Their heart was in the right place with AST.

The flow now feels way more clunky/messy than SB astro. Now we just throw usless cards all the time that dont have much, or any, effect. The devs messed this one up bad

I strongly disagree with the new system being more impactful, unless you use 3rd party to check dps numbers, regular players and specially PS4 players like me, have no clue if anything is happening even with divination, with the old system you could notice when a tank was getting less damage, I could see my party casting be fast on party list, crits would pop up with spear and a bard going crazy, a fallen caster would get on its feet with an ewer, and a warrior would be able to finally do skills on big pulls after so much aoeing.

Same with the flow, having to convert every single card to Minor Arcana is tiresome, before you would do it to get value: an instant heal free of MP, which we could really use one, or a mini nuke, on a really undesired card or pre fight draw, it is literally DA.

If someone likes the new system I'm glad for them, but this should have been the 4th healer and not a rework nobody asked for.

I'd say that they had good intentions to try and revamp AST, but they took feedback from people who don't play AST or only 'top' players who fished solely for Balance, to boost FF logs. SB AST was near perfect, if not for totally eclipsing WHM, which is more of a product of SE's insistence on never giving WHM anything. Ever.

Who benefits from playing AST? Certainly not the AST player. AST cards are now all Balance! So, you're always chugging a dps boost to your teammates. You don't control anything anymore, you can't manipulate your buffs, and everything is designed to give your fellow dps players an edge. Regardless of how middling the potency, they'll always receive Balance, and that's all they care about. They also won't know that you might have felt lazy and not fished for seals, so they have a 4% buff instead of a 6% buff, they just know they have Balance. The potency is too low to see a noticeable impact on the short term.

Turning the tide with a super Bole? Extending all buffs with CO, and giving everyone a moment's reprise? How about that Super Balance being extended? Naw... we can't do that anymore, and no favoritism to prevent hurt feelings from bad dps players! Minor Arcana to give Range DPS Lady, and Melee Lord. It simply doesn't feel good.

Ironically, the way AST was initially set up seemed to be about fun. It's the type of job that does not lend to balance. It's either overpowered or underpowered. And there'll always be a single best result. But most of the fun was dealing with the buffs you had, and being able to have that control over battle, when everything aligned to your favor. Now, AST is a weaker WHM (because why ever use the MP drain that is Noct Sect outside of prepull shielding) with Minor Arcana on the side.

AST was designed as the flex healer, which was kind of bad in itself. It doesn't have the kit that SCH has to make Shields work, so it's Regen Mage in most content and it brings the buffs, which is it's strength. If anything, they should just get rid of Sects by this point and let it be the hybrid healer it should have been: weaker on both fronts, but off-set by it's strong support game and ability to do both. Celestial Intersectional and Neutral Sect already works towards this. But really, all that was needed was a level trait that allows the Sects to be a Stance Change like old Cleric's or WAR's Deliverance and Defiance. Tie it to a gauge or cooldown oGCD if you want. That way, it can play more nicely with itself, and both healers, instead of always competing with WHM for a slot.

The only other way to fix this healer balance debacle is to introduce a 4th healer and revamp everything to 2 main regen healers and 2 shield healers. Since they like homogenizing everything. Because a unique flex job and support bot like AST is not the answer. It goes against the grain, and it shows with SE Healing Balance woes.

And lately I've been thinking about this, I believe they dumbed-down the card system not only for those who "fished for balance anyways", but that they actually believed healing was now going to be challenging, and so they made the cards as mindless as possible: blue = melee purple = range.

That is my theory and it would explain the changes to SCH too.

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Originally Posted by RegularJoe

The only other way to fix this healer balance debacle is to introduce a 4th healer and revamp everything to 2 main regen healers and 2 shield healers. Since they like homogenizing everything. Because a unique flex job and support bot like AST is not the answer. It goes against the grain, and it shows with SE Healing Balance woes.

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This +1000
They removed Prestance stance before, now Tank stances, but Diurnal and Nocturnal Sec are still here and still impossible to swap during combat.
Nocturnal has always be bad and SE doesn't know how to make it interesting compared to SCH, despite our suggestions.
So now, it's time to rethink this and have WHM/AST as regen healer and SCH/4th healer as shield healer !

I agree with that, stances have no place in this game, only AST and MNK kept them and not like MNK is having a good time with those either.

"Strong" : WHM Regen and SCH Shield.
Utility "weaker": AST Regen and 4th healer Shield.

Pretty much agree with OP. Not sure I'd call the new card system more impactful, but I prefer the single target buffs more as well as overall mechanics of the new cards more (no CD waste on Draw now).

But the cards are bland now. I just want to be excited to press Draw, is that too much to ask? :(

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Originally Posted by TankHunter678

I find the flow to be worse, I am throwing more useless cards that have no feeling of impact just to get 3 seals for an ability that does not feel like it has an impact unless I also use another ability to just toss out as many cards as I can in a short while in order to have a kinda sorta discernible feeling of something working all while burning my own damage buff just trying to pass all those cards around before the party buff wears out. I also think a lot less when handling the system which leads it overall to just not be engaging. It has lead to frustration when I need that last seal and wind up burning all my redraws and not getting that seal, or only getting melee cards when I have no melee DPS.

Then again I was not one of those people who did nothing but fishing for aoe balance, so if you were one of those who only fished for aoe balance then I probably used a lot more cards then you. Though each card had a role and I could feel the impact. Be it a tank taking less damage then expected thanks to that bole I tossed out, my co-healer getting over 50% mana very fast after they had just been raised, or that BLM who is visibly casting far more faster or that SAM pulling off sooner midares, or seeing a Bard go ham as their procs cascaded.

Though I do have to say, Minor Arcana being stronger then Major Arcana is backwards. There is a reason why something is a Major instead of a Minor because a Major is supposed to have a greater effect then a Minor.

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No. I wasn't one of those people. I preferred to actually use the full range of the card system, which is exactly why I hate that the flavor is gone. You're literally just disagreeing with me and then restating the same thing I said differently and somehow as a counter argument. The "flow" that you described isn't a flow. It's sour grapes over your unique buffs being gone. Well same. Imagine the current way you can toss out cards all over, only they're all the unique buffs we're used to.

I prefer the way the job plays now in terms of flow, because you're actively throwing out more buffs. That's supposed to be the primary identity of the job, a buffer. It's just that our buffs now are all the same buff...which is SO LAME.

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Originally Posted by Almostward

The flow now feels way more clunky/messy than SB astro. Now we just throw usless cards all the time that dont have much, or any, effect. The devs messed this one up bad

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Yep, now if only the original post actually addressed literally that, and said basically the same thing


hmmmm.

Throwing out more buffs isn't the issue. That's awesome. It's that the buffs we're throwing out are lame. Hence the flavor argument.

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Originally Posted by KanameYuuki

I strongly disagree with the new system being more impactful, unless you use 3rd party to check dps numbers, regular players and specially PS4 players like me, have no clue if anything is happening even with divination, with the old system you could notice when a tank was getting less damage, I could see my party casting be fast on party list, crits would pop up with spear and a bard going crazy, a fallen caster would get on its feet with an ewer, and a warrior would be able to finally do skills on big pulls after so much aoeing.

Same with the flow, having to convert every single card to Minor Arcana is tiresome, before you would do it to get value: an instant heal free of MP, which we could really use one, or a mini nuke, on a really undesired card or pre fight draw, it is literally DA.

If someone likes the new system I'm glad for them, but this should have been the 4th healer and not a rework nobody asked for.

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Imagine the current system, only the old buffs, and minor arcana now just makes your currently drawn buff stronger kind of like a mini royal road, and not overwrite your seals.