How are healers fairing right now?

[Corbeau]

Careful what you wish for, SE might hear you and put a 5 seconds delay on every SCH action like they did with Seraph, and add another skill that removes or disables the fairy.

You say this as if it's not happening anyway.

[MOZZYSTAR]

I promise you, I'm far from unexperienced. I've poured my heart and soul into this class and now I'm sad on the inside every time I touch my cards. I never complained about the old system, yes there was moments where I was dealt with the "Worse" Possible hand but I adapted and dealt with my fate. I've never been so frustrated at something I love playing.

This ^ I've been playing AST since it first came out, and I was among the first 3 in my original server to "master" it and give advice to other players. Sure, there were times where there would be a more ideal card, but a good AST would utilise whatever they were given because any card could help at least one class in virtually in situation. If you really didn't need that card (like spire) due to being in an entire team of mages + DRK or something, then it could be Royal Road for an AoE effect of the next played card.

Like Mitsuki, I never complained about the old card system. In fact, I loved it. The card system was what made AST my absolute favourite class. Now I struggle to even play it because the execution is super user-unfriendly. They've "explained" why they changed the system, but I really don't get why they changed it. It wasn't broken, it had been pretty solid for the past 3-4 years after the initial fixrd after its release. They could have just changed the cards' effects (even though those are crap now, too) and tacked on that seal thing (also not great).

If they could just revert the cards back to the way they were in their entirety, I would cry with happiness and stop complaining and practically grovel. The cards are that frustrating. I feel like I couldn't even play my class in higher level content because the button executions are so clunky.

I really wish the team would own up to the fact the new card system is a flop.
(Sorry for whining.)

[Gemina]

I really wish the team would own up to the fact the new card system is a flop.
(Sorry for whining.)

It's not though. It's basically the old system with all the unnecessary fat trimmed off, and divination tacked on. Previous card system was a convoluted mess, that gave players an illusion of choice where there was none. I get that it could be fun for the AST to go through all the layers, but it's a shining example of when you make a job's mechanic too dependent on the RNG. If you literally have to create abilities to shave away some of those layers of RNG, then it defeats the purpose and all it is is combing combat with concepts from fishing.

If AST want to admit that the previous card system was a mess, but at least it was fun, I can accept that. However, I will never accept that AST was a well designed class because its issues were so vast, it caused problems for the other two healers. I don't want to give the impression that the problem with healers lies solely with AST; the role in its entirety has a lot of problems that pertain to all three.

However, I do like to bring up the previous AST card system because it is a great example of how a cobweb design can still be fun and engaging, and the current state of our healers, which gets all the X's and O's lined up through homogenization is boring players to tears. They need to find a way to combine both, but I have no idea how they are going to do it with encounter design the way it currently is.

[Saefinn]

Drawing on that, I think it shows a valid point.

Good design and something melding together well and flows doesn't make something fun. Of course, I'm all for the idea of both, just I'd prefer bad but fun design over good but mundane design.

For the AST card system, I feel like there could have been room to mix the two systems. The main complaint of the old system is over wasted cards or suboptimal cards and are too RNG dependent. The current Lord/Lady mechanics would be a good fallback and they would basically still be 'The Balance' but the balance itself will be more effective. The means if you get a card you want to use, use it. If you don't, Minor Arcana it, that card still gives a useful enough of DPS buff.
Heck they could take it that step further still and tie in the seals, which could in effect make your choice more meaningful, because you might sacrifce seals in favour of buffs you want or push seals to get your better Divination. Though I might see how somebody might think that'd be overcomplicating it.

[Lodi]

I get that it could be fun for the AST to go through all the layers, but it's a shining example of when you make a job's mechanic too dependent on the RNG. If you literally have to create abilities to shave away some of those layers of RNG, then it defeats the purpose and all it is is combing combat with concepts from fishing.

That's something I don't understand with SE's vision of the AST.

We had a system with terrible lows and amazing highs, and tools to mitigate and control the RNG.
So a strong dependancy on RNG, but amazing results if used well.

Now, we have a system with near-identical results regardless of the RNG and all RNG management tools gutted, but this system also makes fishing easy, thus making it a standard.
So meh results all the way, very little difference between lazy and optimal play, while requiring the most effort.

Basically, we went from a RNG mess with lots of decision making, to a boring mess with way too many button presses. From one extreme to the other, no in between.


SE could have simply tried to balance the cards themselves (because they were often grossly over or undertuned; who would want extra TP when you could get 20% damage instead?), to streamline the card generation (looking at you, triple Ewer), or to remove Redraw altogether (can't fish without a fishing rod, eh?)

I get the idea of reducing fishing, and making the cards less unreliable. But here SE threw a bulldozer on a porcelain house just to build a grocery shop.
There were so many ways to subtly change the card system without completely destroying it.

[Sloprano]

I get the idea of reducing fishing, and making the cards less unreliable. But here SE threw a bulldozer on a porcelain house just to build a grocery shop.
There were so many ways to subtly change the card system without completely destroying it.

They already went this route once with a "fire and forget" raid buff in Chain Strat. Going by how important they find Balance to be for ASTs, why even have randomness tied to it. The same kind of "increase damage on target by 6% for 15 seconds, 120 second cooldown" button bland unimaginative thinking would be right up SE's oGCD balance alley and could've left the unusual and unpredictable system well alone for those who enjoyed getting that right card at the right time for that warm fuzzy feeling. Still don't play Ast but for stories here it's comparable to getting pre-5.0 critlo deployed just at the right time.

[GrimGale]

Base damage buff should have never been a card.

We have plenty of secondary stats, cards could have been designed to buff them.

Arrow: Skill speed/Spell Speed
Bole: Tenacity
Ewer: Piety
Balance: Determination
Spear: Crit
Spire: Direct hit

[Saix027]

Base damage buff should have never been a card.

We have plenty of secondary stats, cards could have been designed to buff them.

Arrow: Skill speed/Spell Speed
Bole: Tenacity
Ewer: Piety
Balance: Determination
Spear: Crit
Spire: Direct hit

The problem i see is people will go for the actual meta, damage was always the meta sadly and is needed thanks to bad game design at times and the only answer.
I like the idea of this as buff but then people will always try to go for the "best", causing the same issue we have now, people prefered balance over everything, so they made all cards a balance card.

[Side-Eye]

Previous card system was a convoluted mess, that gave players an illusion of choice where there was none. I get that it could be fun for the AST to go through all the layers, but it's a shining example of when you make a job's mechanic too dependent on the RNG. If you literally have to create abilities to shave away some of those layers of RNG, then it defeats the purpose and all it is is combing combat with concepts from fishing.

People who spent any significant time "fishing" were not playing the class to its potential, nor were they getting as much fun out of it as they could have. The fact that you could set a specific card to the side and use it EXACTLY when you wanted to, definitely lessened the dependence on RNG. The fact that each card had two different uses, one as a buff and the other as a buff enhancer, also presented the player with an abundance of *choices* which allowed the AST to play in different ways depending on their group or raid. Not only did that make the class engaging, it also made the player feel empowered. It was very rare playing my astro that I ever felt like a victim of RNG.

But post-5.0, we are literally forced to "fish" for a buff card suitable for the type of DPS in your party, and continually "fish" to get three different seals -- and there is very little choice in how to play the resulting buff. See the irony?

[MitsukiKimura]

The problem i see is people will go for the actual meta, damage was always the meta sadly and is needed thanks to bad game design at times and the only answer.
I like the idea of this as buff but then people will always try to go for the "best", causing the same issue we have now, people prefered balance over everything, so they made all cards a balance card.

This is what I've thought of and came up with for the cards
Arrow: When used, gives the target a Haste effect for 15 seconds
Bole: Grants the user/target 10% Defense for 15 seconds
Ewer: Grants the user 50 MP potency recovery for 10 seconds
Spire: Grants the user 10% Direct hit for 15 seconds
Balance: Increase damage dealt by 5% for 10 seconds(Damage and duration has been nerfed to make other cards viable)
Spear: Increased critical chance by 10% for 15 seconds.
Royal Road is back with it's old effect
This will bring back flavor without making "Balance" Meta. Square enix shouldn't try to cater to those who care only about "Meta" they should be concerned with how they can bring back it's lore and unique game play while making all cards worth using.