They have the spear - no the melee buff is balance They have the arrow - no the range buff is the spear They have the balance - no the increase hp recovery is the arrow Excuse me what
🤣🤣ikr, The Arrow is apparently a better option for "Ranged DPS" if they intend to scale down only to two universal DPS buffs. Arrow has always been ranged in RPG.
Right?? Why didn't they just split them up based on sign. Would make more sense for Play too. Solar Play, Lunar Play, and Celestial Play instead of Play 1 2 3.
Spire and Ewer had restorative effects in the past (mp/tp regen) so it’s unsurprising to me that those now give shields/heals. The remaining current ranged buff card Bole also has had damage reduction in Stormblood and prior as well so it’s also a no brainer that it would get the same effect. So we’re stuck with using 2 the 3 melee cards as damage buff cards, and Balance makes sense for to be used as one of the damage cards. Arrow I think would have made more sense to use as bows and arrows are ranged weapons but I’m guessing they went with Spear instead since Arrow historically has either reduced GCDs or increased movement speed like in PvP and decided it was more utility focused to deserve the healing increase effect.
@@heliotropei I'm fully aware of their HW history, however, they've been Melee cards and Ranged cards for a longer period of time than they were in their HW states, it seems absurd that they'd prioritize what they were 5 years ago rather than being consistent with what people are now accustomed too.
The fact it's no longer optimal to give THE SPEAR to the Dragoon saddens me, but will probably not affect my enjoyment of the class outside of meming on this oversight.
An important thing to note is that AST begins with the "Astral Draw" cards already drawn when they zone into an instance or after a wipe. There should be no need for a one minute pre-pull timer. AST has so much more single-target curative and defensive abilities compared WHM. Depending on how SQEX tunes Savage or Ultimate, AST may be able to coast on oGCD single-target healing while WHM may need to rely on Cure II/Regen. Then again, double barrier healers are looking better and better for Dawntrail...
I didn't expect it to happen but nonetheless I would have really liked to see Ewer restored to its original MP regen effect as a "curative card" not just because it would've given us a distinct party utility tool that no longer exists in the game for ANY jobs, but also because I genuinely miss the aspect of AST gameplay that revolved around helping your co-healer manage their MP. It also would've been really sick given how the implementation of Darkside has changed, hypothetically allowing you to dump Ewer onto DRKs to directly increase their damage by enabling them to push out more Flood of Shadows. Alas...
Really wish they would break tradition and make The Spear melee dps up and The Arrow ranged dps up. I'd make The Balance increase healing potency, since that applies to both heals and shields, you could consider it "balanced" where the others give either heals OR shields.
I am a bit worried about pull times come savage. Astral draw can be used outside of combat so ideally you would astral draw and then wait for umbral to be nearly available again so you can use both the balance and the spear in the opener. The mp regeneration from draw also seems very low compared to the other healers
@@TigerRutata I'd be very surprised if the numbers aren't fixed so that we get more sources of MP. At least by the X.01 patch, considering that SCH's Aetherflow gives 2k MP compared to the 500 from the current build.
Play being split into 3 buttons is going to be painful on controller as my previous macro setup won't be as useful anymore, but I'm sure I'll be able to figure something out when I get some hands-on experience
If they are gonna mess with the cards so its mandatory rotation just remove the role requirement for dps... so it doesnt feel like one sect could suck more than the other
Been saying this. The only reason for the role restrictions on cards before was to differentiate them for the purposes of collecting Astrodyne seals. No Astrodyne, no reason for Spear to be shittier-Balance.
Prefer it because now you can select the highest dose ranged and highest dps melee or you have a squad like mine where I had 1 melee and 3 ranged. No it's fine
@@Frostbyte115 why do we need a role limitation to make that distinction? Can't you just rotate of your own will?? Or hell Wana be toxic tell the other to suck it up 😂
@Vinex3431 Because it means you can autopilot card play now. Which is what some people want I guess? But not the majority of people that are already actually playing AST...
One problem that AST has with the new change is MP issues. Without lucid AST only generate 500 mp per minute. While the other healers SGE has 2100 MP SCH has 2k MP and WHM has 400+~ 5 mp free spells. So, around 2400~ per minute.
@@tonyike8451 true, maybe make it 2000 mana since scholar gets 2k mana every minute. I seriously do not like this new iteration because the cards give us nothing new, it’s just adding more buttons to defensive skills Astro already has. Button bloat with nothing new or useful.
@KenchanKrafts Yea AST singles target heals and mits ogcd are now way more than any other healer 3 ED 2 CI exaltation and now 2 cards that 8 ogcd mits/heals every minute.
Kinda ruins the point of a selection actually. Imagine the 10% increase to healing actions being put to a Sch or Sge just to have your own regens also get buffed up and delete any real healing check requirements.
I like that the cards are more unique again but as others stated, hopefully they get more effects or at least share the benefits with you even if you cast on someone else
I miss all the cooldown extension nonsense. My BLM friend in particular misses the enhanced arrow + time dilation + celestial opposition combo. We had a lot of fun with that back in HW running expert roulette and trying to catch the tank off guard and pull aggro. Our tank friend does not miss it quite as much.
Why is lightspeed not 60 seconds...and like why are the 4 cards that aren't damage BASICALLY the same thing. Like 9 times out of 10, those cards are going to the main tank, maybe every now and then to an off tank. I got 3 ED's now, so I'm not gonna bother throwing dps any flex cards. It's a lil weird, will still probably like it...but in a begrudging way like how I feel about SCH.
1 you're incorrect. The I creases healing actions cars can indeed go to a shield tank it the Astro to buff their healing or Shielding by 10%. You read it as "Healing received" but it doesn't say that on the card. 2. A shield or a mitigation card for anyone who is in a tether mechanic or specific cases where they will be hit instead of the tank.
@@Frostbyte115 That card does not increase outgoing healing. It increases healing received on the target, so single target physis or hell Thrill of Battle without the max hp and heal. And why bother throwing a shield card on someone that ain't the tank, we have THREE ED's. We're not hurting for heals, and those cards HAVE to be used every min or you lose em when you go to draw your next set. (Card says HP RECOVERY VIA HEALING ACTIONS, which is exactly worded how Thrill of Battle is, but Thrill says on self. The reason why this card doesn't is because we throw it on someone to have them get more healing.)
Sun sign is meant to be a counterpart to WHM's new OGCD that triggers on their wings. So WHMs get a new ability that is basically an OGCD version of a neutral sect helios cast that comes out after a 10% mit; and AST gets the opposite (10% mit that comes out after NS). But the problem is that the WHM version is objectively better because it's 2 OGCDs instead of 2 OGCDs and a GCD. The only situation where the AST version is better is if there's unbelievable amount of raidwide damage that would make it worth it to push NS helios multiple times, which the game just doesn't ever do. It wasn't mentioned in the video, but also, how is it possible that Benefic I still exists, and Synastry and CU are unchanged from EW? Crazy that we got a "major rework" and they didn't take the opportunity to do anything with those.
Why do they gate keep our spells behind other spells? I don't mind it's a 2min but do not tie to something else just give us the spell. I swear they do this because of controller players. Stop handicapping our class, please. Also what about this for cards: Royal Road: burns drawn card to double the duration or potency of your next card played Minor arcana: plays lord or lady drawn Umbral: spear: dps 10% to any job melee or range doesn't matter bole: reduce dmg taken by 15% 20 secs ewer: mp regen 20secs 2500mp The lord: 500 potency dmg aoe astral: balance mp 2500 direct bonus arrow: dmg shield that dmgs the enemy anytime the target is hit duration 20seconds potency 500 spire: barrier of 800 potency The Lady: 500 potency aoe heal
it only seems good if you ignore our healing kit and the sustain/mitigation of tanks. Tanks already do not need healers unless high level and even then the dmg is scripted so... you learn when to shield/heal. the rest of the time smashing malefic and now now giving out cards the tank does not need. why give the tank cards he doesn't need? Thats just wasting time when i could be smashing my one dps button they haven't changed except OH! after two minutes of smashing I get a mitigation... tied to a mitigation spell which makes it redundant to use both when I could have spaced them out if they weren't tied together...... save me tarisland so i can enjoy healing again.
the thing about the card changes is that much of the effects are redundant with astro's current kit....exaltation and intersection overlap already, and essentially the other ones are sch's protraction (which may be nice just for deploy every other minute) and ogcd regen which given kardia/fairy existing to cover that doesn't really much have that much of a large use case other than immediately throwing it onto the MT- honestly removes a lot of decision making in the job and not really adding anything else to compensate, putting aside the decreased apm. At least most of its healing kit is otherwise intact.
Pretty much - whether the card changes will be good or a straight removal in essence is going to depend entirely on fight design. I don't expect things are going to magically do twice as much damage in Dawntrail so we will likely be just sitting on things a lot
@@RinBanana The problem with the mindset of 'we'll see how it pans out in new fights' is its not reverse compatible. We will still BE running old content. (roulettes at bear min) and people will still be GETTING astro and moving on from its original point. I think one of the biggest things that needs to be explored on these classes is how NEW changes affect OLD content too.
@@stardustorchard9316 on a less negative note from my original comment and going in line with how new changes affect old content, it'll be quite funny to see how white mage can make use of it's new dash in old content like cob and such; kinda agree that astro in current and previous content will probably take a bit of hit otherwise
Yes absolutely this. Glad to find somebody else's concerns that mirror my own. The redundancy of 4 out of 6 of the new cards in this system is concerning to me -- for as much as I dislike Astrodyne, it at least incentives good card play and quick decision-making. Why is Spire just a third charge of Celestial Intersection? Why make Ewer a regen card again...but an HP regen instead of an MP regen? At least then I'd have the option to put one of those 4 sacked cards on somebody other than a tank -- or I could have hypothetically chosen to throw it on a DRK instead in this situation to buff *their* damage. This rework has a lot of missing potential that could yet still be realized.
I am particularly very sad at this change, I was an enjoyer of the business in bursts and being rewarded for quick decision making and planning with cards. I’m not a fan of this system for Dawntrail, but I at least think this Card system is nice for players going through the leveling experience/roulettes, when you don’t have some or most of these mit tools in your kit already, it’s just once you’re Lvl80 onward, yeah. The cards start to feel way, way less meaningful. It is a shame that button bloat especially for controllers didn’t really get alleviated, and (possibly?) was made even worse.
I wish SE could figure AST out. Like, this new kit looks really fun, but I would just really like some kind of consistency rather then getting a new job out of it every xpac.
@StellarCove I feel like rng was removed to prevent balance fishing from back in SB when so many obnoxiously vocal people thought the only thing you used AST for was damage buffs actively throwing away the rest of the cards (which itself probably explains the bullshit cards of SHB and EW where all they did was give damage), now you're forced to actually play correctly to what the class is intended for but at the cost of our old rng freedom as a compromise
So four of the cards will always go to the tanks, maybe sometimes to a dps that doesn't avoid a mechanic in time. Hell, the tanks don't even need those card buffs because they already have busted self sustain. So really those four cards are completely useless.
You don't think of anything other than "oh it can go on the tank" 1. Healing actions increase likely affects shields and Regen spells 2. Astro already had two ogcds it did those effects with for a mit and a shield so it's fine to have extras to toss about especially for specific mechanics. Regen on ogcd is massive. A shield to chuck or 10% mit is also massive and increases the scope of mitigation Astro has. Which is good.
@Frostbyte115 so pretty much they are still going onto the tanks is what I read. I would rather give haste than more healing, I would love to give mana regen.
The main question I have with new AST doesn't appear to have been answered. With Astrodyne being removed, this will put Astrologian back to having the worst MP economy out of the 4 healers, only having the Draws giving 500 MP every minute if Lucid is down. WHM at least has free actions with lillies and Thin Air on top of Assize, SCHs can Aetherflow to recover MP, Sages have their Addersgall actions plus Toxikon should they need it.
Back at the beginning of shadowbringers, SCH went through a very similiar issue. the changes were so awful that square back peddled and fixed the mp issue they were having. As well as a fairy issue. If astros mp management is too low of an issue, or they are needing to meld piety more then the other healers without offering more utility, then square will change it by offering more mp regen somewhere. Like maybe a mini lucid buff added in somewhere. Much like how astrodyne did. Only time will tell though.
5% regen per minute without LD is unacceptable. You will run out of mana in 2mins by just spamming malefic, and no free GCD. compare them to the others: WHM 5% per 40s + thin air/min + lily gauge aka 4 free GCD / ~min. SCH: solid 20% regen/min and SGE 21%/min 2. loss potency from Macrocosms since increasing potency to malefic. 3. dps loss in comparison with current AST because modifications of card system. No compensation from spells. 4. Enhancing defensive toolkit is questionable (not only issued in Ast, the other healers as well). 4 more single survival buffs in 2mins, with existing 3 stacks bene, 2 stacks Celestial intersection, exaltation, etc. What is more, they buff tanks in the same defensive toolkit at the same time. Over 60% of game contents you will never be asked to utilize these abilities. 5. mobility is still the worst amongst healers.
Adding 2-3 more “play” buttons is extremely lame, and I think I’d honestly have taken the current card system over this but it was a great effort for ff14 at least to try something reminiscent of the good ol days of ast. The rest of the changes look really cool/good though so I’m gonna try it at least in Dawn trail.
Honestly what they need to do for healers is cut the free OGCD healing skills down. Like...a lot. Force healers to have to spend more GCDs healing, to force them to have to manage mana economy. This would also give them breathing space to try out new dps moves on healers, something like how RDM or DNC work, where you doin't have to break combo or something, but it would give them something to work toward. Imagine AST having something kind of like what MNK does, where each move in sequence of your two combos gives a different form...what if you had "star seals" attached to that, and you had different combinations to create "constellations" that would be like the blitzes, and give different effects? Like, with Spread, Enhance, Extend, etc... and the other three being DMG, Crit, or DH and make it so you couldn't just always go after the DMG one, you'd have to utilize enhance and perhaps crit, or extend and DH or all sorts of combos. Of course, you would be able to disengage from this "combo" as it wouldn't be a true combo, rather, buttons you'd press to get different seals. I dunno, I'm just spitballing here but like good lord these AST changes are atrociously bad lol. It's literally just "more pretty WHM" at this point.
AST is currently my favorite healer and has been since I picked it up in Shadowbringers. I really enjoy the utility it can bring with its card buffs, so it's very disheartening to see them gutted like this. You're spot-on with saying that we often just sit on our oGCD heals because there are so many and the damage output in most content is nowhere near enough to give us a reason to use even half of them. But now 2-3 of the cards you draw are essentially useless because all they do is provide unnecessary healing/mitigation. I understand that some players may dislike the randomness to the cards as they are now, but I think that's due in large part to how Endwalker made it so much more punishing to draw "bad" cards. If you draw a card with a seal you need but it's the wrong type, you are so heavily discouraged from redrawing now since you only get the one redraw and then you're stuck with it, potentially screwing yourself out of a better Astrodyne. What I'd really like to see is a return to how AST was in Shadowbringers but with some tweaks. Give us back the old Redraw instead of limiting us to once per card, and give us the old Minor Arcana to dump cards if we don't want the seal. Minor Arcana now (and in Dawntrail) feels so bad right now because you often draw Lady of Crowns and you really don't need the heal. Astrodyne was great in that it decoupled the raid buff and the seals, so I really like that. I'd also love to see Sleeve Draw brought back because it felt so satisfying to just rapid fire cards. I'll reserve full judgement for when the expansion actually releases, but I'm not very hopeful for AST based on what we've seen from the media tour, and it sucks that I may be losing my favorite healer :(
As someone who played AST through all of HW & SB, Shadowbringers AST is the last thing I would want again good god. That was the start of where it is now, and it sucks.
@@HopesBoomerang That's fair. The job has changed dramatically multiple times since its introduction. I started in SHB so I can't speak for earlier incarnations of the job, but I at least preferred SHB AST to what we have now and how 7.0 AST is looking.
My first thought was that they've somewhat dealt with what I disliked about the job... but potentially ruined what I loved about it too. Lightspeed being less hard-locked to burst (even if it's the optimal place for it in a vacuum) is great. No more random healing from Minor Arcana (worst button in the game imo) is great. ...but a) way less gain from knowledge, and b) if the outgoing damage isn't sufficiently high to require all these extra healing buttons, then my generally-busy healer job is even more dead than it was in ew :| Will probably still be my healer of choice, and I'm not going to despair as my cohealer overly optimises something I'm just dumping lady's on for safety (inevitably leading to a wipe next pull when I get a lord), but idk, it seems it'll be less interesting too.
Thanks for the vid, AST seems to be a hard pass for me now if I were to main a healer. Time to pick up SCH again maybe, my main now are AST SGE WM and have been abandoning SCH since Endwalker.
@@kuzanmaine-_-205 WM is straightforward and perhaps the simplest to master, that explains the fact that WM is the most used healer in this game. Regen, big heals (Both GCD, oGCD lilies, etc). They are simple to understand. You will probably master it in no time if you have mastered the rest of the healers that are comparably more challenging to play with.
Same, pretty dissapointed with the card effects. The SB system had clear issues but it was at least really whacky and fun especially in roulletes which is something no other job can say for itself in this game.
Agreed. If they want to revert Bole to its old Heavensward effect *now*, at this point just make it a glorified second charge of Exaltation. Like come on, we don't have the extend, enhance, or spread manipulations anymore...why is Bole just a shitty version of Oblation that I only get to use every other minute?
@@Frostbyte115 It's actually not fine. Bole being a straight 10% damage mitigation on single-target on an effective TWO MINUTE COOLDOWN (because of how the decks cycle) makes it completely useless even in the context of Heavensward lol. Our tools are supposed to be getting better not worse.
The jobs dead to me. I played AST for the difficulty and skill expression of the cards, the busyness of the rotation. This rework objectively simplifies it down and gives us cards which we do not need. I already have bloated OGCD single target buttons, why do I need a weaker exaltation, or a weaker celestial intersection?
Sqenix killed the only two difficult jobs in DT (BLM and AST) to make it accessible to the casual player base. AST now has a one-dimensional rotation like every other job. Same skills/spells/abilities. Same order.
Just remove the cards entirely already at this point. This is sad. There is zero point to them being there anymore other than visual flair, they're just 1 min oGCDs. This effectively removes the card "system" and moves AST another step further into just being "WHM but moar purdy", and it sucks. I'm glad it was brought up a couple of times on the media tour interviews, and to have heard Yoshida mention that they'd gone too safe and they want to veer away from that and stop being afraid of experimenting further, I just wish they were applying this to jobs now rather than 8.0 or whenever. :/ Job design has suffered a lot more than the content design they seem to be focusing on for now.
Amen dude. You know what would be more interesting than these cards? Give us a 1-2-3 combo off of Malefic which splits into a Malefic-2a-3a or Malefic-2b-3b sequence, each sequence granting a different star (Astral and Umbral, let's say). You collect 3 stars to build a constellation, which you then throw out either as a buff or a huge fuckoff oGCD attack, or whatever, depending on the combination of stars you use to cast it. This would even reduce the need for memorization by locking the number of abilities you can create to 4, since there's only 4 combinations you can make with a 3-set of 2 different stars (3 Astral, 3 Umbral, 2 Astral + 1 Umbral, or 2 Umbral + 1 Astral).
It is utterly hilarious to me that even with the rework that removes card RNG I can still only draw a card that I actually want precisely 37.5% of the time. My odds just keep getting lower with each new expac...I guess AST has secretly been the gambling job all along. Feels bad dude.
This is really good nearly back to old AST. But the one change I really wanted was to remove the gcd proc from horoscope and just make it full potency for 30s.
They like to trick people into thinking “Oh boy HW/SB is back!” but this kit couldn’t be farther, they completely killed all RNG in the kit which was the entire lore and appeal of the job in the first place. And the cards are not interesting either, they just go on the same people every single time I wouldn’t complain if they made the 2 damage cards Melee Damage buff and Magic Damage buff and if Ewer changed to an MP regen card (bc they completely killed AST’s MP economy with this).
I'm curious was to what kind of effects on the cards you would like to see? Mp regen is the only thing missing h ere that could be added. A shield, aoe heal, single target heal, damage for range/melee, mit. I really don't know what else you would want...
@@LuminateTheWorld Damage cards: Balance - Physical Damage Up, Spire - Magical Damage Up, this is far more interesting than melee/ranged cards since different jobs do different kinds of damage Mitigation cards: Bole - Defense Up, Ewer - MP Regen Up, the shield effect is just boring and might as well be another heal, having to choose between something for a tank or something for a healer is a more interesting choice Healing cards: Arrow - HP Regen Up, Spear - Healing Received Up, honestly healing cards aren’t necessary in the first place if they aren’t getting rid of any other heals from AST but this is just for the sake of sticking to their design Cards with these effects, alongside keeping RNG so you can get either 1 or 2 cards in the slot was the best way to handle their new 4-card system, you could even add new buttons to change all cards to its pair, or consume a card to change the other cards into a longer duration or AoE. Not this Umbral/Astral draw nonsense, you can’t even call them cards at that point
The previous version was fuggin clunky. I could play it fine but I hated it. ShB version was better. This version looks better and more reminiscent of Stab Astro without fishing to Balance
the more I hear, the more it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. locking sun sign behind neutral sect is bad, we lost 50% of our dps increase and mp regained every minute, so it's dps contribution is going to be pretty overshadowed by the other three healers. doesn't feel like there will be a good reason to bring an ast when you can just run sge/sch and have better dps, the same level of healing, and the ability to ignore mechanics, not that healers will be needed anyway because tanks still have enough sustain to bypass dungeons. I really do want to like this, I've loved ast since hw, but every expansion it's killed a little more, from where I'm standing, the only positive here is oracle and the slight buff to divination, everything else is a bad decision, made by people who don't play healers
Tbh the only thing i hate is the cards not being random anymore i hope it changes cause the rng with these new card effects would be fun to fuck around with, so hopefully they change that as they did say they want feedback on if people like the random more or not
Personally i'm against the rng. too many times I get melee/range cards nonstop and even after redraw, having to put them on a range class just "feels" bad knowing it's a dps loss from what it could have been. Also the lord of crown/lady of crowns rng was mad annoying.
But aye even if i dont like it right now lets be honest with talks and hints of how 8.0 was gonna be job design focused ast will prolly be reworled again anywas lol, but this system does show a little promise i just personally want the rng.
The rework hasn't even been released yet, and I am already immediately seeing some fairly obvious issues with the job design here. For one, the way Balance and Spear are implemented into card windows disincentivizes thoughtful card play in more ways than one. Balance being on even-minute windows and Spear on odd-minute windows ensures that going forward only melee DPS jobs will be exclusively receiving card buffs from AST during 2min burst phases. It also encourages me to only ever give my cards to the same 2 DPS jobs every time (one melee and one ranged respectively) instead of actually playing my cards around the individual rotations and performance of each DPS in the party. At this point if they're going to commit to this card design around an Astral and Umbral deck it would be highly advised to just make Balance and Spear identical so at the very least I have a reason to spread my cards around. I understand wanting to have each of the 6 cards be unique for the job fantasy but come on...if the other 4 have unique effects does it REALLY matter if Balance and Spear are just identical?
Maybe it's a start in them moving away from the 2 min window. you know, that thing that EVERYONE complains about now that it's being forced. What's funny is it was the community in general that created the 2 min window. Yoshi enforced it cause it's what the people want..... Now the people complain nonstop about it. I really don't care if it doesn't align with the 2 min window. I'd rather the 2 min window nonsense be pushed away.
@LuminateTheWorld This would have been a good point had you accounted for the fact that decks still cycle on a 1min cooldown, so you're effectively locked into a 2min cycle now. For this change to have accomplished the intended result that you stated, the decks would need to cycle on a 30s cooldown. I don't even disagree with your point about the 2min burst meta, but you seem to have missed the point of my initial comment since it wasn't really about that at all. I simply mentioned that the proposed changes to the cards further simplifies the 2min buff window as an AST; rather than adding flexibility to work buffs outside of 2min windows these changes remove even more complexity while locking you into a 2min window even harder. It's almost like you read "2min burst" and didn't even consider the rest of the implications of how the card changes affect AST, namely in terms of adversely affecting the job fantasy as well since a strategic element to card play would be removed. As much as I hated Astrodyne, I never thought I'd see the day when I'd say I'm actually a bit sad to see it go. At least it rewarded good card play; seals were only *objectively terrible* for the job flow when it was still tied to Divination, but since Astrodyne was added, getting 3 seals is more of a reward than a hard-punishment for getting any less than that (yes I know you lose some personal damage as the AST but let's be real, you're not going to drift your cards during Divination for a 3-stack Astrodyne). Furthermore, mitigation and regen cooldowns are basically more of a suggestion than a requirement in anything outside of Ultimates, Savage, and maybe some EX -- so 4 of the 6 cards are basically removed from the game now in most content. And you only get Balance and Spear every minute instead of every 30s, so your party buff contributions are directly reduced as a result. My point in my initial comment was to point out that this change adversely affects job fantasy and design by simplifying card play, which is the exact opposite of what most people who play AST for the card-drawing aesthetic...are playing it for...
And if you wanted to be really nitpicky about these changes like I am, this essentially just means Balance is your good damage buff that you get to throw out on a melee every 2 minutes and Spear is your shitty damage buff that you get to throw on a ranged DPS every other minute in-between. Lame. Or do as Rinon suggests in the video (which likely will be optimal) and just hold your Spear for right until just before Astral Draw comes up and toss it out just a little bit before raid buffs go out. Which still makes Spear the shittier version of Balance anyway but slightly less shitty.
I like the new card effects but the Play I, II, and III all being separate buttons is really annoying. AST for me is already very keybind heavy that's gonna make it have even more button bloat.
so we get *checks note* 4 additional skills* to put on our hotbars? well I guess 3 since minor arcana is technically a skill already but yeah this is gonna suck for controller players.
Upon first blush, this seems really great. This takes all of the annoying bits out of astro that I didn't much care for. I didn't care for 30sec prepull setup, I didn't like having to use 6 ogcds during burst windows to try to buff everyone appropriately. I didn't care for always getting the card I needed least in any given moment due to my terrible rng. I like busy jobs but astro always felt way too busy in burst, whilst simultaneously feeling kinda weak when the chips are down and the bosses are hitting your tanks for massive dmg. The 2 other cards that aren't direct dmg boosts all seem incredible for tanks, and essential dignities in triplicate is just icing on the cake. I'm really looking forward to this, and I think new astro has a ton of potential and will be good fun **Added after the fact** Only thing that I can see that I'm not too crazy about is Neutral Sect. It always bugged me that I had to gcd to get any value out of neutral and take the damage loss. That being said, however, I DO think adding the potential for just straight party mit is a nice addition, but I still kinda wish NS just had a heal or shield baked in. Still useful, but not exactly what I was hoping for. The other defensive ogcds definitely soften the blow for me XD
Imagine trying to be a competitive TCG player with the shitty decks AST plays lmao, 50% of the time you top deck 50% good cards (and 50% trash), and the other 50% of the time you top deck ONE playable card in a hand of FOUR. Even Yami Yugi couldn't pull that shit off.
Seems they could have just removed the card system and replace it with an extra charge to shield, +5 seconds to divination, and less mana for Asp Benefict.
@@ezrasilver9819Counter argument: how about we don't gut jobs for the sake of balance? It's clearly not worth it if the end result is this three expansions in a row.
@@TheOneGreat I was mostly joking. I agree with your point about not stripping job complexity. The cards are why I picked up AST as my first healer when I started playing again right before Stormblood launch.
7:45 "which if received well, could pave the way for healers getting a little bit more in 8.0" AHAHAHA oh are you being serious? I highly doubt we will get anything more till 10.0. and then we will get aero 3 back! Locked at level 130! And probably on a 60 second cooldown or something. Cause locking extra things to burst windows is great fun for every other moment.
Pessimism aside, neutral sect having that is very nice for flexibility. I quite like the theoretical nod to diurnal and nocturnal with the cards, at least a tiny speck of that lore flavor was brought back.
Bringing aero III back but making it a 60 second CD with like a 15 second duration is INSANELY on brand for their current job philosophy, except they wouldnt call it aero III and it would have a light spell effect instead of a wind one
@TheOneGreat when i was starting out last year, managing draw/redraw so frequently (this was before i was familiar with the concept of saving charges for burst windows) AND looking for symbols AND placing them on allies on top of normal dps + healing was enough to bounce me off the job. i might do better with it now that i'm better at the game, but at the time that level of things to manage just didn't click with me. removing the symbols and shifting draws to a more predictable system (and making them actually do unique things!) makes the job appeal to me specifically a lot more. ^^
@@penultimateApogee Then practice! Its so frustrating seeing jobs becoming even more simple because they seem off putting because of their "complexity" which in reality you just need to practice with it for more than a day. I swear job simplicity should be the furthest thing on their mind but somehow its always so forefront in every expansion.
You all talking about astro MP economy in the comments is funny to me since astro doesnt even need to think about MP currently. I dont mind that change personally because right now Astro doesnt even need an mp bar in the current game.
You say that without seeing that AST primarily is the fastest casters of the healers, primarily using Spell Speed along with Det and Crit. Plus limited MP economy can be a killer if a raid goes south and either they have to start using Ascend or they end up needing to be rezzed, leaving them with little MP and no hope of a bounce back. Astrodyne was amazing for that at the very least if you didn't get seals for the spell speed and/or damage increase.
@@HildagardeGaming I mean healers. Currently our mp economy is beyond bloated. We might need a little tweaking when it comes to the mp we gain through our new cards but we dont need anywhere near as much as we have now. Also when a raid goes south its normal to drain mana.
@@pod155 The playstyle was definitely more unique than this garbage with healing cards you won't use because tanks can keep themselves up by themselves in this game
I don’t think you know much about optimal card play based on that response. That’s fine! But there was definitely a lot more to them than just playing on melee or ranged
This just sucks. We have too many heals, and losing anything interesting about cards is.. bad. This feels so bad. Like, "wow making me consider unsub for the first time in like 6 years" bad.
I don't think they have any devs that actually play healers in the game. healers always get the short end of the stick. If they do have a dev he or she definitely plays sage because look how their new skills (dot) is on a one min cd without being tied to something else. If only all jobs could be so lucky.
Astrologian was my least favorite healer already (and one of my least favorite jobs altogether) and after seeing these changes eh... I think it's staying at the bottom. The card system was part of what made it annoying to play to begin with, so this is just taking that same mechanic and making it less RNG but more complicated/bloated.
They decided to put The Spear Card for Ranged DPS just to fuck with us I swear
Just picture the spear as more of a javelin lol
piercing talon baby!
They have the spear - no the melee buff is balance
They have the arrow - no the range buff is the spear
They have the balance - no the increase hp recovery is the arrow
Excuse me what
🤣🤣ikr, The Arrow is apparently a better option for "Ranged DPS" if they intend to scale down only to two universal DPS buffs. Arrow has always been ranged in RPG.
I mean The Arrow has always been a melee DPS card
What sick freak decided that of the 5 cards they could have used for the ranged buff, that they should go for one that is currently a melee buff.
Right?? Why didn't they just split them up based on sign. Would make more sense for Play too. Solar Play, Lunar Play, and Celestial Play instead of Play 1 2 3.
And one that's literally called "The SPEAR" too 😭
Spire and Ewer had restorative effects in the past (mp/tp regen) so it’s unsurprising to me that those now give shields/heals. The remaining current ranged buff card Bole also has had damage reduction in Stormblood and prior as well so it’s also a no brainer that it would get the same effect. So we’re stuck with using 2 the 3 melee cards as damage buff cards, and Balance makes sense for to be used as one of the damage cards. Arrow I think would have made more sense to use as bows and arrows are ranged weapons but I’m guessing they went with Spear instead since Arrow historically has either reduced GCDs or increased movement speed like in PvP and decided it was more utility focused to deserve the healing increase effect.
@@heliotropei I'm fully aware of their HW history, however, they've been Melee cards and Ranged cards for a longer period of time than they were in their HW states, it seems absurd that they'd prioritize what they were 5 years ago rather than being consistent with what people are now accustomed too.
The fact it's no longer optimal to give THE SPEAR to the Dragoon saddens me, but will probably not affect my enjoyment of the class outside of meming on this oversight.
Very happy that the cards are getting their uniqueness back after two expacs of 'here's more damage, now unga'
An important thing to note is that AST begins with the "Astral Draw" cards already drawn when they zone into an instance or after a wipe. There should be no need for a one minute pre-pull timer.
AST has so much more single-target curative and defensive abilities compared WHM. Depending on how SQEX tunes Savage or Ultimate, AST may be able to coast on oGCD single-target healing while WHM may need to rely on Cure II/Regen. Then again, double barrier healers are looking better and better for Dawntrail...
I like that AST still has shield and even more damage mitigation options. The old Nocternal set memories live on.
I didn't expect it to happen but nonetheless I would have really liked to see Ewer restored to its original MP regen effect as a "curative card" not just because it would've given us a distinct party utility tool that no longer exists in the game for ANY jobs, but also because I genuinely miss the aspect of AST gameplay that revolved around helping your co-healer manage their MP.
It also would've been really sick given how the implementation of Darkside has changed, hypothetically allowing you to dump Ewer onto DRKs to directly increase their damage by enabling them to push out more Flood of Shadows. Alas...
Really wish they would break tradition and make The Spear melee dps up and The Arrow ranged dps up. I'd make The Balance increase healing potency, since that applies to both heals and shields, you could consider it "balanced" where the others give either heals OR shields.
Or better how it is supposed to be
Spear gives crit, and arrow reduces sks and sps
They had the chance to give us the classic cards
Great insight! Congrats on getting invited to the media tour and I look forward to seeing your other coverage :)
I am a bit worried about pull times come savage. Astral draw can be used outside of combat so ideally you would astral draw and then wait for umbral to be nearly available again so you can use both the balance and the spear in the opener. The mp regeneration from draw also seems very low compared to the other healers
In Mr. Happy's video, he says you instance/respawn with cards already drawn. So, pre-pull Astral/Umbral Draw shouldn't be a thing.
Have the same sentiment regarding the mp generation. Wondering since they removed their mp generation skill astrodyne, how will we manage our mp now?
@@migurusu-saint9160 and previously we draw every 30s to get 5% MP. Now the recast time of draw change is to 60s but still restore 5% MP.........
@@TigerRutata I'd be very surprised if the numbers aren't fixed so that we get more sources of MP. At least by the X.01 patch, considering that SCH's Aetherflow gives 2k MP compared to the 500 from the current build.
For healers to get one new DPS button is something I agree with.
Play being split into 3 buttons is going to be painful on controller as my previous macro setup won't be as useful anymore, but I'm sure I'll be able to figure something out when I get some hands-on experience
exactly what i was thinking about, I feel concerned about how to play ast with a cvontroller >_
you could most likely use the new combo action feature to chain the play buttons together
How does one even play a healer on a controller? I remember needing to swap to keyboard to be able to manage spot heals on non-tanks
@@maxspecsMacros plus practicing D-pad cycling the party. You get used to it after a while.
@maxspecs its not hard. D pad up and down to cycle through allies, d-lad left and right to cycle through enemies.
If they are gonna mess with the cards so its mandatory rotation just remove the role requirement for dps... so it doesnt feel like one sect could suck more than the other
Been saying this. The only reason for the role restrictions on cards before was to differentiate them for the purposes of collecting Astrodyne seals. No Astrodyne, no reason for Spear to be shittier-Balance.
Prefer it because now you can select the highest dose ranged and highest dps melee or you have a squad like mine where I had 1 melee and 3 ranged. No it's fine
@@Frostbyte115 why do we need a role limitation to make that distinction? Can't you just rotate of your own will?? Or hell Wana be toxic tell the other to suck it up 😂
@Vinex3431 Because it means you can autopilot card play now. Which is what some people want I guess? But not the majority of people that are already actually playing AST...
One problem that AST has with the new change is MP issues. Without lucid AST only generate 500 mp per minute. While the other healers SGE has 2100 MP SCH has 2k MP and WHM has 400+~ 5 mp free spells. So, around 2400~ per minute.
Astro got 500 mana per 30s draw, so I’m sure they get 1000 mana to compensate for the cd increase
@@KenchanKrafts they going to need a bit more than that since they also lost astrodyne
@@tonyike8451 true, maybe make it 2000 mana since scholar gets 2k mana every minute. I seriously do not like this new iteration because the cards give us nothing new, it’s just adding more buttons to defensive skills Astro already has. Button bloat with nothing new or useful.
@KenchanKrafts Yea AST singles target heals and mits ogcd are now way more than any other healer 3 ED 2 CI exaltation and now 2 cards that 8 ogcd mits/heals every minute.
It would be really amazing if the AST received the same effect as the cards it gives to an ally.
Would up damage and survivability
Kinda ruins the point of a selection actually. Imagine the 10% increase to healing actions being put to a Sch or Sge just to have your own regens also get buffed up and delete any real healing check requirements.
I fell for AST in HW and I’m happy to see Bole get its original utility back as well as the other arcanum changes. I’m so excited
I’m the definition of casual and I love Astro. This looks really fun
I like that the cards are more unique again but as others stated, hopefully they get more effects or at least share the benefits with you even if you cast on someone else
I still miss spread balance 😢
I missed extended Arrow on monks
@@valkyrieKNIGH7 hell extended or enhanced potency crit for monk and war
@@valkyrieKNIGH7 settle down there Satan 😮
We peaked with Stormblood AST :(
I miss all the cooldown extension nonsense. My BLM friend in particular misses the enhanced arrow + time dilation + celestial opposition combo. We had a lot of fun with that back in HW running expert roulette and trying to catch the tank off guard and pull aggro.
Our tank friend does not miss it quite as much.
Why is lightspeed not 60 seconds...and like why are the 4 cards that aren't damage BASICALLY the same thing.
Like 9 times out of 10, those cards are going to the main tank, maybe every now and then to an off tank.
I got 3 ED's now, so I'm not gonna bother throwing dps any flex cards.
It's a lil weird, will still probably like it...but in a begrudging way like how I feel about SCH.
1 you're incorrect. The I creases healing actions cars can indeed go to a shield tank it the Astro to buff their healing or Shielding by 10%. You read it as "Healing received" but it doesn't say that on the card.
2. A shield or a mitigation card for anyone who is in a tether mechanic or specific cases where they will be hit instead of the tank.
@@Frostbyte115 That card does not increase outgoing healing. It increases healing received on the target, so single target physis or hell Thrill of Battle without the max hp and heal.
And why bother throwing a shield card on someone that ain't the tank, we have THREE ED's. We're not hurting for heals, and those cards HAVE to be used every min or you lose em when you go to draw your next set.
(Card says HP RECOVERY VIA HEALING ACTIONS, which is exactly worded how Thrill of Battle is, but Thrill says on self. The reason why this card doesn't is because we throw it on someone to have them get more healing.)
Sun sign is meant to be a counterpart to WHM's new OGCD that triggers on their wings. So WHMs get a new ability that is basically an OGCD version of a neutral sect helios cast that comes out after a 10% mit; and AST gets the opposite (10% mit that comes out after NS). But the problem is that the WHM version is objectively better because it's 2 OGCDs instead of 2 OGCDs and a GCD. The only situation where the AST version is better is if there's unbelievable amount of raidwide damage that would make it worth it to push NS helios multiple times, which the game just doesn't ever do.
It wasn't mentioned in the video, but also, how is it possible that Benefic I still exists, and Synastry and CU are unchanged from EW? Crazy that we got a "major rework" and they didn't take the opportunity to do anything with those.
Why do they gate keep our spells behind other spells? I don't mind it's a 2min but do not tie to something else just give us the spell. I swear they do this because of controller players. Stop handicapping our class, please. Also what about this for cards:
Royal Road: burns drawn card to double the duration or potency of your next card played
Minor arcana: plays lord or lady drawn
Umbral:
spear: dps 10% to any job melee or range doesn't matter
bole: reduce dmg taken by 15% 20 secs
ewer: mp regen 20secs 2500mp
The lord: 500 potency dmg aoe
astral:
balance mp 2500 direct bonus
arrow: dmg shield that dmgs the enemy anytime the target is hit duration 20seconds potency 500
spire: barrier of 800 potency
The Lady: 500 potency aoe heal
i feel like single target regen has really fallen out of favor so im glad to seen an ogcd one
I love that they got an ogcd Regen. I feel it needs to have a place in the game.
The changes actually look really good to me. I worry for my ability bar though, it's already pretty stacked, lol
it only seems good if you ignore our healing kit and the sustain/mitigation of tanks. Tanks already do not need healers unless high level and even then the dmg is scripted so... you learn when to shield/heal. the rest of the time smashing malefic and now now giving out cards the tank does not need. why give the tank cards he doesn't need? Thats just wasting time when i could be smashing my one dps button they haven't changed except OH! after two minutes of smashing I get a mitigation... tied to a mitigation spell which makes it redundant to use both when I could have spaced them out if they weren't tied together...... save me tarisland so i can enjoy healing again.
So instead of a DPS rotation they gave it a support rotation, cool. i really like the way this looks
the thing about the card changes is that much of the effects are redundant with astro's current kit....exaltation and intersection overlap already, and essentially the other ones are sch's protraction (which may be nice just for deploy every other minute) and ogcd regen which given kardia/fairy existing to cover that doesn't really much have that much of a large use case other than immediately throwing it onto the MT- honestly removes a lot of decision making in the job and not really adding anything else to compensate, putting aside the decreased apm. At least most of its healing kit is otherwise intact.
Pretty much - whether the card changes will be good or a straight removal in essence is going to depend entirely on fight design. I don't expect things are going to magically do twice as much damage in Dawntrail so we will likely be just sitting on things a lot
@@RinBanana The problem with the mindset of 'we'll see how it pans out in new fights' is its not reverse compatible. We will still BE running old content. (roulettes at bear min) and people will still be GETTING astro and moving on from its original point. I think one of the biggest things that needs to be explored on these classes is how NEW changes affect OLD content too.
@@stardustorchard9316 on a less negative note from my original comment and going in line with how new changes affect old content, it'll be quite funny to see how white mage can make use of it's new dash in old content like cob and such; kinda agree that astro in current and previous content will probably take a bit of hit otherwise
Yes absolutely this. Glad to find somebody else's concerns that mirror my own. The redundancy of 4 out of 6 of the new cards in this system is concerning to me -- for as much as I dislike Astrodyne, it at least incentives good card play and quick decision-making.
Why is Spire just a third charge of Celestial Intersection? Why make Ewer a regen card again...but an HP regen instead of an MP regen? At least then I'd have the option to put one of those 4 sacked cards on somebody other than a tank -- or I could have hypothetically chosen to throw it on a DRK instead in this situation to buff *their* damage.
This rework has a lot of missing potential that could yet still be realized.
I am particularly very sad at this change, I was an enjoyer of the business in bursts and being rewarded for quick decision making and planning with cards.
I’m not a fan of this system for Dawntrail, but I at least think this Card system is nice for players going through the leveling experience/roulettes, when you don’t have some or most of these mit tools in your kit already, it’s just once you’re Lvl80 onward, yeah. The cards start to feel way, way less meaningful.
It is a shame that button bloat especially for controllers didn’t really get alleviated, and (possibly?) was made even worse.
Yoshi P did say he was going to make XIV harder, so maybe the changes on healer are to keep up with the damage
I wish SE could figure AST out. Like, this new kit looks really fun, but I would just really like some kind of consistency rather then getting a new job out of it every xpac.
They just couldn't give us spread back man 😭 or buffing cards to 200%... Those were the good days
As comfortable as I am with AST as it is, I'm okay with this. But lets be real, you drip-feed me another AoE dps button and I'm always happy.
Wait...so I have to slot in piety now?!?
Back to more of the old style Astro, i actually love it.
But as you said, lets see if they are actually useful/needed in the long run.
I would agree but they deleted all rng aspects so it just doesn't feel the same
no royal road no fun 😡
@StellarCove I feel like rng was removed to prevent balance fishing from back in SB when so many obnoxiously vocal people thought the only thing you used AST for was damage buffs actively throwing away the rest of the cards (which itself probably explains the bullshit cards of SHB and EW where all they did was give damage), now you're forced to actually play correctly to what the class is intended for but at the cost of our old rng freedom as a compromise
the eyes on the character are sooo pretty
Well... at least AST still looks pretty
So four of the cards will always go to the tanks, maybe sometimes to a dps that doesn't avoid a mechanic in time. Hell, the tanks don't even need those card buffs because they already have busted self sustain. So really those four cards are completely useless.
You don't think of anything other than "oh it can go on the tank"
1. Healing actions increase likely affects shields and Regen spells
2. Astro already had two ogcds it did those effects with for a mit and a shield so it's fine to have extras to toss about especially for specific mechanics.
Regen on ogcd is massive. A shield to chuck or 10% mit is also massive and increases the scope of mitigation Astro has. Which is good.
@Frostbyte115 so pretty much they are still going onto the tanks is what I read. I would rather give haste than more healing, I would love to give mana regen.
Imagine saying 10% mitigation is massive 1 week before Dawntrail launch lmao.
The main question I have with new AST doesn't appear to have been answered. With Astrodyne being removed, this will put Astrologian back to having the worst MP economy out of the 4 healers, only having the Draws giving 500 MP every minute if Lucid is down. WHM at least has free actions with lillies and Thin Air on top of Assize, SCHs can Aetherflow to recover MP, Sages have their Addersgall actions plus Toxikon should they need it.
Back at the beginning of shadowbringers, SCH went through a very similiar issue. the changes were so awful that square back peddled and fixed the mp issue they were having. As well as a fairy issue.
If astros mp management is too low of an issue, or they are needing to meld piety more then the other healers without offering more utility, then square will change it by offering more mp regen somewhere. Like maybe a mini lucid buff added in somewhere. Much like how astrodyne did. Only time will tell though.
5% regen per minute without LD is unacceptable. You will run out of mana in 2mins by just spamming malefic, and no free GCD.
compare them to the others: WHM 5% per 40s + thin air/min + lily gauge aka 4 free GCD / ~min. SCH: solid 20% regen/min and SGE 21%/min
2. loss potency from Macrocosms since increasing potency to malefic.
3. dps loss in comparison with current AST because modifications of card system. No compensation from spells.
4. Enhancing defensive toolkit is questionable (not only issued in Ast, the other healers as well). 4 more single survival buffs in 2mins, with existing 3 stacks bene, 2 stacks Celestial intersection, exaltation, etc. What is more, they buff tanks in the same defensive toolkit at the same time. Over 60% of game contents you will never be asked to utilize these abilities.
5. mobility is still the worst amongst healers.
20s raid buffs all aligning means now it's easier to plan when to push your buff button, ( i think the meta is 3 GCDs / 7s in?
Adding 2-3 more “play” buttons is extremely lame, and I think I’d honestly have taken the current card system over this but it was a great effort for ff14 at least to try something reminiscent of the good ol days of ast. The rest of the changes look really cool/good though so I’m gonna try it at least in Dawn trail.
missed opportunity to say "tell me what you hear, feel, and think about the changes"
with the decision to split the "Card Play"-Button into 4 Buttons they just completely fucked over my mouse-over-macro to play the cards, thx a lot -.-
Honestly what they need to do for healers is cut the free OGCD healing skills down. Like...a lot. Force healers to have to spend more GCDs healing, to force them to have to manage mana economy. This would also give them breathing space to try out new dps moves on healers, something like how RDM or DNC work, where you doin't have to break combo or something, but it would give them something to work toward. Imagine AST having something kind of like what MNK does, where each move in sequence of your two combos gives a different form...what if you had "star seals" attached to that, and you had different combinations to create "constellations" that would be like the blitzes, and give different effects? Like, with Spread, Enhance, Extend, etc... and the other three being DMG, Crit, or DH and make it so you couldn't just always go after the DMG one, you'd have to utilize enhance and perhaps crit, or extend and DH or all sorts of combos. Of course, you would be able to disengage from this "combo" as it wouldn't be a true combo, rather, buttons you'd press to get different seals.
I dunno, I'm just spitballing here but like good lord these AST changes are atrociously bad lol. It's literally just "more pretty WHM" at this point.
AST is currently my favorite healer and has been since I picked it up in Shadowbringers. I really enjoy the utility it can bring with its card buffs, so it's very disheartening to see them gutted like this. You're spot-on with saying that we often just sit on our oGCD heals because there are so many and the damage output in most content is nowhere near enough to give us a reason to use even half of them. But now 2-3 of the cards you draw are essentially useless because all they do is provide unnecessary healing/mitigation.
I understand that some players may dislike the randomness to the cards as they are now, but I think that's due in large part to how Endwalker made it so much more punishing to draw "bad" cards. If you draw a card with a seal you need but it's the wrong type, you are so heavily discouraged from redrawing now since you only get the one redraw and then you're stuck with it, potentially screwing yourself out of a better Astrodyne.
What I'd really like to see is a return to how AST was in Shadowbringers but with some tweaks. Give us back the old Redraw instead of limiting us to once per card, and give us the old Minor Arcana to dump cards if we don't want the seal. Minor Arcana now (and in Dawntrail) feels so bad right now because you often draw Lady of Crowns and you really don't need the heal. Astrodyne was great in that it decoupled the raid buff and the seals, so I really like that. I'd also love to see Sleeve Draw brought back because it felt so satisfying to just rapid fire cards.
I'll reserve full judgement for when the expansion actually releases, but I'm not very hopeful for AST based on what we've seen from the media tour, and it sucks that I may be losing my favorite healer :(
Wonderful take, extremely good assessment of how the job has developed over the past few years.
As someone who played AST through all of HW & SB, Shadowbringers AST is the last thing I would want again good god. That was the start of where it is now, and it sucks.
@@HopesBoomerang That's fair. The job has changed dramatically multiple times since its introduction. I started in SHB so I can't speak for earlier incarnations of the job, but I at least preferred SHB AST to what we have now and how 7.0 AST is looking.
as someone who hasn't been able to get into ast but wants to - I actually like these changes. it makes me excited to try it now
My first thought was that they've somewhat dealt with what I disliked about the job... but potentially ruined what I loved about it too.
Lightspeed being less hard-locked to burst (even if it's the optimal place for it in a vacuum) is great. No more random healing from Minor Arcana (worst button in the game imo) is great.
...but a) way less gain from knowledge, and b) if the outgoing damage isn't sufficiently high to require all these extra healing buttons, then my generally-busy healer job is even more dead than it was in ew :|
Will probably still be my healer of choice, and I'm not going to despair as my cohealer overly optimises something I'm just dumping lady's on for safety (inevitably leading to a wipe next pull when I get a lord), but idk, it seems it'll be less interesting too.
Thanks for the vid, AST seems to be a hard pass for me now if I were to main a healer. Time to pick up SCH again maybe, my main now are AST SGE WM and have been abandoning SCH since Endwalker.
How’s white mage for you, wanted to try it cause I got my sage 86 Astro 70, and wanted to try another healer
@@kuzanmaine-_-205 WM is straightforward and perhaps the simplest to master, that explains the fact that WM is the most used healer in this game. Regen, big heals (Both GCD, oGCD lilies, etc). They are simple to understand. You will probably master it in no time if you have mastered the rest of the healers that are comparably more challenging to play with.
So we're getting 1 minute countdowns for a double draw? Seems like it.
6 cards, 4 of them are going to be used almost always on the tank and they're basically just carbon copies of actions we already have lol
MY TYPE OF VIDEO
ASTROLOGIAN FOREVER!!
Man I miss original Astro.
we peaked in Stormblood and its been downhill ever since.
@@HopesBoomerangAmen to that.
I was PRAYING they would lean more into how this job played during Stormblood. Guess I'm sticking with Sage
Same, pretty dissapointed with the card effects. The SB system had clear issues but it was at least really whacky and fun especially in roulletes which is something no other job can say for itself in this game.
Stormblood Astro was fish for Balance. That was it. Hell no we don't want that.
Only 10% damage reduction and no healing effect? terrible😡
Agreed. If they want to revert Bole to its old Heavensward effect *now*, at this point just make it a glorified second charge of Exaltation. Like come on, we don't have the extend, enhance, or spread manipulations anymore...why is Bole just a shitty version of Oblation that I only get to use every other minute?
It's fine, especially since we constantly want to avoid overheal anyways.
@@Frostbyte115 It's actually not fine. Bole being a straight 10% damage mitigation on single-target on an effective TWO MINUTE COOLDOWN (because of how the decks cycle) makes it completely useless even in the context of Heavensward lol.
Our tools are supposed to be getting better not worse.
The jobs dead to me. I played AST for the difficulty and skill expression of the cards, the busyness of the rotation. This rework objectively simplifies it down and gives us cards which we do not need. I already have bloated OGCD single target buttons, why do I need a weaker exaltation, or a weaker celestial intersection?
Lmao what I been saying.
Sqenix killed the only two difficult jobs in DT (BLM and AST) to make it accessible to the casual player base.
AST now has a one-dimensional rotation like every other job. Same skills/spells/abilities. Same order.
Just remove the cards entirely already at this point. This is sad. There is zero point to them being there anymore other than visual flair, they're just 1 min oGCDs. This effectively removes the card "system" and moves AST another step further into just being "WHM but moar purdy", and it sucks. I'm glad it was brought up a couple of times on the media tour interviews, and to have heard Yoshida mention that they'd gone too safe and they want to veer away from that and stop being afraid of experimenting further, I just wish they were applying this to jobs now rather than 8.0 or whenever. :/ Job design has suffered a lot more than the content design they seem to be focusing on for now.
Amen dude. You know what would be more interesting than these cards? Give us a 1-2-3 combo off of Malefic which splits into a Malefic-2a-3a or Malefic-2b-3b sequence, each sequence granting a different star (Astral and Umbral, let's say). You collect 3 stars to build a constellation, which you then throw out either as a buff or a huge fuckoff oGCD attack, or whatever, depending on the combination of stars you use to cast it.
This would even reduce the need for memorization by locking the number of abilities you can create to 4, since there's only 4 combinations you can make with a 3-set of 2 different stars (3 Astral, 3 Umbral, 2 Astral + 1 Umbral, or 2 Umbral + 1 Astral).
Nocturnal ast return pleaseeeee
No
How many extra buttons does the new card system add, compared to now? Like, Play and shuffle won't be a thing, arcana was its own button anyway...
I think it balances out with a net 0 with removal of astrodyne. Which is frustrating cause that’s the biggest problem with AST is button bloat
It is utterly hilarious to me that even with the rework that removes card RNG I can still only draw a card that I actually want precisely 37.5% of the time. My odds just keep getting lower with each new expac...I guess AST has secretly been the gambling job all along. Feels bad dude.
Promised the moon given a big pile of shit :L
This is really good nearly back to old AST. But the one change I really wanted was to remove the gcd proc from horoscope and just make it full potency for 30s.
They like to trick people into thinking “Oh boy HW/SB is back!” but this kit couldn’t be farther, they completely killed all RNG in the kit which was the entire lore and appeal of the job in the first place. And the cards are not interesting either, they just go on the same people every single time
I wouldn’t complain if they made the 2 damage cards Melee Damage buff and Magic Damage buff and if Ewer changed to an MP regen card (bc they completely killed AST’s MP economy with this).
I'm curious was to what kind of effects on the cards you would like to see? Mp regen is the only thing missing h ere that could be added. A shield, aoe heal, single target heal, damage for range/melee, mit. I really don't know what else you would want...
@@LuminateTheWorld Damage cards: Balance - Physical Damage Up, Spire - Magical Damage Up, this is far more interesting than melee/ranged cards since different jobs do different kinds of damage
Mitigation cards: Bole - Defense Up, Ewer - MP Regen Up, the shield effect is just boring and might as well be another heal, having to choose between something for a tank or something for a healer is a more interesting choice
Healing cards: Arrow - HP Regen Up, Spear - Healing Received Up, honestly healing cards aren’t necessary in the first place if they aren’t getting rid of any other heals from AST but this is just for the sake of sticking to their design
Cards with these effects, alongside keeping RNG so you can get either 1 or 2 cards in the slot was the best way to handle their new 4-card system, you could even add new buttons to change all cards to its pair, or consume a card to change the other cards into a longer duration or AoE. Not this Umbral/Astral draw nonsense, you can’t even call them cards at that point
can SE please stop removing the fun from my job, i play it *because* of the complex shit, they keep making it simpler
They keep making jobs simpler and making them similar to other jobs in their role and I don’t like it.
The previous version was fuggin clunky. I could play it fine but I hated it. ShB version was better. This version looks better and more reminiscent of Stab Astro without fishing to Balance
Ohhh a support rotation!
So 4 cards for the tank and 2 for the dps lol
the more I hear, the more it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. locking sun sign behind neutral sect is bad, we lost 50% of our dps increase and mp regained every minute, so it's dps contribution is going to be pretty overshadowed by the other three healers. doesn't feel like there will be a good reason to bring an ast when you can just run sge/sch and have better dps, the same level of healing, and the ability to ignore mechanics, not that healers will be needed anyway because tanks still have enough sustain to bypass dungeons. I really do want to like this, I've loved ast since hw, but every expansion it's killed a little more, from where I'm standing, the only positive here is oracle and the slight buff to divination, everything else is a bad decision, made by people who don't play healers
The number are a bit too low tbh
Do we still need to select enemy target to cast AOE damage spell?
Looks good to me
Tbh the only thing i hate is the cards not being random anymore i hope it changes cause the rng with these new card effects would be fun to fuck around with, so hopefully they change that as they did say they want feedback on if people like the random more or not
Personally i'm against the rng. too many times I get melee/range cards nonstop and even after redraw, having to put them on a range class just "feels" bad knowing it's a dps loss from what it could have been. Also the lord of crown/lady of crowns rng was mad annoying.
@@LuminateTheWorld i mean it was part of the class, if you dont like it literally just go play whm lmao
But aye even if i dont like it right now lets be honest with talks and hints of how 8.0 was gonna be job design focused ast will prolly be reworled again anywas lol, but this system does show a little promise i just personally want the rng.
The rework hasn't even been released yet, and I am already immediately seeing some fairly obvious issues with the job design here.
For one, the way Balance and Spear are implemented into card windows disincentivizes thoughtful card play in more ways than one. Balance being on even-minute windows and Spear on odd-minute windows ensures that going forward only melee DPS jobs will be exclusively receiving card buffs from AST during 2min burst phases. It also encourages me to only ever give my cards to the same 2 DPS jobs every time (one melee and one ranged respectively) instead of actually playing my cards around the individual rotations and performance of each DPS in the party.
At this point if they're going to commit to this card design around an Astral and Umbral deck it would be highly advised to just make Balance and Spear identical so at the very least I have a reason to spread my cards around. I understand wanting to have each of the 6 cards be unique for the job fantasy but come on...if the other 4 have unique effects does it REALLY matter if Balance and Spear are just identical?
Maybe it's a start in them moving away from the 2 min window. you know, that thing that EVERYONE complains about now that it's being forced. What's funny is it was the community in general that created the 2 min window. Yoshi enforced it cause it's what the people want..... Now the people complain nonstop about it. I really don't care if it doesn't align with the 2 min window. I'd rather the 2 min window nonsense be pushed away.
@LuminateTheWorld This would have been a good point had you accounted for the fact that decks still cycle on a 1min cooldown, so you're effectively locked into a 2min cycle now. For this change to have accomplished the intended result that you stated, the decks would need to cycle on a 30s cooldown.
I don't even disagree with your point about the 2min burst meta, but you seem to have missed the point of my initial comment since it wasn't really about that at all. I simply mentioned that the proposed changes to the cards further simplifies the 2min buff window as an AST; rather than adding flexibility to work buffs outside of 2min windows these changes remove even more complexity while locking you into a 2min window even harder. It's almost like you read "2min burst" and didn't even consider the rest of the implications of how the card changes affect AST, namely in terms of adversely affecting the job fantasy as well since a strategic element to card play would be removed.
As much as I hated Astrodyne, I never thought I'd see the day when I'd say I'm actually a bit sad to see it go. At least it rewarded good card play; seals were only *objectively terrible* for the job flow when it was still tied to Divination, but since Astrodyne was added, getting 3 seals is more of a reward than a hard-punishment for getting any less than that (yes I know you lose some personal damage as the AST but let's be real, you're not going to drift your cards during Divination for a 3-stack Astrodyne).
Furthermore, mitigation and regen cooldowns are basically more of a suggestion than a requirement in anything outside of Ultimates, Savage, and maybe some EX -- so 4 of the 6 cards are basically removed from the game now in most content. And you only get Balance and Spear every minute instead of every 30s, so your party buff contributions are directly reduced as a result.
My point in my initial comment was to point out that this change adversely affects job fantasy and design by simplifying card play, which is the exact opposite of what most people who play AST for the card-drawing aesthetic...are playing it for...
And if you wanted to be really nitpicky about these changes like I am, this essentially just means Balance is your good damage buff that you get to throw out on a melee every 2 minutes and Spear is your shitty damage buff that you get to throw on a ranged DPS every other minute in-between. Lame.
Or do as Rinon suggests in the video (which likely will be optimal) and just hold your Spear for right until just before Astral Draw comes up and toss it out just a little bit before raid buffs go out.
Which still makes Spear the shittier version of Balance anyway but slightly less shitty.
thought we were getting sleeve draw back but no its just an animation and not the skill...
I like the new card effects but the Play I, II, and III all being separate buttons is really annoying. AST for me is already very keybind heavy that's gonna make it have even more button bloat.
I believe it's not going to add anymore buttons then what we already have. don't forget that other abilities are just straight up getting deleted.
so we get *checks note* 4 additional skills* to put on our hotbars? well I guess 3 since minor arcana is technically a skill already but yeah this is gonna suck for controller players.
Redraw and Astrodyne are gone so you’re only adding one button, if that’s any consolation 😅
banger vid
i like this
Upon first blush, this seems really great. This takes all of the annoying bits out of astro that I didn't much care for. I didn't care for 30sec prepull setup, I didn't like having to use 6 ogcds during burst windows to try to buff everyone appropriately. I didn't care for always getting the card I needed least in any given moment due to my terrible rng. I like busy jobs but astro always felt way too busy in burst, whilst simultaneously feeling kinda weak when the chips are down and the bosses are hitting your tanks for massive dmg. The 2 other cards that aren't direct dmg boosts all seem incredible for tanks, and essential dignities in triplicate is just icing on the cake.
I'm really looking forward to this, and I think new astro has a ton of potential and will be good fun
**Added after the fact** Only thing that I can see that I'm not too crazy about is Neutral Sect. It always bugged me that I had to gcd to get any value out of neutral and take the damage loss. That being said, however, I DO think adding the potential for just straight party mit is a nice addition, but I still kinda wish NS just had a heal or shield baked in. Still useful, but not exactly what I was hoping for. The other defensive ogcds definitely soften the blow for me XD
Imagine trying to be a competitive TCG player with the shitty decks AST plays lmao, 50% of the time you top deck 50% good cards (and 50% trash), and the other 50% of the time you top deck ONE playable card in a hand of FOUR. Even Yami Yugi couldn't pull that shit off.
Seems they could have just removed the card system and replace it with an extra charge to shield, +5 seconds to divination, and less mana for Asp Benefict.
After second thought, Square has had four attempts at making a card system. Maybe it is time to give up and go a different direction.
Yeah starting to get the sense we should just ditch the cards at this point friends.
@@ezrasilver9819Counter argument: how about we don't gut jobs for the sake of balance? It's clearly not worth it if the end result is this three expansions in a row.
@@TheOneGreat I was mostly joking. I agree with your point about not stripping job complexity. The cards are why I picked up AST as my first healer when I started playing again right before Stormblood launch.
Not playing this job again until Nocturnal Sect returns...
7:45 "which if received well, could pave the way for healers getting a little bit more in 8.0"
AHAHAHA
oh are you being serious? I highly doubt we will get anything more till 10.0. and then we will get aero 3 back! Locked at level 130! And probably on a 60 second cooldown or something.
Cause locking extra things to burst windows is great fun for every other moment.
Pessimism aside, neutral sect having that is very nice for flexibility. I quite like the theoretical nod to diurnal and nocturnal with the cards, at least a tiny speck of that lore flavor was brought back.
Bringing aero III back but making it a 60 second CD with like a 15 second duration is INSANELY on brand for their current job philosophy, except they wouldnt call it aero III and it would have a light spell effect instead of a wind one
i never got into Astro because of the complexity of managing cards, so these changes might be what it takes for me to finally give it a proper shot!
Um... May I ask what complexity? Ever since ShB the cards have been brain dead. Or do you mean HW to SB?
@TheOneGreat when i was starting out last year, managing draw/redraw so frequently (this was before i was familiar with the concept of saving charges for burst windows) AND looking for symbols AND placing them on allies on top of normal dps + healing was enough to bounce me off the job. i might do better with it now that i'm better at the game, but at the time that level of things to manage just didn't click with me. removing the symbols and shifting draws to a more predictable system (and making them actually do unique things!) makes the job appeal to me specifically a lot more. ^^
@@TheOneGreat Unfortunately people like this are the reason AST is as braindead as it is now lmao..
@@penultimateApogee Then practice! Its so frustrating seeing jobs becoming even more simple because they seem off putting because of their "complexity" which in reality you just need to practice with it for more than a day. I swear job simplicity should be the furthest thing on their mind but somehow its always so forefront in every expansion.
You all talking about astro MP economy in the comments is funny to me since astro doesnt even need to think about MP currently. I dont mind that change personally because right now Astro doesnt even need an mp bar in the current game.
You say that without seeing that AST primarily is the fastest casters of the healers, primarily using Spell Speed along with Det and Crit. Plus limited MP economy can be a killer if a raid goes south and either they have to start using Ascend or they end up needing to be rezzed, leaving them with little MP and no hope of a bounce back. Astrodyne was amazing for that at the very least if you didn't get seals for the spell speed and/or damage increase.
Bro do you play ast above Ex? Do you prog with the job with an actual build??
Yes@@AkenoAkine
@@HildagardeGaming I mean healers. Currently our mp economy is beyond bloated. We might need a little tweaking when it comes to the mp we gain through our new cards but we dont need anywhere near as much as we have now. Also when a raid goes south its normal to drain mana.
@@PKcrash you obv dont
DIsappointed they ruined such a unique playstyle in the game for generic single target heal/shield buffs
Yeah, I wish the effects were a bit more interesting than giving more of what we already have. But I'm excited for the new way they are played
So the generic "always got a dps increase card" that was unique?
This is similar to how it functioned in HW, what are you talking about?
@@pod155 The playstyle was definitely more unique than this garbage with healing cards you won't use because tanks can keep themselves up by themselves in this game
@@MastaToken not even close LOL
haha this is awful lmao
little less knowledge intensive, brother they were color coded there is no knowledge of anything lol.
I don’t think you know much about optimal card play based on that response. That’s fine! But there was definitely a lot more to them than just playing on melee or ranged
This just sucks. We have too many heals, and losing anything interesting about cards is.. bad. This feels so bad. Like, "wow making me consider unsub for the first time in like 6 years" bad.
I don't think they have any devs that actually play healers in the game. healers always get the short end of the stick. If they do have a dev he or she definitely plays sage because look how their new skills (dot) is on a one min cd without being tied to something else. If only all jobs could be so lucky.
it's so bloated still 😭
Astrologian was my least favorite healer already (and one of my least favorite jobs altogether) and after seeing these changes eh... I think it's staying at the bottom. The card system was part of what made it annoying to play to begin with, so this is just taking that same mechanic and making it less RNG but more complicated/bloated.
they made cards even more complicated.. joy.