Astrologian: what is your understanding about it?

[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.

[Zolvolt]

As I said before Kissune, I hope you find peace with astro changing for the better. It sounds to me like the things you like about Ast will largely still be present. I just don't think you realize it yet. As for your comments once again trying to bully me in regards to savage, I'd encourage you to read astro optimizations on the balance or something.

[Kissune]

As I said before Kissune, I hope you find peace with astro changing for the better. It sounds to me like the things you like about Ast will largely still be present. I just don't think you realize it yet. As for your comments once again trying to bully me in regards to savage, I'd encourage you to read astro optimizations on the balance or something.

Uh huh, because I definitely need them. Tell me more about how I'm unoptimal?



You don't even have raid gear in the lodestone, just crafted, unaugmented tome, or normal raid gear. You're either a liar or a troll, or you don't have a say in what healing savage is like.

[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 seem a little tilted. Maybe you should take a break and come back with a cooler head. Trying to puff your chest out and be the bigger man with forum posters isn't a good look lol Either way I don't really care if you call me a liar or a troll. I'm not either, I've done the content as astro, the job is going in a better direction, and I'm not going to be provoked into revealing my logs and character for you to try and harass a bit more.

edit: wait you are linking logs only from the first tier of the expansion. You didn't even play astro in the second or third tiers at all and you're trying to tell me that I'M the one trolling? dear lord. You don't even play it now. no wonder you feel so strongly about astro being bloated you only do ultimates as astro. Yoshi P might've said go play ultimates to get more healing, but ultimates put emphasis on complicated raid mechanics over healing mechanics. All this time debating and you barely play Astro. You also never raided until endwalker so I kind of get why you are so attached to Ast as it is now. But it's going to be okay.

[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.

[Kissune]

You seem a little tilted. Maybe you should take a break and come back with a cooler head. Trying to puff your chest out and be the bigger man with forum posters isn't a good look lol Either way I don't really care if you call me a liar or a troll. I'm not either, I've done the content as astro, the job is going in a better direction, and I'm not going to be provoked into revealing my logs and character for you to try and harass a bit more.

Why not? I already know your character, and I don't care enough to go over to Sarg and get myself banned bc someone thinks getting a handful of single target utility skills with a sparkly card reskin that has zero interaction other than 'play' is a 'better direction'. Just want you to prove that you actually do content as AST instead of coming here to troll about a job you only play for the aesthetics of drawing a card, not the mechanics behind it that have existed since HW. But hey, you're the one who's going to love your preferred flavour of white mage. Cards without RNG are just the same old buttons every healer has been pressing since this game came out. No amount of aesthetic or visuals are going to change the fact that playing a card now is the exact same thing as playing any other skill on a 60s CD. And if you can't see that, or understand that, then I don't know what to tell you. It's just plainly clear that you only play this job for the aesthetics and not any kind of flavour. Just because I'm pressing more buttons with a card visual every minute (and thats assuming that fights actually require you to use all your cards. The last time I think I had all my AST spells on CD was blue screen in TOP, and it didn't even matter because there wasn't another raidwide I needed to do anything about for another solid minute. doesn't mean it feels like using cards. It doesn't feel like HW, StB, ShB, or EW. It'll feel like white mage, or scholar, or sage. Because thats all their buttons are. Skills with a CD that you have full control over. No reading the fates, no playing with what the deck gives you. Just the same 4 buttons every minute, if you can even be bothered to press them all anyways.

The class, btw, is losing even more weaves than you suggest. Rn AST has divi, lightspeed, dyne, play, draw, play, draw, play, minor arcana, with the addition of possibly 2 redraws, a held lord, and a second lord. That's 9-13 weaves in one window, with different timings for each. And including a card drawn and played at the 60s window, then drawn, then possibly redrawn. And a minor arcana draw So the card system contributes roughly 13-18 weaves over the course of two minutes. Not including healing oGCDs. Right now? At maximum optimization... Divi, play lord, play held card, draw, play held card, possible divi follow up if its an ogcd. That's 5 at absolute max. One additional draw at 60s. 6 weaves. And then another 5 weaves for each of the utility cards, bringing us to 11 weaves. 11 weaves that include just tossing random single target heals that every healer needs to do anyways soooo it's kinda pointless to include them? It'll be the same amount of healing weaves that other healers have to do, bc AST will be healing the exact same content they will. So it's not high APM, it's not random, it's not really cards beyond aesthetic... So what is it? Oh, right. It's the exact same healing kit we've seen in all 4 healers for years now. It's just going to take our other abilities and slap them with a card visual, and call it a day. Or we'll just have more utility than white mage could dream of but it literally won't matter because content will be balanced around the lowest healing and mit output healers bc they need to be able to clear too. Successful rework! It's either shallow and useless, or bloated and useless. All it cost was your engagement. Please look forward to it!

EDIT: As per your response. In Abyssos I started off playing AST but the static imploded, and the pickings were slim so I just went with the first group that could match my work hours. They already had an AST, so I took up scholar instead. Did just fine on it. I still have savage logs on Abyssos as AST, but you clearly didn't bother checking. In Ana I was bored of healing so I went and did something else as sort of a vacation tier. You can also check that I progged and cleared TEA, DSR and TOP as AST. I did raid pre-EW but I played the game on ps4 with a group of my friends so we had no access to ACT, and when I built my PC and moved to it in 5.55 I didn't see the point in getting fresh new logs on outdated Eden fights. Any more questions or are you just going to keep judging me behind the veil of anonymity~?

[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?

[Zolvolt]

snip

Thats all well and good. But you barely touched ast 2, which is argueably when healing as ast was at it's best this expansion and needing to use every ogcd you had. You didn't touch it t3. You have no logs for any expansion besides Endwalker except for the 24mans in shb. All that is to say is I understand why you like ast so much the way it is. You really don't know any other ast. Shb isn't that far from what we have today if you're just leveling it. if you took out astrodyne and the 2minute meta it'd be nearly identical to diurnal sect. You should give new ast a try and I'd also tell you to anticipate big ast changes like this for every expansion until they start building on ast. And just remember when you're sad about an ast change that some of us lost shield-healer ast completely and will probably never get it back. These things happen, we live with it and find new parts of the job to enjoy.

[Kissune]

Thats all well and good. But you barely touched ast 2, which is argueably when healing as ast was at it's best this expansion and needing to use every ogcd you had. You didn't touch it t3. You have no logs for any expansion besides Endwalker except for the 24mans in shb. All that is to say is I understand why you like ast so much the way it is. You really don't know any other ast. Shb isn't that far from what we have today if you're just leveling it. if you took out astrodyne and the 2minute meta it'd be nearly identical to diurnal sect. You should give new ast a try and I'd also tell you to anticipate big ast changes like this for every expansion until they start building on ast. And just remember when you're sad about an ast change that some of us lost shield-healer ast completely and will probably never get it back. These things happen, we live with it and find new parts of the job to enjoy.

I mean if you just wanna be a doormat be my guest. For what its worth, I liked healing in abyssos, both as SCH and AST. Natural alignment is quite possibly one of my favourite mechanics bc it's the only time in recent memory where single target heals in uptime were necessary on top of the rapid raidwides. P8Sp2 was peak design but soooo many people complained it was 'too hard' and Squenix overcorrected, as usual. I didn't touch it in ana but lets be real the only healcheck there was harrowing hell (which I'd have all my CDs for so I'd probably only gcd heal once to proc neutral and horoscope, use CU and oppo, Idk what star timing would be but almost definitely using it there, and macro if I had it. Yknow why? Bc before and after that there was no damage.) and p12sp1 limit cut was also a lot of damage, but it was in downtime so who cares? It's not like AST has ever had mana issues in all of EW, gcd spam away. Most of the fights just had spread out raidwides that they didn't bother to put a bleed on. Every tankbuster was invulned or so overmitted that it didn't matter, tank autos were a joke, and single target damage on other people in ana was so pathetic it was barely worth the ED.

I'm going to give new AST a try, I get all jobs to max level anyways, and I'll probably drag it into criterion considering I won't be healing the first tier, bc my gf is a white mage one trick and I'm finally raiding with her. But I don't see how I could possibly enjoy the class losing the two biggest things I loved about it, only to be replaced with this sad, pathetic excuse of a card 'system' and a fancy new divination follow up. I miss nocturnal sect too, dude. And I don't see why you saying 'I don't know any other AST' is like some sort of gotcha on me when these cards don't even play or function remotely like stormblood cards either. I'd be fine with stormblood cards, even if they weren't my preference bc at least they'd feel familiar and I'd have reactive gameplay that requires me to think about what I'm doing with my cards as I draw them. I don't actually want this class to stay the same, I wasn't 100% happy with EW AST either. But the answer is not and will never be 'completely rip anything of substance from the class'.

I'm getting rate limited now so I am forced to stop for now but I seriously think you misunderstand what I am actually asking for here. I am not asking for more of EW AST. I am asking for more of AST, not white mage with a poor mans aetherflow with tarot cards painted on it. Whether it be utility cards, dps cards, a mix, neither, I don't care. I have a preference to DPS cards but what I want is the playstyle of responding to draws. If you think that aspect died in ShB or EW idk what to tell you aside from 'that's simply not true' and 'I got news for you about what no RNG means'. That playstyle won't exist, and so AST is no longer the class for me. I didn't play in stormblood, ya got me, but I know if I did you could bet your ass I'd be an astrologian main.

EDIT: also saying 'you have no logs for any expansion besides Endwalker' as some sort of gotcha is pretty rich coming from someone with no logs in anything lmao. For all I know you haven't done a single fight in your life, and I know from your gear that you didn't touch AST in t3 either, so don't try and pull that card.