Gutting Astro... again.....

[Rithy255]

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.

With the PLD rework the job may have been "more viable" but it lost a lot what i liked about the job, at that point i rather my job still exist as it was then "be more viable" of course I'm not aganist balancing jobs out but SE's way of balancing is to change it's uniqueness and generalise it into the other jobs.

This rework to me screams of they just have no idea how to actually make astro appealing to astro players so instead they're generalising it to the point where astro players don't like it, while other healer players *might* pick it up... I'm sure it will be more generally popular, as astro wasn't a job for everyone... now its a job that can likely be picked up by everyone. But where do people who liked playing astro go to? I don't think other healers will appeal to them... they're already... snoozefest, most likely they will go and play DPS roles just to have fun (or quit), some will put up with the rework, I'll personally try it until 100 and if I don't like it im not touching healing In DT.

I guess all anyone can do now is voice their concern and hold out until 8.0 but I doubt that will change anything, I believe that statement was said so people can have something to hope for then be disappointed by the lack of redesigning or the game getting simplified even further.

[Wilford111]

I'm very excited for the AST changes. Right now it's an unplayable mess for me. Endwalker is by far my least favorite iteration of the job. Having a semblance of consistency and less bloat during bursts will be a welcome change.

[Aravell]

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

Welcome to the club then, astro friends. SCH has been sitting in the 'my favourite job was butchered' club since Stormblood and MCH joined them in Shadowbringers with SMN joining in Endwalker. Looks like AST is joining in Dawntrail.

Viability seems to be the main thing they're aiming for from SB onwards, fun is optional in their design map.

[Kissune]

Welcome to the club then, astro friends. SCH has been sitting in the 'my favourite job was butchered' club since Stormblood and MCH joined them in Shadowbringers with SMN joining in Endwalker. Looks like AST is joining in Dawntrail.

Viability seems to be the main thing they're aiming for from SB onwards, fun is optional in their design map.

I can't do another expansion of endwalker fights and endwalker jobs. If 7.X fights aren't fun as hell, and 8.0 isn't looking incredible, I'm going back to monster hunter full time. At least insect glaive hasn't gotten its identity removed every new game :P Hopefully Viper/Monk are fun, anything to distract me from healing losing anything fun about it. I hope people enjoy what AST is now, so I don't have to wait 90 minutes for a single PF to fill, bc everyone who enjoyed the role has long since abandoned it in favour of people who just like pressing sparkly buttons that do the same thing as the rest of the healers.

[Rithy255]

Welcome to the club then, astro friends. SCH has been sitting in the 'my favourite job was butchered' club since Stormblood and MCH joined them in Shadowbringers with SMN joining in Endwalker. Looks like AST is joining in Dawntrail.

Viability seems to be the main thing they're aiming for from SB onwards, fun is optional in their design map.

Eh I'd consider the 6.3 pld rework to pretty much butcher the job, I get burst and all that blah blah blah, but my poor goring blade what have they done to my loved dot combo :c

Viability is pretty much the only thing they care about, with going towards the path of least resistance.

[Kissune]

I'm very excited for the AST changes. Right now it's an unplayable mess for me. Endwalker is by far my least favorite iteration of the job. Having a semblance of consistency and less bloat during bursts will be a welcome change.

'Some semblance of consistency' 'Unplayable mess' 'Bloat during bursts'

Jfc dude just play white mage

[Gember]

I guess we'll see what the encounters in Dawntrail are going to be about. Changes are usually revolved around that. I am not going to be on the doom posting train until they release the media tour info, which is soon by the way.

I get that everyone wants a "challenge" mode healer, but it is incredibly hard because healer is that fluid job where the difficulties depend on the fight design/balance, and the players they work with. Even Astrologians get bored with great statics in a high-end setting. At the end of the day, the job needs to be enjoyable and unique, so I am hoping for that for the most part.

[Karen_Cerfrumos]

'Some semblance of consistency' 'Unplayable mess' 'Bloat during bursts'

Jfc dude just play white mage

This is a useless and reductionist response because WHM's tools are different, WHM's aesthetics are different and for a lot of people EW card design is literally the thing standing between them and an otherwise cool healing toolkit.
If you notice most jobs getting significant adjustments in DT are those that have lesser adoption rate - monk, ninja, astrologian, black mage... It's the direction the game's been going in for years. The devs hate when a job isn't played.

[Kissune]

This is a useless and reductionist response because WHM's tools are different, WHM's aesthetics are different and for a lot of people EW card design is literally the thing standing between them and an otherwise cool healing toolkit.
If you notice most jobs getting significant adjustments in DT are those that have lesser adoption rate - monk, ninja, astrologian, black mage... It's the direction the game's been going in for years. The devs hate when a job isn't played.

They apparently hate when a job is unique, too. But hey I guess my bad for expecting my fun to be equally as important as someone's aesthetic preference right? And you can cling to AST's "cool healing toolkit" bc they'll take that away too, eventually. Now that cards are effectively removed, what's next for the casuals to complain about? Having to time your stars? Having to use macrocosmos before taking a hit instead of just being a big healing button?

This might be a pretty wild take but I think that making AST basically white mage with stars is not actually healthy for the game long term. If people couldn't hack the card system, then maybe they should admit AST wasn't for them. When I first started this game, I picked up AST because it looked pretty. I literally remember asking someone in limsa what the pretty star explosion ability was. Then I got into it, found the card system was pretty in depth, and had a lot of fun practicing it and getting better at it.

I'm getting really tired of my mains having all complexity, substance, and interesting parts of their kit stripped away all because 'some people want to play it for how it looks, and don't want to interact with the mechanics of it at all'. At that point, why even have seperate jobs to begin with? Just make a healer with all the buttons, and let you pick your preferred flavour of VFX. WHM and AST are going to play extremely similar, and just because there are slight, and I mean SLIGHT variances in how their abilities work doesn't mean that the jobs haven't been completely streamlined and homogenized.

If you're not good enough to play the class at its most optimal level, either get better or don't play it? EW AST's card system is ridiculously easy to work with at the skill floor and you don't even have to think about it or use it in any casual content. But it was there for the people who WANTED to use it. If you were only playing AST for the aesthetics, or the way it heals, then just fucking do that. The card system was never holding you back, bc no one was ACTUALLY forcing you to optimize. You weren't punished for not using cards 100% perfectly. Unless you were doing savage or ultimate content, in which case... Idk, hard content should require... effort? Is that so controversial to say? If doing AST's rotation is too hard in savage, then maybe you should play a different job for it.

But no, you want your precious aesthetic, and you want your easy playstyle, and so fuck you to everyone who wanted the challenging kit, right? Fuck you to all the people who wanted at least ONE of the four healers to require a modicum of skill to execute their dps rotation, right? AST might see more players in DT, sure. But there won't be more healers, and there might be less. You're not gonna suddenly convince dps or tank players to pick up AST by making it stupidly easy and basic. If that was all it took, we'd have them clamouring to pick up sage, scholar and white mage already. Instead, you alienate the healer mains who had AST as their last bastion of enjoyment and challenge in the role, and for what? So some white mage players will switch over to astrologian? I'm sure it'll look really nice on their demographics when there's still more whm players than ast bc the real reason it's more common is because you can fucking start with it and a lot of people just play one job.

The pool of healers isn't going to increase. No one is gonna pick up new AST from the dps and tank roles, and even if they do, I'd be amazed if they stuck with it for more than a tier. Some healers will swap around, sure. And people like me, and Aravell, and a lot of other AST mains will abandon the role altogether. I look forwards to an even worse healer shortage than EW, one I'm already seeing on recruitment discords.

Because god forbid a class be less popular bc it's got a higher skill ceiling. All for the sake of aesthetics, my god.

[Aravell]

This is a useless and reductionist response because WHM's tools are different, WHM's aesthetics are different and for a lot of people EW card design is literally the thing standing between them and an otherwise cool healing toolkit.
If you notice most jobs getting significant adjustments in DT are those that have lesser adoption rate - monk, ninja, astrologian, black mage... It's the direction the game's been going in for years. The devs hate when a job isn't played.

I don't agree that someone who loves the aesthetics of a job should have more importance than someone who enjoys the gameplay. If someone really loves the aesthetics so much, they'd learn the gameplay. I picked up SCH at the height of difficulty in HW because I loved the military tactician aesthetic, and I learned to play the job rather than expect the job to cater to my inexperience.

FFXIV is not a hard game at the base level, never has been, even HW jobs were extremely easy to get into. What's the benefit in ripping out the core of a job to cater to people who don't play the job? You might see movement within the role, but it's not very likely to attract people outside the role into it.

The healer role is already very niche, taking away something that people like would just make people leave. It's also worth noting that there's nowhere to move to for the people who enjoy AST as a fast thinking healer, none of the other 3 are as fast, even SCH at the height of complexity was slow, methodical planning.