Square Enix Can't Figure How To Make AST Fun!

[Tunda]

This is the worst iteration of AST,

I don't know what is wrong that Square Enix can't figure out this job after 10 years!

for the god sake read people's idea how to improve the job 50% of players ideas are much better than the current one.

it is about fun and fun alone.. as long history of making fun games you should at least make this job fun and balance.

[Baxcel]

My partner who is a former AST main says.. Stormblood.. thats how you make ASTRO fun.. I agree same with DRK.. ShB killed both our main classes

[KanataNanaya]

I'm not even gonna dignify it with a "try leveling it". Did that for 2 expansions and get disappointed everytime at the end.

[heynowjose]

Yeah I got it to 90 right before the expansion to hoping I'd like it. I was one of the OG astros, and that was the most fun I had with any class.
But this new version I couldn't even make it to level 91. Its just so boring?? And feels so weak?

[ASkellington]

They know what made AST fun. They got rid of it starting in Shb.

Go back to SB AST. It is LITERALLY what mains of the class have been begging for since card changes were announced before Shadowbringer's release.

[HyoMinPark]

Stormblood AST was fun. But they decided to change it simply because of the “Balance fishing” issue and “useless cards like Spire/Ewer” issue. Versus trying to make other cards outside of Balance useful. They were kind of on to something with Spear being increased crit % since two SB jobs scaled and benefited from critical hit rate (BRD and MNK). If only they had done something similar with other substats to give maybe something like Arrow with its speed/haste boost worthwhile (instead of a nightmare for most jobs). Alternatively, changing Balance to Direct Hit % and giving some jobs D.Hit scaling was another option. But why invest time in trying to fix the substats? Why not just destroy a job and its identity entirely instead!

A lot of jobs suffered the post-Stormblood job identity massacre. Two of my favorites included: AST and BRD. I’d give anything to have Stormblood AST back again. I can’t hardly stand to play AST anymore, and it just keeps getting worse and worse. For all the complaints about “useless cards”, they’ve brought that back with the new card effects, and somehow made it worse. At least in Stormblood, if you pulled a “useless card” or a card you simply didn’t need, you could Royal Road or Minor Arcana it into something better. We don’t even have that option anymore. So I just use them on myself (because what’s the point), or throw them on random party members.

Some of the effects are interesting and have their uses. Like Ewer being a small regen. Perfect for a tank or maybe to toss on a DPS that ate a pretty orange circle. But Arrow being a healing potency increase?? When healers are already overpowered in their healing output and most content doesn’t call for heal buffs? Unnecessary. Spire and Bole have some single-target mitigation potential—but if they simply aren’t needed at the time, then there’s no way to turn them into something more immediately useful. Which means they just go to waste completely, and that really emphasizes the “uselessness” issue.

[Xieldras]

I still don't know what they're going for with current BRD seeing as everyone offers party utility that's just as good. AST is just not the gambling class I enjoyed anymore with its RNG gone. There are almost no classes left that are fun to me.

With the amount of complaints concerning the current combat system (2min meta, low skill ceiling, lack of job identity, boring Healer rotations, etc), I think they need to go have a look at their older expansions and understand what made everything fun. For AST, every bit of writing from the forums suggests that StB/HW AST was top-tier design for the class and it baffles me that the Devs that essentially Phoenix-ed this game thanks to feedback just go and ignore the threads offering just that.

I seriously don't know who was asking for DT AST. It is such a departure from what made the class, both lore-wise and gameplay-wise (I did say in another thread that drawing predictable sets of cards made me feel like a con artist moreso than a tarot reader).

[Zolvolt]

Ast is the best it's been in years right now. It just needs some tweaking to get the rotational feel down. Which they're doing so I'm not worried at all.

[Freyt]

Current AST is a step below SB AST and a step above in some ways with the healing tools. Ewer is immensely better as an HP regen than as an MP regen.

[Aelin_Ashryver]

Much prefer the DT ast compared to EW ast. SB still the favorite but this I'm happy with. Actually enjoying healing and looking forward to savage this tier with it. Lightspeed changes were much needed to address our movement issues. Otherwise our kit is very strong and looking great for prog.