Endwalker AST has too many buttons, and other issues

Endwalker AST has too many buttons, and it is unnecessary. The Draw action should change to the drawn card so that it can be played, like in Heavensward, to avoid having a second Play button. Likewise with Major Arcana, the action should change to the drawn card. The extra two Play buttons makes hotbar layout awkward.

Additionally, the ground target area for Earthly Star is way too big. Even if the star effects this area, the placement target should be small, the size of the star itself, similar in size to Ninja's Shukuchi. The affected area can be easily seen by the star particles once the star is placed down. The massive ground target makes it difficult to accurately position the star, and is hard on the eyes / looks messy when placing.

EDIT: Another BIG problem I am finding while playing AST is that there is no way to use unwanted cards. Before, Minor Arcana would convert the card and not affect seals, this was crucial to getting all three seals. Minor Arcana just doesn't feel satisfying to use anymore. There has always been a way to use unwanted cards, be it Royal Road back in HW/SB, or Minor Arcana in ShB, but now I feel forced to use a card I don't want, or to Undraw and waste the cooldown.

They obviously don’t want players on controller to play AST only WHM.

As a newish player it's the job i really want to love but can't quite seem to manage it. Their healing kit is amazing. But the cards system in this iteration just feels bloated and unrewarding.

At the moment you play all 3 cards in the opener with Lightspeed to line up with Divination, and repeat every 2 minutes. You may as well just scrap the cards and make Divination 8% damage instead of 6%, it would essentially be the same effect.

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Originally Posted by Hammerhorn

They obviously don’t want players on controller to play AST only WHM.

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Don't worry, just yeet Undraw and Redraw and you're good to go. You're even gonna have less card OGCD busywork to worry about!
Really loving this AST redesign that makes me not care about the job gauge.

The only thing wrong w astrologer is that undraw is useless. Like someone else said take undraw and redraw off if the numbering buttons is too much. You can also take off sleep cause that is never used

Undraw and Redraw being off the bars actually helps a lot as a controller player. I do think the draw and play would nicer consolidated into one button.

Lol i dont even know yet as im playing sage now and have dropped the cards after the 5.0 changes.... is it really worse again?

Minor Arcana, why does it require separate button?

AST is the only healer I was having trouble setting up bars for. Not really looking forward to leveling it.

Merge Draw and Play into a single button, this is how AST was in HW and no one is going to persuade me that splitting it into two buttons was in anyway an improvement.

Same goes for Minor Arcana. Come on SE, you're better than this rubbish design.

Undraw goes into the bin, it's about the only ability in the game that's even more pointless than SHB Fluid Aura.

Personally, I don't really like the idea of Redraw going though. Is it a huge ability? No not really, but it's an extra chance per card of getting the right buff on the right person, nice to have in 4 man content where I routinely seem to only have melee dps as of late.

Last thing some classes need are less buttons. They've dumbed some of them down enough.

Same. I've been rearranging my buttons as of late and at the very least I think the Minor Arcana and Crown Play card would work fine as one combined button. I don't mind redraw if I'm fishing for a different seal, and undraw seems to be useful for controller players, though (or so I've heard in the past).

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Originally Posted by DBriggs304

Last thing some classes need are less buttons. They've dumbed some of them down enough.

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Consolidating Draw and Crown Play would not be dumbing the job down. It would remove needless button bloat that really doesn’t need to be a thing. There’s zero reason for Crown Play to even be an ability, since Minor Arcana in SB functioned as >press MA to generate Lord/Lady >press MA again to deploy Lord/Lady. Why they decided Crown Play was needed is beyond me.

But I’ve taken issue with the card system since ShB changes. Astrodyne is just terrible design with the new Redraw and I hate it so much. Personally, I never saw the need for AST to really have a single target buff on itself.

I loved my AST, now I am so conflicted on my AST OR SGE as my Main job for EW

I'm so glad seals no longer effect divination. Then, there is Astrodyne... forcing seals to exist. 99.9% of the time I only get 2 seals effect. Rarely get the 3rd effect like old divination was. Redraw is so bad I stop bother with it. Astrodyne that require 3 seals to use while I can only use 2 cards in the opener, why? If sleeve draw stays, we can start with Astrodyne in the opener. Then again, Astrodyne is so unnecessary to the point I can do content without and will noticed zero benefit with it.

Minor Arcana... Why can't I draw my card out of combat? When I need heal, I get Lord. When I need dps, I get Lady. Crown play is also very unnecessary.

Exaltation... 8s too short for damage reduction. 60s too long for such garbo effect. 500 potency too low to be meaningful.

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Originally Posted by Miziliti

I'm so glad seals no longer effect divination. Then, there is Astrodyne... forcing seals to exist. 99.9% of the time I only get 2 seals effect. Rarely get the 3rd effect like old divination was. Redraw is so bad I stop bother with it. Astrodyne that require 3 seals to use while I can only use 2 cards in the opener, why? If sleeve draw stays, we can start with Astrodyne in the opener. Then again, Astrodyne is so unnecessary to the point I can do content without and will noticed zero benefit with it.

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Astrodyne sucking aside, to get your three cards, you’d essentially Draw pre-pull, and then pray that you get a group who can wait 30 seconds for your second charge to come off cooldown again. In EXs, Savages, or Ultimates (or any half-optimized group), ideally you can get something close to this. That said, I personally don’t miss Sleeve Draw. In the current situation with AST gaining so many pointless buttons, Sleeve would just be another button adding to the current issue of bloat.

But it doesn’t solve the issue of the seals themselves being crap, Redraw being crap, and Astrodyne being crap. Astrodyne exists to keep the seal mechanic relevant; but the seals themselves exist to keep the 4 of the cards relevant. Without them, you could just reduce the system to 2 cards: one for ranged and one for melee. Heck, you could even reduce it to just one card and make it a flat 5% single-target buff. It’s a terrible system.

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Originally Posted by Hammerhorn

They obviously don’t want players on controller to play AST only WHM.

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Oh, no one told me. Guess i should stop even thou i never had any issues.

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Originally Posted by Hammerhorn

They obviously don’t want players on controller to play AST only WHM.

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As a controller player, I manage just fine. But I use the Expanded Crossbars option, which I highly recommend to any controller player because it doubles your reach without extra effort. It takes a little getting used to at first, but it's a godsend.

But I do agree that it could with with a trim. Draw & Minor Arcana should get swapped out for their respective "Play" buttons. Also, make it so when you've used Redraw it becomes Undraw. So if you really do want to roll again and not use the card you've got, the aforementioned change won't get in the way and this would save on Undraw taking up extra space, especially as you can only use Redraw once per Draw.

With my current setup, this would be ideal because I could move Astrodyne and Divination into those places. and stick Macrocosmos where I've currently got Divination and it'll make sure use of the space I've got.

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Originally Posted by tadashi_3

Endwalker AST has too many buttons, and it is unnecessary. The Draw action should change to the drawn card so that it can be played, like in Heavensward, to avoid having a second Play button. Likewise with Major Arcana, the action should change to the drawn card. The extra two Play buttons makes hotbar layout awkward.

Additionally, the ground target area for Earthly Star is way too big. Even if the star effects this area, the placement target should be small, the size of the star itself, similar in size to Ninja's Shukuchi. The affected area can be easily seen by the star particles once the star is placed down. The massive ground target makes it difficult to accurately position the star, and is hard on the eyes / looks messy when placing.

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I disagree that Earthly Star size is too big. The amount of times I've sworn under my breath when you plan your Earthly Star and people move outside of it...this deals with that problem.

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Originally Posted by DBriggs304

Last thing some classes need are less buttons. They've dumbed some of them down enough.

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This isn't a case of of dumbing the job down. There are at least 6 buttons that don't need to exist in AST's toolkit because they aren't doing anything other than bloat the hotbar.
- Why does Benefic I need to be a separate button, nobody is gonna use it when Benefic II is available. I'm sorry but Freecure and Ehanced Benefic traits are really bad.
- Crown Play and Play are unnecessary and the cool stuff you can do with Play suffers from macro queuing system (or lack there of).
- Why does Undraw still exist, its literally less than useless since 5.0.
- Post-SGE its really hard to justify Aspected Spells and the Dot existing as separate buttons, like AST is the easiest Job to apply this QoL Sage introduced. Add a "Aspection" button that turns Benefic II into Aspected Benefic, Helios into Aspected Helios, Malefic into Aspected Malefic (Combust).

There 6 button removed and only 1 added and the class plays exactly as it does now. And i didn't even mention Redraw or Astrodyne which honestly just makes the Job twice more busy than it has to for virtually no benefit.
Feel free to add more buttons via this free'd up space. How about we add AoE Dots again? Aspected Gravity lets go! So much room for new stuff!
And thanks to this fat trimming controller players don't have to deal with 34 abilities when 32 is the most they can comfortably use via the XHB and WXHB.

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Originally Posted by RinaShinomiya

This isn't a case of of dumbing the job down. There are at least 6 buttons that don't need to exist in AST's toolkit because they aren't doing anything other than bloat the hotbar.
- Why does Benefic I need to be a separate button, nobody is gonna use it when Benefic II is available. I'm sorry but Freecure and Ehanced Benefic traits are really bad.
- Crown Play and Play are unnecessary and the cool stuff you can do with Play suffers from macro queuing system (or lack there of).
- Why does Undraw still exist, its literally less than useless since 5.0.
- Post-SGE its really hard to justify Aspected Spells and the Dot existing as separate buttons, like AST is the easiest Job to apply this QoL Sage introduced. Add a "Aspection" button that turns Benefic II into Aspected Benefic, Helios into Aspected Helios, Malefic into Aspected Malefic (Combust).

There 6 button removed and only 1 added and the class plays exactly as it does now. And i didn't even mention Redraw or Astrodyne which honestly just makes the Job twice more busy than it has to for virtually no benefit.
Feel free to add more buttons via this free'd up space. How about we add AoE Dots again? Aspected Gravity lets go! So much room for new stuff!
And thanks to this fat trimming controller players don't have to deal with 34 abilities when 32 is the most they can comfortably use via the XHB and WXHB.

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to add to the options of button removal, i would throw astrodyn to the mix and simply make it a trait that automatically activate instead due to how redraw and the current seal system is right now.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

Astrodyne sucking aside, to get your three cards, you’d essentially Draw pre-pull, and then pray that you get a group who can wait 30 seconds for your second charge to come off cooldown again. In EXs, Savages, or Ultimates (or any half-optimized group), ideally you can get something close to this. That said, I personally don’t miss Sleeve Draw. In the current situation with AST gaining so many pointless buttons, Sleeve would just be another button adding to the current issue of bloat.

But it doesn’t solve the issue of the seals themselves being crap, Redraw being crap, and Astrodyne being crap. Astrodyne exists to keep the seal mechanic relevant; but the seals themselves exist to keep the 4 of the cards relevant. Without them, you could just reduce the system to 2 cards: one for ranged and one for melee. Heck, you could even reduce it to just one card and make it a flat 5% single-target buff. It’s a terrible system.

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That's my issue currently, I want to like Astrologian but the card's don't feel in any way rewarding to use.

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Originally Posted by Miziliti

I'm so glad seals no longer effect divination. Then, there is Astrodyne... forcing seals to exist. 99.9% of the time I only get 2 seals effect. Rarely get the 3rd effect like old divination was. Redraw is so bad I stop bother with it. Astrodyne that require 3 seals to use while I can only use 2 cards in the opener, why? If sleeve draw stays, we can start with Astrodyne in the opener. Then again, Astrodyne is so unnecessary to the point I can do content without and will noticed zero benefit with it.

Minor Arcana... Why can't I draw my card out of combat? When I need heal, I get Lord. When I need dps, I get Lady. Crown play is also very unnecessary.

Exaltation... 8s too short for damage reduction. 60s too long for such garbo effect. 500 potency too low to be meaningful.

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I must be a very lucky girl because I get 3 different seals like 90% of the time. I love it.

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

I must be a very lucky girl because I get 3 different seals like 90% of the time. I love it.

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Mathematically not even possible so, sure thing.

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Originally Posted by RinaShinomiya

- Post-SGE its really hard to justify Aspected Spells and the Dot existing as separate buttons, like AST is the easiest Job to apply this QoL Sage introduced. Add a "Aspection" button that turns Benefic II into Aspected Benefic, Helios into Aspected Helios, Malefic into Aspected Malefic (Combust).

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You could simply merge Benefic, Benefic II and Aspected Benefic together and make it heal and apply a regen, similarly to how Adlo heals and applies a shield. Same for Helios and Aspected Helios.

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Originally Posted by rewd

You could simply merge Benefic, Benefic II and Aspected Benefic together and make it heal and apply a regen, similarly to how Adlo heals and applies a shield. Same for Helios and Aspected Helios.

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No. Benefic 2 and Aspected Benefic, Helios and Aspected Helios actually have a reason to be separate buttons. You can't spam Aspected versions of these spells and heal nearly the same amount of HP as using Aspected version once + multiple regular ones. It works exactly the same on Sage. Your suggestion would actually worsen the jobs healing capabilities.

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Originally Posted by RinaShinomiya

- Post-SGE its really hard to justify Aspected Spells and the Dot existing as separate buttons, like AST is the easiest Job to apply this QoL Sage introduced. Add a "Aspection" button that turns Benefic II into Aspected Benefic, Helios into Aspected Helios, Malefic into Aspected Malefic (Combust).

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Sure, if you don't want SGE to be unique anymore, and you want to lose double weave opportunities, since out the healers AST and SCH double weave the most.

As far as button reduction and fixes goes I would:
-Consolidate draw and play to one button
-Delete undraw, please
-Bring back 5.3 sleeve draw to help mitigate rng
-Give 2 charges of clarifying draw

Regarding the issues with astrodyne and minor arcana:
-Consolidate minor arcana and crown play
-Make minor arcana function as it did pre-5.1(?), swap a drawn card to lord or lady that you hold
-Make astrodyne 120s to make it fit 120 burst like we used to (sorta), as it is now it's effectively a 90s cd

The reason I want that to happen is so it could work thus: After using astrodyne and putting it on cd, you can use your extra cards by turning them into lord or lady by hitting minor arcana, which then turns into crown play on the same button. Having to press minor arcana and then play it on a separate button press was an issue in 5.x because all of our cards were targeted, but new lord and lady are both aoe so by removing the targeting from the equation it would be a lot easier to minor arcana then crown play on the next weave opportunity. This in conjunction with redraw charges gives us more agency in pulling a lord or lady based on what we need at the time, and having crown play would give us flexibility in when it's used.

Example: you prepull draw, play, draw (redraw as necessary), play, then sleeve draw, then astrodyne. And now you still have an extra charge of draw sitting around, so you use that to get a seal, wait 30s, seal, 30s, then you come upon your 3rd draw usage before astrodyne and sleeve draw come off cooldown. In that moment, you may want to draw and then minor arcana so you can use sleeve draw for guaranteed 3rd seal. Then you can think about what's about to happen, is there about to be some heavy damage going out? In that case, say you draw a balance, you redraw, get an arrow, redraw again, and you get a ewer. Then you minor arcana it and hold it until the damage goes out, then crown play your lady for the heal. Then it's time for your 120 burst, so you sleeve draw, then astrodyne again.

I feel that changes like this would do a great job for reducing button bloat by at least 2 buttons, while also making the playstyle more exciting despite that and giving you more agency in what happens and avenues for mitigating rng.

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Originally Posted by RinaShinomiya

No. Benefic 2 and Aspected Benefic, Helios and Aspected Helios actually have a reason to be separate buttons. You can't spam Aspected versions of these spells and heal nearly the same amount of HP as using Aspected version once + multiple regular ones. It works exactly the same on Sage. Your suggestion would actually worsen the jobs healing capabilities.

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Which is why you would obviously adjust potencies so that already redundant skills would become even more redundant...

Yes, I imagine AST would be a bad healer without Helios, it's such a key skill in its kit...
We really, really don't need 5 GCD heals that all do the same boring thing with small differences, especially because they are skills we don't even want to use at all.

Why are Benefic and Benefic II different? Well, for the reason you think Helios and A. Helios totally need. There are very niche situations in which Benefic (and Cure) can be useful. Are they very niche scenarios? You can bet on it, just like with the other GCD heals you really, really think need to exist.

Your suggestions also have important implications. Giving AST the Eukrasia treatment would be awful because you would give up on the double weave from Combust.
MA and Crown Play are different buttons because that allows you to draw a card and start the cooldown of MA. You don't need two different buttons to get that effect, but simply merging them together wouldn't make it possible.

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Originally Posted by rewd

Your suggestions also have important implications. Giving AST the Eukrasia treatment would be awful because you would give up on the double weave from Combust.
MA and Crown Play are different buttons because that allows you to draw a card and start the cooldown of MA. You don't need two different buttons to get that effect, but simply merging them together wouldn't make it possible.

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Double weaving would certainly be a loss but i dont see how it would be impossible to have a skill be on cooldown while it also changes into its respective play button. In fact i think Dragoon already has that with greiskrogul and Nastrond.

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Originally Posted by rewd

MA and Crown Play are different buttons because that allows you to draw a card and start the cooldown of MA. You don't need two different buttons to get that effect, but simply merging them together wouldn't make it possible.

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I think this is incorrect. The developers have proven that they can consolidate while also immediately triggering the cooldown of an ability—and on AST, no less. The second you place Earthly Star, its button changes into Stellar Detonation. Regardless of when you detonate it, if you do it manually or let it go off naturally, the cooldown has already been ticking down for the next Star usage. It’s not like HW or SB Draw where holding a card delayed Draw’s cooldown reset.

Minor Arcana could absolutely be programmed the same way as Earthly Star.


Re: Cure I/Benefic I having niche usages—

All of the base single-target heals (Cure I, Benefic I, Physick, and Diagnosis) stop being useful around level 40—a bit higher for WHM due to their poor MP economy pre-Assize and Solace, but you really shouldn’t be using Cure I beyond level 50 at the very latest. It is impossible to maintain a tank in leveling dungeons beyond ARR with Cure I spam. The potency simply cannot keep up with the incoming damage the tank is eating. Even for SGE you spam Eukrasian Diagnosis over regular Diagnosis (if you’re ever in a horrible situation where you have to resort to that); Diagnosis is way too weak to sustain.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

I think this is incorrect. The developers have proven that they can consolidate while also immediately triggering the cooldown of an ability—and on AST, no less. The second you place Earthly Star, its button changes into Stellar Detonation. Regardless of when you detonate it, if you do it manually or let it go off naturally, the cooldown has already been ticking down for the next Star usage. It’s not like HW or SB Draw where holding a card delayed Draw’s cooldown reset.

Minor Arcana could absolutely be programmed the same way as Earthly Star.


Re: Cure I/Benefic I having niche usages—

All of the base single-target heals (Cure I, Benefic I, Physick, and Diagnosis) stop being useful around level 40—a bit higher for WHM due to their poor MP economy pre-Assize and Solace, but you really shouldn’t be using Cure I beyond level 50 at the very latest. It is impossible to maintain a tank in leveling dungeons beyond ARR with Cure I spam. The potency simply cannot keep up with the incoming damage the tank is eating. Even for SGE you spam Eukrasian Diagnosis over regular Diagnosis (if you’re ever in a horrible situation where you have to resort to that); Diagnosis is way too weak to sustain.

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Earthly Star works because the detonation timer is shorter than the cooldown of the skill. As you said, the star will explode after 20 seconds, regardless of what you do, and the cooldown of the skill will be at 40s at that point. This wouldn't work with Minor Arcana because cards don't have a timer. You could draw a card and hold it for the whole fight. With MA and CP merged, you would draw a card and be unable to see how much is left on the cooldown because nothing would force you to use the card in the span of 60s. This would be easily fixable by giving cards a timer (something like 50s), but that was my point: simply merging the two buttons would be problematic without an additional fix/change.

Regarding healing spells: I'm not saying those skills are enough to heal whatever you want to heal or that you should use them. I'm saying that if we are getting nitpicky enough to say that Helios totally deserves to be a skill because there are those niche scenarios in which you really, really need that additional potency from Helios or need to spam so many GCD heals (on AST, of all healers), then we can make similar arguments for things like Benefic and Benefic II and I've been in those situations (usual cursed mentor roulettes). Still, I would be more than happy to see Benefic gone, merged or whatever, as well as other skills. We simply don't need so many healing skills - especially skills we don't want to touch -. Just take the Blue Mage approach.

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Originally Posted by rewd

Earthly Star works because the detonation timer is shorter than the cooldown of the skill. As you said, the star will explode after 20 seconds, regardless of what you do, and the cooldown of the skill will be at 40s at that point. This wouldn't work with Minor Arcana because cards don't have a timer. You could draw a card and hold it for the whole fight. With MA and CP merged, you would draw a card and be unable to see how much is left on the cooldown because nothing would force you to use the card in the span of 60s. This would be easily fixable by giving cards a timer (something like 50s), but that was my point: simply merging the two buttons would be problematic without an additional fix/change

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i think yourse seriously underestimating the devs' programming skills. what do you say of technical step? its cooldown begins when you start using the skill, not when you fire off the attack

if the "problem" is someone never playing a card then honestly they deserve having that cooldown drift.

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Originally Posted by rewd

Earthly Star works because the detonation timer is shorter than the cooldown of the skill. As you said, the star will explode after 20 seconds, regardless of what you do, and the cooldown of the skill will be at 40s at that point. This wouldn't work with Minor Arcana because cards don't have a timer. You could draw a card and hold it for the whole fight. With MA and CP merged, you would draw a card and be unable to see how much is left on the cooldown because nothing would force you to use the card in the span of 60s. This would be easily fixable by giving cards a timer (something like 50s), but that was my point: simply merging the two buttons would be problematic without an additional fix/change.

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This isn’t a really good defense. Just because the cards no longer have timers doesn’t mean that they can’t still make Minor Arcana (and Draw) function the same way Earthly Star does with regards to resetting its countdown. Just because you can hold a card indefinitely now (theoretically) doesn’t mean that this isn’t possible. I agree with the above post: if you’re holding on to that Lady of Crowns or Ewer the entire fight, then you deserve to lose those casts and have that cooldown drift.

But it can be done. The developers have proven you can program skills this way. And I seriously hope that they consider this in the future. I’m sure they could add onto the job gauge the cooldown/charge timer in some way for those who would like to track it, or may be trying to strategically hold a card for a burst window or something. There’s just no need for Play and Crown Play to exist. And the same can be said for Undraw, to be honest. Even if, during my Astrodyne seal gathering, I want to Undraw out of frustration when Clarifying Draw gives me THE SAME SEAL WHEN I USE IT. (Honestly, that should be hotfixed or something—would be a nice QoL to program Redraw to give you at least a different seal than the one you had Drawn before…)

I personally would love the damage buffs of the cards moved to divination and for more utility based buffs to be placed on the cards with the old system (some ideas could be: movement speed, haste, CD reduction, damage reduction, MP regen). I love how astro heals now, the card system is the main thing which I miss.

That aside I still enjoy the card system I just want the buttons consolidated because, why take 2 steps back

The amount of Buttons isnt a issue even on a ps4 controller, be it AST or any other Job. If anything, its Healers as a whole which are flawed by design, because they become more and more unnecessary with every coming expansion since Stormblood.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

i think yourse seriously underestimating the devs' programming skills. what do you say of technical step? its cooldown begins when you start using the skill, not when you fire off the attack

if the "problem" is someone never playing a card then honestly they deserve having that cooldown drift.

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What do I say of Technical Step? Literally what I said in my previous comment that you quoted...

The skill has a 120s cooldown, the buff lasts for 20s. Works the same way as Earthly Star.

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This isn’t a really good defense. Just because the cards no longer have timers doesn’t mean that they can’t still make Minor Arcana (and Draw) function the same way Earthly Star does with regards to resetting its countdown. Just because you can hold a card indefinitely now (theoretically) doesn’t mean that this isn’t possible. I agree with the above post: if you’re holding on to that Lady of Crowns or Ewer the entire fight, then you deserve to lose those casts and have that cooldown drift.

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It's an objectively good defense because merging the buttons without adjusting how the system works would be problematic. I would say that your rebuttal is pretty bad, as you (and the other user) are pretty much attacking a hyperbole instead of attacking the point.

In this iteration, there is a reason for having two buttons. There's no need for two buttons because you can make easy adjustments such as giving cards a timer (this is how Earthly Star works), add a timer to the job gauge or other things. Simply merging the two buttons and calling it a day wouldn't do it. You could hold a card for 56 centuries, for 61 seconds, it doesn't matter. Don't use hyperboles and extremes as your rebuttals. You are proverbially looking at my finger when I'm pointing at the moon.

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Originally Posted by rewd

What do I say of Technical Step? Literally what I said in my previous comment that you quoted...

The skill has a 120s cooldown, the buff lasts for 20s. Works the same way as Earthly Star.


It's an objectively good defense because merging the buttons without adjusting how the system works would be problematic. I would say that your rebuttal is pretty bad, as you (and the other user) are pretty much attacking a hyperbole instead of attacking the point.

In this iteration, there is a reason for having two buttons. There's no need for two buttons because you can make easy adjustments such as giving cards a timer (this is how Earthly Star works), add a timer to the job gauge or other things. Simply merging the two buttons and calling it a day wouldn't do it. You could hold a card for 56 centuries, for 61 seconds, it doesn't matter. Don't use hyperboles and extremes as your rebuttals. You are proverbially looking at my finger when I'm pointing at the moon.

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So your defense is they are separate buttons because the programmers didn't bother making the card system good, and not because there is a gameplay advantage of it being like it is right now.
Which cycles us back to the buttons needing to be consolidated. Just because we don't say cards need timers when asking for it doesn't mean that it's impossible to implement. It's not our job to think of how things are gonna work on a technical level when asking for improvements, we don't work at Business Division 3, we just play their game.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

This isn’t a really good defense. Just because the cards no longer have timers doesn’t mean that they can’t still make Minor Arcana (and Draw) function the same way Earthly Star does with regards to resetting its countdown. Just because you can hold a card indefinitely now (theoretically) doesn’t mean that this isn’t possible. I agree with the above post: if you’re holding on to that Lady of Crowns or Ewer the entire fight, then you deserve to lose those casts and have that cooldown drift.

But it can be done. The developers have proven you can program skills this way. And I seriously hope that they consider this in the future. I’m sure they could add onto the job gauge the cooldown/charge timer in some way for those who would like to track it, or may be trying to strategically hold a card for a burst window or something. There’s just no need for Play and Crown Play to exist. And the same can be said for Undraw, to be honest. Even if, during my Astrodyne seal gathering, I want to Undraw out of frustration when Clarifying Draw gives me THE SAME SEAL WHEN I USE IT. (Honestly, that should be hotfixed or something—would be a nice QoL to program Redraw to give you at least a different seal than the one you had Drawn before…)

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Originally Posted by RinaShinomiya

So your defense is they are separate buttons because the programmers didn't bother making the card system good, and not because there is a gameplay advantage of it being like it is right now.
Which cycles us back to the buttons needing to be consolidated. Just because we don't say cards need timers when asking for it doesn't mean that it's impossible to implement. It's not our job to think of how things are gonna work on a technical level when asking for improvements, we don't work at Business Division 3, we just play their game.

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First of all I wouldn't even call it "defense" (I just used the term someone used replying to me), it's an explanation. I'm also agreeing that the buttons can and should be consolidated (as I've already expressed in more than one comment...), so I'm not your enemy.

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Originally Posted by rewd

It's an objectively good defense because merging the buttons without adjusting how the system works would be problematic. I would say that your rebuttal is pretty bad, as you (and the other user) are pretty much attacking a hyperbole instead of attacking the point.

In this iteration, there is a reason for having two buttons. There's no need for two buttons because you can make easy adjustments such as giving cards a timer (this is how Earthly Star works), add a timer to the job gauge or other things. Simply merging the two buttons and calling it a day wouldn't do it. You could hold a card for 56 centuries, for 61 seconds, it doesn't matter. Don't use hyperboles and extremes as your rebuttals. You are proverbially looking at my finger when I'm pointing at the moon.

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I don’t think you know what hyperbole means if you’re calling my posts to you hyperbolic. You seem to be fixating on the “you can hold a card for the entire fight” when myself and QooEr are only responding to an example YOU brought up.

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Originally Posted by rewd

Earthly Star works because the detonation timer is shorter than the cooldown of the skill. As you said, the star will explode after 20 seconds, regardless of what you do, and the cooldown of the skill will be at 40s at that point. This wouldn't work with Minor Arcana because cards don't have a timer. You could draw a card and hold it for the whole fight. With MA and CP merged, you would draw a card and be unable to see how much is left on the cooldown because nothing would force you to use the card in the span of 60s. This would be easily fixable by giving cards a timer (something like 50s), but that was my point: simply merging the two buttons would be problematic without an additional fix/change.

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That’s the only thing about my post I can even remotely think resembles hyperbole.



AST cards actually used to have a timer. You couldn’t hold them indefinitely. That is purely a ShB AST and onwards thing—which was when the card system became so divisive and when Play came into existence. Play itself was also a controversial addition in ShB; and it didn’t help that it had issues with delay in the beginning. Before, you could only hold them for 30 seconds; and there was honestly very little reason to remove said countdowns in the first place. With the way bursts now work in this game at static intervals of 60 seconds (barring those weird examples that directly contradicted the changes the devs wants to make in EW of lining buffs up to 60-second intervals), there is little reason to hold a card unless you are allowing Draw to drift or missing casts of it. Which is suboptimal play. Even those weird examples of 90 seconds (Astrodyne being one of them), cards would still line up as 90 is divisible by 30.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

I don’t think you know what hyperbole means if you’re calling my posts to you hyperbolic. You seem to be fixating on the “you can hold a card for the entire fight” when myself and QooEr are only responding to an example YOU brought up.



AST cards actually used to have a timer. You couldn’t hold them indefinitely. That is purely a ShB AST and onwards thing—which was when the card system became so divisive and when Play came into existence. Play itself was also a controversial addition in ShB; and it didn’t help that it had issues with delay in the beginning. Before, you could only hold them for 30 seconds; and there was honestly very little reason to remove said countdowns in the first place. With the way bursts now work in this game at static intervals of 60 seconds (barring those weird examples that directly contradicted the changes the devs wants to make in EW of lining buffs up to 60-second intervals), there is little reason to hold a card unless you are allowing Draw to drift or missing casts of it. Which is suboptimal play. Even those weird examples of 90 seconds (Astrodyne being one of them), cards would still line up as 90 is divisible by 30.

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The hyperbole is saying that you could potentially hold a card for the entire fight because cards have no timer. I'm saying you shouldn't base your rebuttal on this hyperbole (and not that your posts are hyperboles...) because then you are missing the point (hence looking at my finger and not the moon). Whether you drift the cooldown by one second or 500 seconds (going by extremes) doesn't matter, you still can drift and it feels bad. Lady and Lord are usually cards you don't use right away because you either have nothing to heal (Lady) or you are waiting for a scenario to maximize DPS, like an add phase (Lord). With everything going on in a fight (especially on AST), it's not out of the realm of possibility to hold a card for more than 60s waiting for the best opportunity to use it, especially if you can't physically see the cooldown of MA.

Minor Arcana and Crown Play being different buttons is justified with the current design but it is not necessary as you could simply introduce a very easy fix (timer on cards? cooldown shown on the arcana gauge?) and merge the buttons. This is different from DNC's case, for example, where there is no justification at all for Fan Dance IV and Starfall Dance being different buttons when they could simply change from Flourish and Devilment without any problem.

As for the edited part of your comment, it feels a bit out of place as I never mentioned Draw and Play but only MA. I guess the situation is a bit iffy there as Draw has 2 charges now.

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Originally Posted by rewd

Minor Arcana and Crown Play being different buttons is justified with the current design but it is not necessary as you could simply introduce a very easy fix

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GNB combo does this just fine. CD starts the moment your start the combo. No matter how long it takes you to finish the combo, CD will still run to the point it can be enabled again just when you finish the combo.