So heres the deal. You don't like healing. You chalk every healing tool up to never being used. You have disillusioned yourself into thinking astro requires any thinking at all on behalf of the cards. Which isn't the case. It's literally an A or B decision. You have convinced yourself that Astro is losing it's high APM which it's not and you have devolved into the classic "well you don't agree with me so you clearly did not do any hard content" which is honestly a poor man's argument. Please do better.

[AmiableApkallu]

Where are you getting the idea that ast lost it's identity? It hasn't. The ast identity is getting double-downed on. Theres more cards to play. You are playing more cards then ever before. Idk how else to say it. The card class is getting more cards to play then every before.

I'm afraid that's not the AST identity. Copying and pasting from another comment...

AST is about confronting what fate would seem to have in store for you, and finding ways to overcome that fate. The gameplay that embodied that was the randomness of the cards you drew, much like in many card games where you shuffle a deck of cards and proceed to draw cards from the top of it -- you don't know what you'll get next.

Now, with AST, it would seem that there is no randomness. You know exactly what you'll draw and when you'll draw it. There is no sense of learning what fate has in store for you. There is sense of having to overcome anything.

The job might still have things called cards, but they've lost their connection to what it actually means to draw a card from a deck.

[Zolvolt]

It doesn't matter if RNG is present or not for AST. It's a card class, not an RNG class. I'm not saying that as opinion. If RNG was the defining fact of the class it wouldn't be removed. The only thing that will strip astro of it's identity is if the cards and buffing are gone.

Even the job guide, if you really want to go into, says that reading the stars is how astro's are able to use their magic. It doesn't say anything about astro's relying on randomness to do anything. They are able to do it by attuning to the constellations. They draw the card to attune to that constellations. It's doesn't matter if the card is random or not.

[AmiableApkallu]

It doesn't matter if RNG is present or not for AST. It's a card class, not an RNG class. I'm not saying that as opinion. If RNG was the defining fact of the class it wouldn't be removed. The only thing that will strip astro of it's identity is if the cards and buffing are gone.

Even the job guide, if you really want to go into, says that reading the stars is how astro's are able to use their magic. It doesn't say anything about astro's relying on randomness to do anything. They are able to do it by attuning to the constellations. They draw the card to attune to that constellations. It's doesn't matter if the card is random or not.

You may want to talk to Guillestet again. Reacquaint yourself with the history of "fortune-telling" and "fate-scrying" and "consulting with a divining deck" and "hoping to draw forth its aether and use it to manipulate fates."

Unknowability and uncertainty is intrinsic in all of that. The gameplay mechanism that reflects that is RNG.

[Zolvolt]

You may want to talk to Guillestet again. Reacquaint yourself with the history of "fortune-telling" and "fate-scrying" and "consulting with a divining deck" and "hoping to draw forth its aether and use it to manipulate fates."

Unknowability and uncertainty is intrinsic in all of that. The gameplay mechanism that reflects that is RNG.

It's fine if you take it that way. But drawing the cards at all reflects that. Not the RNG about it. I mean, which one of is right? the RNG is removed from the job only backs one of our views up. That being said they could re-add rng in a new way to astro and it's not like I'm going to be against it. It doesn't matter if its there or not. But it being present has more negatives than posistives.

[AmiableApkallu]

It's fine if you take it that way. But drawing the cards at all reflects that. Not the RNG about it. I mean, which one of is right? the RNG is removed from the job only backs one of our views up. That being said they could re-add rng in a new way to astro and it's not like I'm going to be against it. It doesn't matter if its there or not. But it being present has more negatives than posistives.

The defining characteristic of drawing a card from a desk is that you don't know what card(s) you'll get next. It's really that simple. It's the basis of many a card game.

AST's cards, inspired, by tarot cards, are no different. I mean, what's the point of a reading if you already know the answer ahead of time?

[Kissune]

Where are you getting the idea that ast lost it's identity? It hasn't. The ast identity is getting double-downed on. Theres more cards to play. You are playing more cards then ever before. Idk how else to say it. The card class is getting more cards to play then every before. You say ast is going to be slow now when the APM is only lower by one action per minute. ONE action per minute is still faster than other jobs. I am struggling to get through your post because anytime you don't like something you act like the reason behind it's change is "game play doesn't matter. ooh stars pretty" Can you get serious please? Every single one of the changes was for gameplay reasons. Please stop pretending that isn't the case. "dozens of people lose their playstyle" Hello welcome to mmo's. All long-time players have lost the playstyle we used to have in previous expansions. If you play an mmo that is guarenteed, 100%, going to happen to you. I'm sorry if this is your first time, but you're taking it a little bit too hard.

You might be pressing more healing buttons, but they ain't cards. You draw cards from a deck. You learn what the card is as you draw it. If I know exactly what the deck contains, in order, is it really a deck of cards? Or is it an assigned list of skills on a fixed pattern that you activate at exact timings. Fortune tellers don't rig the deck to draw the exact set of cards every time. They draw, and they interpret the fates by reading what they're given, not what they chose beforehand. I swear, you only think they're cards because they look like them. If I handed you the new system that was being tested and said 'Hey, this is the new ability. You press ability, and you gain access to four buttons. A dps amp, a single target mit, a single target heal, and alternating between aoe damage and an aoe heal', I refuse to believe you'd think of it as cards. I'd think 'hey, that sounds kinda like a worse aetherflow'. And that's exactly what it is.
And saying 'it's an MMO, you should expect to lose your playstyle' is a bit disingenous and misses the blatant point of AST being unique, and having that taken away to be the exact same as all the other healers. I shouldn't expect my job to be completely and utterly wiped of any semblance of engagement in order to make it 'more palatable to people who didn't like the playstyle' when there was 3 other healers that play identical to how it will in DT. None of these changes were for gameplay reasons. Making this class play just like the others was made for the people who wanted the looks of AST without the playstyle. It was done for aesthetics.

I'm sorry I can't get past this idea that you think you have to think about the cards in any capacity. One is for melee. one is for ranged. It's not rocket science, it's not tactical, you draw a card, you hold it for burst if you can without losing a charge. you use it during burst. It's really, really thoughtless. You don't manipulate the cards at all like in the past, which was the only thinking you ever had to do about it. But redraw, which you don't even use during the burst window, is all that was left of card manipulation in EW.

...You don't even use redraw in your burst window? Ha! Now I *know* you didn't raid with this class. Try playing three cards in burst as fast as possible to capture the most damage, while ensuring that the card goes on the optimal targets while also ensuring you get at least two seals for the dyne bonus, and making sure your three highest DPS dealers get the right card for their role. If you wanna pretend it was just melee/ranged and put it on whoever, I can see why you want the job dumbed down this much.

Yeah so you don't like healing and mitigation tools, then you should probably go play a dps class.It's a bit insane you're complaining that astro, a healer, is getting healing/mit cards. "we're bloated in the final part of the expansions" Congratulations, you won't be for the first two tiers. Even in the final tier of savage you still used ALL of your orgcd's. You never just didn't use them. Yeah I just see you complaining that you're losing dps tools. You only like scholar's AF because of energy drain, which is it's own problem entirely. And then you're saying ast is like whm, because it spams malefic. Thatg is a "every healer problem" not an ast turning into whm problem. Not to mention that the malefic spam 1.5s gcd was an astro exclusive in shb. Every other healer was homogenized to astro.

I refuse to believe you played AST in savage bc there's no way you're telling me you were struggling for heals in savage. P8S I could believe it, but even then I only used helios with noct+horoscope at most. I'm not just complaining about my healer getting more healing/mit tools. I am complaining that I'm getting them at the cost of an interesting playstyle. You could have given me all the new tools in the world, and I would have been fine with it because the draw to the class was always the cards for me. And now cards are something else entirely, and I have people like you telling me to be grateful for having my cards removed and their animations slapped to some generic ass single target tools that I'd only use out of obligation and not necessity. And yeah, spamming the one button is an every healer problem, but it didn't matter because I had other shit to do as AST. I had cards to manage, I had lots of weaves to do, I had something to do when there was no damage.

So heres the deal. You don't like healing. You chalk every healing tool up to never being used. You have disillusioned yourself into thinking astro requires any thinking at all on behalf of the cards. Which isn't the case. It's literally an A or B decision. You have convinced yourself that Astro is losing it's high APM which it's not and you have devolved into the classic "well you don't agree with me so you clearly did not do any hard content" which is honestly a poor man's argument. Please do better.

Heres the deal. You can't make the connection between 'replacing a card system that rewarded you for being able to react and play the cards the right way, without being impossibly punishing you for having bad luck with a system that has no more thought involved than a white mage deciding when to press aquaveil, tetra, or assize is making the job fundamentally identical to other healers', and 'Playing the same amount of healing abilities as other healers = high APM'. What is the actual difference between me using 'generic healing card A that I get every 60s' vs a white mage pressing tetra. What is the difference between 'generic mitigation card A that i get every 60s' and a white mage pressing aquaveil? Do you seriously not understand what cards are now? They're not cards!

I like healing, believe it or not, but it got boring when all it became was throwing all mitigation on a raidwide that happens every 30s, and then pressing your one button to heal everyone back to full. AST cards kept me engaged with that, bc the playstyle wasn't found on any dps. (Do you even know of a DPS that actually has to click the party list? Dancer does, once. Prepull. Dragoon used to, but tether is gone now, lmao). AST I enjoyed healing with because it felt like I was juggling healing, maintaining and reacting to cards, and keeping uptime on damage. Now? Just healing, just malefic. As opposed to sage which is... Just healing, just dosis, occasionally phlegma. Or white mage. Just glare, just misery. Or scholar, which is just broil.