Thoughts from a 60 AST & 60 WHM

[Karen_Cerfrumos]

No, I literally listed who to use it on. Because it's always useful on those people. Every card is always useful whether it's to use or to RR it.

You seem to have trouble mitigating RNG. I was trying to help with that. You see "RNG, don't think these buffs are useful, therefore buffs suck" and say AST sucks, instead of trying to see how a card can always be useful.

I can't make it any clearer for you than what I said before, at this point we're just yelling "No I'm right!" back and forth.

It's not a question whether or not it's useful, it's a question of whether or not it's worth dealing with lower healing throughput and trashy cooldowns for something as marginal as a slight TP reduction that becomes a complete non-point since there's only a handful of fights where TP management becomes a big issue; or a damage reduction that you can't summon when needed in a game that's all about premeditated damage. It is illusion of strategy if survivability increase is 0.01%.

Either make the cards so good and so controllable they actually make a difference (as opposed to "huh, that's cool" format they have now) or revamp the baseline healing ability to the point it doesn't become a burden.

[SuzakuCMX]

It's not a question whether or not it's useful, it's a question of whether or not it's worth dealing with lower healing throughput and trashy cooldowns

Which is why I'm saying focus on buffing their healing and CDs and not their cards

TP reduction that becomes a complete non-point since there's only a handful of fights where TP management becomes a big issue; or a damage reduction that you can't summon when needed in a game that's all about premeditated damage.

AST is fine in everything but the end raids, which is where TP and MP management is an issue. Which is when you want those cards.

As for the damage reduction, I doubt SE has balanced any fights on 10% Damage Reduction from an RNG card, which means Bole is just making the healers and the tanks breathe easier when you draw it.

As I am repeating for at least the 3rd time in this thread, AST are healers first and buffs are icing. They currently cannot compete on a basic healing level and that is the problem.

It's worth noting that there is a difference between "has a use" and "is useful."

No, there isn't. Useful means "able to be used," as opposed to "unable to be used," as in there is no point in that card.

Just because you can drop Spear on yourself in a 4-man dungeon to shorten your Luminiferous cooldown doesn't mean you *need* it for that or that you will notice its effects in the long run.

Why in the world are we talking as if 4 man dungeons matter for anything? Nothing is balanced around 4 man dungeons. AST is fine in 4 man dungeons.

[Karen_Cerfrumos]

Why in the world are we talking as if 4 man dungeons matter for anything? Nothing is balanced around 4 man dungeons. AST is fine in 4 man dungeons.

Okay, yeah, but "Is fine" is a bad proposition. Why would I take an AST into a 4 man when I can go as a SCH, offer consistent haste and DPS, and finish the dungeon much faster without breaking a sweat?

[SuzakuCMX]

Okay, yeah, but "Is fine" is a bad proposition. Why would I take an AST into a 4 man when I can go as a SCH, offer consistent haste and DPS, and finish the dungeon much faster without breaking a sweat?

Because you don't need a WHM or SCH to clear the dungeon, you find AST more fun, they complete the content just as well as the SCH or WHM, and they don't actually finish dungeons much more quickly than an AST?

Whether or not they feel satisfying in a dungeon is a totally different argument than whether or not they are balanced vs. SCH or WHM. I agree that cards feel lacking in four-man content because half the cards don't feel as useful in four-man content, especially when you never run out of TP in dungeons unless you died and you continually draw Spear and Spire.

But then again, if you made the card buffs powerful enough to always be useful in 4-mans, they'd likely be far too powerful for 8-mans.

[GideonHighmourn]

But then again, if you made the card buffs powerful enough to always be useful in 4-mans, they'd likely be far too powerful for 8-mans.

They could easily make them always useful in 4-mans without being overpowered. At the very least, combining the Spire/Ewer cards and Spear/Arrow cards would make it feel a lot less unsatisfying in 4-man content, without making it overpowered in 8-man content. Especially since the Spear on it's own is very very situational outside highly organized gameplay. Making shuffle not redraw the same card would also go a long way with this. It's incredibly frustrating to play AST in 4-man content currently, and again, it's not because the healing is sub-par.

[SuzakuCMX]

They could easily make them useful without being overpowered. At the very least, combining the Spire/Ewer cards and Spear/Arrow cards would make it feel a lot less punishing in 4-man content, without making it overpowered in 8-man content. Especially since the Spear on it's own is very very situational.

I don't think combining cards is a good option because it mitigates the RNG far too much. From what I've seen in the bug reports forum, Spear was also supposed to lower the cooldowns of abilities already used, which it doesn't so far, and changing it to that would make it MUCH better.

I don't like the combining either, because it means you have a 33% chance of drawing any single card, and Spear/Arrow is incredibly strong on anyone, whereas Spire/Ewer and Balance/Bole are much less effective on a single target since only half of the buff is useful. It just means you would feel bad when you don't draw the Spear/Arrow card.

I'd rather they reduce the CD of Shuffle to 60s and have RR reduce Draw's cooldown to 15s, in addition to buffing their base healing so you can actually heal as well as SCH/WHM minus their buffs.

Also there is still the problem of Noct Collective Unconscious sucking and Celestial Opposition sucking, and Noct sucking in general compared to Diurnal. Card changes are, I feel, near the bottom of what AST needs to be comparable to WHM/SCH for content.

Spire, for instance, has a pretty obvious use, but when used to reduce TP costs, it frequently has no *impact*. Ditto for Ewer or Spear.

Like I said, Spear always has an impact on SCH/SMN/NIN and frequently has an impact on tanks for CDs and yourself for ED and LA. Is it always the best card? Nope. And if I draw an Ewer during a trash pull, I Spread it or RR it so I can DPS during bosses and then spam Benefic II.

There is not a single class in the game that doesn't have abilities that are useless in dungeons. Dissipate, Eos, Sacred Soil, Asylum, Virus, TP/MP Regen Songs, Silences, Binds, Heavies, any "oh shit" button is generally useless if you are playing correctly. That doesn't mean they have to be changed to feel useful. Cards could feel better, I agree. They just aren't the primary problem with AST getting into progression groups.

\Personally, I heal primarily in 4-mans and DPS in 8-mans, and I am sure there are many players that do in fact care how a class performs or whether or not it is fun in 4-mans.

I don't understand this statement, because whether or not card buffs feel useful in 4-mans AST is going to be worse than SCH/WHM in end-game.

[Alahra]

I don't think combining cards is a good option because it mitigates the RNG far too much. From what I've seen in the bug reports forum, Spear was also supposed to lower the cooldowns of abilities already used, which it doesn't so far, and changing it to that would make it MUCH better.

Sadly that's not yet confirmed to be the case. A bug moves to the "Accepted" forum only when it's acknowledged that the Bug Report was *filed* correctly. It doesn't mean the bug has actually been confirmed.

[GideonHighmourn]

I don't think combining cards is a good option because it mitigates the RNG far too much. From what I've seen in the bug reports forum, Spear was also supposed to lower the cooldowns of abilities already used, which it doesn't so far, and changing it to that would make it MUCH better.

Link to that information, please?

Being an "accepted bug" doesn't mean "confirmed bug with incoming fix". It just means that person completed the bug report properly, and it was accepted as an entry.

The RNG factor is what makes AST so terrible in 4-man groups. It needs to be mitigated, especially since Spire/Ewer/Spear are almost always a complete waste of Draw in 4-man content. Drawing any one of these cards more than once makes me regret playing AST over WHM/SCH; it's infuriating.

[Alahra]

There is not a single class in the game that doesn't have abilities that are useless in dungeons. Dissipate, Eos, Sacred Soil, Asylum, Virus, TP/MP Regen Songs, Silences, Binds, Heavies, any "oh shit" button is generally useless if you are playing correctly. That doesn't mean they have to be changed to feel useful. Cards could feel better, I agree. They just aren't the primary problem with AST getting into progression groups.

You're making the argument that the class's core feature shouldn't need to be useful in one of the game's primary content modes, though. AST's cards not feeling useful is the equivalent of Ninjutsu or Greased Lightning not feeling useful in 4-mans (and MNKs have received adjustments so that Greased Lightning feels better both in 4-man content and 8-man content). For a healer-specific example, imagine if Eos/Selene weren't useful in 4-mans. Don't you think SCHs would find that a little strange? The faerie is a big part of what makes SCH unique, just as the cards are with AST, regardless of content.

I don't understand this statement, because whether or not card buffs feel useful in 4-mans AST is going to be worse than SCH/WHM in end-game.

Are you aware that there can be multiple concerns regarding a class at the same time? How can you not understand that AST needs work for *all* content, not just one narrow slice of the game?

[Alahra]

No, there isn't. Useful means "able to be used," as opposed to "unable to be used," as in there is no point in that card.

Colloquially, there is, especially when it comes to game mechanics/abilities. Nobody posting on these forums is writing dissertations, they're instead writing informally, and so sometimes you have to get at their *intent* rather than the very letter of what they wrote. When people are saying the cards don't feel "useful," they mean that they aren't noticing their impact in play, even if they know the "proper" way to use them.

Spire, for instance, has a pretty obvious use, but when used to reduce TP costs, it frequently has no *impact*. Ditto for Ewer or Spear.

And, for what it's worth, 4-man dungeons do matter. Everyone has to do them for tomes. Don't pretend that the general dominance of BRD and BLM in 4-man dungeons at 2.0 didn't play a part in the adjustments that followed for melee classes (though they were not, obviously, the *whole* part). The devs do consider balance in the game as a whole. Personally, I heal primarily in 4-mans and DPS in 8-mans, and I am sure there are many players that do in fact care how a class performs or whether or not it is fun in 4-mans.