Bring Back Stormblood AST - A Call Out To Everyone

[BUNNYisaac]

I would like to address the AST rework as someone who has played, main and loved Astrologian since 3.0 Heavensward.

First and foremost, to those of you who expect every job to be easy and "accessible", work on your skills and get good instead of dragging everyone else down to your level of pitiful skillsets. It is thanks to you guys, the loud minority who wants everything to be "accessible", that we have a botched AST job, not to mention SMN and SCH which I'm sure many has complaints about on their respective threads.

Stormblood AST was fine. The RNG of the cards along with the Nocturnal and Diurnal stances were what made AST stand out, but thanks to the "accessibility crowd", it has lost that identity. It was a healer job with a higher skill ceiling, and many prided themselves to be the top of that pyramid, and rightfully so, just like Black Mages.
Sure, one can say that the removal of TP altogether was what caused the entire overhaul in Shadowbringers, but I would argue otherwise. SE could've just changed Spire into a movement speed card and that would have sufficed, but no, it is because of you guys, ALL the cards became damage buffs instead, making it a not only lore breaking from the job quests, but also braindead.

To those like me, who kept quiet, who were complicit with the change, and are now complaining about it, you guys brought this upon yourselves as well. I hold myself responsible and accountable for not voicing my opinions sooner and being part of the silent majority just to stay out of "drama" because we all know how things can escalate, but not anymore. I know that people from the "accessibility crowd" will start calling me an elitist and labelling me whatever names they can muster, but I no longer care about that. All I care about now is the Astrologian job and bringing back its former glory days as the highest skill ceiling among the healer jobs.

And to those who have always been fighting the good fight, pushing back against these unwanted, unfun, unengaging changes, I thank you for your hard work, and sincerely apologize for not fighting alongside you guys sooner. I truly understand how it feels to have a beloved job have it's identity stripped away and left with only an empty shell. With that said, I want you to know that your voices have been heard, and that many of us, the silent majority are now voicing out, and we will pushback against those who only want the job to be easy, without putting any effort in learning the job itself and ruining job after job for all of us.
(1/2)

[BUNNYisaac]

To Square Enix, thank you for always taking our suggestions and opinions into consideration, however, there is a fine line between listening and pandering. I believe that criticism can come in two forms when it comes to jobs and classes; from those who want the job to be engaging, and from those who want the job to be easy for themselves. I understand that it is hard to balance both sides and take both sides into consideration, however, sometimes, you as the dev should also stand your ground and defend your own original design choices. Now that many of us are against the changes not only for AST, but also SMN and SCH, I trust that there is work to be done, and hopefully you are able to go back to your roots, your original design choices as those were what made the jobs fun. It was those choices that made the jobs have their own unique identities.

Lastly, I hope that in the near future, Astrologian will have these cards and skills back in their arsenal:

**Note: These were the original card effects from Heavensward to Stormblood.
***Change Spire to a movement speed increase buff since we no longer have TP as a resource.
-Bring Draw back.
-Bring Redraw back.
-Bring Royal Road back.
-Keep the existing Lord and Lady cards
-Umbral/Astral Draw -> Sleeve Draw @ 120secs cooldown
-If possible, let us also have our stances back. Both Nocturnal and Diurnal Sects as those are part of their core indentity.

MAKE ASTROLOGIAN GREAT AGAIN
(2/2)

[rawker]

If they will do that, that means SCH will have to lose Chain Stratagem since it is exactly what an AoE RR Spear does. I like it.

[Tunda]

It wouldn't work..

But I beleive that they go too far into accessibility aspect..

Not all jobs should be easy.. not all job should be straight forward.. high risk high reward think of it

[BUNNYisaac]

If they will do that, that means SCH will have to lose Chain Stratagem since it is exactly what an AoE RR Spear does. I like it.

Why not have both? We used to have Chain Strategem in Stormblood anyway. I remember always switching to Selene for her CD Reduction buff whenever I use Chain Strategem, then back to Eos when I need the heals and regens.

[BUNNYisaac]

It wouldn't work..

But I beleive that they go too far into accessibility aspect..

Not all jobs should be easy.. not all job should be straight forward.. high risk high reward think of it

Those are cards from the Heavensward to Stormblood expansion though, the original 6. It worked back then, and it will work again. It's the players that will need to adapt and get good at using cards instead of wanting it to be streamlined. And yes, AST used to be a high risk high reward job which many of us loved.

[Connor]

It worked back then, and it will work again.

It literally didn’t though and that’s why they had to change it lol. You had 6 cards, yeah, but in practice you had one (Balance) and two cards that existed to make it aoe (Spire/Ewer).

Arrow’s GCD Haste cannot exist in ffxiv as an ally-granted support effect under any circumstances because of how fixed rotations are (see: black mage timers getting thrown off in HW/SB because the AST arrowed them).

Spear’s Crit rate increases would scale exponentially (I think); either it’s useless next to balance, or it’s so powerful it’s not worth using anything else.

MP Regen as an ally-granted support ability isn’t allowed to exist in FFXIV anymore (see: ranged dps having fixed raid spots in HW/SB because of songs/autoturret promotions / refresh). No job can have it.

Bole has the exact same problem it has now (an effect literally nobody needs that we can already grant with a plethora of reliable, non-rng abilities).


I’m all for giving Astrologian more varied and unique cards, but let’s not pretend the original versions didn’t have a bunch of their own problems; not to mention they existed in what’s essentially a completely different gameplay design to what we have now.

[AngelicDeath]

I loved Stormblood version honestly I thought it worked fine when I played lol

[Rithy255]

I honestly think we should get a mix of Stormblood and shadowbringers ast.
The issue i have with stormblood ast is the mixture of DPS and utility cards, outside of that RNG is fine.

How to make Astro both RNG but not also lose out on major damage? Split the card systems from stormblood.

This can easily be done considering we already had a second card system named Minor arcana, which instead of uninteresting "do damage or heal" rng could have been where you placed the damage buff cards, Astro would keep its frequent damage buffing aspects with this, it's also pretty simple as Lords & ladies can serve the same purpose as one buff goes to range/caster/healer and one buff goes to Dps/tank which is still RNG, You wouldn't really need a redraw for this as it wouldn't have "astrodyne" or any other annoying effect attached to it.

For your "utility cards" I think you could also add a cooldown on 90-120s that turns a card into a AOE it's effect to the team, so you could turn a 10% mitigation card into a aoe mitigation, or a strong aoe regen ect. This would add some interesting depth to the "RNG Support" astro could provide.

For Job space, this would be removing play 2 & 3, so redraw can be added back for utility cards & theirs enough space for a new skill such as the AOE Card, Their also might be the need for a minor arcana draw So this would be one extra button, It's clear that synastry should be removed, but ill go a step further and say removed benefic 1 (upgrades into 2) and repose on all healers, that would even leave room for more skills... mayhaps one that would extend buff timers like a regen... or something perhaps x)

Also to note i really want Nocturnal back, i doubt it because they're intent on having "barrier/pure split" (which is funny because all healers now have aoe barriers, group mits and barrier healers are starting to have pretty high "pure healing" I don't even get this) but I would hope they can add this back at least whenever they decide on a 5th healer...

[BUNNYisaac]

It literally didn’t though and that’s why they had to change it lol. You had 6 cards, yeah, but in practice you had one (Balance) and two cards that existed to make it aoe (Spire/Ewer).

First off, they streamlined it because it was the least played class due to people not knowing how to use the card mechanics.
Second, anyone who only fishes for balance either don't know how to use their cards, or are very shortsighted.
I have never had anyone complain to me about getting an arrow card, rather they like it because they want to go fast, so I have no idea what you mean at all. Besides, if you really do have a concern for GCD timers being thrown off, what's the harm in using that arrow on yourself instead for faster heals?
Again, if you're going to fish for cards, this time spear if it's scaled exponentially, you're not using your cards right.
MP regen is still a viable card as everyone literally uses MP.
Bole isn't always only used on tanks, but then again what's the harm in stacking on extra defense when you can?
If efficiency is all you want, well I'm sorry to tell you that AST is not all about efficiency, but rather deal with diversity.

Let's not forget that you are not always going to get the same cards, and you can only draw them once every 30 secs. Not every card has to be a damage buff either, and and that's the beauty, the identity of the job itself. It's all in the matter of how the player utilizes them. If they are smart, they'll know when and how to use those cards. As Tunda stated above, high risk, high reward. Not every class has to have a raid wide buff that is streamlined for everyone. Just because AST introduces some variance in a raid, and now you're like ants on a hot wok? Give me a break.

It seems like a lot of people forget or don't know that the cards can be used not only on their teammates, but also on themselves, or they just straight up don't know what to do with the cards and use them recklessly, and I really don't want to trash on EN players, but I've ever only heard EN players complaining about EVERYTHING being hard for them... like... how? From FF14 to Elden Ring, it's always EN players that are complaining. Maybe it's just my perspective as a JP player, but seriously, stop making games dull.