I miss old AST cards

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Originally Posted by flowerfairy

The only time you should take that person's posts seriously is if at least 1 other person supports the claim with their own argument, which almost never happens.

SGE technically doesn't do everything SCH does to a tee, but it doesn't exactly bring much new to the table. I'd say 80% of the kit is recycled from SCH with some tiny twist, so I understand when people call it a clone.

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Yeah that totally explains how Sage can easily be run out of resources, but SCH doesn't sans Aetherflow...oh wait...

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Originally Posted by flowerfairy

The only time you should take that person's posts seriously is if at least 1 other person supports the claim with their own argument, which almost never happens.

SGE technically doesn't do everything SCH does to a tee, but it doesn't exactly bring much new to the table. I'd say 80% of the kit is recycled from SCH with some tiny twist, so I understand when people call it a clone.

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Yeah the root are the same.

Yes I would agree SGE is ultimately a less janky and less powerful version of SCH.

Anyways back to the topic of cards, the old cards offered high-highs and low-lows but it was always fun to just use an enhanced Bole on a tank in a dungeon and just aspected Helios, benefic and collective unconscious on them and use time dilation and celestial opposition for 55 seconds super hots and the defense card.

While this system is more consistent , if at the cost of what you can do with it.

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Originally Posted by Maltothoris

While this system is more consistent , if at the cost of what you can do with it.

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My friends and I did a 3 man Titan ex synced in HW pre-Spear change with DRK/AST/NIN and it was a blast. The AST would give me Boles and Spears so I could tank CD the Mountain Busters with 5 stacks on and survive. Niche, but so much fun.

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Originally Posted by flowerfairy

The only time you should take that person's posts seriously is if at least 1 other person supports the claim with their own argument, which almost never happens.

SGE technically doesn't do everything SCH does to a tee, but it doesn't exactly bring much new to the table. I'd say 80% of the kit is recycled from SCH with some tiny twist, so I understand when people call it a clone.

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is that a person?/ I thought a moderator had some AI bot that was going through some testing from some of the posts, honestly our chatbot is much friendlier.

back on the topic
another reason I miss ast cards? identity. Everything did something different, it was an ever changing section of your job and it was beautiful amongst all the rigid rotations to have something completely random in a game of jump rope.

look nowadays and how everything is a 2m burst and why randomness is a good thing

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

back on the topic
another reason I miss ast cards? identity. Everything did something different, it was an ever changing section of your job and it was beautiful amongst all the rigid rotations to have something completely random in a game of jump rope.

look nowadays and how everything is a 2m burst and why randomness is a good thing

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That's also what I miss. The thinking on the fly. Rotations are fine, I guess, but I started playing AST *because* of the random nature. Now it's sand blasted off so much it's a shame. And the three symbols are just boring.

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

look nowadays and how everything is a 2m burst and why randomness is a good thing

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No don't you see, the perfect situation for job design is that we treat every boss as a training dummy with extra steps, and we come up with starts that allow us to treat it as much like a training dummy as possible, hence why every boss this tier has pretty much 100% melee uptime. Having to adjust to downtime? Holding a Raiton/HarvestMoon knowing there's downtime coming up? Don't want THAT kind of optimization, because then the Raiton isn't in burst window and that's less damage. So now everything is 2min burst windows, everything gets 100% uptime, the classes STILL aren't balanced, and logs are still affected by RNG, because crit variance and DHit variance. The difference between two GNBs who do the same rotation, but one gets every DD crit and the other gets none, is crazy. This tier, some groups were walled by the Phase 1 Doorboss because of just 'guess we didnt crit enough' that's AWFUL design. So should we also remove crit and DHit because that's RNG too? Which kind of RNG is 'good RNG' and which is 'bad RNG', because I'd argue they got it backwards. Crit is bad RNG because you can't do anything about it, it just happens or it doesn't. But the old AST cards were arguably good RNG, you could reroll a Spire and try to get a better card. You could gamble when you had Expanded RR and drew a Spear: do you play the AOE Spear, or reroll it hoping for a Balance?

'Manipulating fate' was the identity of AST, and the reason we could reroll the cards to bend fate in our favor. But now it seems everyone's fate is +6% damage, and no matter how much we reroll, it doesn't change. I hope we can reroll the fate of the class in 7.0 because the fate it faces is looking pretty bleak

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Probably best not to bother trying to interact with FireMage, his takes are so bad even GameFAQs knows he should be ignored, I guess they wised up to his antics so much that he can't get his jollies there anymore so now he's trying his luck here

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Oh Gods, they're everywhere. There goes my blocklist's virginity lol.

STB ast is why I even stuck with the game, I miss it :(

Me too fren

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Originally Posted by flowerfairy

The only time you should take that person's posts seriously is if at least 1 other person supports the claim with their own argument, which almost never happens.

SGE technically doesn't do everything SCH does to a tee, but it doesn't exactly bring much new to the table. I'd say 80% of the kit is recycled from SCH with some tiny twist, so I understand when people call it a clone.

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whm/ast is the same thing too? there is barely any thing different from ast and whm other than ast having some now joke of a cards with the same boring effects, and better cheap mobility mp stuff.

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Originally Posted by IceBlueNinja

whm/ast is the same thing too? there is barely any thing different from ast and whm other than ast having some now joke of a cards with the same boring effects, and better cheap mobility mp stuff.

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Eh AST/WHM at least has differences in how they heal, with AST having a plethora of HOT/delayed healing effects like celestial opposition, collective unconscious, earthly star, horoscope, now macrocosmos, so it's healing is based on rationing these tools out across the fight and not overspending them all on one raidwide and being dry for the next, WHM on the other hand seems to have ended up with a very GCD locked healing style, where the solution to every raidwide, no matter how far apart or close together, is 'uhh Rapture I guess', with Plenary indulgence to make Rapture stronger if needed. That's cool, differences like that. But SGE/SCH have literal copypaste skills, down to the potency, learn level, cooldown, etc. Ixochole and Indom are both 30s, 300p, cost one stack, and are learned at level 52. Druochole and Lustrate are both 600p, cost one stack, learned at level 45. Heck, even the 'adds a barrier equal to X% of healed' text got changed so the two are functionally identical (SCH Succor is 200p +160% shield, SGE E.Prognosis is 100p +320% shield). This would be fine if there was differences in the DPS rotation, but SGE and SCH also both have one dot, one nuke, one 'skill you pool charges of and dump in raidbuffs' aka Energy Drain and Phlegma, and 'one skill that you use for movement' aka Ruin 2 and Toxicon. Which is the worst offender, because Toxicon 1 is in the trailer, and it's nothing more than A: a movement skill that is also a damage loss to restore charges of, and B: replaced by a different animation almost as soon as you reach EW levels (82)

Cards are bad though, big agree, Astrodyne's 'reward' contributing less than 1% of your damage total is pathetic, Divination is another mindless 'oop 2mins up time to hit raidbuffs' (the discussion about the 2min meta sucking has been beaten to death, but the meta itself still lives, please change course and kill 2min meme for 7.0 SE). I don't remember who said it in a thread, but someone said 'If we gave WHM 'Bravery: Increases party member's damage by 6% for 15 seconds. 2 Charges, 30s CD', what's actually the difference between that, and the Cards as they are now? Absolutely nothing about the cards says 'fortune telling, fate bending' any of the identity I mained the class for in HW. But as is SE tradition, rather than careful reworking to balance the unbalanced things, they threw the baby out with the bathwater, and the bath too just to make sure.

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Originally Posted by IceBlueNinja

whm/ast is the same thing too? there is barely any thing different from ast and whm other than ast having some now joke of a cards with the same boring effects, and better cheap mobility mp stuff.

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Eeh yes and no. At lv50 WHM and AST are pretty much clones with AST having better MP management. Once you get to about 70+ AST starts feeling a bit different with abilities like ES, Horoscope and Macrocosmos - an actual healing identity of time based/delayed healing.

Basically, it has more to define it than SGE/SCH does from WHM. Cause alot of SGE's abilities are literally just renamed SCH ones with maybe a minor difference in execution.

One of the best draws of pvp atm for me is I can play with half my deck of cards again. I still hate pvp in general due to ganking and the awful tick rate in this game but I do enjoy playing quite a few jobs in it

Ast especially, because I actually have to put thought into how I play with my cards and choosing CC vs damage vs healing in group fights. Macrocosmos also takes a bit of skill to get its best benefit as the initial cure is weak but being able to slap 12000 hp on allies instantly is pretty good.

Similar for other pvp jobs, I like them because they have actual identities and some have actual skill to use.

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Originally Posted by IceBlueNinja

whm/ast is the same thing too? there is barely any thing different from ast and whm other than ast having some now joke of a cards with the same boring effects, and better cheap mobility mp stuff.

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Not really, WHM's main thing is GCD lilies and burst healing whereas AST has a lot of oGCD charges and heals that are stronger when delayed (actually, AST is the only one without a 3-charge system, maybe that’s changing with the rework? :rolleyes: ) I can maybe draw ties between Horoscope/Plenary and CU/Temperance but they both function pretty differently. Now compare that to fairy/Kardia, Pepsis/ET, Physis/WD, and the entire Addersgall system with Aetherflow; 3 charges every 60s, pretty much all the abilities are the same except Taurochole, but even that same cooldown and almost the same potency as Excog so go figure. Not that I'm defending the jobs design because they're still all really boring, and I agree with the stupid card system, but AST/WHM has a little bit more going for it than SGE/SCH.

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

One of the best draws of pvp atm for me is I can play with half my deck of cards again. I still hate pvp in general due to ganking and the awful tick rate in this game but I do enjoy playing quite a few jobs in it

Ast especially, because I actually have to put thought into how I play with my cards and choosing CC vs damage vs healing in group fights. Macrocosmos also takes a bit of skill to get its best benefit as the initial cure is weak but being able to slap 12000 hp on allies instantly is pretty good.

Similar for other pvp jobs, I like them because they have actual identities and some have actual skill to use.

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They gutted AST's cards to be generic attack/defense buffs and left it with an abysmal LB charge, but its still fun to be playing a job that actually feels unique for once. I always felt like it was missing one more button for real interaction with the cards, like rerolling one for another with stronger effects using Royal Road, that would've been a real sucker punch to PvE AST so that's probably why they avoided it.

Wish folks would have said something about this years ago when they took it away, instead of now. B-but Button Bloat! b-but skill issue! b-but job effectiveness being based on player skill... is a joke - They'd filter people off who suck at them and let them try out any of the other 19 available, but no. Every job must be the same thing or little timmy can't have fun.

By same thing - I am kind of leaning on essentially every class does the same damage in it's role with marginal percentile differences, does roughly the same amount of healing, roughly can deal with mechanics in the same exact way. I'm able to put different class buttons in the same places across my configurations because everything is nearly identical across the roles.

PvP is where some variance lives in terms of abilities, but I'd rather not... Anyways, contrarian in 3...2...

(I'm genuinely looking to be corrected if necessary and have a discussion, just a salty boy lol)

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Originally Posted by EnigmaticDodo

Wish folks would have said something about this years ago when they took it away

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We did
Yoshida basically told us that he refused to even consider it less than a month after the launch of shb

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Originally Posted by EnigmaticDodo

Wish folks would have said something about this years ago when they took it away, instead of now.

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People raised the question when SHB was launched 'hey isnt this just gonna dumb down healer damage rotations? Are we really gonna have just one spam button to press and a 30s dot to barely manage?' and we were told to just be patient and watch, the amount of incoming damage would be so high we wouldnt even have time to think about doing damage as a healer! Yeh, look how that turned out. So EW Media Tour happened and the same issue was raised, 'are there no changes to the DPS side of healers?' and we got told 'just be patient, watch, the amount of incoming damage would...' yes the same broken record of 'just wait and see' and it has not turned out to be true any time it's been used so far. Couple that with how this tier went for 'oops they increased incoming damage and now Jimmy AFKhealz can't keep up with the damage because he's not used to the game asking competence of him', and we'll probably be going back to 'healing is not stressful, and the DPS rotation is dull as dishwater and doesn't keep the gameplay between healing moments interesting'.

And of course, the whole thing with Yoshida saying 'we are not planning to go back to 3.0 design', which, fair, Cleric Stance was not good. But 4.0 design, where Cleric was just a personal 5% damage buff for 15sec, WHM had Aero3, SCH had like 5 DOTs, AST had cards that actually did effects that matched the lore the quest giver talks about (unless they went and redid that text lmao), that should not be objectionable by players OR by Yoshi-P. The healing was 'accessible', that is, you press Medica or Succor or Indom or Helios and the party gets healed. But the DPS side was where people could stretch their optimization knowledge. In fact, I remember being amazed by a Momo Sama video, where he explained how he and his cohealer got down to 4 total healing GCDs in O12S, and one of the tricks they used was to apply a Succor to the party, then re-deploy the same Succor off of the fairy, because the fairy doesn't get hit by AOEs. I had never thought to use Deployment like that before, I had (until then) assumed you'd only want to use it on Adlo. Why would you want to spread weak Succor shield, when strong Adlo shield? But it turns out, applying two different shields, at different timings, with the same 1 GCD cost, is exactly the kind of 'genius battlefield tactician' move the SCH's identity should be hitting.

Swear to god if anyone tells me 'just wait and see, 7.0 will have SO much incoming damage' I'll damage them at the Wolves Den

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

We did
Yoshida basically told us that he refused to even consider it less than a month after the launch of shb

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

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I feel like the people who cared should've been more vocal and not let up. If you have let up, start being loud everywhere that you can about it. That seems to be what DPS players do and the Devs give some ground.

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Originally Posted by EnigmaticDodo

That seems to be what DPS players do and the Devs give some ground.

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You mean like what happened to Kaiten and MCH?

But I agree, always be vocal. It's not about if things actually change or not. It's about doing what's right, and telling the devs what you want is what's right, always.

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Originally Posted by Mithron

You mean like what happened to Kaiten and MCH?

But I agree, always be vocal. It's not about if things actually change or not. It's about doing what's right, and telling the devs what you want is what's right, always.

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Yes, but how many times have we seen MrHappy or some such influencer at the media tour ask 'hey it looks like healers have less to do in downtime, is there a plan for more healing requirements to compensate for this or what's going on there' and the question gets dodged. That's assuming the question even gets asked, most of the time healer is just glossed over at these Q+A stuff. And when we are vocal, often times it's just met with derision like Yoshida's 'if you want to feel challenged as a healer, go try ultimate' or various players parroting 'dont worry there will be so much more damage to heal even in story dungeons you wont even have time to dps', basing that opinion off of some footage from IGN or something where they stand in every orange AOE because they don't play MMOs all that much, and don't know the game's way of 'giving tells' to the player. Not their fault, but it shouldn't be used as a benchmark of 'look how much damage Tower of Zot does!!!!'

The JP playerbase asking why there's such a healer shortage this tier is good as it means SE will actually look at healers for once, but I assume its just going to lead to them reverting to P1-4S healing requirements, deeming the 'extra healing required' of this tier as a failed experiment. So P9-12S will hit as hard as P1-4S did (maybe slightly more), and healers will still have one button to press that causes like 70% of their damage. It's funny and sad that we should always be vocal, as that's what we are doing here. But people keep saying we're being selfish, or 'healers are not meant to do damage', or 'there is no room for more dps actions on healer hotbars' to try and silence us (or at least get us to shut up a little bit). They reverted Mirage Dive after players gave feedback about it feeling bad (especially in regards to DSR I hear), but they don't acknowledge Kaiten feedback, so evidently there's some voices that are 'more heard' than others, and I guess 'healers in general' fall into the latter pretty heavily. If they were in the former, we wouldn't even need to voice our concerns because we'd have actual design.

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Originally Posted by Mithron

You mean like what happened to Kaiten and MCH?

But I agree, always be vocal. It's not about if things actually change or not. It's about doing what's right, and telling the devs what you want is what's right, always.

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This is the dumbest logic I've ever seen out of you. What if what people want is bad for them and the game? You all need to be saved from yourselves

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Originally Posted by FireMage

This is the dumbest logic I've ever seen out of you. What if what people want is bad for them and the game? You all need to be saved from yourselves

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I'm just morally superior to you. What I want is always what's best for me and the game. I'm immune to demoralization.

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Originally Posted by Mithron

I'm just morally superior to you. What I want is always what's best for me and the game. I'm immune to demoralization.

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You can't be morally superior to me given your lack of knowledge and advocation of imbalance

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Originally Posted by Mithron

I don't care if it was a nightmare to BaLaNcE, it was fun. It had soul. Giving BLMs Enhanced Arrows and BRDs Extended Spears for more procs was so much fun. It wasn't all just AoE Balance. Throw a Ewer on your co-healer that just died and got res'd, laugh as you draw 6 Balances in a row and start dumping Enhanced Balances on your best DPS then extend it with your OGCD buff I forget the name of, Time Dialation?

I miss it so much. SB AST was best AST.

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Maybe if they have both a damage component and an additional effect it would be easier to balance while keeping unique flavors.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

Maybe if they have both a damage component and an additional effect it would be easier to balance while keeping unique flavors.

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You know, that's a really brilliant idea.

its an idea that's been brought up before but as usual for SE, they ignore it

4/6 cards can be returned with no issues. Spire needs to be changed, Balance depends on how much SE favours people who enjoy the rng over people who optimise

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

its an idea that's been brought up before but as usual for SE, they ignore it

4/6 cards can be returned with no issues. Spire needs to be changed, Balance depends on how much SE favours people who enjoy the rng over people who optimise

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Spire could be a mini sprint bonus, maybe?

Alternatively, since the cards are pairs according to seals, they could also make just 3 secondary effects and pair them up.

One thing that would be cool was if the cards' pairs could be defined to be used on tanks/healers/dpsers instead of just dpsers.

Someone suggested Bole be physical damage reduction while Spire be magical damage reduction

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Originally Posted by Mithron

Someone suggested Bole be physical damage reduction while Spire be magical damage reduction

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Yeah I like that and make balance be like a mini sprint... I just dont wanna hear the entitle oh we need to fish for balance bs again xD.

Personally I'd vote for Spire to be Phys Damage boost, Ewer to be MP restore AND Magic damage boost, Arrow be Autoattack speed increase/potency increase (so it doesnt throw people's oh so important GCD alignment off), and Bole can be Damage Reduced still, but add a counter effect to give it some potency (so it's not a complete dud damagewise). Even in the old system, Spire wasn't a 'dud' card, it was useful to burn for RR to get the AOE effect for balance. The 'dud' was Bole. But that's the thing with decks of cards, you have to have the dud cards somewhere in there. AST wasn't about playing with a deck full of nothing but Aces, it was about stacking the cards in such a way that you get the Aces and not the chaff. Also I want to see a Monk hit Riddle of Wind with Arrow for even more autoattack speed, and watch them turn into a fist machinegun

Also if Balance was the issue, why not just make Balance less-strong? Make it more competitive with other cards by knocking it from 10% to 8, or 6 or even 5% as needed? Then I hear someone chime in with 'yeh but then X card will be the new Balance'. Yeh, as long as any one card gives even a slightly stronger effect than another, it will be favored, but if they're close enough then who cares? If Balance increased your RDPS by 400, and Spire increased it by 399, would everyone really still fish for Balance, and wipe when they didn't get the all-Balance god run?

Personally I always felt that the arrow should be movement due to the lore around the card and spire be the haste card