Gutting Astro... again.....

[Mugs]

Square Enix: " We don't want to oversimplify the game."
Dawntrail: Dumbs down Astro and takes away more unique features from the job once again.

What you're giving us is not a card system at all, it's more like Aetherflow without the choice to use different abilities. You always have to use the same combinations over and over.

I liked Astrodyne, at least if you didn't get the potency increase, the haste and mana regen were nice. The extra regen made it possible to meld haste to your gear. Another trait that made it feel unique. Now it looks like it's just going to take aspects from other healers and have no identity of its own..

I hope the other changes are less disappointing. Maybe they're leaning more into the time aspect of the job. I hope so.. I've mained Astro since HW and the job just keeps getting more and more brain dead...

[Rozeee]

I personally can't see the cards ending well if they're a simple "5% damage, 10% mit, 400 potency cure".

• If MP economy is tied to spending cards, you run into the forced healing situation of SGE and WHM.
• If MP economy is tied to drawing cards, you'll run into 5.0 SCH scenario where you're just overwriting your leftover heals just to keep your MP rolling.

Furthermore, just by the nature of the 2-min burst, you'll want to pool all your damage buffs in that window. 2-min window will result in "Draw > spend your damage buff and lord> draw again (overwriting your defensive cards) > spend damage buff > wait until the next 120s". I'm already assuming that you will have nothing to heal since the last 2 expansions haven't proven otherwise.

To alleviate this, I can think of some suggestions.

• Energy drain equivalent that spends all your defensive cards for a small refund
• Misery equivalent for spending all your cards

Again, it goes back to either forced healing or the ED situation. Guess what you get when you design a game with only input and output of damage and not actual kit interaction. The same problems.

Anyway, I'm not an AST main nor a healer main at this point so I'm not too invested in it. My prediction is that casuals will love this rework while vets of the healer role slowly become DPS mains. Enjoy DT.

[Osmond]

Proving Astrodyne while hoping the RNG was in your favor was horrible. I really don’t know what ppl want. This new system is what ppl were complaining FOR YEARS!!!!! YEARS!!!! Ah, I don’t want it…./throw hand up.

[Kissune]

DW guys, AST is still the highest APM healer, at a neckbreaking... 4 weaves in burst!

SGE has one
SCH has two bc there's no shot energy drain survives this dogshit healer design philosophy
WHM has two

This isn't even about AST anymore. Who is going to play healer now? Who actually thought healer was too hard to play that is now going to suddenly pick it up? Are they gonna raid? People wanted healing to be more interesting, less boring. But instead we get another 2 years of simple, unengaging gameplay on the role. Adding a single follow up skill to our 2min burst button is not a replacement for engaging gameplay. It's so lazy.

We have a critical healer shortage as it is. PFs take forever to fill, healers are basically always on demand in static recruitment posts. Anyone who enjoys hw/sb or shb/ew doesn't want this. If anything we'd just get whm players moving over for the aesthetic bc that's the only thing that remains. I'm gonna be playing dps bc this role is just done for. AST was the last beacon of hope I had for it, but all people could do is complain. Anyone who asked for this, anyone who enjoys this, I better see you in PF, I'd better see you with savage/ulti clears bc you demanded high end gameplay be as braindead as the casual gameplay and you got what you wanted. Couldn't handle a job with a real skill ceiling and now the skill floor is a skill basement.

I hope they reconsider these changes, and I hope they seriously assess what healer players actually want. Bc this game is not hard to play, casuals can make it through anything just spamming benefic 1 and never thinking. Why did the job need to be brought down to their level? I refuse to believe square enix actually has healer players on their team if this is what we've got.

[Zaytex]

The pool of quality healers is already extremely small given how consistent the developers have been over the years to strip away any difficulty or depth to the role. The role isn't really rewarding or fun for people who are genuinely good at the role, but if you wanted a healer to reward skill then AST was the way to go. With these changes, skilled healers have nothing left to play and ultimately, they won't stick to the role for another 2.5 years, so they'll just go play something else.

It's honestly sad how the healer role is genuinely built for new or bad players.

[KanataNanaya]

The pool of quality healers is already extremely small given how consistent the developers have been over the years to strip away any difficulty or depth to the role. The role isn't really rewarding or fun for people who are genuinely good at the role, but if you wanted a healer to reward skill then AST was the way to go. With these changes, skilled healers have nothing left to play and ultimately, they won't stick to the role for another 2.5 years, so they'll just go play something else.

It's honestly sad how the healer role is genuinely built for new or bad players.

Yeah, as a pug AST/SGE flexer for each tier, I'll just drop healing entirely this time. It's just depressing because i like healing, especially for prog.

[Aravell]

Yeah, as a pug AST/SGE flexer for each tier, I'll just drop healing entirely this time. It's just depressing because i like healing, especially for prog.

Take it from someone who also greatly enjoys prog healing.

The one week of fun in prog is not worth the 7 weeks of boredom in reclears.

[Zaytex]

Nah, the real strategy is to prog on healer and then switch to another job on reclearing. The healer role is clearly just a prog job at this point lol

[Rithy255]

Sad thing this is likely the rework they will stick with because it will be the most appealing to the "average" player. I bet we will see astro play rate higher in proportion to healer, But I'm sure a lot of astro players who leave the job won't go for another healer because the other healers aren't really that fun (for them).

Maybe if healing was more fun to me in general i'd be happy... who knows but Astro was the last remaining healer I "liked" to play now it just seems healer isn't going to be for me x)

I mean I'm used to disappointment with reworks at this point as a Paladin main the job changes in 6.3 ruined half of what I liked, Looks like BLM (my other main) is shaping up to have major gameplay changes for the worse and the AST rework is by far the most upset I've been about a job rework other then 6.3 PLD.

I was expecting the astro rework to not deliver... But this rework is shaping up to be something that just ruins anything i liked about it in the first place.

[KanataNanaya]

Sad thing this is likely the rework they will stick with because it will be the most appealing to the "average" player. I bet we will see astro play rate higher in proportion to healer, But I'm sure a lot of astro players who leave the job won't go for another healer because the other healers aren't really that fun (for them).

Maybe if healing was more fun to me in general i'd be happy... who knows but Astro was the last remaining healer I "liked" to play now it just seems healer isn't going to be for me x)

I mean I'm used to disappointment with reworks at this point as a Paladin main the job changes in 6.3 ruined half of what I liked, Looks like BLM (my other main) is shaping up to have major gameplay changes for the worse and the AST rework is by far the most upset I've been about a job rework other then 6.3 PLD.

I was expecting the astro rework to not deliver... But this rework is shaping up to be something that just ruins anything i liked about it in the first place.

at this state i'd rather them give us a big shiny finisher like a 2nd explosion of earthly star. and be done with it. At least it still got some trace of the ast we once loved.


there's nothing left except earthly star at this state. and it's sad seeing something you love get butchered like this.


Of course the class is viable, and clearable for everything.
but remember, if the potency for heal and dmg is big enough, you only need malefic and benefic to clear even ultimates. everything else is extra. It was never about performance or balances.