ASTRO IS FINE

[Serendipintea]

Earthly Star, Combust, Give DPS card to DPS, Hit your damage up, Slap your other two cards on the dps so they can say 'screw this mech I have dps uptime', REDRAW, dps card to the OTHER dps, lightspeed, damage.

That is the damage burst phase. Throw a macro out there if you're feeling spicy enough or even a Horoscope if the pull is a big add one.

[ThorneDynasty]

Sometimes I wish this forum had a downvote option.

[Serendipintea]

Would you like to educate me with a better rotation?

[IDontPetLalas]

Would you like to educate me with a better rotation?

Yes, it's called Shadowbringers

[Meku_Na]

I disagree! It's boring to be serving the same breakfast and dinner over and over again. There's no card manipulation at all anymore. Previously, the DPS cards provided us with knowledge expression. Timing the cards so that they perfectly encapsulate the DPS's burst, using Divination's cooldown timer to time DPS's 1 minute burst phases. The randomness that reduced the repetitiveness of each encounter. None of that anymore! From 4 DPS cards every 2min, to 2 every 2min; served statically.

[Freyt]

I prefer this card system over Shadowbringers and Endwalker. The defensive and restorative cards I anticipated would be lackluster, but I'm appreciating them far more than I anticipated.

What I feel needs addressing, however, is the sheer amount of OGCD activity required at the start of an encounter. Lightspeed feels like a half baked approach to this.

Also bring down Astral/Umbral Draw's CD by only 5 seconds. This will help it line up with Divination far more so it doesn't demand extremely fast ability usage.

[Sylvain]

I disagree! It's boring to be serving the same breakfast and dinner over and over again. There's no card manipulation at all anymore. Previously, the DPS cards provided us with knowledge expression. Timing the cards so that they perfectly encapsulate the DPS's burst, using Divination's cooldown timer to time DPS's 1 minute burst phases. The randomness that reduced the repetitiveness of each encounter. None of that anymore! From 4 DPS cards every 2min, to 2 every 2min; served statically.

I agree, yet I feel this is the exact reason so few people enjoyed astro.

Basically, the card system was aimed/enjoyed by high end players because specifically it required extensive knowledge to be properly exploited. Sure, we can argue that you could just throw the right card at the right role whenever it's up and still gain dps, this is very true but any player remotely engaged in their performance would know that they just can't throw cards randomly like this.

Then you have the others, who either were intimidated by the system or simply felt it was boring because "they're all just the same".

You can't please both, it's just impossible.
We've been through 2 expansions of this, AST was barely played and card were a big factor.
Even in high end content, for every group with 1 AST you'd join 10 groups with a WHM in pf. Basically, why would I bother with AST cards management if I can do equal dps as a whm (like that kind of logic)

Assuming SE wants to even out the healer distribution, basically not having 90% WHM 10% AST, then either they make whm as convoluted as AST, or they simplify one of the "scary" aspect of AST. And that would be the cards.

I definitely 100% agree, it did provide knowledge expression. How many times throughout ultimate progression did I ask my DPS "so... [MCH], [BLM], I need to throw a card here, anyone has some big burst ? " "Oh yeah here I dump all my 3 xeno"
It was rewarding, and my DPS did enjoy getting the card "right" before they'd unload their burst. (especially my MCH god... you could hear her squeak whenever I'd draw the melee card)

But this made the job intimidating let's be honest for a minute here. So I personally understand their choice...
Ofc we can complain about how SE just dumbs down every job just to catter to the casual crowd.
Sometime I feel like they should make a new difficulty mode for those casual players, with npc only. there's no mechanic, you have a permanent LB4 tank (-95% dmg taken), NPC healer rescue you to the safe spot all the time for trial, 8man and 24man.
And a special "easy mode" for jobs only playable in those mods where you only have 5 skills which automatically target and do everything for you.

This way they could stop dumbing down everything else to catter to half the population who anyone doesn't care about their performance no matter how brain dead it can be.
Like as a melee, they'd have the pvp1 melee button which does the entire rotation for them.

[Supersnow845]

I agree, yet I feel this is the exact reason so few people enjoyed astro.

Basically, the card system was aimed/enjoyed by high end players because specifically it required extensive knowledge to be properly exploited. Sure, we can argue that you could just throw the right card at the right role whenever it's up and still gain dps, this is very true but any player remotely engaged in their performance would know that they just can't throw cards randomly like this.

Then you have the others, who either were intimidated by the system or simply felt it was boring because "they're all just the same".

You can't please both, it's just impossible.
We've been through 2 expansions of this, AST was barely played and card were a big factor.
Even in high end content, for every group with 1 AST you'd join 10 groups with a WHM in pf. Basically, why would I bother with AST cards management if I can do equal dps as a whm (like that kind of logic)

Assuming SE wants to even out the healer distribution, basically not having 90% WHM 10% AST, then either they make whm as convoluted as AST, or they simplify one of the "scary" aspect of AST. And that would be the cards.

I definitely 100% agree, it did provide knowledge expression. How many times throughout ultimate progression did I ask my DPS "so... [MCH], [BLM], I need to throw a card here, anyone has some big burst ? " "Oh yeah here I dump all my 3 xeno"
It was rewarding, and my DPS did enjoy getting the card "right" before they'd unload their burst. (especially my MCH god... you could hear her squeak whenever I'd draw the melee card)

But this made the job intimidating let's be honest for a minute here. So I personally understand their choice...
Ofc we can complain about how SE just dumbs down every job just to catter to the casual crowd.
Sometime I feel like they should make a new difficulty mode for those casual players, with npc only. there's no mechanic, you have a permanent LB4 tank (-95% dmg taken), NPC healer rescue you to the safe spot all the time for trial, 8man and 24man.
And a special "easy mode" for jobs only playable in those mods where you only have 5 skills which automatically target and do everything for you.

This way they could stop dumbing down everything else to catter to half the population who anyone doesn't care about their performance no matter how brain dead it can be.
Like as a melee, they'd have the pvp1 melee button which does the entire rotation for them.

They are never going to make AST remotely comparable to WHM no matter what they do to AST because WHM is the UWU healer and the shield healers are just better

AST is in the garbage position of being in the useless half of the healers and its competitor is THE FF healer

You may as well leave AST for people who actually like it because it’ll never compete with WHM on play numbers

[flowerkatie]

Earthly Star, Combust, Give DPS card to DPS, Hit your damage up, Slap your other two cards on the dps so they can say 'screw this mech I have dps uptime', REDRAW, dps card to the OTHER dps, lightspeed, damage.

That is the damage burst phase. Throw a macro out there if you're feeling spicy enough or even a Horoscope if the pull is a big add one.

Looks like you're new to these forums like me so you might not know, unless you have something negative to say about healers - you're probably in the wrong place.

[Captain_Whiskey]

I do not agree, I do not think Astro is fine, as others noted its Identity is being removed.
In general is more of a copium thing to say its fine.... It constantly changes a lot which means... either community is not heard or that not the right comments/info are heard hence the constant unsatisfactory comments.

Astro is not meant to be easy by comparison and cannot be as in general is a complex identity - card system.
So why make it much more diluted... for whom? I bet AST is the least played job by a bigger margin in DT as of now.


From my experience AST (playing AST only since ShB) is being diluted to a much simpler job, No RNG, MP gain is exactly like SCH now... And the card system makes it not exciting at all at the moment and set.
The illusion of choice of using 4 cards each draw makes it less welcoming to new people if I would have to guess and more overwhelming (SE wanted to make it more welcoming to that is more intimidating than ever if I do say so myself)

The biggest problem I see in current DT Astro is that Cards have GCDs which do not allow for weaving 2 cards with SPS built. So your two utility cards that compliment one another are VERY painful to use together.

The way I see AST being played is that your 2 buffs (From both draw rotations) "need" to be played at the 2 min window to be 100% efficient for higher end content, without a doubt....
There is no reason for the Cards to have independent GCDs.... that are not affected by Spell Speed... as that only allows for AST to be played in one type of build only effectively (Spell speed build is very punishing - clipping your abilities)

My point is, the freedom you could of gone for as AST is not as fun... not as exciting...

AST current player numbers will never be WHM player numbers and that is fine... so why make it a bigger divide between the choice of a pure healer in the player base.

Current AST change are just "diplomatic" changes between the community comments of "Too hard to get into" and people actually liking the job.
I am in favour let AST be as it is, with the RNG with the cards... as of current its a try, not in the best direction in my opinion.