Their heart was in the right place with AST.

[KanameYuuki]

Oh, If we're talking about the PATCH changes they just made, I completely agree. They just simplified the job even more. It felt almost like "Oh, they just hate AST because it's still too hard, let's make it even easier for the widdle babies" I hate what they did with that.

I couldn't believe that when I saw it, the healing buffs were ofc needed and sleeve draw usability too but then they somehow managed to simplify even more seals lol, I can't even. Did they really think we were complaining that getting all those seals was the problem?

[ty_taurus]

You know, the more I've thought about the AST cards, the more I've been pondering if maybe they went about fixing its issues the wrong way. I know that doesn't sound all that revolutionary because a lot of people have complained, but I don't necessarily mean just that the card effects shouldn't have been changed.

Rather, what I'm thinking is that maybe the process of drawing them is what should've changed more than the effects themselves. RNG was a massive issue for the card effects where there were cards that were clearly superior to others. I've started thinking about the idea of removing Divination and having Horoscope adopt a Divination-like effect (for thematic purposes I'll explain in a second), and changing how cards are drawn using the seal system.

I'm thinking that the cards could be broken up into pairs in a slightly different way, but still using seals:

Solar Seals impact DPS (So this could be the melee vs ranged damage buff effect)
Lunar Seals impact Tanks (So some upgraded version of the old Bole possible, or just two new Tank cards regardless)
Celestial Seals impact Healers (So maybe old Ewer and something new like a heal potency increase)

In this idea, when you gain a Seal, you can no longer draw cards of that Seal until you spend it. So if you draw The Balance to boost an ally's DPS, you won't be able to draw another Solar Seal DPS card. This persists until you've acquired all 3 seals, in which Draw changes into Horoscope.

Horoscope is similar to Divination, except instead of just boosting everyone's Damage, it applies all 6 cards at once to the team, applying both Solar Seals to all DPS, both Lunar Seals to all Tanks, and both Celestial Seals to all Healers. Then you start over again.

[TankHunter678]

You know, the more I've thought about the AST cards, the more I've been pondering if maybe they went about fixing its issues the wrong way. I know that doesn't sound all that revolutionary because a lot of people have complained, but I don't necessarily mean just that the card effects shouldn't have been changed.

Rather, what I'm thinking is that maybe the process of drawing them is what should've changed more than the effects themselves. RNG was a massive issue for the card effects where there were cards that were clearly superior to others. I've started thinking about the idea of removing Divination and having Horoscope adopt a Divination-like effect (for thematic purposes I'll explain in a second), and changing how cards are drawn using the seal system.

I'm thinking that the cards could be broken up into pairs in a slightly different way, but still using seals:

Solar Seals impact DPS (So this could be the melee vs ranged damage buff effect)
Lunar Seals impact Tanks (So some upgraded version of the old Bole possible, or just two new Tank cards regardless)
Celestial Seals impact Healers (So maybe old Ewer and something new like a heal potency increase)

In this idea, when you gain a Seal, you can no longer draw cards of that Seal until you spend it. So if you draw The Balance to boost an ally's DPS, you won't be able to draw another Solar Seal DPS card. This persists until you've acquired all 3 seals, in which Draw changes into Horoscope.

Horoscope is similar to Divination, except instead of just boosting everyone's Damage, it applies all 6 cards at once to the team, applying both Solar Seals to all DPS, both Lunar Seals to all Tanks, and both Celestial Seals to all Healers. Then you start over again.

Alternatively they could have given us 2 buttons, one button that acted like a "stance" that allowed us to select what card we wanted and a second button that acted upon this stance to forcibly draw that card out. Put it on a 1 min cooldown. On top of this give us a second spread slot we can store a card in. Treat it as aligning with a particular constellation to call upon its power in a moment of need.

This means you can consistently draw the card you want every minute. You also with the second slot have more flexibility in what cards you have available to use. This means one could always have a utility card (like Bole for an upcoming tank buster, or ewer on hand for mana issues) at the ready and a DPS card at the ready. This would have put a stop to balance fishing, but also made it easier to plan for future situations. Combine with the 3 redraws and you have a lot of control over your card system.

The idea you had for Horoscope is similar to one I had to make Divination feel worth a 3 min cooldown.

[ksuyen]

Reading so much QQ in the forum I was scared to touch my AST, but boy, do I feel good levelling it again. The new AST is heaps better, cards are not as stressful as previous expansions, and everything flows nicely. Actually I feel very powerful as an AST now, all spells are very fast (or feel like very fast). To be honest, I prefer my AST to WHM right now.

[TankHunter678]

Reading so much QQ in the forum I was scared to touch my AST, but boy, do I feel good levelling it again. The new AST is heaps better, cards are not as stressful as previous expansions, and everything flows nicely. Actually I feel very powerful as an AST now, all spells are very fast (or feel like very fast). To be honest, I prefer my AST to WHM right now.

Well just don't try to take it into serious content like savage, people serious about savage clears wont accept it because of the massive rDPS deficit it is. The buffs to its healing have made it better, and while the cards can be considered less stressful they are also almost no impact which is why WHM has a 1500 rDPS advantage over it. The spells were made faster so AST could do all the weaving it is required to do during sleeve draw. If you are just a dungeon healer then you should not run into any bad problems aside from not so good ST healing during wall to wall pulls.

[Kizucha]

I'm one of "them" that loves and miss the old card's AND the old flow of AST. Even with the new patch i feel no difference in whole(dirunal is slightly buffed but noct got somehow a buff and a nerv in the same place, potency got raised but the shields got nerfed) and i survive all content so far(but i'm not happy with the "feeling",)... but the cards... yesterday a few run's titania ex. in two run's i concentratet mainly on cards, in the first run, i had so much luck with throwing the right cards and get the right seals. all fluffy right? right after that in the next run, i had absolut zero luck, i even thrown a 3 same seal at the party because i feared that in the time titania died, i cant use a single 3 different seal divination! :O and know what? do difference ok a bit, we got her a few SECONDS earlier down... a FEW... with the old cards i had the feeling i had impact on past content, that we finished it minutes faster OR finished it at the same time because some guy's dieing or other dire situations like that. as example, i cant count the huge number of times i saved an raid only because i used ewer on a freshly rezzed co-healer.

Now, with an other healer on my side, sometimes i have the feeling i drag the group down, because of my low healings, low dps or the time i have to concentrate on the cards, i know this time have not changed but my impact with the new cards are so tiny that the feeling to lose someone or eating an aoe only because you looked at your cards... is feeling double bad. xD

and sorry for my bad english, i hope its understandable. ^-^

[SakiKojiro]

Alternatively they could have given us 2 buttons, one button that acted like a "stance" that allowed us to select what card we wanted and a second button that acted upon this stance to forcibly draw that card out. Put it on a 1 min cooldown. On top of this give us a second spread slot we can store a card in. Treat it as aligning with a particular constellation to call upon its power in a moment of need.

This means you can consistently draw the card you want every minute. You also with the second slot have more flexibility in what cards you have available to use. This means one could always have a utility card (like Bole for an upcoming tank buster, or ewer on hand for mana issues) at the ready and a DPS card at the ready. This would have put a stop to balance fishing, but also made it easier to plan for future situations. Combine with the 3 redraws and you have a lot of control over your card system.

The idea you had for Horoscope is similar to one I had to make Divination feel worth a 3 min cooldown.

Y'know...They could have also just made Minor Arcana a stance that forcibly draws from the minor arcanas when you draw a card instead of the Majors, so instead of forcing an extra button before every single card after you get your seals, you just turn it on and can just keep throwing out buffs...

The more I think about it the more oversights I find.

[KanameYuuki]

They could also make it so Minor Arcana could just be a play button that automatically plays a card on its minor form, so we can get rid of that time / process of converting it and then playing.

[tikiwiki]

I feel like the flow is worse than before I'm constantly needing to retargeting for small buffs then retargeting boss to not lose my malefic mean while once we got the 1.5 in sb I just stayed targeting the boss while setting up an aoe buff for the party that I could throw out centered from me so little to no retargeting

[Brandedblade]

I feel like the flow is worse than before I'm constantly needing to retargeting for small buffs then retargeting boss to not lose my malefic mean while once we got the 1.5 in sb I just stayed targeting the boss while setting up an aoe buff for the party that I could throw out centered from me so little to no retargeting

I wont argue that for trash pulls or controllers, but tab targeting works just fine in this situation for single bosses.