They should just delete AST

[Selova]

And this is why AST is the way it is.
Stop saying this, PLEASE.
No, YOU might have been but a lot of us didn't. Stop speaking for all of us.
Thanks to people megaphoning this we're stuck with this crappy Balance Bot
for possibly 2 years. Thanks a lot.

You either fished for balance or you were a bad player, period. It still amazes me how people that have apparently played AST since HW are still under the illusion of choice when it comes to the cards. The cards as they are right now are Objectively a buff, just because you play inefficiently doesn't make the card changes bad. Every. Single. Card. you draw gets use and contributes way more than their previous iterations. People love fooling themselves because "Muh diversity". You either drew balance or you did not, the rest of the cards were inferior in comparison.

[Billythepancake]

You either fished for balance or you were a bad player, period. It still amazes me how people that have apparently played AST since HW are still under the illusion of choice when it comes to the cards. The cards as they are right now are Objectively a buff, just because you play inefficiently doesn't make the card changes bad. Every. Single. Card. you draw gets use and contributes way more than their previous iterations. People love fooling themselves because "Muh diversity". You either drew balance or you did not, the rest of the cards were inferior in comparison.

My man, I enjoy optimizing myself, but that playstyle is not for everyone. There are people that enjoy playing games causally, and in a casual sense the previous cards were great. Yes, in optimization, balance was the best card, hands down, but only a very small, and I do mean very small, portion of players play in an optimized setting. Besides, who are you to tell someone else what they enjoyed about a class? Or what they fell in love with it for?

TL;DR : get off your high horse, there is more to games than just "git gud"

[TankHunter678]

You either fished for balance or you were a bad player, period. It still amazes me how people that have apparently played AST since HW are still under the illusion of choice when it comes to the cards. The cards as they are right now are Objectively a buff, just because you play inefficiently doesn't make the card changes bad. Every. Single. Card. you draw gets use and contributes way more than their previous iterations. People love fooling themselves because "Muh diversity". You either drew balance or you did not, the rest of the cards were inferior in comparison.

Are you another one of those savage only balance only elitists who did not see the use of the entire card system in all the rest of the content?

With the old card system every card saw use, every card had use, and even if you went back and looked at the old logs from past expansions you would see this was the case. Be it in dungeons, raids, 24 man raids, open world content like eureka, treasure map dungeons, and even a good amount of savage raid logs.

But now we have balance only cards and the results do not lie: its a straight downgrade, the class is being abandoned by and large, the class is being excluded because it quite simply does not bring enough, and there is outrage in every region over what was done.

Why does it not bring enough? Because everything had to be balanced around only throwing out a damage buff which cannot be strong or the class is unbalanced.

You can screech illusion of choice all you want but it was the other non damage boosting cards that allowed us to have strong buffs. Now we have weak buffs, to go with our lack of options.

Not to mention the entire class fantasy, class identity, was built around all of the different cards and us working with what we got to shape fate in our favor.

I would rather go back to the old card system and rework balance to being direct hit then deal with the garbage we have now. Since if all this is because of balance then the old effect can get trashed.

[KanameYuuki]

...

And not just our own gameplay, who could have helped all those RDM having MP issues? All of those newcomer GNB having a hard time? basically every single MNK upset with the loss of IR? we could have made their lives easier and playtime more enjoyable. SE just said screw it to old AST players, the ones who enjoyed the buffs, and its very own lore, just so a bunch of raiders who are going to clear any content anyways, can do it a few seconds faster without thinking anything more than blue = melee , purple = range.

If they needed consistency WHM has always been there for them, yet they decided to neglect it, even now MNK who is basically on par with SAM, has next to no parses on FFLogs, game play is just as important as numbers.

[Mikhaill]

You either fished for balance or you were a bad player, period.

Don't care what you think, my apologies. Not listening to anyone who does savage or the "Balance" army.
Games not all about "MUH DEEPS" when you know there's like 100 people playing savage out of the millions that play this game.
(Yes, I pulled numbers from my behind!)
Call me bad, don't care. As I see it, as long as you're healed up, then no healer is bad.
I played for fun, not stressing myself to tears over content barely anyone plays.

You all are failing to realize why most of us are upset.
Because we had CHOICES. That set us apart from any other healer, and it was different and all cards had uses in someway.
AST is about fate, and to get a little personal, I strongly believe in Astrology so playing
the hands of fate was fun, and you worked with what you had and was allowed to change your fate
for better or for worse and yes, Balance was great to get at times. It's fun to see what card pops up next.

This version of fate is God awful. It's you better hope you get this card for that melee/range and get these 3 matching seals for days
then spin redraw over and over and over again to the right seal. It takes so much time to do, it really does.
Guess you'll be the one saying "If you didn't fish for the 3 perfect seals you're a terrible player."
Okay bye lmao. Not gonna listen to it.

[Seraphor]

This version of fate is God awful. It's you better hope you get this card for that melee/range and get these 3 matching seals for days
then spin redraw over and over and over again to the right seal. It takes so much time to do, it really does.

I still fail to see how this is any different to hoping you don't draw another Spire/Ewer/Bole when you've already RR'd one, or vice versa.
Difference is that now you can Minor Arcana for version that's still useful to you.

It's all just flavour.

[Jestigeress]

You either fished for balance or you were a bad player, period. It still amazes me how people that have apparently played AST since HW are still under the illusion of choice when it comes to the cards. The cards as they are right now are Objectively a buff, just because you play inefficiently doesn't make the card changes bad. Every. Single. Card. you draw gets use and contributes way more than their previous iterations. People love fooling themselves because "Muh diversity". You either drew balance or you did not, the rest of the cards were inferior in comparison.

Your one sided logic, which in reality is nothing more then being Close Minded... Is a problem and an issue why there is confusion between what the desires of the player base are. In all reality for the Stormblood incarnation of Ast was you played what you were dealt. For me that meant I was holding Ewer or Bole in spread burned through Arrow and Sometimes Crit and even balance via royal road So when I drew them again they had a buff of and because of royal road i got back to them faster. the rest of the cards weren't inferior its just you didn't have the understanding to use them. which as Mik said is part of the problem with that mindset and because of that mindset its players like you that put us in this situation we are in.

[Elamys]

You either fished for balance or you were a bad player, period.

If you were throwing away Spears and Arrows instead of using them when they came out then you were the bad player, because those were still damage increases. I like the new system, but let's not pretend that it isn't a much shallower version of what we had before.

If your mindset in Stormblood when you already had Royal Road prepared was if you drew a Spear or Arrow and either Redrew it for something like Spire or Minor Arcana'd it, you cheated your group out of damage.