I am coming around to the new card system providing more consistent gameplay across all types of content. While it looks bland as heck on the surface, and the "ranged or melee" thing feels weird and artificial, the gameplay seems potentially interesting at least. I wish there was a little more interaction with seals right now, but I assume they have plans to expand that in 6.0.

The removal of the time mage spells still has me very sad. Celestial Opposition was one of my favorite skills in the game, Time Dilation was a lot of fun. I wanted them to do more interesting things with these, not just remove them. They were one of AST's fun and unique features. (And time magic has just always been a favorite for me)

I was also really hoping for at least one more offensive spell/ability to do something with when I solo or do dungeons, not getting that isn't surprising, but is still kind of disappointing. The changes to when we grab gravity and minor arcana should at least keep me a bit more busy when doing lower level content. Running through things solo as AST will continue to be mind numbing as ever.

Are the changes catastrophic? Probably not, but they aren't exciting for me. It is more "Okay, fine, whatever. I can deal with this." right now, while the DPS jobs I play have me genuinely excited going into ShB. The thing I am most excited for as an AST is just "You get gravity 7 levels earlier".