Astrologian changes feedback

[SerMicha]

I haven't re-looked at DT Ast since I watched the LL, but I'm really hoping they keep all 6 cards and have something like the following:

Balance = X% Damage Increase
Arrow = Y% Mitigation
Spear = Z potency Heal

Bole = X+2% Crit Chance Buff
Ewer = Y% of max health Shield (stack with SCH/SGE obviously)
Spire = Z+15% potency HOT

It doesn't have to be exactly like that, but I think I would be more okay with the rework provided each hand you draw has the chance to be slightly different from the last. I could see a situation where one minute, you have Damage Card/Shield Card/HOT Card, and then next minute, you have Crit Card/Mit Card/Heal Card.

My numbers are arbitrary, AST may have to give up CU for the mit cards, and I'm not going to go into detail about AOE vs Single Target cards. I just don't remember them going into too much detail about the rework in the LL so I'm holding hope that it's not just going to be a generic damage increase/generic mit/generic heal every single hand.

[Zolvolt]

Offensive buffs can all provide damage, but the way they provide damage can be different. % up, crit rate and DHit rate are three ways, yes, but what about 'counterattack when struck'? How about 'autoattack speed vastly increased', for a haste effect that doesn't mess up rotations? What about 'attacks hit twice for X stacks'? If we stop thinking about the cards as all needing to be specifically '15s duration', and open up the possibility of having X stacks of something, a lot more variations on how to increase our damage become available to design around

I do like some of these ideas. Especially the counter attack and auto attack speed. I would worry about some jobs just 100% always being the right choice for some of these buffs, but not really something to worry about when just slinging ideas around, yeah?

[Ayer2015]

I wish they would redesign the Lord and Lady cards to function as empower and spread. It would be nice to get a bit of the HW ast feel back.
What the major cards do will really determine how I feel about the changes. Having the card mechanic effectively be replaced with sleeve draw on a minute CD doesn't necessarily bother me.

[glamazon]

I wish they would redesign the Lord and Lady cards to function as empower and spread. It would be nice to get a bit of the HW ast feel back.
What the major cards do will really determine how I feel about the changes. Having the card mechanic effectively be replaced with sleeve draw on a minute CD doesn't necessarily bother me.

This is the best idea i've read so far.

[Ayer2015]

Again, what is even the point of a class based system if you just make every class play the same? You are supposed to give enough variety that everyone can find something they like, not exclusively cater to one lowest common denominator audience at the expense of everyone else, to the point where the classes become almost entirely an aesthetic choice.

We get to wait another 3 years for increased job identity...
Honestly, given the development thus far, I don't have high hopes. In the name of raid balance we get homogenized, less interesting jobs.

[Aravell]

I wish they would redesign the Lord and Lady cards to function as empower and spread. It would be nice to get a bit of the HW ast feel back.

This idea is actually pretty cool. Even if the card system was just damage up like ShB/EW, introducing the enhanced or expanded effect to the card would open up more avenues for optimisation.

It would increase the thought required and I'm all for it.

[Kissune]

We get to wait another 3 years for increased job identity...
Honestly, given the development thus far, I don't have high hopes. In the name of raid balance we get homogenized, less interesting jobs.

Turning AST into this and saying 'please look forwards to 8.0, where you might get a chance to enjoy the game' is just such a slap in the face to someone who has been playing this game for years. Like... What do they think is gonna happen in Dawntrail? They're already dealing with a healer shortage, do they think this will fix it? People will pick up AST, yes, and even enjoy it. But from where? From the DPS player pool? From the tank player pool? If making a job stupidly easy and completely homogenized worked for drawing people to the role, we'd have seen it with sage and white mage already. Anyone who liked EW/ShB AST for what it was aren't gonna play new AST. Anyone who preferred StB/HW AST aren't gonna come back to it bc the elements that made it unique back then aren't even represented in the new system beyond a superficial 'the generic 60s CD buttons that look like cards have different effects from the other buttons that look like cards'. So who is this for? People who wanted to play for the aesthetics but didn't like, y'know, everything else? Cool. Were they DPS players? Tank players? A handful, maybe. But most were other healers.

So less overall healers, more people playing other roles, and a dilution of the pool of healers even more. That sounds like a recipe for a massive healer drought that might not be immediately apparent on launch, but will certainly deteriorate faster and harder over the expansion's lifespan.

[Zaytex]

Turning AST into this and saying 'please look forwards to 8.0, where you might get a chance to enjoy the game' is just such a slap in the face to someone who has been playing this game for years. Like... What do they think is gonna happen in Dawntrail? They're already dealing with a healer shortage, do they think this will fix it? People will pick up AST, yes, and even enjoy it. But from where? From the DPS player pool? From the tank player pool? If making a job stupidly easy and completely homogenized worked for drawing people to the role, we'd have seen it with sage and white mage already. Anyone who liked EW/ShB AST for what it was aren't gonna play new AST. Anyone who preferred StB/HW AST aren't gonna come back to it bc the elements that made it unique back then aren't even represented in the new system beyond a superficial 'the generic 60s CD buttons that look like cards have different effects from the other buttons that look like cards'. So who is this for? People who wanted to play for the aesthetics but didn't like, y'know, everything else? Cool. Were they DPS players? Tank players? A handful, maybe. But most were other healers.

So less overall healers, more people playing other roles, and a dilution of the pool of healers even more. That sounds like a recipe for a massive healer drought that might not be immediately apparent on launch, but will certainly deteriorate faster and harder over the expansion's lifespan.

Pretty much, I think all the people who are going to pick AST up are casual players who already don't touch high-end raiding. So whilst the actual pool of players may be the same at the start of the expansion, I definitely think for savage and ultimates less healers will be playing, since a lot of high-end healers would stick to AST, but with it reworked to nothingness they'll just leave or play another role.

[Kamishawe]

I swear CBU3's choices for Astro are bizarre.

I admire what they're trying to do. It solves the huge gaps between different factions of Astro capable people and the variable output of Astro.

However, I think the core design of the cards is broken and they need to reboot it like Summoner. It's suppose to be a buffing class?! So, why does EVERY iteration of the card system feel worse than a Bargain Bin dancer?

The biggest core problem is literally the Solo "1 card per person" system and it's potency being less than a fraction similar to any other equivalent in the game. The current system is also at the expense of individual weaving capability of each Astro, so most Astros are losing gcd time because of tab target switching, especially on consoles.

So it begs my question : Why isn't Astro set-up as any version of a group buff system? Eliminating the problem of tab/target switching between cards and people and boosting Astros overall party utility?

Given Astros skills w/o the cards, a Party Reduction Card makes more sense given Astros literal list of solo reduction skills. So does a Party GCD Haste Card or Party Movement Card as a card option. A unique one can be group Esuna given the op amounts of bleeds this expansion. You want party dps? Boost Divination. Dps cards is asking for trouble.

In today's fast paced raiding scene, "Solo" party cards doesn't make sense to me anymore.

I applaud that choice of trashing the old class buffing options. A one at a time rng draw system w 6 possible iterations and a 3 sticker personal rng buff being dependent on that rng option was cringe.

At this point in Party Buffs and Helpfulness, Astro has the mimicry of virtually nothing. Now I'm not saying turning Astro into a dps heavy hitting buffing equivalent of Bard or Dancer.

I'm saying, if your going to give Astros a fighting chance against other healers as a remotely streamlined buff healer that's designed for casuals, why are you still clinging to arbitrary systems that is essentially lobotomizing the class?

I can tell you right now, for all the good changes coming to Astro, it will not change them being the overall worst played healer, worst liked job, and worst dps of all classes.

I think every end-game Astro would literally dump using the cards because of the tab-switching system if it wasn't essential to activating alternative skills. Getting rid of Astrodyne and stickers just means they changed the alternative reward.

This is coming from someone who absolutely adores end-game Astro and plays with other Astros and we are all actually good at the class.

[Calysto]

I'm not really an AST player, but...

Just drawing 3 cards at random would mitigate most of the rng "issues".
Still too much Rng ?
-bring back royal road
-play a card reversed for a different effect
-go papercut damage

oh no, that would require balancing I guess, forget it. Here your stickers