Their heart was in the right place with AST.

[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.

[SakiKojiro]

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.

Okay, again, the issue with that is if you literally do any math at all you realize doing anything but expanded is dumb. Did I still do it? Yeah? Did I have people ask me why I'm not using expanded when I should be? Yeah.

Your options are lose a card and get 50% extra potency on next one, effectively using 2 cards for 150% potency. Meaning a net loss of 50% potency. Meanwhile expanded halved the effectiveness of your next card, but spread it over 4-8 people. In a group of 8 people that's 50% potency x 8 people. that's 400% potency..... It's not even a "min-max" thing. That's a MASSIVE difference.

It doesn't take a scientist to figure out that 400% potency in 2 cards vs 150% potency in 2 cards is a *little* better. With our current card manipulation abilities, this issue would never arise. You can always do what's most effective on a single target, then they could rework minor arcana to be something of a royal road that doesn't eat your card, and it'd be great. Giving up a seal to buff your card, rewarding you for filling up on seals.