Ast cards 6.0 rework

[YusiKha]

MP is strictly a healer thing now

I can see what you meant by that, but the truer statement would be:

MP restoration is now self-only.

But then again, healers are the only class that actually uses mana as ‘mana’, since others’ is either a fluctuating resource bar (BLM, DRK, PLD) or a nonissue outside of mass-raising (SMN, RDM)

[HyoMinPark]

You are correct, and I had to go back and look at an old video because I could not for the life of me think about ARR BRD. I started about two months before HW dropped, so sorry on that particular comment. However, my later reply still stands: They didn't "overhaul" bard when they took away Repertoire. They removed it and adjusted potencies to compensate. The mobile bard still existed, so there wasn't anything to "revert" to. There's a pretty big difference between that and the card system revamp.

You are still incorrect.

Repertoire was an entirely new concept in 4.0 and beyond. It did not exist in ARR or in HW. The songs in ARR and HW also did not function in any way, shape, or form as they do now (e.g., as any kind of rotation or as a passive buff—Mage’s Ballad was MP refresh prior to SB and Army’s Paeon was TP refresh: and both cost the BRD 10% of their personal damage to use. The Wanderer’s Minuet didn’t exist in ARR, and was a stance in HW that gave cast times and +30% personal damage, as well as access to Empyreal Arrow and Iron Jaws). Repertoire hasn’t been taken away in ShB—it is just flat rate instead of flexibly scaling depending on the BRD’s critical hit rate (which served to make the job less interesting, in my opinion, because it removed quite a bit of IJ optimization).

BRD SB rework was literally exactly like the card system overhaul they did to AST. SB BRD played differently from any iteration of BRD prior, and its main gimmick became a song rotation with reaction to procs caused by critical hit ticks on DoTs (and subsequently paying extra attention to buffs that would increase that critical hit chance, and snapshotting them onto the DoTs for more damage). Before, the only element of that that existed was Bloodletter had a 50% chance to reset once you gained the old River of Blood trait, and the only “rotation” BRD had was a personal buff rotation, since they could stack 4 different buffs in ARR/HW via cross-class (Raging Strikes, Internal Release, Hawk’s Eye, and Blood for Blood).

TL ; DR — ARR BRD was turned into a bowmage in HW. And HW BRD was overhauled into SB BRD, which was a more interesting version of current BRD. ShB is basically the same as SB BRD but with less nuance to it. They can completely overhaul jobs and go back on implemented systems. They did it with BRD (and to MCH, actually—since it was designed with cast times in mind, and those were removed in SB), so it is possible that they will do it with AST. Especially given all the negative feedback surrounding the cards. That’s what made them change bowmage.

[Mansion]

I wonder if they could rework something that would work in between now and 6.0 though. The current situation has its flaws so tightly woven into each other than changing any minor detail has an impact on something else.

For example, a Divination rework to make it less of a chore in the opener, cutting it from the Seals system negates the Seals themselves.
Changing card effects impact their balancing (and Minor Arcana to a certain degree).
Gettign rid of Ranged / melee impacts the number of available cards.
Sleeve Draw rework might entirely negate Sleeve Draw's utility.

I think the "easiest" way would be cutting Divination from the Seals, and then finding a new use for Seals. Be it a passive MP reducing effect, some kind of stat increase, or a resource to be spent on healing abilities / spells...
Vomiting 5 cards in a few GCD is not a cool feature at all, let alone the clunkiness of multi targetting.

[Rai_Takara]

DRK, PLD, BLM, RDM, SMN, WHM, AST, SCH

Nearly half the jobs still use MP.

Not that I'm arguing for Ewer, just stating a general fact.

Right, but iirc, I think only healers need the MP from Lucid (and at that, especially AST). Every other job is functional without it. Assuming no deaths of course, because designing a job based on recovery and balancing it as such is never a good idea (like RDM atm). So really the old ewer wouldn't be much use for a good majority of the time.

[ForteNightshade]

So just revert it back to 4.0 then, yes? I know I am often a voice of opposition, but I come in peace. That is a genuine question.

It is extremely unfortunate that the enjoyment was stripped from one, if not your favorite job. I do know how that feels, and it was a disheartening to the point that I left that particular mmo. Thing is, when I really thought about it back then, I wondered if simply reverting the job back to what it was would have fixed things. I realized it wouldn't have. The damage was already kind of done. It also wouldn't have worked any more in the way the battle design was changed. I wanted to mention this because as unlikely as it is that the old card system will return; if it did, how good would this actually be? You'd have to think about things in a way that DPS are functioning like now, and what all the AoE buffs you propose would be doing.

As difficult as it has been, what - if anything other than the return of the old card system would have you gravitate towards the job again, and take it out of retirement? If you take the card system away, is there anything you feel AST needs that current or new card system can take advantage of? How about AST's high APM? How do you feel about cards having longer draw times, but much more potent and different effects? How about putting cards on the GCD? These are not really suggestions, but just some haymakers to see if there is anything that stimulates the brain. But if we assume the old system will not return, and the current isn't enjoyable. The next alternative is something entirely new.

The irony is, like MitsukiKimura, I actually prefer Astro now if I ignore the cards completely. That's how awful, clunky and bland the whole thing feels. Which is rather sad seeing that been the whole gimmick.

But to answer your question, Sleeve Draw absolutely needs to be overhauled or straight deleted. It is probably the biggest offender, and results this mess of an opener. Play is another button that just doesn't work properly, requiring quickly targeting through your party or macros. I don't think I know a single controller player who has not complained about Play. I'd like to see old Lord and Lady come back in some capacity.

[Crushnight]

You are correct, and I had to go back and look at an old video because I could not for the life of me think about ARR BRD. I started about two months before HW dropped, so sorry on that particular comment. However, my later reply still stands: They didn't "overhaul" bard when they took away Repertoire. They removed it and adjusted potencies to compensate. The mobile bard still existed, so there wasn't anything to "revert" to. There's a pretty big difference between that and the card system revamp.



DRK, PLD, BLM, RDM, SMN, WHM, AST, SCH

Nearly half the jobs still use MP.

Not that I'm arguing for Ewer, just stating a general fact.

HyoMinPark basically said what I was going to say so I won't reiterate it and just support their words.

However (this is seperate to our previous conversation) I will say this new card system is literally held together by very thin glue.

Take away melee and range split, only 4 cards are needed.

Take away the seals, only 4 cards are needed.

Take away both, 2 cards are needed.


The only way to reduce cards of the old system was removing MA, granted cards like spire were near useless but still too different an effect to remove the card outright. Shame with the new system you can see how it could be simplified without issues whereas old system you could only theorise how card effects could be changed.

[ForteNightshade]

HyoMinPark basically said what I was going to say so I won't reiterate it and just support their words.

However (this is seperate to our previous conversation) I will say this new card system is literally held together by very thin glue.

Take away melee and range split, only 4 cards are needed.

Take away the seals, only 4 cards are needed.

Take away both, 2 cards are needed.


The only way to reduce cards of the old system was removing MA, granted cards like spire were near useless but still too different an effect to remove the card outright. Shame with the new system you can see how it could be simplified without issues whereas old system you could only theorise how card effects could be changed.

The current system is so transparently designed so they didn't have to remove cards outright, it's sad. You could reduce the cards to two (Melee/Range) and make Divination require three seals regardless of what they are. That's essentially the same thing we have now but without any RNG—which is near non-existent outside the opener anyway since the odds of you not getting three different seals before Divination's off CD are quite low. And even if you don't, it's a meager 1% loss over 15 seconds. You'll never even notice it outside hyper competitive speed kills.

All this to say how badly thought out Astro's changes were. Why didn't they notice? Likely because the dev team still doesn't pay attention to how we actually play the game and assumed Astros would divvy out cards without trying to cast Malefic III in between. A problem many jobs suffer from.

[Rai_Takara]

The current system is so transparently designed so they didn't have to remove cards outright, it's sad. You could reduce the cards to two (Melee/Range) and make Divination require three seals regardless of what they are. That's essentially the same thing we have now but without any RNG—which is near non-existent outside the opener anyway since the odds of you not getting three different seals before Divination's off CD are quite low. And even if you don't, it's a meager 1% loss over 15 seconds. You'll never even notice it outside hyper competitive speed kills.

All this to say how badly thought out Astro's changes were. Why didn't they notice? Likely because the dev team still doesn't pay attention to how we actually play the game and assumed Astros would divvy out cards without trying to cast Malefic III in between. A problem many jobs suffer from.

I can't comment for controller players, but on kb&m, getting out 3 cards between malefic casts then popping divination after the 4th malefic, regardless of seals seems pretty straightforward and easy thanks to lightspeed. Of course the initial divination could be between 4% to 6% but that variation is so small, even speed runs wouldn't be necessarily affected as much to be worth the hassle (a singular crit from 1 or 2 DPS might be worth more).

I'd say this is miles better than waiting for prepull balance though. Or having runs were you barely got balances. These changes make sense for raids, but they can feel lacking in 4 man content like dungeons. Used to be you prioritized aoe buffs in raids and single target buffs in dungeons.

Also old lord and lady had similar issue of rng to the ASTs personal damage considering lady was too weak to be worth a lord. Pretty much SE wants to kill RNG as much as possible. I do agree that play and draw really didnt need to be separated like that (to mitigate, I made a macro for thus so i only hit one button for both).

[Side-Eye]

I can't comment for controller players, but on kb&m, getting out 3 cards between malefic casts then popping divination after the 4th malefic, regardless of seals seems pretty straightforward and easy thanks to lightspeed.

lol it's funny that almost any issue presented with AST's clunkiness, RNG reliance, etc., gets a response of "well, with lightspeed" -- I mean, you do know we can't exactly spam lightspeed, right? You've played the job, right? You know what cooldowns are, right? You know 2 minutes is a pretty big chunk of time, right?

[Malmstrom]

Karate-snip

Okay hang on, two seconds. Since I don't BRD all day every day (I used to, and quite a bit so back in HW and SB), I have definitely gotten the names of the skills mixed up. The Wanderer's Minuet was the name of the skill I couldn't remember. Me calling it Repertoire was an honest mistake. I'm aware that the songs did not used to function as they did in 4.0, but that was an addition to an already existing kit, which was the basis of my point. "Bow mage" was because of Wanderer's, and when they removed it and buffed the potencies to compensate that can hardly be considered scrapping the old mechanic and re-doing it like the card system. Yes, they added the song mechanics, but that wasn't a reversion of any kind.

BRD and MCH were overhauled, sure, but a revert it was not.

I'm not saying AST can't or won't get the same treatment, but a reversion to the previous card system? No.


- I apologize for the confusion. It was my own lack of knowing skill names that did it. I swear I hardly even know the skill names of the jobs I play the most. The truth is I learn what they do and know what button they are, and whenever I read a guide or thread about a job I regularly play, I have to look up whatever skill people are talking about, especially when they abbreviate it.