The changes to Astrologian are upsetting

[AstreMcClain]

I liked Heavensward AST then it changed and I gradually got more sad over the state of it as it became more and more homogenized. They took a good step in the right direction with uniqueness, but with the little potency compared to the OGC leaves people stating only two of the cards are good, but they can't make them too strong otherwi---- HAHAHAHAHA.

No, that is the problem- the main identity is the cards, the cards should be RNG and Almost Just as strong as the OGC's, not In Astral and Umbral sets with three different play buttons. EndWalker AST is great the only things that COULD make it better is Card uniqueness with a stronger potency for the effects with an Emphasis on MORE on the cards AND Sleeve Draw back for that Guaranteed Three Seals.

SE, retrain your team to listen to feedback.

[AstreMcClain]

These new AST changes are terrible, our healing kit with 3 Essential Dignities, 2 Celestial Intersections, Exaltation, and Synastry are MORE than enough for single target mitigation and heals. Together with massive tank buffs, there is very little use for any more healing up, 10% mit, and whatever else these cards are giving that are not DPS cards. Because dear god, as a AST I'm about to have 6 single target mit/heal/buffs now?

Also how did we walk a decade back in game design from dealing cards with 1 SINGLE BUTTON to 4 DIFFERENT PLAYS (Play 1,2,3, and Minor Arcana). What is going on, did we not agree we need LESS button bloat not more? And please don't compare the 4 Draws to Undraw, Redraw, Astrodyne, etc... Replacing 4 different skills with 4 skills that does the same thing is 10 steps back from where we were and is incredibly clunky on the hotbar and gameplay.

Similarly to what others have brought up, we were given mana changes to Astrodyne and Draw in order to FIX our mana issues. Now we only have Lucid Dreaming + Draw every 60 secs to regen mana? Do the AST devs not play the game or are they not learning from their past mistakes. (similarly to other classes, GNB having a 800/100/1200 potency burst and SMN having a 1600 potency skill without guaranteed crit or direct hit, did we not agree with the Samurai changes this is bad game design?)

It's so infuritating to see all these changes for AST. I honestly wouldn't care about the complexity of the class if any of these game design changes make sense, but none of it does. These changes on top of healer homogenization and boring gameplay is the real dealbreaker at this point.

LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK!

[Ramiee]

“On the other hand, we could look at the example of Time Mage,” Yoshida says. “This is a job we had considered previously, but that is known for using time-related abilities such as Haste to speed up the party or Stop to stop time.” These work fantastically in the turn-based and Active Time Battle systems of past games, he remarks. “However, in an MMORPG, we are not able to stop time. And [if it could] it would kind of overpower the job. And what would be the point of a Time Mage that could not manipulate time?

What makes this funnier is WoW new healer and buffer spec in dragonflight was a time mage basically. The whole healing theme was based around reversing the damage dealt and charging heals over time and the buffing spec was all about giving power from other timelines to the person you're buffing.
Sure you can fully stop time but you can obviously have thematic moves about it, I'd argue Earthly Star is an example of a time mage healer move because it empowers over time.

[Awful]

Wasn't this just old AST? Stunning Enemies with Oppression + extending buffs with Time Dilation and Royal Road. No wonder AST keeps getting screwed over since even Yoshi-P is out of touch with how the job used to be themed.

It was and it worked wonderfully, you could extend your buffs, enhance them, spread them, prolong HoTs and buffs with Celestial Opposition. It had time mage sprinkled in its kit which really fleshed out its support role and was my go to healer until EW, if only SE built upon its old frame and kept those gameplay mechanics I think AST would be the most well designed healer in its history but sadly it's not, SE is too afraid to bring back time magic as it made AST super strong.

Edit: Forgot yes Celestial used to stun mobs as well in dungeons it was a nice little extra effect.

[QuviSae]

I had to....process how I felt about these changes. I knew I didn't like them, but I couldn't understand why that was. Now that I've let it soak in, I have opinions.

I remember chugging my way through post-arr (pre trimdown) just because I was SO excited to play astrologian. It's a space healer, what more could I want?! That's the problem, you literally don't need a healer for most stuff now. TOP was a huge sign of this. I admit, I didn't like EW's astro, double weaving felt really really bad especially when drawing and playing are separate. People have been voicing their opinions on the healer watering down since SHB's media tour. The only "interesting" thing astro gets in DT is....a post-div button. What really gets me is you know the person redesigning the class doesn't know what they're doing because the role thing is still in the cards. Not only are we losing the bare minimum of the identity we had, but we're going to lose the beautiful animations of draw and redraw. I like Sleeve's animation, but this is an imposter. I wouldn't mind the buff-slut cards from SHB if they just....did away with the seal on div system. I understand the randomness of the seals for astrodyne sucked, but they're the ones that dropped sleeve draw, a simple fix to THAT specific issue.

I LOVE playing healers, healing in late HW into base stormblood was one of the best parts! I'll never forget getting the burn and having to redo it over a few times. I am absolutely heartbroken with these changes and the lack of listening unlike other jobs. Dragoon players complain about not being able to use their big buttons in early burst? Here you don't have eye of the dragon anymore! Black mages don't care for surecast/thunder's current system? Here's a light rework! ((though nobody liked surecast.)) Their lack of listening to job changes is bleeding into summoner too! Why on EARTH does it have a fat aoe heal for solar bahamut???

I've REALLY sat on it, but I've made the hard choice not to play astro for dawntrail in hopes it'll help a bigger issue. It hurts because I LOVE astro! It's everything I want in a RPG role. These card changes mixed with....the healer issue is.....yeah.

I really wish they would just listen to healer feedback but the past 5 years has made it obvious they don't.

[Ryskim]

HW AST still remains the best version of it for me. I miss time dilation and the nocturnal/diurnal system. Everything that came after is just... pointless. They keep dumbing the job down again and again.

[SeverianLyonesse]

Just want to link this article

It's an interview with Yoshi-P about job ideas that they ultimately abandoned when making new jobs. I find this part particularly hilariously sad.

“On the other hand, we could look at the example of Time Mage,” Yoshida says. “This is a job we had considered previously, but that is known for using time-related abilities such as Haste to speed up the party or Stop to stop time.” These work fantastically in the turn-based and Active Time Battle systems of past games, he remarks. “However, in an MMORPG, we are not able to stop time. And [if it could] it would kind of overpower the job. And what would be the point of a Time Mage that could not manipulate time? So we do place some importance on maintaining the legacy from the Final Fantasy franchise – but now we have fewer jobs that we can work with. So I think moving forward, we will have more original jobs for Final Fantasy 14."

Wasn't this just old AST? Stunning Enemies with Oppression + extending buffs with Time Dilation and Royal Road. No wonder AST keeps getting screwed over since even Yoshi-P is out of touch with how the job used to be themed.

AST was/is a compromised version of Time Mage (combined with Gambler), the same way Sage is a compromised version of Chemist (combined with Sage).

In a better game that knew what it was doing, AST could still have a few more time manipulation skills that only affected its own skills or maybe a single party member's. As it stands, it still is a time mage, if only in flavor, for using time-space magic like gravity and light speed.

But no, the game will never have a Time Mage proper, and if it ever got to a point where it could, Astrologian is already that job fantasy and would likely receive the time magic stuff.

[ThorneDynasty]

There's nothing Chemist about Sage though? Or really even classic FF Sage.

[AnimaAnimus]

“On the other hand, we could look at the example of Time Mage,” Yoshida says. “This is a job we had considered previously, but that is known for using time-related abilities such as Haste to speed up the party or Stop to stop time.” These work fantastically in the turn-based and Active Time Battle systems of past games, he remarks. “However, in an MMORPG, we are not able to stop time. And [if it could] it would kind of overpower the job.

Final Fantasy XI, which is also and mmorpg, would like to have a word. They had haste, slow, and a multitude of other status effects, both buffs and debuffs, and it worked just fine. They just don't want to deal with balancing around more than the single 2 minute buff window and the single dot they gave us. This is not a game breaking issue, this is a dev issue.

[BlueMageQuina]

These work fantastically in the turn-based and Active Time Battle systems of past games, he remarks. “However, in an MMORPG, we are not able to stop time. And [if it could] it would kind of overpower the job. And what would be the point of a Time Mage that could not manipulate time?.

And furthermore, we have Stop... it's just called Stun in this game and WHM uses it instead. It's funny because I remember in HW reading how they were considering giving AST something to compete with Holy but settled on giving it an oGCD stun with a cooldown so it wouldn't piss off WHMs. It would, but I'd still change to put Stop [Stun] on Gravity, Blind on Holy, Heavy on Dyskrasia, Slow on Art of War; it all seems more in line with job identity to me.