I never experienced pre-Endwalker AST, sadly. I enjoyed the amount of actions you took with it in Endwalker, but the cards being the same was a bit underwhelming. I was excited for the changes to come in Dawntrail but now that we have them I’m a bit underwhelmed. I’m not level 100 yet, and I’m still going through the story so maybe my opinion will change, but I don’t think so.
Before the first dumb down, cards were fun, they had a lot of different utilities, from recovering MP to raising crits. And we had the sects, before a fight you could switch from shield to regen healer, then they started dumbing it down until it became a glorified WHM with a buff timer. They are doing this with every class, and the last BLM changes look like the SMN “rework” all over again.
It’s sad but I have to say that I am less and less interested in the game with every patch. I could accept that the story was lacking (because they need to build up from the beginning, so it’s an ARR situation again) if the gameplay was fun but, as a healer, I’ve been bored for a good while now.
I don’t really play high level stuff. I’m too scared to find proper raid groups and such.
Guild Wars 2 has a similar thing going on with their professions. They’re still decently diverse, but ANet has been removing the profession unique buffs etc. and homogenizing them. I think it started back after HoT when Alacrity (recast speed reduction) was changed from being a Chronomancer only buff to being available on other professions as well, and over time they’ve just removed them more and more.
They’re still not homogenised to the level of FFXIV though, and there’s uniqueness in mechanics between professions.
I do see the point of doing that though. It removes the “we must bring X for Y buff” reason, but I feel like FFXIV has gone a bit too far in the sense that what makes the jobs unique is almost gone from them. They gave back the unique card buffs on Astrologian, but I don’t like the cadence of the cards now. I don’t remember exactly how it worked in Endwalker, if you got mana back from drawing or playing a card, but regardless I really enjoyed planning out how I’d play my cards, and wished that the cards had more unique effects than “small DPS boost to melee or ranged”. Now we have more effects, but the cadence is gone, I no longer need to plan my cards in the same manner, and there’s no little coloured thingies to fill up to get Astrodyne.
That kind of pressure of optimising which cards goes where and ensuring I played cards in a way that maximised Astrodyne was what made Astrologian fun to me. Now it’s literally just White Mage. It’s really sad.
That’s not to say that I dislike White Mage, I love it, it’s nice and relaxed, but I preferred the higher tempo of Astrologian, and that’s just gone now.
but, as a healer, I’ve been bored for a good while now.
Get yourself into some bad parties 😂 Most fun I have as a healer these days is when I’m trying to save a bad run. It’s why I’m planning on prioritising the new raids tonight rather than MSQ, we’ll get probably one night max of chaos before people are starting to learn the new fights.
That being said that kinda reinforces your point I suppose.
I never experienced pre-Endwalker AST, sadly. I enjoyed the amount of actions you took with it in Endwalker, but the cards being the same was a bit underwhelming. I was excited for the changes to come in Dawntrail but now that we have them I’m a bit underwhelmed. I’m not level 100 yet, and I’m still going through the story so maybe my opinion will change, but I don’t think so.
Before the first dumb down, cards were fun, they had a lot of different utilities, from recovering MP to raising crits. And we had the sects, before a fight you could switch from shield to regen healer, then they started dumbing it down until it became a glorified WHM with a buff timer. They are doing this with every class, and the last BLM changes look like the SMN “rework” all over again.
It’s sad but I have to say that I am less and less interested in the game with every patch. I could accept that the story was lacking (because they need to build up from the beginning, so it’s an ARR situation again) if the gameplay was fun but, as a healer, I’ve been bored for a good while now.
I don’t really play high level stuff. I’m too scared to find proper raid groups and such.
Guild Wars 2 has a similar thing going on with their professions. They’re still decently diverse, but ANet has been removing the profession unique buffs etc. and homogenizing them. I think it started back after HoT when Alacrity (recast speed reduction) was changed from being a Chronomancer only buff to being available on other professions as well, and over time they’ve just removed them more and more.
They’re still not homogenised to the level of FFXIV though, and there’s uniqueness in mechanics between professions.
I do see the point of doing that though. It removes the “we must bring X for Y buff” reason, but I feel like FFXIV has gone a bit too far in the sense that what makes the jobs unique is almost gone from them. They gave back the unique card buffs on Astrologian, but I don’t like the cadence of the cards now. I don’t remember exactly how it worked in Endwalker, if you got mana back from drawing or playing a card, but regardless I really enjoyed planning out how I’d play my cards, and wished that the cards had more unique effects than “small DPS boost to melee or ranged”. Now we have more effects, but the cadence is gone, I no longer need to plan my cards in the same manner, and there’s no little coloured thingies to fill up to get Astrodyne.
That kind of pressure of optimising which cards goes where and ensuring I played cards in a way that maximised Astrodyne was what made Astrologian fun to me. Now it’s literally just White Mage. It’s really sad.
That’s not to say that I dislike White Mage, I love it, it’s nice and relaxed, but I preferred the higher tempo of Astrologian, and that’s just gone now.
Get yourself into some bad parties 😂 Most fun I have as a healer these days is when I’m trying to save a bad run. It’s why I’m planning on prioritising the new raids tonight rather than MSQ, we’ll get probably one night max of chaos before people are starting to learn the new fights.
That being said that kinda reinforces your point I suppose.