Please make this AST change!

This isn’t a discussion on how much you like or dislike the new ast.

Casting cards on party members is supposed to give you a celestial seal if it’s used “in combat”. I just ran through my first dungeon with the new ast and was wondering what I am doing wrong when half the time I wouldn’t get any celestial seal. Then by the end I realized that the party members I’m casting them on don’t count as being “in combat” because they haven’t attacked the monster yet.

Even though the party is in combat I still have to wait for that person to go hit the monster or finish casting their first spell. That is extremely annoying. I always have my first card loaded up ready to start the next fight and as the tank engages and our party is in combat then I cast the cards on team mates as they are running up. Now I have to wait on them to cast it while our tank is taking damage? Having to focus on what one person is doing just to cast a first card on them takes you out of the zone. Running through a dungeon with a lot of little fights this has been very noticeable to me.

Change this, it seems like an annoying oversight. If the party is in combat I should be able to cast the card on any party member and get a celestial seal.

Actually, I may be wrong, but I noticed that if I engage in combat (a simple combust does the trick), I can use the card on the player and receive the seal (even if said player hasn't finished casting their spell). However I do agree with you, it's quite frustrating not to receive a seal because the game doesn't think we're in battle.

I’m not even sure I know what’s happening anymore. In my next dungeon I was very conscious of when I casted the first card and I would use it on someone I see doing damage to the monster and I still wouldn’t get a celestial seal. A good like 5 seconds in the fight. Even being conscious of it and seeing the person attack before I use a card I still wouldn’t get a deal about half the time.

I just don’t even know anymore.

I’ll try using combust before I cast a card, hopefully it works but I still think they need to fix whatever is going on there

Yeah, its definitely because YOU are not in combat.

Fun fact, You also don't get a Seal if you card someone who is in combat, But you aren't in Combat yourself. Combat starts after the card is applied, but the Seal check seems to occur before the Card lands.

Could be an oversight. I've taken to dropping an Aspected Benefic on the Tank and using the GCD to throw my first card. Hasn't failed me yet.

I don't get ANY of the healer changes with regards to this, tbh. Was it absolutely bongos OP/broken that SCHs started fights with extra Aetherflow (doesn't even matter as much now with no Energy Drain) or ASTs had a proper card setup aligned? So frustrating to not even be able to experiment with new hotkeys and whatnot because I can't use a lot of my critical abilities outside of combat unless I find a training dummy.

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Originally Posted by althenawhm

Yeah, its definitely because YOU are not in combat.

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That seems like the issue. Still it should be if the party is in combat then I am in combat, not when I have enmity from a monster

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Originally Posted by IveraIvalice

That seems like the issue. Still it should be if the party is in combat then I am in combat, not when I have enmity from a monster

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Well, thats just how it is.
Same with aetherflow and lilies too.

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Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

I don't get ANY of the healer changes with regards to this, tbh. Was it absolutely bongos OP/broken that SCHs started fights with extra Aetherflow (doesn't even matter as much now with no Energy Drain) or ASTs had a proper card setup aligned? So frustrating to not even be able to experiment with new hotkeys and whatnot because I can't use a lot of my critical abilities outside of combat unless I find a training dummy.

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With a proper card setup in the new system I can punch out a 15 second duration, 14% damage buff for the whole party.

What was the best we could do in the old one? Oh yeah. 5%. With a whole lot of fishing around and hoping for a 1 in 6 chance of actually getting the right card.

Yeah this seems like an oversight. If they're going to have role mechanics that function based on combat status, then if your party is in combat, all members should be flagged as in combat.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

if your party is in combat, all members should be flagged as in combat.

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Especially because some people on this forum are deathly allergic to DPS spells.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

With a proper card setup in the new system I can punch out a 15 second duration, 14% damage buff for the whole party.

What was the best we could do in the old one? Oh yeah. 5%. With a whole lot of fishing around and hoping for a 1 in 6 chance of actually getting the right card.

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To be fair, the 5% Balance Spread was also for 30 seconds, not 15. That's not including the abilities like the old Celestial Opposition that could lengthen its duration further, as well as the fact that Spread Balances could be obtained much more frequently than every 3 minutes.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

With a proper card setup in the new system I can punch out a 15 second duration, 14% damage buff for the whole party.

What was the best we could do in the old one? Oh yeah. 5%. With a whole lot of fishing around and hoping for a 1 in 6 chance of actually getting the right card.

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14% ? Am I missing something, tool tip says 6% with 3 seals, and even with throwing individual cards on everyone as well, that's only 12%

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Originally Posted by MomoMizrahi

14% ? Am I missing something, tool tip says 6% with 3 seals, and even with throwing individual cards on everyone as well, that's only 12%

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Divination stacks with cards, so if you stack it with a Lord / Lady of Crowns (8% on the proper role) you can get a total of 14% (8% + 6%).

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Originally Posted by althenawhm

Well, thats just how it is.
Same with aetherflow and lilies too.

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I don’t feel like it’s exactly the same. It’s true that they follow the same “in combat” rules but with aetheflow its simply you can’t use aetherflow unless you are in combat. With Lillies it’s not as clear but you aren’t gaining Lillie’s until you attack or heal, that one is a bit annoying too. But the difference is that with ast cards you CAN use the card, you just won’t get half of the affect if you didn’t do something first, and then your on a 30 second cool down.

As Sylve mentioned above, the card doesn’t count as a first action. If they at least made the card cast get you “in combat” then check if you should get a seal after then it would work out. Something so that we don’t use an action expecting to get something out of it and then only get half of what you were expecting and also go on gcd after.

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Originally Posted by Metamyth

Divination stacks with cards, so if you stack it with a Lord / Lady of Crowns (8% on the proper role) you can get a total of 14% (8% + 6%).

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not for the entire party however

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Originally Posted by MomoMizrahi

not for the entire party however

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Right. You'd feel the impact most with a light party; in a full party, not everyone's gonna get the most out of it. I was just saying where the 14% comes from.

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Originally Posted by Metamyth

Right. You'd feel the impact most with a light party; in a full party, not everyone's gonna get the most out of it. I was just saying where the 14% comes from.

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fair enough, I should have specified the lord/lady too. Just wanted to know where that person was getting the "whole party" from. You're correct on the light parties, but even then, after you use sleeve draw you're waiting out the duration of the CD for sleeve draw to do that again. Person above us just threw me for a loop with the "whole party" comment

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Originally Posted by MomoMizrahi

not for the entire party however

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Sleeve Draw.
Requires some planning to pull off entirely. Draw a card and immediately Lord/Lady it. Play behaves like spread, so duration is no issue.
When Draw comes back, assuming you have a Divination ready to go, toss the Lord on the first player. Immediately draw and burn for a Lord again. Play that on the second player. Sleeve Draw for the Draw reset and dual charge. Draw and burn again for players 3 and 4.
You can fit Divination in here wherever the math says its most optimal. But playing the cards like that nets you 4 active Lord/Lady cards and Divination.

As an aside, Dual AST actually can pull off this maneuver in a Full Party to get raidwide coverage of 14% damage. Properly coordinated with a Trick window, you're looking at a substantial burst period for the party.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

Sleeve Draw.
Requires some planning to pull off entirely. Draw a card and immediately Lord/Lady it. Play behaves like spread, so duration is no issue.
When Draw comes back, assuming you have a Divination ready to go, toss the Lord on the first player. Immediately draw and burn for a Lord again. Play that on the second player. Sleeve Draw for the Draw reset and dual charge. Draw and burn again for players 3 and 4.
You can fit Divination in here wherever the math says its most optimal. But playing the cards like that nets you 4 active Lord/Lady cards and Divination.

As an aside, Dual AST actually can pull off this maneuver in a Full Party to get raidwide coverage of 14% damage. Properly coordinated with a Trick window, you're looking at a substantial burst period for the party.

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Well yea I get what you're saying there,

In 4 man, you can do this every 3 minutes since sleeve draw and divination are 3m CDs
and in between time you could just lord and lady your way to the next boss trying to make sure you dont get a dam spire for the 8th time, assuming it's going to take 3m to reach the next boss in a light party

but for 8 man, you're giving 4 people 14% and the other 4 6%, which isn't an eyesore by any means

Honestly it just kind of sucks that as an AST main who really enjoyed the utility (yes even the cards people deem as "useless" for some reason) I am now just a dmg buff bot
The simplicity imo has taken away some of the fun for me, I could see how others would like it though, especially those AST who only believe in the way of The Balance, but meh; I'll continue playing AST because I'll never stop being an AST main, but just kind of feels bad at the moment......maybe when they fix the "in combat" issue it'll be more fluid at least

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Originally Posted by MomoMizrahi

Well yea I get what you're saying there,

In 4 man, you can do this every 3 minutes since sleeve draw and divination are 3m CDs
and in between time you could just lord and lady your way to the next boss trying to make sure you dont get a dam spire for the 8th time, assuming it's going to take 3m to reach the next boss in a light party

but for 8 man, you're giving 4 people 14% and the other 4 6%, which isn't an eyesore by any means

Honestly it just kind of sucks that as an AST main who really enjoyed the utility (yes even the cards people deem as "useless" for some reason) I am now just a dmg buff bot
The simplicity imo has taken away some of the fun for me, I could see how others would like it though, especially those AST who only believe in the way of The Balance, but meh; I'll continue playing AST because I'll never stop being an AST main, but just kind of feels bad at the moment......maybe when they fix the "in combat" issue it'll be more fluid at least

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I'm probably just weird about it, but the old cards were not really utility, they were just 6 flavors of +Damage that got there in a roundabout way in varying degrees of effectiveness. Yeah, even Spire since More TP = More AoEs = more damage.
Even Ewer on a freshly raised healer … I've been in that situation. Raised a WHM in Orbonne who died with Lucid active. He got up, I got a Ewer, put it on him. He used the MP to throw Stones until he died again. So even Ewer was just a roundabout way to boost a targets dps by giving them more MP to burn on DPS spells.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

I'm probably just weird about it, but the old cards were not really utility, they were just 6 flavors of +Damage that got there in a roundabout way in varying degrees of effectiveness. Yeah, even Spire since More TP = More AoEs = more damage.
Even Ewer on a freshly raised healer … I've been in that situation. Raised a WHM in Orbonne who died with Lucid active. He got up, I got a Ewer, put it on him. He used the MP to throw Stones until he died again. So even Ewer was just a roundabout way to boost a targets dps by giving them more MP to burn on DPS spells.

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Good ol' white mage and their stones, never change WHM, never change LOL