Quote Originally Posted by whiskeybravo View Post
I just wonder which group would be louder if they hadn't changed the cards at all.
There would not have been another group to speak of f they hadn't changed them. People like me who only took up AST because of the card changes would have continued to ignore AST in ShB were it not for the change.

I abandoned AST back in Heavensward after I got it to 60 because cards were absolute garbage. Either I drew really well and got lots of Arrows/Balances or more commonly, drew nothing but Boles, Ewers and Spires.

Drawing luckily did indeed feel great. It was satisfying to drop a super long Balance on someone. But the sheer odds of drawing well was overshadowed by the odds of drawing badly.
Sleeve Draw, while fun to watch occur was also garbage 90% of the time I used it while playing AST in prep for ShB. I sure did love getting AoE Bole with a held Spire. Such fun.

New cards aren't perfect. But they're a damn sight better than they were in terms of sheer usability. They don't last as long, but that's because the uptime on any given card effect of the old variety was even worse. Or better, As it was pure RNG as to what you got.
We also no longer need to be concerned with cards becoming obsolete as we get further in the expansion.
MNK and NIN generally didn't enjoy Arrows because they already had the SkS breakpoint they needed and more would just throw off their rotation. Bole was worthless in farm content. Spire was worthless everywhere except mass pull AoEs and then only if your party had melee dps.
Ewer was also practically worthless unless you just so happened to draw at the exact moment a fellow healer just so happened to be raised. Which happened less and less often as content went from new to farm status.
The only card that remained powerful and useful in all content, all the time was Balance.

New cards will always be useful in every content every time they are drawn from now until 6.0. That alone makes them a world above the old cards.