Did people even ask for changes to AST, like they do / did for MNK and MCH?

[Maeka]

I like ShB's AST over StB's.

I did not ask for a change specifically, but now that the change has been implemented, I would have to say I like it more.

Sure it is "dumbed down", but yet overall it just seems to flow better and easier. AST was already the most frenetic healer class to play, and StB's card system just seemed so weird. We had buff cards that nobody cared about (who cared about Spire or Bole cards? Seriously. And Ewer was usually LOL as well), which were only RR fodder.

Given there's what, 6 cards? and 3 of them are junk? That's 50% chance that any card you pull is going to be junk.

With the new system, the first card is useful 100% of the time, 66% the second time, and 33% the third time. Yes all cards do the same thing, but at least you're not throwing away the vast majority of the cards you pull unless Divination is on cooldown and you somehow got lucky and got another Divination ready before the cooldown arrived (and even then you're not "throwing them away", you're simply converting them to Lady/Lord cards to save your Div progress).

Every now and then I'll get this spurt where I'll need (insert type here) and not get that for 8, 9, 10 draws but these are thankfully rare. Usually I'll get the full Div stack within 5-6 draws. It's certainly better than trying to fish for Balance back in StB and usually having to settle for Spear (or that other one) instead at times because it just won't give you Balance when you need it.

For a development team to break a class lore because so called "Fishing for balance" was only for a small minority of players.

I'm a very casual player, and even I know that 20% Damage Buff is way better than the other 5 buffs. Why on Earth would I want anything other than 20% damage buff? I mean... 20% recast on something that takes two seconds... um.... ok? That's not even noticeable hardly, and besides, most things you use either have no cooldown, or the cooldown was the same as the GCD. 20% GCD? Eh, maybe? I'd say that was the only real competition Balance had. TP regain? Who ever cared about that unless you were spamming AOEs back in HW? MP Regen? I can't remember ever running out of MP unless things really went south (then MP Regen wasn't going to cut it anyhow). That just leaves 20% damage reduction. If I was solo as AST, well I'm a healer. I got Aspected Benefic, which would pretty much heal me through anything I was meant to solo, anyhow.

And throwing a Bole card on a tank in a dungeon? I remember the Bole Card being referred to as the "Card of Shame" because the only healers who threw those cards around did it to either insult the tank, or they were a newbie healer, or the tank genuinely sucked at mitigation usage.

So I highly doubt a "minority" of players was Balance Fishing because it just seems so.... obvious.... that 1 card was far more powerful than the others. Ironic they chose to call it "Balance" when it was anything but Balanced.

EDIT: I am obviously talking about StB, I do not know how it was in HW because I didn't play AST back then.

[HyoMinPark]

Sure it is "dumbed down", but yet overall it just seems to flow better and easier. AST was already the most frenetic healer class to play, and StB's card system just seemed so weird. We had buff cards that nobody cared about (who cared about Spire or Bole cards? Seriously. And Ewer was usually LOL as well), which were only RR fodder.

The only card out of these that was arguably fodder was Spire. TP stopped being an issue in SB—too many jobs had access to TP refresh tools (either personal or party-wide), and there were very few instances where Spire could actually be used for its intended purpose. Having a Ewer for yourself was actually very nice, because AST had the worse MP economy of the three healers in SB (and still does in ShB). Especially if you were killed. Bole on a tank in dungeons was amazing.

Given there's what, 6 cards? and 3 of them are junk? That's 50% chance that any card you pull is going to be junk.

None of them were “junk” when you take into account Minor Arcana. That was the best skill AST got in SB because it turned cards you didn’t need at the time into something more useable. You no longer had to throw them away as useless.

With the new system, the first card is useful 100% of the time, 66% the second time, and 33% the third time. Yes all cards do the same thing, but at least you're not throwing away the vast majority of the cards you pull unless Divination is on cooldown and you somehow got lucky and got another Divination ready before the cooldown arrived (and even then you're not "throwing them away", you're simply converting them to Lady/Lord cards to save your Div progress).

While all the cards are now “useful”, your percentages are not really how the Seal RNG works. And, personally speaking, the Divination+Seals mechanic is just transferring the “Balance fishing” to “Seal fishing”. Nothing really changed.

The cards are all the same and it’s boring. There’s no decision making to them now—it’s “highest melee DPS card” and “highest ranged DPS card”. No more giving BRDs Spears to give them insane bursts. No more giving BLMs Enhanced Arrows for more explosions. And Minor Arcana is just more of the same. No more free damage card or free mini-Tetra. I’d rather variety, even if you have that one card that’s basically fodder. Makes things far more interesting. Of course, the theme of ShB was to dumb down jobs that had any sort of complexity to them....

You weren’t throwing away the vast majority of cards before because you should have always been Minor Arcana-ing cards that weren’t being used on a party member, for a Spread, or for a Royal Road modifier.

I'm a very casual player, and even I know that 20% Damage Buff is way better than the other 5 buffs.

Balance hasn’t been 20% since early SB. That was quickly reverted before the first Savage tier released. It was +10% for single-target and +5% for AOE since AST was released (3.0) until 3.4 when they broke it in an attempt to draw people to the job. The 20% was reverted back to original potencies in the same patch Deltascape dropped (4.05).

Mathematically, it was the best because nothing beats straight damage increases. But that doesn’t mean that the other cards were useless because Balance was “the best one”. If you were throwing all of your cards away to fish for just Balance, then you were playing the job incorrectly. Balance fishing ultimately only mattered for top-tier speedkills and for people seeking Balance-padded parses.

I mean... 20% recast on something that takes two seconds... um.... ok? That's not even noticeable hardly, and besides, most things you use either have no cooldown, or the cooldown was the same as the GCD. 20% GCD? Eh, maybe?

Are you talking about original Spear or Arrow here? Because Spear was changed from cooldown reduction sometime in SB to +10% Crit (+5% for AOE). The cooldown reduction was literally worse than Spire—and they changed it. A Spear on a BRD or a MNK was a good play—it was insane how good it was on those jobs, especially if they were bursting (BRD + Minuet/Raging Strikes + Spear was an unbelievably good thing).

Arrow was arguably only good on certain jobs (SAM and BLM usually) because it could cause clipping with other jobs and mess with rotations. But that was part of playing AST properly—knowing when and where it would be effective.

MP Regen? I can't remember ever running out of MP unless things really went south (then MP Regen wasn't going to cut it anyhow).

SB AST (and ShB AST) had the worst MP economy of all the healers. A Ewer was far more useful than you’re giving it credit for. ShB AST would kill to have it back, honestly. They seem like they’re MP negative if you try to keep up with ABC.

That just leaves 20% damage reduction. If I was solo as AST, well I'm a healer. I got Aspected Benefic, which would pretty much heal me through anything I was meant to solo, anyhow.

The damage reduction was less beneficial in solo play and more in party play. Giving it to a tank in a large dungeon pull was pretty great. Whether they were a great tank or a poor one. And, as cheesy as it may sound, my UwU clear had an AOE Bole during the primal roulettes before Ultima begins charging up his enrage. It might have been RNG, but it saw some use.

And throwing a Bole card on a tank in a dungeon? I remember the Bole Card being referred to as the "Card of Shame" because the only healers who threw those cards around did it to either insult the tank, or they were a newbie healer, or the tank genuinely sucked at mitigation usage.

LMAO. No. Having an Enhanced Bole on a tank for a large pull was a godsend. It basically gave you free reign to AOE the trash down—especially if you stacked HoTs on them and extended the durations with Celestial Opposition. I could do that even to the worst kinds of tanks and not have to heal them most of the time. Giving them a Bole wasn’t an “insult”—I have no idea where you even heard that from. It was literally a free cooldown.

[Maeka]

None of them were “junk” when you take into account Minor Arcana. That was the best skill AST got in SB because it turned cards you didn’t need at the time into something more useable. You no longer had to throw them away as useless.

Not like we don't have Minor Arcana now, right?

While all the cards are now “useful”, your percentages are not really how the Seal RNG works. And, personally speaking, the Divination+Seals mechanic is just transferring the “Balance fishing” to “Seal fishing”. Nothing really changed.

Unless they do some skewing, you have 6 cards. There's 2 Sun Cards, 2 Moon Cards, and 2 Sky Cards. You want 1x Moon, Sun, Sky for Divination. When you draw the first card, the first is 100% useful. When you draw the second card, you get a 4-in-6 chance, or 66% chance of getting one of the two you didn't get the first time. When you draw the third card, you get a 2-in-6 chance, or 33%, of getting the remaining seal you didn't have.

Unless of course, the game does some trickery, like "If the player has Sun and Moon, -10% chance of getting sky" or some crap.

The cards are all the same and it’s boring. There’s no decision making to them now—it’s “highest melee DPS card” and “highest ranged DPS card”. No more giving BRDs Spears to give them insane bursts. No more giving BLMs Enhanced Arrows for more explosions. And Minor Arcana is just more of the same. No more free damage card or free mini-Tetra. I’d rather variety, even if you have that one card that’s basically fodder. Makes things far more interesting. Of course, the theme of ShB was to dumb down jobs that had any sort of complexity to them....

......on the job that was already the most complicated, and still is the most frenetic to play of the healers? Before asking for yet MORE complexity to AST, you should look at WHM sometime.

You weren’t throwing away the vast majority of cards before because you should have always been Minor Arcana-ing cards that weren’t being used on a party member, for a Spread, or for a Royal Road modifier.

Minor Arcana is about the same thing as throwing it away, in terms of each individual card being useful or not. If you Minor Arcana a card, you don't care WHAT the card is, you're just going to dump it into MA. This means all cards are basically the same, which is exactly what you are complaining about with ShB.

I will give you that RR did care about which cards.

Balance hasn’t been 20% since early SB. That was quickly reverted before the first Savage tier released. It was +10% for single-target and +5% for AOE since AST was released (3.0) until 3.4 when they broke it in an attempt to draw people to the job. The 20% was reverted back to original potencies in the same patch Deltascape dropped (4.05).

Fair enough, I suppose. Still.

Mathematically, it was the best because nothing beats straight damage increases. But that doesn’t mean that the other cards were useless because Balance was “the best one”. If you were throwing all of your cards away to fish for just Balance, then you were playing the job incorrectly. Balance fishing ultimately only mattered for top-tier speedkills and for people seeking Balance-padded parses.

Or your average clueless players in Duty Finder, which is where I do most of my group play. Doesn't matter what is really what, if a large portion of the public believes otherwise. You know how your average Duty Finder Hero worships +Damage output, or you surely do?

Are you talking about original Spear or Arrow here? Because Spear was changed from cooldown reduction sometime in SB to +10% Crit (+5% for AOE). The cooldown reduction was literally worse than Spire—and they changed it. A Spear on a BRD or a MNK was a good play—it was insane how good it was on those jobs, especially if they were bursting (BRD + Minuet/Raging Strikes + Spear was an unbelievably good thing).

Memory is somewhat foggy, I will admit. I dont' remember when exactly I was leveling AST during StB.

SB AST (and ShB AST) had the worst MP economy of all the healers. A Ewer was far more useful than you’re giving it credit for. ShB AST would kill to have it back, honestly. They seem like they’re MP negative if you try to keep up with ABC.

Odd, I never noticed any real problems. Popping Lucid seemed to solve most of my problems? I can't say I ever thought "OMG YES A EWER!" after, say, Lv50 or so. Maybe some early levels back before I got into the hang of playing it and I was wasting MP on the wrong spells maybe.

The damage reduction was less beneficial in solo play and more in party play. Giving it to a tank in a large dungeon pull was pretty great. Whether they were a great tank or a poor one. And, as cheesy as it may sound, my UwU clear had an AOE Bole during the primal roulettes before Ultima begins charging up his enrage. It might have been RNG, but it saw some use.

LMAO. No. Having an Enhanced Bole on a tank for a large pull was a godsend. It basically gave you free reign to AOE the trash down—especially if you stacked HoTs on them and extended the durations with Celestial Opposition. I could do that even to the worst kinds of tanks and not have to heal them most of the time. Giving them a Bole wasn’t an “insult”—I have no idea where you even heard that from. It was literally a free cooldown.

Again, Duty Finder, general public. Personally? I loved the idea of throwing a short duration Rampart on a tank in a Trash pull. But you know, I kept hearing about the "Card of Shame" and all that, and didn't want people getting mad at me, so RR/MA it is anytime Bole came up.

[HyoMinPark]

Not like we don't have Minor Arcana now, right?

The point of what I was saying clearly went completely over your head.

I never said we lost MA. I said it gave use to the cards we did not need at the time. And it had a lot more variance to it then than it does now. Now. It’s all just lore of the same. I’d rather have my old Lord and old Lady back. Having an extra single-target oGCD was nice, and it felt more rewarding to turn an unneeded-Spire into a free oGCD damage card.

Unless they do some skewing, you have 6 cards. There's 2 Sun Cards, 2 Moon Cards, and 2 Sky Cards. You want 1x Moon, Sun, Sky for Divination. When you draw the first card, the first is 100% useful. When you draw the second card, you get a 4-in-6 chance, or 66% chance of getting one of the two you didn't get the first time. When you draw the third card, you get a 2-in-6 chance, or 33%, of getting the remaining seal you didn't have.

That’s not how probability works in practice.

......on the job that was already the most complicated, and still is the most frenetic to play of the healers? Before asking for yet MORE complexity to AST, you should look at WHM sometime.

Heaven forbid we have complexity and decision-making involved in a job. You can also drop the WHM strawman because we aren’t talking about WHM. AST is only cumbersome now because of how the cards function—and things like the new Sleeve Draw making it a nightmare for controller users. It’s not complex in terms of decision-making. Cards go to the highest damage dealers with no real variance. You don’t make strategic plays anymore.

I’d rather decision-making return to AST than be like: “Oh? Balance? SAM card.” “Bole? BLM/SMN card.” “Not the Seal I need? Minor Arcana for another damage card for the SAM/BLM/SMN.” It’s a lot more engaging to draw something like an old Spear and consider if it would be strategic to play it on the BRD or MNK, or opt to Redraw instead.

Besides, I’m not a fan of single-target padding. Which is all you do now.

Minor Arcana is about the same thing as throwing it away, in terms of each individual card being useful or not. If you Minor Arcana a card, you don't care WHAT the card is, you're just going to dump it into MA. This means all cards are basically the same, which is exactly what you are complaining about with ShB.

I will give you that RR did care about which cards.

Disagree. Minor Arcana’s addition in SB was wonderful for giving things we didn’t need a use. You did have to care about whether or not you MA’d a card or did something else with it—it was all part of that decision-making aspect of AST that has been sucked out of it.

Or your average clueless players in Duty Finder, which is where I do most of my group play. Doesn't matter what is really what, if a large portion of the public believes otherwise. You know how your average Duty Finder Hero worships +Damage output, or you surely do?

No, Balance fishing didn’t matter in “the average Duty Finder”. I ran all kinds of content on AST in HW and SB. I was never once complained at for not Balance padding someone’s dungeon pull.

Odd, I never noticed any real problems. Popping Lucid seemed to solve most of my problems? I can't say I ever thought "OMG YES A EWER!" after, say, Lv50 or so. Maybe some early levels back before I got into the hang of playing it and I was wasting MP on the wrong spells maybe.

I take it you never did anything beyond a dungeon? Because it was relatively easy to feel MP strains in something like a 24-man or an 8-man if one was simply trying to keep up the Always Be Casting mentality. Even without having to do much Raising.

Again, Duty Finder, general public. Personally? I loved the idea of throwing a short duration Rampart on a tank in a Trash pull. But you know, I kept hearing about the "Card of Shame" and all that, and didn't want people getting mad at me, so RR/MA it is anytime Bole came up.

I played AST more than any job in SB. Never once had a tank cry at me for giving them Boles. This sounds like you dramatically skewing things you read about a couple times on the Internet.

Spire and Ewer were two of the strongest cards because of their Royal Road effect (~3x power). It wasn’t as effective in solo or light party content, but none of the RR effects were great in that scenario either.

I think they’re talking more about using it for the TP regen as opposed to Royal Road. Spire was pretty useless in terms of its intended card effect in SB. Not so much in HW, though.

[MitsukiKimura]

Odd, I never noticed any real problems. Popping Lucid seemed to solve most of my problems? I can't say I ever thought "OMG YES A EWER!" after, say, Lv50 or so. Maybe some early levels back before I got into the hang of playing it and I was wasting MP on the wrong spells maybe.

You don't know MP Struggles until you have people dying in your savage raid parties as an AST. One Rez is enough to crush your MP regen to dangerous levels. On Titan? You'd wish you had that Ewer Card.