Reverse the Astro card changes/ Change the new card effects

According to the Letter from the Producer LXXXI Digest, the stated reason for changing the way the card system works was that there have been requests to remove the randomness from Astrologian. I understand that some people did not enjoy the rng of astrodyne or not getting the ranged/ melee card they needed but that doesn't explain why the card effects had to be changed and we have now ended up with only a third of the cards giving a damage buff.
The class will go from being super busy and making you think every 2 minutes to just giving the melee card to your top melee player, same for the ranged card. White mage has always been available for anyone who wants to play a straightfoward healer with astro being an option for people who wanted to get more out of their class, so it seems unneccesary to dumb down the class by removing most of the damage buff cards.
Furthermore, most of the new cards are either completely pointless or have very niche uses. Ewer: ST HoT(astro will have 3 charges of essential dignity, intersection, exaltation + whatever their co-healer has for ST), Bole: 10% DR(all the tanks had their 30% cooldowns upgraded to 40% and 99% of the time they won't need the extra DR anyway), Arrow: 10% Extra HP Recovery(here's a bigger shield for you Mr. Scholar, yay). The only one that appears semi-decent is Spire but even that seems unneccasary considering how many options there are for mitigation/ free heals, both from the healers and from the party.
I feel like the card system should either be reverted to the way it worked in Endwalker or at least change the new cards to be useful/ cards people care about a.k.a make them give a damage boost either via having 1 set of two cards give 6% extra damage, 1 set give crit and the last set give dh or something similar to that. That way we can be excited about all the cards we get instead of having one useful card per draw and two "meh who cares" cards.

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Originally Posted by RhiaCeallach

Furthermore, most of the new cards are either completely pointless or have very niche uses. Ewer: ST HoT(astro will have 3 charges of essential dignity, intersection, exaltation + whatever their co-healer has for ST), Bole: 10% DR(all the tanks had their 30% cooldowns upgraded to 40% and 99% of the time they won't need the extra DR anyway), Arrow: 10% Extra HP Recovery(here's a bigger shield for you Mr. Scholar, yay). The only one that appears semi-decent is Spire but even that seems unneccasary considering how many options there are for mitigation/ free heals, both from the healers and from the party.
I feel like the card system should either be reverted to the way it worked in Endwalker or at least change the new cards to be useful/ cards people care about a.k.a make them give a damage boost either via having 1 set of two cards give 6% extra damage, 1 set give crit and the last set give dh or something similar to that. That way we can be excited about all the cards we get instead of having one useful card per draw and two "meh who cares" cards.

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WHAT YEAR IS IT!?

Bro...they took 2 and a half years just to lobotomize the card system and give us *sort of* useful cards. Like yes, they have unique benefits, but unless some upcoming savages are tailored around the card system, there's going to be SO many useless cards. It's like they heard the SB ASTs wanted unique card effects again, and gave the absolute safest pseudo-unique effects to the cards. Yes they're unique technically. Useful, though? I have my doubts. It feels really bad that EW AST's high apm, quick thinking healer playstyle just, gets deleted from the game with zero replacement.

AST's rng was at least actionable and felt good to work around, versus say, DNC's rng, which is non actionable and gives you very little to do about it lol. It feels like another step towards complete homogenization. I'm really not a fan of this rework, even on paper. Much less in practice when we get our hands on it in 7.0.

But hey, at least this rework was tailored for everyone that didn't play AST. So now at least they get to play the cute card dealing healer that they totally couldn't play before, right? 100% in agreement with you.

We got EW SMN'd.

The rng was an aspect of the job people who didn't like should have player different healers. instead they whined and now every expansion ast has been crushed. Now it's a pale imitation of what it was in fact it's just window dressing. I expect no changes. they show you each expansion what they think of healing jobs.

ShB and EW AST enjoyers keep gaslighting everyone into thinking there is RNG involved in these iterations of the job will never stop being funny. Like, what RNG? Seals?

In ShB, you got all the seals in the first several uses of Draw and then you just threw out Minor Arcana until its Divination time.

In EW, Seals and Astrodyne is just an afterthought, a dead button to have Seals do something irrelevant. If anything, Astrodyne should've been an AST's version of Afflatus Misery, where the potency of the nuke increases for every unique Seal. Minor Arcanas in EW commit the greatest sin of tying defensive and offensive CD to one button. What is worse is that the choice between the two is made by the game, not by the player. Cause if it was up to the players it would be 100% Lord.

Only the HW and StB iterations had RNG with cards, but it was destroyed by Balance fishers, crying they only care for AoE Balance and nothing else. So I agree that RNG is a defining feature of the job and we should return it and the decision-making. But turning all cards into Balance or "just damage" is not the way, this is what killed RNG and AST in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Bloody_Kenny

ShB and EW AST enjoyers keep gaslighting everyone into thinking there is RNG involved in these iterations of the job will never stop being funny. Like, what RNG? Seals?

In ShB, you got all the seals in the first several uses of Draw and then you just threw out Minor Arcana until its Divination time.

In EW, Seals and Astrodyne is just an afterthought, a dead button to have Seals do something irrelevant. If anything, Astrodyne should've been an AST's version of Afflatus Misery, where the potency of the nuke increases for every unique Seal. Minor Arcanas in EW commit the greatest sin of tying defensive and offensive CD to one button. What is worse is that the choice between the two is made by the game, not by the player. Cause if it was up to the players it would be 100% Lord.

Only the HW and StB iterations had RNG with cards, but it was destroyed by Balance fishers, crying they only care for AoE Balance and nothing else. So I agree that RNG is a defining feature of the job and we should return it and the decision-making. But turning all cards into Balance or "just damage" is not the way, this is what killed RNG and AST in the first place.

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Personally, the cards should've never had Damage buffs as an option to start with since it's what ultimately shoehorned the entire class into its current design. I've never liked AST but the concept that I liked the most was how they interacted with their cards. Stuff like Sleeve Draw, Minor Arcana, Royal Road, etc. all gave you the feeling that you were actually trying to defy fate by stacking the cards in such a way that gave you the best possible outcome for a scenario. While I appreciate that the cards are all "unique" again, the fact is, you can't really interact with those cards in any meaningful way like you could before (the effects being dogwater don't help either).

I'd have much preferred that, instead of just giving you all the cards at once, they gave you some means to utilize cards in alternative ways. Obviously not Spread Balance because that's what caused the downfall but stuff like extending the duration of cards, making the buff more potent but at a slightly reduced duration, or giving the card a minor secondary effect would've probably been a better route to go.

They brought back the old card identities which is great, but half of them are redundant with the rest of the bloated kit or don't matter.

They removed rng for no reason except to make the game even more scripted than it already is.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Personally, the cards should've never had Damage buffs as an option to start with since it's what ultimately shoehorned the entire class into its current design. I've never liked AST but the concept that I liked the most was how they interacted with their cards. Stuff like Sleeve Draw, Minor Arcana, Royal Road, etc. all gave you the feeling that you were actually trying to defy fate by stacking the cards in such a way that gave you the best possible outcome for a scenario. While I appreciate that the cards are all "unique" again, the fact is, you can't really interact with those cards in any meaningful way like you could before (the effects being dogwater don't help either).

I'd have much preferred that, instead of just giving you all the cards at once, they gave you some means to utilize cards in alternative ways. Obviously not Spread Balance because that's what caused the downfall but stuff like extending the duration of cards, making the buff more potent but at a slightly reduced duration, or giving the card a minor secondary effect would've probably been a better route to go.

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I agree and disagree with you. There isn't really any other useful means to the cards other than damage. Maybe they could have made the cards like the OP said with crit, dh, and flat damage, but in the end, those are the only viable cards. In HW and StB, Astros only fished for the Balance card because that was the only one really that provided any real benefit. Speed messes with people's rotation and causes drift, TP does not exist, mana isn't necessary for anyone that knows how to manage mana or has the foresight to buy super ethers, and mitigation is redundant as are extra heals. If you were to ever ask a dps player what card they wanted should they have the choice to pick, I guarantee at least 90% would say the flat damage.


However, I totally agree with the idea of using the cards in other ways. That would be an engaging and interesting way to play the class, more so than this "press button get buffs, wait 1 minute".

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Originally Posted by Ari_Calithiel

I agree and disagree with you. There isn't really any other useful means to the cards other than damage. Maybe they could have made the cards like the OP said with crit, dh, and flat damage, but in the end, those are the only viable cards. In HW and StB, Astros only fished for the Balance card because that was the only one really that provided any real benefit. Speed messes with people's rotation and causes drift, TP does not exist, mana isn't necessary for anyone that knows how to manage mana or has the foresight to buy super ethers, and mitigation is redundant as are extra heals. If you were to ever ask a dps player what card they wanted should they have the choice to pick, I guarantee at least 90% would say the flat damage.


However, I totally agree with the idea of using the cards in other ways. That would be an engaging and interesting way to play the class, more so than this "press button get buffs, wait 1 minute".

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Yeah, it's quite intrinsic for the state of XIV, the actual 'useful' boons that cards could give would be very limited. Stats are pretty boring, so giving different offensive stats are just... numbers. Speed is not viable because of the problems you pointed being more egregious nowadays with the 2min bursts.

I'd personally stretch the concept they're doing in Dawntrail for:

Card 1: DPS buff to melee
Card 2: Direct damage using the element of the card
Card 3: Shield
Lord: Spread the effect of the next card

Card 4: DPS buff to ranged
Card 5: Dot using the element of the card
Card 6: Mitigation
Lady: Replicate the effect of the last card

Keeps the same idea, but makes more cards actively useful.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

Yeah, it's quite intrinsic for the state of XIV, the actual 'useful' boons that cards could give would be very limited. Stats are pretty boring, so giving different offensive stats are just... numbers. Speed is not viable because of the problems you pointed being more egregious nowadays with the 2min bursts.

I'd personally stretch the concept they're doing in Dawntrail for:

Card 1: DPS buff to melee
Card 2: Direct damage using the element of the card
Card 3: Shield
Lord: Spread the effect of the next card

Card 4: DPS buff to ranged
Card 5: Dot using the element of the card
Card 6: Mitigation
Lady: Replicate the effect of the last card

Keeps the same idea, but makes more cards actively useful.

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Royal Road: burns drawn card to double the duration or potency of your next card played this as a seprate button would allow flexibility. I do love your changes to lady and lord but how do they work?
Minor arcana: plays lord or lady drawn
Umbral:
spear: dps 10% to any job melee or range doesn't matter
bole: reduce dmg taken by 15% 20 secs
ewer: mp regen 20secs 2500mp
The lord: 500 potency dmg aoe (spread the effect of the next card means... dps buff is given to group? shield is given to group?)

astral:
balance mp 2500 direct bonus
arrow: dmg shield that dmgs the enemy anytime the target is hit duration 20seconds potency 500
spire: barrier of 800 potency
The Lady: 500 potency aoe heal (I like your change of replicate the last effect! That's much more useful.)

Also someone else mentioned new effects like throwing cards to the card for aoe or maybe an effect of throwing all the cards at the mob for an aoe dmg called unshuffle or discard for a high potency aoe or single target dmg? or capstone that gives all the buffs randomly to players in your group. cd 3mins. an oh crap button.

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Originally Posted by Ari_Calithiel

I agree and disagree with you. There isn't really any other useful means to the cards other than damage. Maybe they could have made the cards like the OP said with crit, dh, and flat damage, but in the end, those are the only viable cards. In HW and StB, Astros only fished for the Balance card because that was the only one really that provided any real benefit. Speed messes with people's rotation and causes drift, TP does not exist, mana isn't necessary for anyone that knows how to manage mana or has the foresight to buy super ethers, and mitigation is redundant as are extra heals. If you were to ever ask a dps player what card they wanted should they have the choice to pick, I guarantee at least 90% would say the flat damage.


However, I totally agree with the idea of using the cards in other ways. That would be an engaging and interesting way to play the class, more so than this "press button get buffs, wait 1 minute".

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mana is necessary for those classes that use it when they die and are rezed and have no mana to do anything. Also scholars have to waste a cd trying to summon that damn fairy. just to be useful when they could be healing.
why can't they give us cards that actually effect the enemies too? Why not a dot card? a direct damage card? a card that debuffs crit? debuffs mitigation? debuffs dh? a card that slows the enemy autos?

I tend to agree that the healing cards are redundant (we have so many healing options) and mitigation (tanks have so much mitigation and heals!) I don't know. I'm kind of left jaded after this latest expansion has left healers in a worse state. It's almost like healers are an afterthought to every other job. I still don't get why tanks get so much mitigation and self healing as well as group friendly support options. DPS classes get so many support options for jobs that should be focused on damage.

Why can't they give us more meaningful dps options? I mean at this point the healing kits don't need to be touched. We need abilities and spells and skills that allow us to do damage because our role as healer is negligible.

Also speed helps black mages. that's a good card. speed could also help healers especially asts since lightspeed is spoken for and may not be up when u need it again.

Also please why are we gate kept our spells behind other abilties? What if you want to stagger them? We need more flexibliity.

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Originally Posted by glamazon

I do love your changes to lady and lord but how do they work?

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Lord: You play it first and then the next card you play (likely a double-weave) becomes an AoE effect. Ideally used with the Card 1 (the % of the aoe version of this card is up to balancing debate), but some scenarios could justify the AoE effect applied to the Card 2, maybe dungeon trash pulls, etc. Using this effect to the Card 3 is a niche situation where you'd be desperate for an AoE shield.

Lady: You play this one after, to replicate the effect from your previous Play I, II or III. Ideally, you'd want to have the effect between the Cards 4 or 5 depending on the situation (maybe your ranged dps has a damage down and the dot would provide more), and Card 6 could be used to mitigate 2 tanks at once for the shared tankbusters if you don't feel like things are going well (prog maybe).

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Originally Posted by glamazon

mana is necessary for those classes that use it when they die and are rezed and have no mana to do anything. Also scholars have to waste a cd trying to summon that damn fairy. just to be useful when they could be healing.
why can't they give us cards that actually effect the enemies too? Why not a dot card? a direct damage card? a card that debuffs crit? debuffs mitigation? debuffs dh? a card that slows the enemy autos?

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Again, for mana, lucid dreaming and super ether. Astros never struggled with mana due to these tools plus astrodyne, WHM has thin air for when they need to use high cost spells, SGE and SCH both have their 1 minute stacks that return mana on use. The caster classes (save BLM, but they have their ice spells) are not mana intensive and a single super ether or lucid dreaming use will have them back in the fight. As I have said in many other posts, people who are struggling with mana are not utilizing their tools. The only real use a mana card would have in DT would be to feed the DRK during burst. Also confused about the fairy bit, why wouldn't you just have it summoned before queueing into the instance?

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Originally Posted by glamazon

I tend to agree that the healing cards are redundant (we have so many healing options) and mitigation (tanks have so much mitigation and heals!) I don't know. I'm kind of left jaded after this latest expansion has left healers in a worse state. It's almost like healers are an afterthought to every other job. I still don't get why tanks get so much mitigation and self healing as well as group friendly support options. DPS classes get so many support options for jobs that should be focused on damage.

Why can't they give us more meaningful dps options? I mean at this point the healing kits don't need to be touched. We need abilities and spells and skills that allow us to do damage because our role as healer is negligible.

Also speed helps black mages. that's a good card. speed could also help healers especially asts since lightspeed is spoken for and may not be up when u need it again.

Also please why are we gate kept our spells behind other abilties? What if you want to stagger them? We need more flexibliity.

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Cards affecting enemies would be neat, but not all this ridiculous utility nonsense. As for your comment about speed, all dps classes have been theory-crafted to be as efficient as possible. They are setup so that they have the exact amount of speed they need in order to have everything up at each 2 minute burst window. Giving dps or even tanks a speed card would cause drift (plus no small amount of rage). I don't have the correct setup on my summoner, so every 2 minutes my Bahamut comes up almost 10 seconds before my searing light. It feels really bad. And giving it to a healer? I would rather have my 6% damage increase to give to my samurai or summoner. 6% of their 15k+ dps would be so much more than a slight speed increase to a glare mage.

Totally agree about more dps abilities. FFXIV healing is not like other mmos. Healers should be pumping out as much dps as is humanly possible. Our dps matters for helping secure that kill. Plus the faster we help push phases, the less damage our team will take. Is it not our job to ensure our team takes as little damage as possible?

Either way, I hope the devs take note of our dissatisfaction. This is not the direction AST should be taking. I feel that it should have continued to have a high skill cap and high apm. We have enough of the more chill healers to choose from. Let us have one healer that is more of a challenge to play.