the card shuffle

pretty much this :rolleyes:
i love astro so far but thats so true

http://i.imgur.com/XxZZE0Z.jpg

i stole this off reddit :p

Agreed!

It's more like put the card back on top of the deck pretend to shuffle it and draw!

Love the class at 60 and I understand the class has some rng but when getting the same card 70% of the time with shuffle..... it's like a kick to the chocoballs

Yeah... this happens to me a bit too often than I wished.. ><

I don't know why they couldn't just do it somewhat like Corsair in FFXI. You could actually choose your cards there.

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Originally Posted by Tyla_Esmeraude

Yeah... this happens to me a bit too often than I wished.. ><

I don't know why they couldn't just do it somewhat like Corsair in FFXI. You could actually choose your cards there.

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Huh? Corsair wasn't able to choose their card.

Phantom Roll: When a Phantom Roll is used, a number from 1-6 is randomly chosen and begins a "total" for the chosen roll. The total can be increased by following up the roll with the ability Double-Up. Use of Double-Up may be continued for up to 45 seconds following the initial roll, or until the total exceeds 11 and Busts (see below). In general, as the total climbs toward 11, the potency of the roll's effect increases.

I do agree it does happen a bit more often than I would like, especially when I draw spire and already have the duration buff and no one to really use it on.

I think they should probably just give it a low chance to draw the card you put away to use shuffle if this is a problem

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Originally Posted by Krixus

Huh? Corsair wasn't able to choose their card.

Phantom Roll: When a Phantom Roll is used, a number from 1-6 is randomly chosen and begins a "total" for the chosen roll. The total can be increased by following up the roll with the ability Double-Up. Use of Double-Up may be continued for up to 45 seconds following the initial roll, or until the total exceeds 11 and Busts (see below). In general, as the total climbs toward 11, the potency of the roll's effect increases.

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You also had lucky and unlucky numbers depending on which Roll you used. Man that class was so fun.

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Originally Posted by Krixus

Huh? Corsair wasn't able to choose their card.

Phantom Roll: When a Phantom Roll is used, a number from 1-6 is randomly chosen and begins a "total" for the chosen roll. The total can be increased by following up the roll with the ability Double-Up. Use of Double-Up may be continued for up to 45 seconds following the initial roll, or until the total exceeds 11 and Busts (see below). In general, as the total climbs toward 11, the potency of the roll's effect increases.

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Corsair's in XI had the ability to select what buff (card) they wanted to give to their party. The potency of the buff was dependent on player knowledge and RNG (you rolled a D6 per activation / double-up) as each buff had specific numbers that were considered "lucky" (higher than normal potency boost) or "unlucky" (lower than normal or even negative potency boost), rolls of 11 were always better than normal, and rolls over 11 were considered a bust and also reduced / made negative the potency. The potency of the buff was also dependent on party composition as well because you could get specific bonuses if a particular type of class was present.

For example - Fighter's Roll increased double attack rate with lucky number at 5 and unlucky 9, and got a bonus if a WAR was in the party.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

Corsair's in XI had the ability to select what buff (card) they wanted to give to their party. The potency of the buff was dependent on player knowledge and RNG (you rolled a D6 per activation / double-up) as each buff had specific numbers that were considered "lucky" (higher than normal potency boost) or "unlucky" (lower than normal or even negative potency boost), rolls of 11 were always better than normal, and rolls over 11 were considered a bust and also reduced / made negative the potency. The potency of the buff was also dependent on party composition as well because you could get specific bonuses if a particular type of class was present.

For example - Fighter's Roll increased double attack rate with lucky number at 5 and unlucky 9, and got a bonus if a WAR was in the party.

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If they just copy-pasted FFXI COR-healer how JP players used to play it in colibri merit parties, Astrologian would've end up an avesome class. But nooo, instead we got a bland joke with boring buffs you can't even notice looking at parses. :(

Hahaha! Either that or "Return the currently drawn Arcanum to your deck and draw a Spire".

Even those things being annoying sometimes, those are my toughts as a competitive TCG player while playing AST:

Considering you're already inside the combat. If you got a card, it will always make a difference to use it, sometimes it'll be stronger or weaker depending on the card and situation. If you use Shuffle, be ready to recieve any card, even those you don't want and be ready to adapt and use it right after drawing a it. Try to combine your 3 RNG-controller skills togheter. If you have a Royal Road buff and have drawn a card you wouldn't like to use the royal road buff you have a lot of options: you can shuffle like most do, you can use the spread saved card to get your royal road buff in it then use the drawn card, you can also save the drawn card and wait the next one, while still having the shuffle option to mix with it.

Still, the mechanic is rng-based but giving not as good cards will not make people complain and giving slightly weak buffs can make your party to be happy. You're the responsible of using the rng at your favor to optimize your buffs, complaining about the randomness will not help.

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Originally Posted by zuzu-bq

If you got a card, it will always make a difference to use it, sometimes it'll be stronger or weaker dependng on the card and situation.

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So much this. I see tons of ASTs try to set up that perfect Royal Road + Balance combo while burning every other card drawn in the meantime, yet these are the same people who complain about AST not offering party utility if they use cards on themselves. If you're burning cards, you're offering no one utility, including yourself. The Spread into Royal Road trick lets you use a card almost every minute (depending on which RR you want) without losing anything. Unless you strictly need a particular combo for a particular point in the fight, holding onto cards is a waste.

I disagree though, it won't always make a difference to use it. If the tank or whoever has popped their buffs then Spear isn't going to do really anything and if you pull Spire or something when the pull is almost dead then it probably won't make a huge difference. Like yeah each card might have some small benefit, but the problem is that no one knows when a card is up on them. Like I see all the time on Reddit etc, like "Wow the Ewer reduces MP by 20%, that means a WHM can pop out a total of 6 Holy's instead of 5!" Like for one thing, what WHM is going to blow through all 100% of their MP? Secondly, unless the AST has some kind of macro that says "MP reduction up on WHM!" they probably wouldn't have any idea it's even up on them. I don't know how many times I'd do the Balance on someone just to watch htem suddenly STOP attacking and stand there. I think the main issue is that no one knows when the cards are on them or what they do, so no one changes their play style because of it. That's just the way it is. Think of how many times a DPS actually has an AST in the group and popping a card on them. It's not like it's so often that everyone should know they have something on them. If you're in the heat of battle and tons of stuff is going on, you aren't noticing that you have a card on you. It would almost be better if it made your character light up or something more obvious like a bubble around them or something. I still enjoy using the cards, but I think the big flaw with AST is when people think of it as being beneficial because of the "extra" cast or whatever it gives another class. It's impossible to be that coordinated that you pull the Ewer, pop it on the WHM just at the exact moment that it would help them switch to CS and start doing Holy. Spire is the most useless one, you can't see anyone's TP, so a DPS could be completely out, with the tank at 80% and you use it on the tank since you have zero idea of what everyone else is at. Furthermore the class is designed to shuffle and discard cards, so when people say they see so many people holding cards or discarding waiting for the best one, then clearly that's how it was meant to be played or they wouldn't have shuffle or other abilities like that. There's nothing that specifically says you must use all cards and not to burn cards, otherwise they wouldn't have those abilities.

Sideboard Spear for yourself and make your next draw + shuffle take less time.

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Originally Posted by 416to305

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Just because you don't notice the effect doesn't mean it's not there. Random Bole on tank? Less damage for you to heal through --> MP saved (albeit only a small amount). Spear? If you don't think anyone is going to use a buff anytime soon, Spread it or use it on yourself. Spire? Ok, this is probably the only card I RR or burn on a regular basis.

Burning is a matter of perspective. You see Spread and Shuffle as a way of cycling through your deck to get good cards. Again, here's the problem: you're doing nothing for your party nor yourself if you burn cards while you're waiting on your perfect combo. Go play any TCG - or poker if you're more familiar with that. If you draw a bad hand or a bad card, you don't immediately discard it or fold your hand and give up. You make the best out of whatever you're dealt until you draw your good cards. You can still aim for setting up your combo while playing other cards in the meantime. Draw Ewer and don't need it? No problem, RR it. Draw Spire? Spread it. Draw another Spire? Toss your Spread on someone and RR the one you just drew and you're back to square one.

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Originally Posted by Lyrinn

Go play any TCG - or poker if you're more familiar with that. If you draw a bad hand or a bad card, you don't immediately discard it or fold your hand and give up. You make the best out of whatever you're dealt until you draw your good cards. You can still aim for setting up your combo while playing other cards in the meantime

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Yup, just analyze the situation and make the best use of the card and the card won't ever be useless! Thats why I feel being a card games player made me a better AST.

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Originally Posted by 416to305

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Like I said, it will make a difference, if you'll feel it or not; if its potent or not, depends on how you use the card and how the player that recieved the buff will use it too! And if the player is not constantly checking his buffs he is just not playing correctly, I'm sorry. I remember BLM complaining about Fey Glow buffs because "makes my ice rotation to be too fast"... Please BLM, just check your buffs.

I'm not saying they are useless, I'm saying they are more like bonus vs something that's going to win the day or save the party. Maybe if Ewer actually refreshed MP or something. If the party is wiping and you're down to just a few people left and running out of MP, then no card you pull is going to save that day where as a WHM can increase potency by 30%, pop a Benediction, hit Regen on someone, Medica II that actually reaches the party vs just people standing near you, etc, etc, and have time to raise others.

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Originally Posted by Zirael_Foxfire

If they just copy-pasted FFXI COR-healer how JP players used to play it in colibri merit parties, Astrologian would've end up an avesome class. But nooo, instead we got a bland joke with boring buffs you can't even notice looking at parses. :(

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Kind of like all of ffxiv, its a shitty version of ffxi lol. Other than the graphics.

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Originally Posted by zuzu-bq

Yup, just analyze the situation and make the best use of the card and the card won't ever be useless! Thats why I feel being a card games player made me a better AST.

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That's not really the best analogy, IMO. At least in TCGs, the explicit purpose of deckbuilding is to put together a set of cards that will be as useful as they can be in a wide variety of situations. Nobody would put a card so narrowly useful as Spire or Ewer in a Magic: the Gathering deck. They'd stack as many Balance- and Arrow-level cards as they could.

I don't fetishize an Extended Balance/Arrow and toss cards for an entire run just to get it at all, but it's still rather common to draw Spire after Spire with only caster DPS (or Ewer for only physical). Even with the proper types of DPS, the resource recovery is essentially negligible, which doesn't "feel" fun or useful. Spread and Shuffle can only do so much to combat the RNG, and there comes a point where the class would just feel more satisfying if the "lesser" cards had more generally applicable utility.

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Originally Posted by Alahra

That's not really the best analogy, IMO.

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Sometimes a bad card does good things. And my analogy with TCG was about being used to work with any card I draw and the resources I already have.

A good spread of the spire card on a tp users team is so great to rush a dungeon with aoe ! Good monks know what i'm talking about !

And all the time you win on your offensive & defensive abilities thanks to the spear cards... too bad that so much players don't pay enough attention to the buff we grant to them.
But when you bump into a group that know how works the Astro... it's so beautifull... everything is so swift and fast.

The worst is when you grant to the Tank the spear card upgraded with double time and time dilatation, and the guy is able to not use a SINGLE defensive ability in 45 seconds !
You just wasted 3 skill (2 cards + 1 buff) and still have to spam heal on him cause he thinks that you're only here to heal his ass instead of assist with dps.

TANKS ! USE YOUR FREAKING DEF SKILL !

As a pld myself we generally try to keep one buff on at a time, for around the clock mitigation. Don't waste spear on a tank, because it is likely you will lower the recast of a single ability. Spear is basically used on self or RR.

Using a card of ssomeone who doesn't know his class is a waste whatever is this card.
The thing is to finish the dungeon the faster as we can, and, when the tank uses his defenses, he needs less heal, so i can dps, and then we are faster.
The spear card save 30 or 40 second on all his cooldown... it's not like it was 5 sec.

It's 36 seconds off sentinal and bulwark, 24 convalescence and awareness, 18 rampart. Most those will be up again before the next group pull since you are referring to dungeons. Just a waste honestly, better to RR it in dungeons, or communicate with a dps before fight, but that can be a hassle.

Today I was talking a bit about AST in general in one of my Linkshells. One player said he would likely right-click off a spire if he has a "good royal road" effect that he didn't want to waste on Spire or even Ewer.

In my opinion that's not justified, you're just giving up on your RNG-control abilities to depend on the RNG to make "good combos". Like I said before, even if it looks a weak buff, and now a weak combo too, use it. It'll make a difference. I agree that some cards and combos are better than others, but if you give up on your cards by giving it to no one you're just wasting your buffing potential.

He talked about asking if someone is having TP/MP problems before using a Ewer/Spire. That's also another problem I see on AST player. Those cards are about economy and not refresh.

What do you all think about it?

I see what you're saying. From a yugioh player point of view, you want to use the cards you get but in every tcg, you have a hand full of cards so when you draw that situational card at the wrong time, you can hold off on using it OR use it as a cost for something else. Basically, you have more options. And with this current card system, your options are very very limited.

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Originally Posted by zuzu-bq

He talked about asking if someone is having TP/MP problems before using a Ewer/Spire. That's also another problem I see on AST player. Those cards are about economy and not refresh.

What do you all think about it?

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When i don't myself have mp problem with my Astro i give the Ewer card to Black Mage, cause it will increase how much fire they can launch before they have to swap to ice skill.
I use it too on Dark knight when i saw this one understood how works his class and use Darkside as often as he can.

Regarding The Spire, if i'm with 3 tp users i'll definitely use it to allow them to spam their aoe skill.
Otherwise i'll burn it to get the royal road. But, i read somewhere that we'll have access to the teamates' Tp stock with the 3.0 or 3.1
An other good utility of these two energazing cards is to use them on a player who just got resurrected, cause his Mp/Tp would be low.