I want to first start out by saying Squenix needs to drop this idea of making everything easier, more available. It is okay to have jobs that are more challenging than others. It is fine that the GNB and DRK is more of an intense tanking job than WAR. These classes being more complicated do not keep new players or casual players from enjoying them. These players can still enjoy playing the class even if they do so sub-optimally. Nothing wrong with that. But by dumbing-down and making jobs "more accessible," the more hardcore crowd is being pushed aside. The love these players have is for challenge and difficulty. To lower the skill cap on more and more jobs is Squenix basically telling those players "we don't care about you." And that is not okay. There should be variety, there should be different difficulties. It allows less skilled players something to aim for, should they choose, and the more advanced players something to enjoy.

Now, for my main beef with the upcoming expansion. I mained Astro throughout Endwalker. I started my FF journey later than most, so I did not get to experience the HW or SB iterations (much to my regret). But Astro is the healer I fell in love with. It was challenging to play well, the higher pace of the class made it exciting. I could happily play and prog raids for days and hours on this class and never get bored. It made me push to be better, play more efficient and I loved it.

With the tweaks mid-EW, Astro became less frustrating with its RNG with the cards by allowing us to not redraw a card of the same seal. This allowed for minimum 2 seal astrodynes every time(which I thought was an awesome little self-buff that made me a mana god). Successful burst windows left me with a feeling of bliss knowing that I nailed my rotation and did the most I could with what I drew. With EW, my only real beef was the randomness of the Lord and Lady cards which could have been an easy fix by just having them alternate. Astro in EW had a plethora of utility which is why I do not understand these changes.

With the new DT changes, the randomness of what you draw (essentially the essence of being an Astrologian) is gone. Now I am saddled with additional healing tools, some of which I cannot see myself ever using (looking at you healing potency buff). As a Savage and Ultimate raider, I never had a need to use all of my oGcd single target heals constantly. There were set moments in each fight where they were needed, but often they would sit there, capped. The only time this would change would be if my team decided to turn their brain off and eat mechanics, but things like that would often lead to wipes, so more single target mit/heals/shields would make little difference anyway.