Their heart was in the right place with AST.

[SakiKojiro]

Let's be honest about this. The new actual FLOW of the job is better. It feels better to have more cards to throw. You feel more impactful, and being able to throw the cards onto who you want instead of always fishing for AoE balance feels GREAT.

The idea of essentially having an AoE balance on demand every 2 minutes without it eating up your other buffs is awesome, and the idea of wanting to fill out a pool properly by manipulating your draws is a great idea. It really makes you think, and feel good about your choices when you succeed.


The actual issue is the complete lack of Flavor. As I've described it before, it's like going to a Restaurant, the waiter is amazing. Somehow they know exactly when to refill drinks, exactly when to leave, when to chat. Service is spectacular. Oh man, Atmosphere is AMAZING. What a classy and unique dining experience. The company you decided to bring is awesome. You REALLY hit it off, chatting the night away. You really feel a bond. Wow what a wonderful time overall. Except...the food is bad. The food being bad kind of ruins the night a bit, doesn't it? It's like the most important thing for a Restaurant.


The cards just need to go back to giving the buffs they gave before, but keep all the new stuff. Make spire give Dhit now, maybe nerf balance just a tad, and we're GUCCI. Wanting to fish for specific seals may even make you more likely to actually throw out a bole or another buff too. Imagine having an actual reason to make the tanks life easier by hitting him with a defensive cooldown which gives you the last thing you need to set off a sick aoe DPS buff.

You can just make minor arcana increase the effectiveness of your currently drawn card by a little and not override your seals just like it does now.

[TankHunter678]

I find the flow to be worse, I am throwing more useless cards that have no feeling of impact just to get 3 seals for an ability that does not feel like it has an impact unless I also use another ability to just toss out as many cards as I can in a short while in order to have a kinda sorta discernible feeling of something working all while burning my own damage buff just trying to pass all those cards around before the party buff wears out. I also think a lot less when handling the system which leads it overall to just not be engaging. It has lead to frustration when I need that last seal and wind up burning all my redraws and not getting that seal, or only getting melee cards when I have no melee DPS.

Then again I was not one of those people who did nothing but fishing for aoe balance, so if you were one of those who only fished for aoe balance then I probably used a lot more cards then you. Though each card had a role and I could feel the impact. Be it a tank taking less damage then expected thanks to that bole I tossed out, my co-healer getting over 50% mana very fast after they had just been raised, or that BLM who is visibly casting far more faster or that SAM pulling off sooner midares, or seeing a Bard go ham as their procs cascaded.

Though I do have to say, Minor Arcana being stronger then Major Arcana is backwards. There is a reason why something is a Major instead of a Minor because a Major is supposed to have a greater effect then a Minor.

[DawnSolaria]

I find the flow to be worse, I am throwing more useless cards that have no feeling of impact just to get 3 seals for an ability that does not feel like it has an impact unless I also use another ability to just toss out as many cards as I can in a short while in order to have a kinda sorta discernible feeling of something working all while burning my own damage buff just trying to pass all those cards around before the party buff wears out. I also think a lot less when handling the system which leads it overall to just not be engaging. It has lead to frustration when I need that last seal and wind up burning all my redraws and not getting that seal, or only getting melee cards when I have no melee DPS.

Then again I was not one of those people who did nothing but fishing for aoe balance, so if you were one of those who only fished for aoe balance then I probably used a lot more cards then you. Though each card had a role and I could feel the impact. Be it a tank taking less damage then expected thanks to that bole I tossed out, my co-healer getting over 50% mana very fast after they had just been raised, or that BLM who is visibly casting far more faster or that SAM pulling off sooner midares, or seeing a Bard go ham as their procs cascaded.

Though I do have to say, Minor Arcana being stronger then Major Arcana is backwards. There is a reason why something is a Major instead of a Minor because a Major is supposed to have a greater effect then a Minor.

None of what you described is flow, it's impact that you were looking for and that's not what op was saying.

[SakiKojiro]

I find the flow to be worse, I am throwing more useless cards that have no feeling of impact just to get 3 seals for an ability that does not feel like it has an impact unless I also use another ability to just toss out as many cards as I can in a short while in order to have a kinda sorta discernible feeling of something working all while burning my own damage buff just trying to pass all those cards around before the party buff wears out. I also think a lot less when handling the system which leads it overall to just not be engaging. It has lead to frustration when I need that last seal and wind up burning all my redraws and not getting that seal, or only getting melee cards when I have no melee DPS.

Then again I was not one of those people who did nothing but fishing for aoe balance, so if you were one of those who only fished for aoe balance then I probably used a lot more cards then you. Though each card had a role and I could feel the impact. Be it a tank taking less damage then expected thanks to that bole I tossed out, my co-healer getting over 50% mana very fast after they had just been raised, or that BLM who is visibly casting far more faster or that SAM pulling off sooner midares, or seeing a Bard go ham as their procs cascaded.

Though I do have to say, Minor Arcana being stronger then Major Arcana is backwards. There is a reason why something is a Major instead of a Minor because a Major is supposed to have a greater effect then a Minor.

No. I wasn't one of those people. I preferred to actually use the full range of the card system, which is exactly why I hate that the flavor is gone. You're literally just disagreeing with me and then restating the same thing I said differently and somehow as a counter argument. The "flow" that you described isn't a flow. It's sour grapes over your unique buffs being gone. Well same. Imagine the current way you can toss out cards all over, only they're all the unique buffs we're used to.

I prefer the way the job plays now in terms of flow, because you're actively throwing out more buffs. That's supposed to be the primary identity of the job, a buffer. It's just that our buffs now are all the same buff...which is SO LAME.

[TankHunter678]

No. I wasn't one of those people. I preferred to actually use the full range of the card system, which is exactly why I hate that the flavor is gone. You're literally just disagreeing with me and then restating the same thing I said differently and somehow as a counter argument. The "flow" that you described isn't a flow. It's sour grapes over your unique buffs being gone. Well same. Imagine the current way you can toss out cards all over, only they're all the unique buffs we're used to.

I prefer the way the job plays now in terms of flow, because you're actively throwing out more buffs. That's supposed to be the primary identity of the job, a buffer. It's just that our buffs now are all the same buff...which is SO LAME.

The thing is you could throw out as many buffs now as you could before. Nothing about the draw rate actually changed except for sleeve draw being reworked. What changed is we lost the ability to modify cards, extend their effects, and they got homogenized to one effect.

You could choose to use Royal Road to improve future buffs, but it was not required. Especially since you could put a card in spread and save trying to use royal road till the opportunity presented itself. Allowing you to throw out as many card buffs as you wanted. If you did not that was part of your thought processes behind your use of the cards.

The class is not throwing out more buffs, the class is throwing out worse homogenized buffs. It is trying to build up to a party buff that is weak without you using sleeve draw to throw more damage buff on top of it which disrupts the flow.

[SakiKojiro]

The thing is you could throw out as many buffs now as you could before. Nothing about the draw rate actually changed except for sleeve draw being reworked. What changed is we lost the ability to modify cards, extend their effects, and they got homogenized to one effect.

You could choose to use Royal Road to improve future buffs, but it was not required. Especially since you could put a card in spread and save trying to use royal road till the opportunity presented itself. Allowing you to throw out as many card buffs as you wanted. If you did not that was part of your thought processes behind your use of the cards.

The class is not throwing out more buffs, the class is throwing out worse homogenized buffs. It is trying to build up to a party buff that is weak without you using sleeve draw to throw more damage buff on top of it which disrupts the flow.

Yeah, except Royal road was actually a loss in overall rDPS except when used for an expanded, because a 50% bonus is just losing you like half potency. Every time, without argue. I still really liked the effect of buffing my next card, but unless it doubled the power of the next card, you're losing potency. SE would have never allowed that. Could you imagine a 40% DPS buff on an ally? There'd be chaos in the streets. If RR still existed, you'd still always be expected to fish for an expanded SOMETHING just because of that. I prefer this world in which RR is gone, and every so many cards doesn't get eaten to power up the next card.

Also I seriously don't see the problem so many people have with sleeve draw. You aren't forced to use the card right away and GO GO GO. It's just like, 3 free buffs to help you fish for seals and/or get out a whole bunch of buffs. If you already have all your seals, it's an absolute win in which you just throw out 3 buffs without having to think too hard about it. Now imagine again...if these were the old buffs...

Current AST does need a QOL change, though. We should be able to get seals out of combat. It's so god damn annoying to be forced to throw out a heal or damage spell in dungeon before throwing out my card to make sure I get the seal. Like, I get why they did it, but it's unnecessary complication.

[TankHunter678]

Yeah, except Royal road was actually a loss in overall rDPS except when used for an expanded, because a 50% bonus is just losing you like half potency. Every time, without argue. I still really liked the effect of buffing my next card, but unless it doubled the power of the next card, you're losing potency. SE would have never allowed that. Could you imagine a 40% DPS buff on an ally? There'd be chaos in the streets. If RR still existed, you'd still always be expected to fish for an expanded SOMETHING just because of that. I prefer this world in which RR is gone, and every so many cards doesn't get eaten to power up the next card.

Also I seriously don't see the problem so many people have with sleeve draw. You aren't forced to use the card right away and GO GO GO. It's just like, 3 free buffs to help you fish for seals and/or get out a whole bunch of buffs. If you already have all your seals, it's an absolute win in which you just throw out 3 buffs without having to think too hard about it. Now imagine again...if these were the old buffs...

Current AST does need a QOL change, though. We should be able to get seals out of combat. It's so god damn annoying to be forced to throw out a heal or damage spell in dungeon before throwing out my card to make sure I get the seal. Like, I get why they did it, but it's unnecessary complication.

If you did not like using expanded then you could have gone for an extended or enhanced. Which where both useful especially in 4 man dungeons or 24 man raids depending on the situation. A enhanced Bole will take the heat out of the horde of mobs smashing on your wall to wall tank, it will also take a big chunk out of a TB being dumped on the tank reducing your healing needs. Extended arrow on a BLM and they will love how much you boost their output. Extended Ewer is also great for putting on your co-healer after they just got back up since it will refill their MP completely.

The fishing for AoE balance was something savage optimizers did and was not a requirement for all the rest of the content you played more then once a week.

The problem with sleeve draw is that it needs to be used in your divination windows which last 15 seconds. So you are on the clock to GO GO GO SPAM SPAM SPAM the cards out as FAST FAST FAST as possible. Otherwise it is a waste. If you use it just to get seals... then you pretty much just reduce yourself to even more mindless minor arcanas.

[Shawnerz]

For me Sleeve Draw is what I dislike most. I'm sure it's just a matter of getting gud as they say, but every time it's up I tend to tunnel pretty hard on dealing out cards and not other things. Aside from that I feel it plays pretty well/functions well enough. The flavor and uniqueness is definitely missed when it comes to the cards themselves. The naming of Minor Arcana bothered me a bit as well but I looked into the definitions and it... kind of? makes sense:

Major Arcana: This refers to the first 22 cards of the tarot deck. These cards are usually considered to be the key cards of the deck.

Minor Arcana: The subsequent 56 cards in a tarot deck. These cards provide support and nuances to the 22 cards of the major arcana in a tarot reading.

If the cards providing a seal is what makes them "key cards" then that is what makes them "major". Not the % damage increased number. Just my interpretation.

[gumas]

they try to simplify the AST cards but i think they over simplify it lol

[Lodi]

The flow is nice, I'll agree with that. Giving every spell a cast time shorter than 2.5s is a very nice touch and makes the entire job feel a lot better than on 5.0 release.

But man, the impact isn't there. We lost buff extension, a major aspect of the class, and our damage spells are SO weak that Gravity is almost stronger when you obtain it.
And the cards just feel like you're flailing your arms around to encourage your team. They are incredibly short and laughable compared to what they once were, and the seals can be completely ignored.

Using an Arrow on yourself helped you with both damage and healing, and it was amazing. Throwing a 30% mitigation for 55s on your tank felt so much better than anything this class can currently do.
The decision making that surrounded the card system made up for the lack of interesting damage rotation, and even though AST wasn't my favourite healer, I miss this system a lot.


Expansions are supposed to add interesting stuff, not turn a class into a blend of another class and a shadow of its former self.