Who else is worried about SE and Ast?

[Lastelli]

Nope. All the nope. And you have it wrong. The effects before had lore consistent with gameplay. It was about surfing probability and adapting, a lot like Dancer's mechanics.

Cards are nothing like Dancer's mechanics for two major reasons:

1) You have no control over your procs, you just react to what you have, while following some very basic priority rules to make sure you don't waste any proc;
2) Procs only unlock other weaponskills or offensive ogcd (note how damage mitigation is totally out of the equation, because as soon as damage is an option, it will become the only desirable option) and since both proc rates and proc activation chances are high, at the end of the fight it evens out, so the variance in terms of dps is relatively small. This was not true with old cards, where you could have extremely variable rdps contribution depending on luck, which made it close to impossible to balance. And like it or not, balance is important in online games.

With the current iteration of the cards system, they fixed the balance. You don't like it? Then suggest how they can design a system that can be balanced and work with the scripted fights in this game. Hopefully something that won't turn WHM into a meme again, just because you want to have your fake "healer improvisation" back.

[Deceptus]

All of this. The only thing AST needs is MP improvements; THAT’S IT. No more, no less right now.

A slow effect on Gravity for Dungeons would be really nice. Needed, no. Welcome, very.

[Boomsmash]

Lots of threads when the changes came out covered better ways, from being able to select which effect you would throw when the cooldown was up (which would surely make the optimizers happy), to having them vary based on what class you threw them on (encourages spreading the buffs around), and into having debuff effects if thrown on enemies (whee!).

All of those are better than the current system. I think my idea was using a rotator like the Magia board for AST's cards, dial and toss. If you only want damage, ignore the other cards. If you need MP, dial and throw. Cooldowns for making it AoE, a damage hit, or a heal burst.

[MitsukiKimura]

That's a very biased way to look at it. In previous expansions, cards were an "all or almost nothing" mechanic. Either you got lucky with your draws, or you simply had to be satisfied with an extremely suboptimal result. Lord/Lady? They didn't even come close to the utility provided by an aoe balance.
Right now, even if you don't get the card you want, you're not losing much in terms of utility. This is always true, be it because you wanted a melee card instead of a ranged card, or because you couldn't prep 3 different seals for divination, bad luck doesn't screw you too much and you're losing very little in terms of actual support. In HW and SB, on the other hand, spire/ewer/bole direct effect (tp/mp regen and damage mitigation) had very little utility in most scenarios and were close to useless in a well coordinated party because tanks and healers would map all their cds to deal with all the dangerous mechanics.

I can understand if you tell me that you prefer variety. But the argument that "fishing is worse than before" or that "there were no useless cards before 5.0" is not convincing.

Gameplay consistency > Lore btw. Lore is already butchered in this game anyway.

Welcome to RNG in a MMORPG, you're not always going to get lucky with what cards you were drawn. "Gameplay Consistency" is the talk of a person who only does raids for their parses which very small minority of this community, no we don't like these cards and thousands of people feel the same way. You're still fishing for certain cards for a certain divination seal, it feels worse than what it was. AST cards should not feel lame and disgusting to use for your "Optimal" Play

[Crushnight]

Welcome to RNG in a MMORPG, you're not always going to get lucky with what cards you were drawn. "Gameplay Consistency" is the talk of a person who only does raids for their parses which very small minority of this community, no we don't like these cards and thousands of people feel the same way. You're still fishing for certain cards for a certain divination seal, it feels worse than what it was. AST cards should not feel lame and disgusting to use for your "Optimal" Play

Now I have to interject and say those that raid and want to play optimal(currently where Ast controller issues stem from) have as much right to their opinion on matters but like those that play far less optimally they shouldn't be the only voice being heard.

They had to have been a balance between all the different voices (casuals,hardcore,speed runners etc etc), it just feels there wasn't this time for Ast and that is was a prominent voice that was heard above all others and this has hurt Ast far greater than the undertuning did in 3.0(undertuning is numbers, 5.X Ast is straight gameplay far harder to change).

It did not help that SE has been so silent about healers in general but particularly the reasons for the changes done to Ast and Sch have been so quiet we've heard nothing but crickets for months.

The only metric we players have access to shows Ast numbers are stupidly low compared to its counterparts in the least populated role(as in 3 healers etc) which also has 2 spots in parties on top. To say nothing about it being the stongest rDps healer as well.

[MitsukiKimura]

Now I have to interject and say those that raid and want to play optimal(currently where Ast controller issues stem from) have as much right to their opinion on matters but like those that play far less optimally they shouldn't be the only voice being heard.

They had to have been a balance between all the different voices (casuals,hardcore,speed runners etc etc), it just feels there wasn't this time for Ast and that is was a prominent voice that was heard above all others and this has hurt Ast far greater than the undertuning did in 3.0(undertuning is numbers, 5.X Ast is straight gameplay far harder to change).

It did not help that SE has been so silent about healers in general but particularly the reasons for the changes done to Ast and Sch have been so quiet we've heard nothing but crickets for months.

The only metric we players have access to shows Ast numbers are stupidly low compared to its counterparts in the least populated role(as in 3 healers etc) which also has 2 spots in parties on top. To say nothing about it being the stongest rDps healer as well.

Everyone has a right to their own opinion yes I agree with that. Sadly those opinions have made long time AST players hate, quit or just downright hate the card system as it stands.

[Rai_Takara]

Card system is beginning of something, I believe, is much greater. So I reserve my judgement till 6.0.

Just know the "RNG" nature of cards is gone forever and AST will ALWAYS consistently provide damage buffs at a constant rate.

[Crushnight]

Card system is beginning of something, I believe, is much greater. So I reserve my judgement till 6.0.

Just know the "RNG" nature of cards is gone forever and AST will ALWAYS consistently provide damage buffs at a constant rate.

You say that but points to bow mage, people said the same thing there yet that was changed to the best version of brd in 4.0.

Quite literally anything could happen with 6.0 if however this current implementation of the card system remains, that will be when I drop the globe as that will show the Dev team will not budge on this design for Ast and I will stop supporting a job I have loved to bits as I would not care anymore at that point.

[MitsukiKimura]

Card system is beginning of something, I believe, is much greater. So I reserve my judgement till 6.0.

Just know the "RNG" nature of cards is gone forever and AST will ALWAYS consistently provide damage buffs at a constant rate.

Card system has never been at a all time low until now. There's something wrong when people are quitting the class they love to play because of the changes.

[Crushnight]

Everyone has a right to their own opinion yes I agree with that. Sadly those opinions have made long time AST players hate, quit or just downright hate the card system as it stands.

Aye it unfortunately happens SE takes things they think we would like or what a few people like and are voicing for despite it being a huge turn off or cause problems for a far bigger portion of the player base.

At this point any card system changes are most likely for 6.0 if Ast gets them. But the controller issues remain the top priority that need to be sorted asap this expansion, so long as this remains Ast is the worst designed job of ShB (no other job alienates an entire peripheral) far above Mch's ping dependance, or mnk's cluster rotation.

Yet nothing ever gets said that I feel they do not know how bad it really is. I honestly think mch and mnk will have their issues sorted out before ast has their controller issues looked at. Certainly the impression SE has given me since media tour.