Astro over whm ? I think not

[Kalise]

Im playing AST but i still wish that they remove Damage buff ... It's a shame that everything is about damage, you feel oblige to use it and it make other cards useless.

Cards should be versatile tools, not just about balance cards. Having rez cards, runspeed cards, Teleport cards etc ... be only utility and not the mandatory damage buff.

Everything will always be about damage.

Even if they removed The Balance then it would just shift to The Arrow/The Spear being the next go-to card that would make other cards "useless".

If they removed all of these stat bonuses and gave cards just actual useless utility like raises, runspeed or teleports then it would all just be about getting Lord of Crowns.

As it is now, if you don't directly draw The Balance, you have the choice to just use what you got instead which might not be too much worse, or you risk redrawing to aim for The Balance but have a chance to whiff and get like The Spire or The Bole which are often just Minor Arcana fodder.

Really, I'm just curious as to what they're going to replace The Spire with in 5.0, as with the removal of TP it will need a new effect, which could add another interesting card to the pool (Or it could be something equally as lame as The Spire and thus continue to be Minor Arcana fodder)

[HyoMinPark]

Problem is that the only cards we use on people is the damage one.

Bole is 99% of time used for redraw/arcana
Spire is only used for Royal Road or redraw/arcana
The Ewer is 99% of time used for Royal Road or redraw/arcana

Balance, spear, arrow are the only cards you will use on people and they have all the same utility and serve the same purpose : give a damage buff.

In my opinion is a weak and bad character design. There is no flexibility, no diversity, we don't have enough cards and damage are so good compare to anything else that it's like having just "1" card.

The others are used for progression or for damage control (Bole and/or Ewer), but once you get past progression, there is no need for them. You begin to focus explicitly on damage output to kill a fight.

You can’t have all 6 cards be equally “good” or “powerful”—because then you end up with a broken job. You have either a job with 6 “equally good buffs” that end up being equally as weak; or you have a job with 6 “equally good buffs” that end up being “so good that they’re completely broken and who cares about the other two healers now we’re gonna run double AST”.

We don’t really need “Rez cards” — you end up with a utility that’s redundant (healers already have raises) and either too powerful (with no limitation to it) or completely worthless (bad RNG/this is the Verraise argument—when people aren’t dying, Rez stops being a utility). Runspeed cards? We have sprint. Teleport cards? Why would we need this in combat?

Why would you give people a “runspeed card”?
Or a “teleport card”?
What is the purpose of these “utilities”?

At least with Balance, Arrow, and Spear, they give damage to damage dealers, which fulfills the purpose of their role. What of the ones you’re suggesting?

[Ahrijlaken]

You can’t have all 6 cards be equally “good” or “powerful”—because then you end up with a broken job.

AST is already a super strong healer by himself, we don't need strong "must have " cards.

We have double problem :

1/ You choose AST over WHM end game because of damage buff.
2/ You use only Damage cards, other cards are here only to serve that purpose : increase even more the damage cards 's power. It kill the diversity, flexibility and the fun.

If you remove the all damage cards from the equation, AST will still be a uber strong healer with a lot of utility tools that can be usefull but not mandatory so WHM player can breath and we can finaly decide how to play instead of just using 1 thing over and over again.

A shield cards, mass rez cards to save a wip, teleportation cards avoid large AOE so we can heal sooner without burning our other spell, i don't know we can immagine a lot of thing.

[HyoMinPark]

AST is already a super strong healer by himself, we don't need strong "must have " cards.

Are you suggesting we have all situational cards instead? Because the job would still be broken... just at the other end of the spectrum in that it’s completely worthless and now locked out of parties. AST has better healing than WHM, but why does its Arcana toolkit have to have nothing but highly situational tools (that, again, rely on RNG blessing you to even use)?

A shield cards

AST has Noct Sect and Collective Unconscious for shield mitigation—tools that aren’t reliant on RNG to use.

mass rez cards to save a wip

There’s a point in fights where, when there are too many deaths, that’s enough to guarantee you won’t meet an enrage. So people just reset at that point. And, again, this is situational: if no one is dying, Raise is no longer a “utility”.

And, this ability would be reliant on RNG. Are ASTs supposed to hold “mass Rez cards” just in case there’s a raid wipe?

teleportation cards avoid large AOE so we can heal sooner

I don’t see this as an issue. Most large AOEs like ones in o10s are predictable in where they will be, so you just pre-position. For mobility problems, AST already has Lightspeed that they can use during heavy mobility settings. Why do they need an ability to “teleport”?

[Kalise]

If you remove the all damage cards from the equation, AST will still be a uber strong healer with a lot of utility tools that can be usefull but not mandatory so WHM player can breath and we can finaly decide how to play instead of just using 1 thing over and over again.

A shield cards, mass rez cards to save a wip, teleportation cards avoid large AOE so we can heal sooner without burning our other spell, i don't know we can immagine a lot of thing.

Unless you make cards absolutely useless for combat purposes, everything will eventually still boil down to damage output.

Without damage buffs, WHM become preferred because WHM brings more damage and much of AST's utility is centred around how it can buff teams damage.

Shield card is useless, for the same reason Lady of Crowns is, because you don't need it as it's part of your normal kit. So having an RNG shield (Rather than just using Noct Sect and applying the shield when you know damage is coming in) is not useful.

Mass rez cards would only be useful in very niche situations, where multiple people have died in an encounter but the team hasn't decided to just reset (Or a RDM just dual cast Verraise with healer(s) using Swiftcast Raise).

Teleportation cards would only really be warranted if they could make DPS have more uptime on bosses, but even then it's a stretch because of how mechanics that require movement work (Also, how janky trying to figure out how to make a teleport card actually function)

As far as anything else to be thought of, pretty much any utility worth noting is just something that improves DPS output. Either by directly buffing damage dealers stats, or by improving your (Or your co-healers) healing throughput allowing more time spent doing damage.

Same thing with Enmity boost cards, all that would do is give the MT extra leeway to stay in DPS stance and spam DPS combos.

With again, the likely meta where none of the Major Arcana cards do anything in terms of improving DPS, to be just to fish for Lord of Crowns because 300 pot nuke > any effect that has 0 impact on DPS.

[NocturniaUzuki]

As much as I loathe to admit it, regardless of any card changes, it will still boil down to DPS. It's ultimately a player-driven issue, not a mechanics one. Most players will gravitate towards what they see as the "best" DPS.

That said, making card effects more unique isn't necessarily an issue. Nothing will really change for seeking DPS: players will still fish for the "best" DPS cards. However, granting cards more unique effects is certainly a possibility.

Ability bloat may be a controversial topic, but if they want to avoid ability bloat on AST, one thing that might be considered is creating new ways to manipulate cards and/or change their effects. For example, adding new effects if you overwrite an effect with another effect. Like if you overwrite Balance with another Balance, you get a burst AoE centered on the target of the card. Or if you overwrite Bole with Ewer, you get an AoE heal centered on the card target. This would add more depth to the Spread skill, and adding one-time detonation effects to cards in this way would encourage more choice with how and when we use cards. Some of these detonation effects can be DPS oriented, but others can be utility. In particular, I do think cooldown reduction needs to be brought back in some form, and the runspeed idea isn't bad, really. Maybe it wouldn't be top DPS (though it would reduce time away from the boss during some mechanics, indirectly increasing DPS), but as a utility skill, it does have a pleathora of other uses. These include speedruns, kiting, cheesing various mechanics, and the aforementioned indirect DPS increase. It would also pair up beautifully if they added a job or ability that self-inflicts heavy on oneself in exchange for something. Like a heavy defence stance on Gunblade that reduces runspeed by 20% in exchange for heightened defence.

[Mansion]

As much as I loathe to admit it, regardless of any card changes, it will still boil down to DPS. It's ultimately a player-driven issue, not a mechanics one. Most players will gravitate towards what they see as the "best" DPS.

But. Because that's the point of the end-game, really. DPSing. Nothing else. You have a raid boss, you must burn it before it burns you. Healing and Tanking are almost incidental, that's just the safety net of making sure party survives, but they also have to put out DPS most of the time. The cards can really only have that effect, as HyoMinPark explained.
It all goes back under the same argument : as long as a fight will not push healers to heal more, they will be DPSing. And to make that a bit less boring, you can either give them more DPS tools or raidDPD buffs. That's what SCH and AST have been growing towards in Stormblood, and that's very good in my opinion.
I've been healer main, and even if I'm not very good, I enjoyed healing Savage / Extreme because my AST had something more to do. I tried once with White Mage and it was more frustrating than anything.
So please don't touch AST cards, they are fine (even if Spire needs to change a bit I guess). Bring White Mage to that level of fun healing.

[Sebazy]

@OP:

...

I've got a Prius and a $200 push bike that I take to the shops.

Based this experience, race cars are clearly faster than motogp bikes.

Seriously though, appreciate that both jobs are massively overpowered when played at a halfway decent level in all mainstream content. EX Primals and the 24 only really test your ability to handle mechanics, they rarely if ever push your ability to actually throw out healing. The same could even be said of much of Savage tbh.

The differences (and issues) between WHM and AST relate more to how they fit into the end game in it's current form. Both have their strengths, both have their issues, but there's no denying that right now. AST is the stronger job of the two at the end game.

If your end game consists of 24 mans and Primals, then just play whatever you enjoy TBH and leave this discussion to those that it actually impacts. WHM is absolutely fine in casual pug play and I for one actively prefer it for the current primal and 25 man even if Stone's cast time and all the clipping burns me.

I'd chime in on the utility card thing but yeah, that's been covered better than I could say it. The current battle system revolves entirely around damage now. I'm hoping this Baldesion Arsenal thing is an effort to look at tackling that.

[NocturniaUzuki]

But. Because that's the point of the end-game, really. DPSing. Nothing else. You have a raid boss, you must burn it before it burns you. Healing and Tanking are almost incidental, that's just the safety net of making sure party survives, but they also have to put out DPS most of the time. The cards can really only have that effect, as HyoMinPark explained.
It all goes back under the same argument : as long as a fight will not push healers to heal more, they will be DPSing. And to make that a bit less boring, you can either give them more DPS tools or raidDPD buffs. That's what SCH and AST have been growing towards in Stormblood, and that's very good in my opinion.
I've been healer main, and even if I'm not very good, I enjoyed healing Savage / Extreme because my AST had something more to do. I tried once with White Mage and it was more frustrating than anything.
So please don't touch AST cards, they are fine (even if Spire needs to change a bit I guess). Bring White Mage to that level of fun healing.

If fights don't push healers, make it harder. There's nothing stopping you. Have you solo-healed Ultimate yet? In those situations, I should think you might be more conscious of things besides DPS. Solo-healing in general is a lot more intensive. A good pair of duo healers generally don't even need GCD heals most of the time.

Anyways, like I said it may be true that it boils down to DPS in the minds of end-game players. At least insofar as standard content is concerned. But that's a minority of players. And regardless of how the cards are changed, they will find new ways to make most of them "useless" again. So why balance for that mindset? It's a self-inflicted issue on your part.

[HyoMinPark]

that it boils down to DPS in the minds of end-game players. At least insofar as standard content is concerned. But that's a minority of players. And regardless of how the cards are changed, they will find new ways to make most of them "useless" again. So why balance for that mindset? It's a self-inflicted issue on your part.

Why do we need to balance around the low-end/non-raider mindset?