Thank you for the Astro changes coming in dawntrail!

[Zolvolt]

I'm really happy about the changes coming to Astrologian so thank you. Astro has been asking for many problems to be solved about the job, some of which were big problems pre-shadowbringers! Finally it has happened!

-Astrodyne's buffs and cd misalignment throughout an encounter

Solved by removal of Astrodyne

-Seals being a replacement for cards all doing the same exact thing

Solved by removing seals and implementing cards that do different things

- DPS cards always being superior than utility cards

Solved by dps cards and utility cards not competing against each other

- Astro's pain point of healing mechanics happening during the 2min burst and having "dead windows" where we aren't using card OGCD's outside of burst windows

Solved by having fewer dps-related cards and only impacting our APM negatively by 1 draw/card action. Spreading our APM more evenly across our rotation with the mitigation/heal cards is also helpful.

-Replacing/removing thoughtless action bloat with meaningful actions

Replacing 2 of our 3 draws per minute with 2 cards to use instead. APM is lowered slightly since instead of 3draws and 3 cards per minute (6 actions) we get 1 draw and 4 cards per minute (5 actions)

-Lord/lady being held and not being able to see it's cooldown

Solved by lord/lady not having its own draw button anymore.

Honestly all REALLY wonderful changes. Senix looked at the problems with Astrologian in Endwalker and in previous expansions and decided to tackle all of them! So honestly, thank you for that. As someone who has mained every iteration of Ast ever, I really appreciate this direction.

That being said, I have only a few concerns. One of which is that card manipulation is now seemingly completely gone. Card manipulation has always been a fun part about astrologian. I think it's a big part of what many of us enjoyed about HW/SB astrologian. Just being able to cycle your cards, redraw your cards, change your cards into a buff for other cards, or change your cards into a lord/lady. Any type of card manipulation that we had is now gone. It was pretty much dead in endwalker with redraw being our only option, but I still think it will be missed and I hope it returns in a future expansion in some way.

My only other concern, with the information we have so far, is that our cards might be a little bit too generic. One dps buff, one heal (hot or instant), one mitigation (damage reduction). Those are all great, but they don't have any flavor to them. So what I mean is that in any game, a buff that shoots missiles or debuffs targets that you attack while the buff is active will always be more fun than a button that just does +x% damage. -x% damage taken. If the new offensive card, and new mitigation card are too simple in such a way, then I think we should consider spicing them up for 8.x

[Kissune]

-Astrodyne's buffs and cd misalignment throughout an encounter

If this was a problem for you, skill issue.

-Seals being a replacement for cards all doing the same exact thing

Now they aren't cards at all. Congrats on your aetherflow. Cards are drawn from a deck, not set out in advance.

- DPS cards always being superior than utility cards

Solved in shadowbringers, had room to grow, but instead they decided to appease people who don't even like the job.

- Astro's pain point of healing mechanics happening during the 2min burst and having "dead windows" where we aren't using card OGCD's outside of burst windows

Solved in ShB with a 30s CD with no charges, forcing you to use them outside of burst and using sleeve draw to mitigate RNG. Now all we can do is heal.

-Replacing/removing thoughtless action bloat with meaningful actions

HAHAHAHAHHAHAA Ah yes bc we definitely aren't already bloated to the extreme with 3 ED charges, exaltation, intersection, and a half dozen aoe oGCD heals? When tanks like warrior can heal to full on a 25s CD in trash packs and have absurd self sustain on their 123, with kardia and fairy on top?

-Lord/lady being held and not being able to see it's cooldown

I feel like this is an issue much more easily fixed by just having the cooldown overlaid on the minor arcana button while one was held but removing it entirely is soooo much better /s

Honestly all REALLY wonderful changes. Senix looked at the problems with Astrologian in Endwalker and in previous expansions and decided to tackle all of them! So honestly, thank you for that. As someone who has mained every iteration of Ast ever, I really appreciate this direction.

That being said, I have only a few concerns. One of which is that card manipulation is now seemingly completely gone. Card manipulation has always been a fun part about astrologian. I think it's a big part of what many of us enjoyed about HW/SB astrologian. Just being able to cycle your cards, redraw your cards, change your cards into a buff for other cards, or change your cards into a lord/lady. Any type of card manipulation that we had is now gone. It was pretty much dead in endwalker with redraw being our only option, but I still think it will be missed and I hope it returns in a future expansion in some way.

My only other concern, with the information we have so far, is that our cards might be a little bit too generic. One dps buff, one heal (hot or instant), one mitigation (damage reduction). Those are all great, but they don't have any flavor to them. So what I mean is that in any game, a buff that shoots missiles or debuffs targets that you attack while the buff is active will always be more fun than a button that just does +x% damage. -x% damage taken. If the new offensive card, and new mitigation card are too simple in such a way, then I think we should consider spicing them up for 8.x

They decided to solve every "problem" with AST by completely removing all mechanics from the class. Can't have problems with AST if it isn't AST, amiright? Enjoy your white mage with stars, dude.

[rawker]

Umm.. I hope you were able to pick up on the sarcasm... unless OP isn't joking and is really serious on liking the changes, are you?

[Kissune]

Umm.. I hope you were able to pick up on the sarcasm... unless OP isn't joking and is really serious on liking the changes, are you?

I genuinely can't tell anymore.

[Zolvolt]

If this was a problem for you, skill issue.



Now they aren't cards at all. Congrats on your aetherflow. Cards are drawn from a deck, not set out in advance.



Solved in shadowbringers, had room to grow, but instead they decided to appease people who don't even like the job.



Solved in ShB with a 30s CD with no charges, forcing you to use them outside of burst and using sleeve draw to mitigate RNG. Now all we can do is heal.



HAHAHAHAHHAHAA Ah yes bc we definitely aren't already bloated to the extreme with 3 ED charges, exaltation, intersection, and a half dozen aoe oGCD heals? When tanks like warrior can heal to full on a 25s CD in trash packs and have absurd self sustain on their 123, with kardia and fairy on top?



I feel like this is an issue much more easily fixed by just having the cooldown overlaid on the minor arcana button while one was held but removing it entirely is soooo much better /s



They decided to solve every "problem" with AST by completely removing all mechanics from the class. Can't have problems with AST if it isn't AST, amiright? Enjoy your white mage with stars, dude.

I'll try not to be mean here, but astro dyne doesn't line up with 2 minutes on it's own. You have to use extra astrodynes throughout the fight in order to keep it aligned and not over-cap your card CD's, which would be fine but you have to remind yourself how to use astrodyne differently in the later part of the fight just so you don't misalign. Thats not good.

If you think "every card does the same thing" is a nice solution then I just think you want a simplified version of astro. Thats fine if you do, but don't dog on people who want something more than that.


Your comment about shb ast only hold weight in a world where the 2minute meta doesn't exist. But we are still living in the 2m meta.

Your tank comment is not relevent. We are not talking about endwalker anymore. We've never ever had an expansion where tank survivability and healing were the same as the previous expansion. I think you are getting too caught up in how things are in endwalker and it's preventing you from thinking about how things would be in dawntrail. That being said, a lot of astro's OGCD's are preventative measure which will always be useful and help tanks. Having a third ED doesn't change that, it just gives us one more charge. It will be useful. And in terms of ability bloat, there were several abilities missing from the job actions trailer, you really can't complain about ability bloat when you don't know what damage intake is like in DT and you have no idea what spells were cut from our toolkit.


Your final comment is a bit ridiculous. You've claimed ast is just sch now. You've claimed it's whm also. Astro is changing in a way that gives us more cards to play than EW astro and yet you're still claiming the cards are gone now. I feel like you're just lashing out and not thinking about what any of the changes actually did for astro. I get job changes can be scary. but this is an mmo and your job is going to change drastically over the course of the mmo's life. Accepting that is going to put you in a lot better headspace than hoping it doesn't ever happen. I mean none of the jobs play like they did in heavensward. Bering mean to other people about that isn't helping anyone.

[AmiableApkallu]

Astro is changing in a way that gives us more cards to play than EW astro and yet you're still claiming the cards are gone now.

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.

[Kissune]

I'll try not to be mean here, but astro dyne doesn't line up with 2 minutes on it's own. You have to use extra astrodynes throughout the fight in order to keep it aligned and not over-cap your card CD's, which would be fine but you have to remind yourself how to use astrodyne differently in the later part of the fight just so you don't misalign. Thats not good.

If you think "every card does the same thing" is a nice solution then I just think you want a simplified version of astro. Thats fine if you do, but don't dog on people who want something more than that.


Your comment about shb ast only hold weight in a world where the 2minute meta doesn't exist. But we are still living in the 2m meta.

Your tank comment is not relevent. We are not talking about endwalker anymore. We've never ever had an expansion where tank survivability and healing were the same as the previous expansion. I think you are getting too caught up in how things are in endwalker and it's preventing you from thinking about how things would be in dawntrail. That being said, a lot of astro's OGCD's are preventative measure which will always be useful and help tanks. Having a third ED doesn't change that, it just gives us one more charge. It will be useful. And in terms of ability bloat, there were several abilities missing from the job actions trailer, you really can't complain about ability bloat when you don't know what damage intake is like in DT and you have no idea what spells were cut from our toolkit.


Your final comment is a bit ridiculous. You've claimed ast is just sch now. You've claimed it's whm also. Astro is changing in a way that gives us more cards to play than EW astro and yet you're still claiming the cards are gone now. I feel like you're just lashing out and not thinking about what any of the changes actually did for astro. I get job changes can be scary. but this is an mmo and your job is going to change drastically over the course of the mmo's life. Accepting that is going to put you in a lot better headspace than hoping it doesn't ever happen. I mean none of the jobs play like they did in heavensward. Bering mean to other people about that isn't helping anyone.

Jesus, you have to be a troll. Whatever, I'll bite.

So point 1. yes, I know dyne didn't line up with your 2 minutes perfectly. You had to double dyne at 6min and 12min (no fight went further than that that did not have some sort of repeated phasing that interrupted the card play flow, so dyne was less predictable in ultimates. You might say that's bad, but it's a facet of ultimates. Every job dealt with it, including AST). Might be a hot take, but I think having a burst window that isn't the same, static buttons every time is fun. I know, crazy right? Maybe that's why I didn't play literally any of the other jobs bc I actually enjoyed that part of AST.

Point 2.1 ...I don't even know how to dignify this with a response. But I'll try, just for you. Every card did not do the same thing. Similar things, but it interacted with your kit in such a way that just playing whatever card you were given on whoever you wanted was, funnily enough, not how you played the class! If every card was the same I'd just throw them all on the samurai and press dyne on CD, and then make a shocked face when we enrage bc my rdps was about 1000 lower than it should be!
Point 2.2 If you want cards to be more than EW cards, that's fine. But if you think what we're getting in DT are in any way cards and not just aetherflow with a starry aesthetic, you need to think a little harder. They might do more things than EW cards, but they stopped being cards when they stopped being things you had to react to.

Point 3. Yeah, we are. And now you're cheering that AST has become even more 2min than ever. Say goodbye to playing a dps card outside of burst windows or doing anything but spamming malefic for 90% of the fight, because that's what you got now. Enjoy your 4 weave burst window, if you can even be bothered.

Point 4. Yeah you're right, tank survivability and healing haven't been the same as the previous expansion! It got easier in stormblood, it got uh, easier in shadowbringers, it got... easier in endwalker... And... Oh gosh, I think we've found a trend, lads! Sorry, coming from the team that told me 'if I wanted healing to be harder, to go do ultimates' while I do TOP on patch with a grand total of one (1) healcheck in a nearly 20 minute fight while my sage just slams his face on his mitigation options to invalidate any kind of raidwide damage, you'll have to forgive me for not trusting them the fourth time they say 'it'll be harder, guys!'. And considering two charges of ED and earthly star was all I needed to heal every single dungeon from 81 to 90, somehow I'm not gonna place bets on it being any different this time around. And sure, yeah, maybe they cut a bunch of abilities to make room for these so called 'cards'. But turning celestial intersection into 'the Bole' and calling it innovative at the cost of the single playstyle in this game I actually enjoyed isn't exactly something I'm gonna let go of.

Point 5. When I say those things, it's because I truly look at DT AST, and I see a class with a bunch of ogcd heal buttons that I don't think I've ever run out of even in ultimates, nothing to do during burst but press the obligatory do more damage buttons without even having to look at my gauge or think about what I'm doing or how to optimize, and a bunch of single target shit I can throw on the tank and pretend that I'm definitely doing something to help the guy who can heal himself to full with one button whenever he wants. I see my fun and interactive card system stripped away in favour of a button that gives me a single dps buff, an essential dignity (or possibly a regen, exciting! Those are definitely very different and have many many use cases not covered by literally every other healer in the game or even the tanks themselves!), an exaltation OR a celestial intersection (wow, think of the possibilities! Oh, wow, imagine if I had to actually think about where to use it instead of planning everything in advance and just having my agency stripped away in favour of a spreadsheet rotation), and a single, 400 potency aoe cure that I can use once every 2 minutes instead of using helios, a button I definitely press often. No thinking allowed, no reactions needed.

You can talk down to me all you want like I'm some angry child, but I was fine with AST being changed. It's been changed every fuckin' expansion since I picked it up. But it always retained something of itself with each iteration, and that something was asking me to think on the fly, it was allowing each pull to feel different in a world where fights are completely scripted. It let me feel engaged with the class instead of just pressing the single dps button. This is the first time where I can look at the class and see that everything that felt good about playing it is gone. That dps button is all we have now. Our burst is a joke, our filler even worse. Our healing, if the interesting buttons are still there beyond macrocosmos, are the only semblance of the 'set up healer' we had, but that alone isn't enough to carry the stale mess of a job it's about to be. The class does nothing special compared to the others, and it plays the exact same. The healing buttons may be sparkly, but they ain't cards. You have your 1-2 dps buttons (or 3, if you're sage, which isn't much better), and you have your healing buttons. Go nuts. So yeah, go ahead and enjoy the class and keep telling yourself that you're mentally engaged as you do the exact same thing every single pull with zero variation. Tell yourself that this is what AST needed to be, a one button spreadsheet.

[Moqi]

I thought this was a joke post at the beginning when you started mentioning all the stuff they removed but then it got...serious?

[Zolvolt]

Astro is already a 1 button spreadsheet, every healer is, and thats not going to change until 8.x when they in theory, move away from homegenization. I'd also like you to stop blaming button bloat when you;re using ultimate as a reflection of that.. Ultimate fights are notoriously designed to be mechanically difficult and not healing difficult in almost every case. You should be complaining about how ultimate's are designed, not that astro has healing buttons. The fact is you can find better healing experiences in savage than in ultimate these days.

Either way though, the devs are going in a good drection and I hope you can find peace with Astro changing for the better.

[KanataNanaya]

I'll translate OP for you guys.

I want to play whitemage but pretty sparkle sparkle.

All of your problems can be solve by picking up a tree branch.

-Astrodyne's buffs and cd misalignment throughout an encounter

Great! Lily is a straight forward progression with zero chance of being misaligned.

-Seals being a replacement for cards all doing the same exact thing

2 whole types of lily, each with different ways to use/proc!

- DPS cards always being superior than utility cards

BLOOD FOR THE RED LILY!

-Replacing/removing thoughtless action bloat with meaningful actions

WHM have every buttons are heal! Constant APM and what not.

-Lord/lady being held and not being able to see it's cooldown

Big ass HUD to see the lily cooldown!


...............

- Astro's pain point of healing mechanics happening during the 2min burst and having "dead windows" where we aren't using card OGCD's outside of burst windows

... I can't even fathom this point even in sarcasm. Ast is the only job that can burst heal while doing something else by place a well timed star or horoscope