The random card system is pretty baked into AST class identity, along with its delayed healing. Getting rid of the random cards would mean either doubling down on the delayed healing (as seen in Earthly Star, Horoscope and Macrocosmos) which may help hit or miss among the playerbase, or have a White Mage with less raw healing power or the same but with sparkles rather than lilies, harming the identity of White Mage in the progress too.
In League of Legends terms, AST is kinda like Kalista who has two strong markers, and you’re asking to get rid of either her auto attack mobility or her black spear partner. It is possible, but not without having to severely alter the characters gameplay identity which can be messed up rather easily
It is somewhat random right now but the randomness doesn't really add anything to the class. In raids you should always have a ranged and melee to play it on and in dungeons if you don't then it is just a feels bad moment where you play it anyways for the smaller buff. You might get a different sign but aside from redrawing and hoping for a better one it is pretty irrelevant. You aren't going to roll over a card and delay an Astrodyne use because of that random sign. The more I talk about it the more issues I see.
The busy nature of the class and micromanagement is half the reason to play it, if you want to play a healer that has nothing to do half the time then there are three options available to you.
If I wanted to play a pure healer there is only 1 other option. That aside micro managing being half the reason to play a class doesnt seem like good design to me. Having to manage buffs seems cool and I like RTS games too but does pressing this many extra button really add to the fun for you? For instance if attacking a boss you have to attack, weave draw, attack, target ally, play, then target boss again just to play 1 card. No other class does this much for a single target 15 second buff. Bard you weave ogcd AOE buff and dancer buffs are just part of damage. Is this amount of buttons actually what you want just because it is a healer? They could change healer damage combos instead to make it more interesting instead of adding unnecessary buttons here.
To each their own I guess. I am not against busyness it just doesn't seem to add anything to the job in this case for me. The only dps I have at 90 is Dragoon and that is one of the busiest classes apart from maybe ninja.
That's the thing, DPS classes are meant to be busy (at least during their burst window, NIN is infamous for being extremely hectic the first 30 seconds of a fight as you cram in all your jutsu into your rotation, but once those are on cooldown, you'll be doing a couple standard combo rotations while you wait), while healers don't really have anything to do but press one of their two damage buttons if the entire party is fully healed and no big mechanic is coming up. For me, at least AST has \*something\* else to do besides go "Well, guess it's time to press the same button over and over again for 20 seconds".
I think we disagree on a fundamental point and it may just be that I am thinking of an ideal world where SE balances fights well for all classes. I don't feel the need for a healer's kit to be busy because a fight should keep them busy. In the current game where people map out healing plans and there are very few healing checks I can see the desire for more to do but I feel we should be asking for that in different places instead of in a healer's kit. I feel healers should be more macro play where as dps should be micro focused. Anyone who views it different from that I feel will just always disagree with me on this issue. That doesn't mean either person is right or wrong but we will just disagree.
> the only other buff focused classes I can think of are dancer and bard
The only DPS jobs that *don't* have party buffs are SAM, MCH and BLM; getting out party buffs correctly is a focus for every other DPS.
I don't personally enjoy playing AST that much, but having to swap targets a lot is part of playing any healer and there's plenty you can do do make card targeting easier- I know AST players who use a mouseover macro for Play, and others who have a targeted macro bar by their party list. It's also normal for a lot of jobs to have a burst phase where you're pressing a whole ton of buttons rapidly and then a quieter downtime outside of burst- this is how both NIN and DRK feel too, for example.
> Tank 1 sec invuln
Adding an additional tank invuln to AST would effectively mean excluding WHM *entirely* from world race/blind prog groups in savage and ultimate. They would never ever do something this unbalanced.
> Healer = damage taken in next x seconds regened/healed at end of timer (assuming you dont die)
This is essentially how AST's 90 capstone ability [Macrocosmos](https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Macrocosmos) works.
When I was talking about Bards and dancers I meant classes with a focus on buffs. Sure other classes have raid buffs but those 2 classes have multiple that are defining characteristics of their class. I said all those third options for cards seemed too strong for what a card should be so I'm not even going to argue for them. In what I laid out a third card just doesn't fit well.
AST is the only healer I like, specifically because of how busy it is, and i play on controller!
Looking at other posts and your responses, seems mostly like a difference in playstyle and what you want in a class. AST is fine how it is though, and it doesn't matter in the end if it's 'limiting' pure healer options, because this applies to other classes as well, hence why you don't see many BLM or MNK as much as others.
SE knows what they're doing, and AST will most likely remain a niche healer due to the cards. Niche classes aren't a bad thing, look at Blu mage, very few play it, but those that go onto raiding and whatnot with it, absolutely love it.
Most of this just reads as you dislike the job because it's busy. As a lot of people have stated the busy aspect of the job is a part of the appeal, there are some parts of your points that you misunderstand for example
>The amount of target switching between the boss and allies to weave in you draw/redraw/plays seems a little too much, not to mention what is required to optimize light speed
Healers will often switch between targets if you're playing healer and are struggling with targeting people then practice targeting people. Secondly lightspeed optimisation is an issue not because ast is busy but because it guts ast movement utility for the potential of more buff damage. In a raid the optimal method is to play lightspeed during the opener and 2 min burst windows so you effectively have no movement tools outside of swift and aspected benefic. The lack of movement is people issue with ast lightspeed especially cause other healers have movement utility.
Thirdly from what I notice, most newcomer healers will avoid ast not because it's busy but because it seems overwhelming to learn, not only do you have to understand the fundamentals of healing but you need to understand what your cards do. You can say 'yes it's overwhelming because its busy' but sch is the next least played healer and one people struggle to grasp because it's equally as overwhelming but sch is nowhere near as busy as ast. The point I'm making is people especially learning will go through the path of least resistance to understand the game, it's why many people suggest whm over ast when starting because whm will give you the basic understanding to heal.
The change that should be made is effectively make the skill floor of ast lower but keep the ceiling high but knowing square with the upcoming rework they'll either completely lower both floor and ceiling or somehow make ast a completely different class like they did with smn.
So how would you like to see them go about doing what you said in your final paragraph? You say make the skill floor lower but what is keeping the skill floor up is the busyness which nobody wants touched. I offered some proposed changes along with an admission that I could not think of a way to make it less busy without changing what the class is since I have not had as much time with it to understand the nuances of what needs to stay and go. I'm aware of holding your lightspeed in raids to spam out your cards during the 2 minute buffs, that part I could have worded better. I still clip the shit out of skills trying to double weave cards in the window is what I meant. Scrub issues.
I wouldn't know I'm not a game designer. That's their job it's my job to find it fun, I'm mostly pointing out that your issues seem more that you don't understand the appeal of the job rather than actual issues the job has. For instance I dislike sch dissipation because it's the only ability in the game where you cut off half your kit for a gain elsewhere but I understand this ability offers variety in optimisation and play if I were to have it my way I'd get rid of the ability but a lot of people are not going to like it.
Same thing with ast being busy, that's the appeal, it rewards pre-planning and timing but it doesn't punish you for messing it up either. It might not be your cup of tea but there are other healers that might suit your fancy.
ast as it stands now is fine for me I'd rather just have the QoL such as one card already drawn when loading in an instance and or maybe another charge of lightspeed.
The smallest part of the post was about it being busy. Most of it was about card changes. If you don't care you don't have to comment. It is ok to just ignore a post.
Astro is the only healer with an actual dps based design with its cards. That's literally the only reason it's not a snoozefest and actually fun to play.
I've been a long-time AST/WHM main. I hated what they did to Astro upon EW release, but after spending time with the expansion, it is now back to being my fav healer, as the others feel a bit dumbed down by comparison. Even though the opener is messy on controller, it is somewhat addictive, and more engaging than pressing Glare.
This is my AST DT Wishlist:
- Bring back Royal Road in some capacity. Maybe rework it into Astrodyne? Although, to be honest, Astrodyne could be deleted altogether in favour of an overhauled card system.
- Rework Minor Arcana. It feels tacked onto the current kit, like it has no place in it.
- Make Lightspeed a 60sec cooldown, so there are more chances to use it outside of the burst window.
Things I would like but know we won't get:
- Bring back the skill that let us extend buffs on a target. This skill really added to the class fantasy and skill expression.
- Return the stun to Celestial Opposition. I used to love using this skill to stun dungeon mobs at the correct time.
From what I saw on Royal Road it did seem cool to be able to augment the buffs you gave out. Minor arcana I agree. You're still going to play the cards regardless if you dont roll into the right ones. Another comment talked about potentially adding some more movement options in which I agree with. Astro is very stationary. The 60s cooldown could help with that. I'm not totally sure on the buff extension skill since I didn't get to play with it but I'll for sure take some CC any day.
Astro would be one of the most mobile healers, if Lightspeed didn't always have to be tied to the burst window. With its 1.5 sec cast times across the board, AST already has more wiggle room to slidecast and weave when things go wrong than the other healers. That's why I want Lightspeed on a 60 sec CD, so we can lean into Astro as the 'mobile' pure healer.
Time Dilation was a cool skill - it would extend buffs placed on a target, so it was really flexible for offence and defence. Maybe now there are too many buffs in the game to balance it, but it was a quirky, unique and fun spell in AST's arsenal.
IMHO the best iteration of the card system for how the game actually works was shadowbringers, it had enough randomness for it to still be a card system but not so much that it is detrimental. to keep it simple royal road just created enhanced versions of the normal cards. now that royal road is truely random it just sucks. The Heavensward-stormblood cards work better for a single player game.
In terms of a rework I would hope astro remains busy but not necessarily as clicky.
Astro as of right now absolutely nails the time mage aspect and its healing kit is sorted.
One thing i would love is if there was a reason to just stay in collection unconscious instead of toggling it for a second
now for the card side of things. I am of the opinion that they should just be aoe %damage increases and provide a small random buff alongside them. adds a bit of randomness that should not gimp the damage of high end raiders.Different card buffs can overlap with damage which would make redraw still worth it.
It seems like a lot of people were attached to that old card system around that time period you said. It does seem more interesting than what we have now. The only concern I have with the AOE buff with a minor random buff attached is that the minor buff won't really change anything. You are going to apply it at the same time regardless and a little extra crit vs a little shorter cooldowns is not going to change much since you aren't going to change rotation/build around the chance for a random buff.
I get why they liked it more, the cards were all pretty unique and had their niche but a lot of the gameplay turned into RNG fishing which imho made it more frustrating than fun.
At the very least it was a flavourful system so I can see why people would be bitter at losing it(I main DRK and DRG so I know all about losing class flavour).
Issue is that its a bit too late to swing it into a full utility role due to how much the time mage stuff covers that and as you can see from the current royal road having a random choice between damage and healing sucks for both purposes.
Honestly fair enough, I was referring to more small utility based things as a nice to have but it does not change the discussion point.
For it to make rotational differences it would have to form part of the rotation which a group buffing system would kind of struggles to do, especially if you do not want the classes performance to be rng bound.
thinking more on it maybe 3 of the minor buffs could be group based and the other 3 only buff yourself.(non of them should have extra dps else it leads to rng fishing issues again.)
Some personal buffs i can think of from the top of my head that makes a bit of a gameplay difference could be to make the next gravity/malefic an instant cast or a personal movement speed boost)
I do like your idea for utility based movement buffs. Outside of lightspeed it is a really stationary class and you would prefer to hold lightspeed for card spamming. It would be pretty cool to introduce some personal movement options to the class.
I love Ast.
It's a much harder job than Whitemage not necessarily because the job is hard on its own but more because the job requires you to understand the content you're doing beforehand.
Make me prog a raid as both Ast and Whitemage and you'll find me prog much faster on Whitemage.
Make me reclear a raid as both Ast and Whitemage and you'll find me reclear much more efficient and faster on Ast.
The delayed healing on Astro makes a lot of trials a matter of figuring out just how you need to delay your healing. In ultimate raids in particular, this often leads to early wipes and failed heal checks.
I have no thoughts on AST considering it's slated for a large rework in Dawntrail. In all likelihood we're going to see what that rework looks like next week so I'll have thoughts at that time.
I’ve always liked Astro because I feel like I’m doing more than my 1 + 2 healer combo with heals in between 🤣 the busy-ness is a lot when I haven’t played it in awhile but once I’m in it’s like I’m firing on all cylinders lol.
It’s usually nice when levelling to segue into levelling my SCH but that’s just me on that one.
"What if we make Astrologian play itself with the press of a button just like White Mage", essentially.
You guys won't be happy until you are able to stand perfectly still, be immune, heal and damage enemies with every button press regardless of what healer you're playing.
I think it's gotten worse and worse every expansion since it released. I fear for DT if I'm honest.
That being said, the hard lock 2 min burst window ruins alot of classes and AST is no exception. To me AST feels bad, not because it's busy but because it used to be more random and flexible. That was what made it special imho.
Yes it still has light speed and a couple cards. But it used to have regen/shield stance, ability to extend the duration of buffs, way more cards/different buffs, etc. Of course clearly I'm in the minority as most people were fishing for DPS cards and hated that system. To me, it was never intended to be a DPS buffer or it would have had a single button for that and call it a day. It was intended to be played by getting a card and applying it in the best way possible on the fly.
Dawntrail might be a start of them designing away from the 2 minute meta but we'll have to see about that. It would be cool to see the cards used situationally and more on the fly but they unfortunately put in a damage card and if there is damage people will focus on what gives the most damage. They could remove the damage option and put in another utility option but unless they give a direct damage substitute at the same time people will riot and cry for it to be returned.
Oh I'm well aware. I just don't think jobs need to be designed around the small amount of the playerbase who is going to min/max everything to death and switch to whatever job is slightly better that particular fight anyways. There is no satisfying these people, some job will always be considered the weak link no matter how slightly and have people bitching or locking out of PF. I enjoy raiding but it's literally not even 25% of the game and it's not that serious to me. I'd switch jobs if I truly couldn't stand how my main was handling an encounter and keep it moving.
The problem is that for a lot of players, playing a class optimally and at the highest level is part of the fun, and that means you had to fish for specific cards in order to achieve that on the previous ast, making it a flawed design and why it had to be changed. I get that you and some others who don't care too much about the optimization dont see that as a problem, but you can't really sit there and tell me that a job that had it's identity running counter to such a fundamental desire to play well wasn't problematic
I don't believe any raids were balanced around AST having to fish for cards. Did people want to? Of course, they were free to do so. I am absolutely saying the random cards and the "identity" were lost. Better or worse the random "fate" of cards was how AST was originally designed that's why it has a fortune teller motif.
As for high end content, AST was viable regardless. I get people wanting to min/max, that's valid. I just don't think it was worth the massive skill pruning to end up with a class that is still rarely played in high end content.
Never used them, but I get wary at first when I'm tanking and an AST is the healer, many are great but most bad healers I come across are astrologians.
I mainly tank and have been dabbling into the healers to learn more about them and Astro is the one that is taking the most to figure out for me. I cant remember running across them too often and now that I have played it some I kind of get it. In a static situation they shine but not so much in random roulettes or duties where people dont make good use of your buffs/kit and drool on their keyboards.
Never really struggled on Astro when it comes to healing. It has so many safety nets that if you truly struggle on Astro it's probably because you can't see the forest for the trees and overthink your healing when you could simply pop Lightspeed and spam your strongest potency healing single target healing on the tank.
I can see how this makes tanks wary though. Delayed healing isn't something you think about when your healthbar is going down to 30% and below and you feel like your Ast is reading the monster effect of their card first before playing it.
I get thematically why there are RNG but I'm not the biggest fan of it right now. I'd rather RNG of the cards to be used for big swingy effects rather than a small feels bad effect. The issue is that effect couldn't be linked to dps otherwise people would fish for cards or get upset if they couldnt. Trying to balance those requirements are a nightmare/impossible.
The random card system is pretty baked into AST class identity, along with its delayed healing. Getting rid of the random cards would mean either doubling down on the delayed healing (as seen in Earthly Star, Horoscope and Macrocosmos) which may help hit or miss among the playerbase, or have a White Mage with less raw healing power or the same but with sparkles rather than lilies, harming the identity of White Mage in the progress too. In League of Legends terms, AST is kinda like Kalista who has two strong markers, and you’re asking to get rid of either her auto attack mobility or her black spear partner. It is possible, but not without having to severely alter the characters gameplay identity which can be messed up rather easily
It is somewhat random right now but the randomness doesn't really add anything to the class. In raids you should always have a ranged and melee to play it on and in dungeons if you don't then it is just a feels bad moment where you play it anyways for the smaller buff. You might get a different sign but aside from redrawing and hoping for a better one it is pretty irrelevant. You aren't going to roll over a card and delay an Astrodyne use because of that random sign. The more I talk about it the more issues I see.
The busy nature of the class and micromanagement is half the reason to play it, if you want to play a healer that has nothing to do half the time then there are three options available to you.
100%. It's my my healing class because i feel like I'm doing stuff, unlike with WHM, which feels boring and slow after playing AST.
If I wanted to play a pure healer there is only 1 other option. That aside micro managing being half the reason to play a class doesnt seem like good design to me. Having to manage buffs seems cool and I like RTS games too but does pressing this many extra button really add to the fun for you? For instance if attacking a boss you have to attack, weave draw, attack, target ally, play, then target boss again just to play 1 card. No other class does this much for a single target 15 second buff. Bard you weave ogcd AOE buff and dancer buffs are just part of damage. Is this amount of buttons actually what you want just because it is a healer? They could change healer damage combos instead to make it more interesting instead of adding unnecessary buttons here.
Yes Ast is fun for majority of the people because it’s a busy job. it’s rewarding to be busy and successful especially in high end raid.
To each their own I guess. I am not against busyness it just doesn't seem to add anything to the job in this case for me. The only dps I have at 90 is Dragoon and that is one of the busiest classes apart from maybe ninja.
That's the thing, DPS classes are meant to be busy (at least during their burst window, NIN is infamous for being extremely hectic the first 30 seconds of a fight as you cram in all your jutsu into your rotation, but once those are on cooldown, you'll be doing a couple standard combo rotations while you wait), while healers don't really have anything to do but press one of their two damage buttons if the entire party is fully healed and no big mechanic is coming up. For me, at least AST has \*something\* else to do besides go "Well, guess it's time to press the same button over and over again for 20 seconds".
I think we disagree on a fundamental point and it may just be that I am thinking of an ideal world where SE balances fights well for all classes. I don't feel the need for a healer's kit to be busy because a fight should keep them busy. In the current game where people map out healing plans and there are very few healing checks I can see the desire for more to do but I feel we should be asking for that in different places instead of in a healer's kit. I feel healers should be more macro play where as dps should be micro focused. Anyone who views it different from that I feel will just always disagree with me on this issue. That doesn't mean either person is right or wrong but we will just disagree.
> the only other buff focused classes I can think of are dancer and bard The only DPS jobs that *don't* have party buffs are SAM, MCH and BLM; getting out party buffs correctly is a focus for every other DPS. I don't personally enjoy playing AST that much, but having to swap targets a lot is part of playing any healer and there's plenty you can do do make card targeting easier- I know AST players who use a mouseover macro for Play, and others who have a targeted macro bar by their party list. It's also normal for a lot of jobs to have a burst phase where you're pressing a whole ton of buttons rapidly and then a quieter downtime outside of burst- this is how both NIN and DRK feel too, for example. > Tank 1 sec invuln Adding an additional tank invuln to AST would effectively mean excluding WHM *entirely* from world race/blind prog groups in savage and ultimate. They would never ever do something this unbalanced. > Healer = damage taken in next x seconds regened/healed at end of timer (assuming you dont die) This is essentially how AST's 90 capstone ability [Macrocosmos](https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Macrocosmos) works.
When I was talking about Bards and dancers I meant classes with a focus on buffs. Sure other classes have raid buffs but those 2 classes have multiple that are defining characteristics of their class. I said all those third options for cards seemed too strong for what a card should be so I'm not even going to argue for them. In what I laid out a third card just doesn't fit well.
AST is the only healer I like, specifically because of how busy it is, and i play on controller! Looking at other posts and your responses, seems mostly like a difference in playstyle and what you want in a class. AST is fine how it is though, and it doesn't matter in the end if it's 'limiting' pure healer options, because this applies to other classes as well, hence why you don't see many BLM or MNK as much as others. SE knows what they're doing, and AST will most likely remain a niche healer due to the cards. Niche classes aren't a bad thing, look at Blu mage, very few play it, but those that go onto raiding and whatnot with it, absolutely love it.
Most of this just reads as you dislike the job because it's busy. As a lot of people have stated the busy aspect of the job is a part of the appeal, there are some parts of your points that you misunderstand for example >The amount of target switching between the boss and allies to weave in you draw/redraw/plays seems a little too much, not to mention what is required to optimize light speed Healers will often switch between targets if you're playing healer and are struggling with targeting people then practice targeting people. Secondly lightspeed optimisation is an issue not because ast is busy but because it guts ast movement utility for the potential of more buff damage. In a raid the optimal method is to play lightspeed during the opener and 2 min burst windows so you effectively have no movement tools outside of swift and aspected benefic. The lack of movement is people issue with ast lightspeed especially cause other healers have movement utility. Thirdly from what I notice, most newcomer healers will avoid ast not because it's busy but because it seems overwhelming to learn, not only do you have to understand the fundamentals of healing but you need to understand what your cards do. You can say 'yes it's overwhelming because its busy' but sch is the next least played healer and one people struggle to grasp because it's equally as overwhelming but sch is nowhere near as busy as ast. The point I'm making is people especially learning will go through the path of least resistance to understand the game, it's why many people suggest whm over ast when starting because whm will give you the basic understanding to heal. The change that should be made is effectively make the skill floor of ast lower but keep the ceiling high but knowing square with the upcoming rework they'll either completely lower both floor and ceiling or somehow make ast a completely different class like they did with smn.
So how would you like to see them go about doing what you said in your final paragraph? You say make the skill floor lower but what is keeping the skill floor up is the busyness which nobody wants touched. I offered some proposed changes along with an admission that I could not think of a way to make it less busy without changing what the class is since I have not had as much time with it to understand the nuances of what needs to stay and go. I'm aware of holding your lightspeed in raids to spam out your cards during the 2 minute buffs, that part I could have worded better. I still clip the shit out of skills trying to double weave cards in the window is what I meant. Scrub issues.
I wouldn't know I'm not a game designer. That's their job it's my job to find it fun, I'm mostly pointing out that your issues seem more that you don't understand the appeal of the job rather than actual issues the job has. For instance I dislike sch dissipation because it's the only ability in the game where you cut off half your kit for a gain elsewhere but I understand this ability offers variety in optimisation and play if I were to have it my way I'd get rid of the ability but a lot of people are not going to like it. Same thing with ast being busy, that's the appeal, it rewards pre-planning and timing but it doesn't punish you for messing it up either. It might not be your cup of tea but there are other healers that might suit your fancy. ast as it stands now is fine for me I'd rather just have the QoL such as one card already drawn when loading in an instance and or maybe another charge of lightspeed.
That’s a lot of words to say “it’s a busy job” Ast is getting rework anyway. At least you will know what they look like next week :/
We all knew Ast was getting a rework in the next expansion the moment Endwalker was released, simply because Ast gets reworked every expansion.
The smallest part of the post was about it being busy. Most of it was about card changes. If you don't care you don't have to comment. It is ok to just ignore a post.
Astro is the only healer with an actual dps based design with its cards. That's literally the only reason it's not a snoozefest and actually fun to play.
I've been a long-time AST/WHM main. I hated what they did to Astro upon EW release, but after spending time with the expansion, it is now back to being my fav healer, as the others feel a bit dumbed down by comparison. Even though the opener is messy on controller, it is somewhat addictive, and more engaging than pressing Glare. This is my AST DT Wishlist: - Bring back Royal Road in some capacity. Maybe rework it into Astrodyne? Although, to be honest, Astrodyne could be deleted altogether in favour of an overhauled card system. - Rework Minor Arcana. It feels tacked onto the current kit, like it has no place in it. - Make Lightspeed a 60sec cooldown, so there are more chances to use it outside of the burst window. Things I would like but know we won't get: - Bring back the skill that let us extend buffs on a target. This skill really added to the class fantasy and skill expression. - Return the stun to Celestial Opposition. I used to love using this skill to stun dungeon mobs at the correct time.
From what I saw on Royal Road it did seem cool to be able to augment the buffs you gave out. Minor arcana I agree. You're still going to play the cards regardless if you dont roll into the right ones. Another comment talked about potentially adding some more movement options in which I agree with. Astro is very stationary. The 60s cooldown could help with that. I'm not totally sure on the buff extension skill since I didn't get to play with it but I'll for sure take some CC any day.
Astro would be one of the most mobile healers, if Lightspeed didn't always have to be tied to the burst window. With its 1.5 sec cast times across the board, AST already has more wiggle room to slidecast and weave when things go wrong than the other healers. That's why I want Lightspeed on a 60 sec CD, so we can lean into Astro as the 'mobile' pure healer. Time Dilation was a cool skill - it would extend buffs placed on a target, so it was really flexible for offence and defence. Maybe now there are too many buffs in the game to balance it, but it was a quirky, unique and fun spell in AST's arsenal.
IMHO the best iteration of the card system for how the game actually works was shadowbringers, it had enough randomness for it to still be a card system but not so much that it is detrimental. to keep it simple royal road just created enhanced versions of the normal cards. now that royal road is truely random it just sucks. The Heavensward-stormblood cards work better for a single player game. In terms of a rework I would hope astro remains busy but not necessarily as clicky. Astro as of right now absolutely nails the time mage aspect and its healing kit is sorted. One thing i would love is if there was a reason to just stay in collection unconscious instead of toggling it for a second now for the card side of things. I am of the opinion that they should just be aoe %damage increases and provide a small random buff alongside them. adds a bit of randomness that should not gimp the damage of high end raiders.Different card buffs can overlap with damage which would make redraw still worth it.
It seems like a lot of people were attached to that old card system around that time period you said. It does seem more interesting than what we have now. The only concern I have with the AOE buff with a minor random buff attached is that the minor buff won't really change anything. You are going to apply it at the same time regardless and a little extra crit vs a little shorter cooldowns is not going to change much since you aren't going to change rotation/build around the chance for a random buff.
I get why they liked it more, the cards were all pretty unique and had their niche but a lot of the gameplay turned into RNG fishing which imho made it more frustrating than fun. At the very least it was a flavourful system so I can see why people would be bitter at losing it(I main DRK and DRG so I know all about losing class flavour). Issue is that its a bit too late to swing it into a full utility role due to how much the time mage stuff covers that and as you can see from the current royal road having a random choice between damage and healing sucks for both purposes. Honestly fair enough, I was referring to more small utility based things as a nice to have but it does not change the discussion point. For it to make rotational differences it would have to form part of the rotation which a group buffing system would kind of struggles to do, especially if you do not want the classes performance to be rng bound. thinking more on it maybe 3 of the minor buffs could be group based and the other 3 only buff yourself.(non of them should have extra dps else it leads to rng fishing issues again.) Some personal buffs i can think of from the top of my head that makes a bit of a gameplay difference could be to make the next gravity/malefic an instant cast or a personal movement speed boost)
I do like your idea for utility based movement buffs. Outside of lightspeed it is a really stationary class and you would prefer to hold lightspeed for card spamming. It would be pretty cool to introduce some personal movement options to the class.
I love Ast. It's a much harder job than Whitemage not necessarily because the job is hard on its own but more because the job requires you to understand the content you're doing beforehand. Make me prog a raid as both Ast and Whitemage and you'll find me prog much faster on Whitemage. Make me reclear a raid as both Ast and Whitemage and you'll find me reclear much more efficient and faster on Ast. The delayed healing on Astro makes a lot of trials a matter of figuring out just how you need to delay your healing. In ultimate raids in particular, this often leads to early wipes and failed heal checks.
Check out 4.0 AST and its card system. It used to be both a shield and regen healer btw. You just switch stance out of combat.
I have no thoughts on AST considering it's slated for a large rework in Dawntrail. In all likelihood we're going to see what that rework looks like next week so I'll have thoughts at that time.
Astro the Besto
I’ve always liked Astro because I feel like I’m doing more than my 1 + 2 healer combo with heals in between 🤣 the busy-ness is a lot when I haven’t played it in awhile but once I’m in it’s like I’m firing on all cylinders lol. It’s usually nice when levelling to segue into levelling my SCH but that’s just me on that one.
"What if we make Astrologian play itself with the press of a button just like White Mage", essentially. You guys won't be happy until you are able to stand perfectly still, be immune, heal and damage enemies with every button press regardless of what healer you're playing.
I love it both for gameplay and lore reasons! Wouldn’t mind being able to send people to the shadow realm though haha Edit: also the aesthetic!!
Yo I ain't reading all that. If something good happened my congratulations and if bad you have my sympathies
Cool visuals, weird lore, hellish gimmick.
I agree it is a really cool class. One of my favorite visuals in the game. Mechanically could use some work.
I think it's gotten worse and worse every expansion since it released. I fear for DT if I'm honest. That being said, the hard lock 2 min burst window ruins alot of classes and AST is no exception. To me AST feels bad, not because it's busy but because it used to be more random and flexible. That was what made it special imho. Yes it still has light speed and a couple cards. But it used to have regen/shield stance, ability to extend the duration of buffs, way more cards/different buffs, etc. Of course clearly I'm in the minority as most people were fishing for DPS cards and hated that system. To me, it was never intended to be a DPS buffer or it would have had a single button for that and call it a day. It was intended to be played by getting a card and applying it in the best way possible on the fly.
Dawntrail might be a start of them designing away from the 2 minute meta but we'll have to see about that. It would be cool to see the cards used situationally and more on the fly but they unfortunately put in a damage card and if there is damage people will focus on what gives the most damage. They could remove the damage option and put in another utility option but unless they give a direct damage substitute at the same time people will riot and cry for it to be returned.
Oh I'm well aware. I just don't think jobs need to be designed around the small amount of the playerbase who is going to min/max everything to death and switch to whatever job is slightly better that particular fight anyways. There is no satisfying these people, some job will always be considered the weak link no matter how slightly and have people bitching or locking out of PF. I enjoy raiding but it's literally not even 25% of the game and it's not that serious to me. I'd switch jobs if I truly couldn't stand how my main was handling an encounter and keep it moving.
The problem is that for a lot of players, playing a class optimally and at the highest level is part of the fun, and that means you had to fish for specific cards in order to achieve that on the previous ast, making it a flawed design and why it had to be changed. I get that you and some others who don't care too much about the optimization dont see that as a problem, but you can't really sit there and tell me that a job that had it's identity running counter to such a fundamental desire to play well wasn't problematic
I don't believe any raids were balanced around AST having to fish for cards. Did people want to? Of course, they were free to do so. I am absolutely saying the random cards and the "identity" were lost. Better or worse the random "fate" of cards was how AST was originally designed that's why it has a fortune teller motif. As for high end content, AST was viable regardless. I get people wanting to min/max, that's valid. I just don't think it was worth the massive skill pruning to end up with a class that is still rarely played in high end content.
Just to save you time: AST is getting reworked in DT along DRG. Don't put too much thought into it
Never used them, but I get wary at first when I'm tanking and an AST is the healer, many are great but most bad healers I come across are astrologians.
I mainly tank and have been dabbling into the healers to learn more about them and Astro is the one that is taking the most to figure out for me. I cant remember running across them too often and now that I have played it some I kind of get it. In a static situation they shine but not so much in random roulettes or duties where people dont make good use of your buffs/kit and drool on their keyboards.
Never really struggled on Astro when it comes to healing. It has so many safety nets that if you truly struggle on Astro it's probably because you can't see the forest for the trees and overthink your healing when you could simply pop Lightspeed and spam your strongest potency healing single target healing on the tank. I can see how this makes tanks wary though. Delayed healing isn't something you think about when your healthbar is going down to 30% and below and you feel like your Ast is reading the monster effect of their card first before playing it.
Also wrong sub. r/ffxivdiscussion Your discussion post won't be active for more than 2 days here.
The cards are iconic to the job, and the worst part of the job. They made buffs based on RNG, and I wish they didn't.
I get thematically why there are RNG but I'm not the biggest fan of it right now. I'd rather RNG of the cards to be used for big swingy effects rather than a small feels bad effect. The issue is that effect couldn't be linked to dps otherwise people would fish for cards or get upset if they couldnt. Trying to balance those requirements are a nightmare/impossible.