Ast cards 6.0 rework

[HyoMinPark]

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).

Speaking as a controller player, the amount of button-pressing that you have to do to deal with current Sleeve Draw is quite excessive. I can feel my D-pad getting prematurely worn out from it. The only alternative is a set of macros, which would now have to double thanks to Play/Minor Arcana being separated. Which is excessive in terms of hotbar real-estate; and macros come with their own set of problems, such as GCD clipping and queuing/execution issues. Lightspeed doesn't really help mitigate the amount of finger gymnastics needed to deal with Sleeve on a controller. It can be done, but I find it unnecessary.

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.

Based on my opinions on current Sleeve Draw, I'd have to disagree. I really didn't find trying to fish for a pre-pull Balance that difficult, and I honestly didn't mind the RNG with old Draw or with old Sleeve. Bad runs always happen, so having a poor run with the cards was no skin off of my back, really. I'd rather have a more varied system than one that could essentially do away with over half of the current arcana for two versions of the same, boring buff.

Again, I think adjusting some of the cards as they once existed would have been better than making all 6 (and really, all 8) of them carbon copies of one another. The removal of variance is something that really killed the job for me, and I'd rather see it return.

And based on prior experiences with statics that had ASTs that insisted on single-target padding one person day after day, week after week, I really disagree with single-target only as an option for the cards. Personally, speaking. I enjoy buffing my party as a whole if they deserve it, not just a handful of players in it.

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).

In terms of optimization, perhaps that was the case. However, giving Lady a higher potency for an RNG heal would have been a fairer way to mitigate this discrepancy between the two Minor Arcana instead of reskinning them into another damage buff that's only slightly better than regular Arcana. In my opinion, anyways.

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.

Wanderer's Minuet wasn't removed. It was reworked. Just like the original songs were completely reworked - an addition is the incorrect term for it, because they didn't add anything to the songs. They completely changed what they did and how they functioned. The cards are honestly very similar, as they have changed all of their effects from HW/SB's Arcana.

And BRD didn't really receive any buffs in terms of potency going from HW to SB. DoTs were upgraded into Stormbite and Caustic Bite, but the base potencies of most of their skills remained the same. Any "buff" to BRD's damage came from the added skills and their crit scaling (which also contributed very heavily to BRD's powercreep and dominance over MCH as the tiers passed). They actually received more of a "nerf" going from HW to SB, with piercing resistance down nerfed from 10% to 5%, and the loss of 3 of 4 of their damage buffs with the removal of cross-class (and Hawk's Eye was deleted - but with a good reason; +15% DEX every 90 seconds would have been severely broken). But the nerf was honestly needed, because BRD was extremely overpowered by the time HW finished. Both it and MCH.

Sidenote: the 30% buff HW Minuet gave was to offset that BRD lost auto-attacks when they turned on Minuet. And to also entice people into playing it, because HW BRD was horribly weak on release.

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

It was a reversion when you consider that BRD went from fully mobile at ARR level cap, to a pseudo-caster at HW level cap, and then freely mobile again once Stormblood dropped. They could have kept BRD a bowmage, but they didn't because of the outrage.

I personally didn't mind bowmage, but I am in a very, very, very small minority of players.

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

It could never be a full reversion, obviously. Spire couldn't be as it once was, and Balance would likely need to be adjusted so that it's not overpowered like it used to be. But you can't discount that it may happen considering the volume of complaints and requests for the old system - or, at the very least, aspects of it - to return to the job. Especially since the card system gets more complaints that any other part of AST (even compared to the complaints about its crappy MP economy).

[MitsukiKimura]

Speaking as a controller player, the amount of button-pressing that you have to do to deal with current Sleeve Draw is quite excessive. I can feel my D-pad getting prematurely worn out from it. The only alternative is a set of macros, which would now have to double thanks to Play/Minor Arcana being separated. Which is excessive in terms of hotbar real-estate; and macros come with their own set of problems, such as GCD clipping and queuing/execution issues. Lightspeed doesn't really help mitigate the amount of finger gymnastics needed to deal with Sleeve on a controller. It can be done, but I find it unnecessary.



Based on my opinions on current Sleeve Draw, I'd have to disagree. I really didn't find trying to fish for a pre-pull Balance that difficult, and I honestly didn't mind the RNG with old Draw or with old Sleeve. Bad runs always happen, so having a poor run with the cards was no skin off of my back, really. I'd rather have a more varied system than one that could essentially do away with over half of the current arcana for two versions of the same, boring buff.

Again, I think adjusting some of the cards as they once existed would have been better than making all 6 (and really, all 8) of them carbon copies of one another. The removal of variance is something that really killed the job for me, and I'd rather see it return.

And based on prior experiences with statics that had ASTs that insisted on single-target padding one person day after day, week after week, I really disagree with single-target only as an option for the cards. Personally, speaking. I enjoy buffing my party as a whole if they deserve it, not just a handful of players in it.



In terms of optimization, perhaps that was the case. However, giving Lady a higher potency for an RNG heal would have been a fairer way to mitigate this discrepancy between the two Minor Arcana instead of reskinning them into another damage buff that's only slightly better than regular Arcana. In my opinion, anyways.

Only thing I found waiting on more than a pre pulling for a balance was waiting for the summoner Aetherflow to be off cooldown after they used it. I can't count the times where during sleeve draw where I get nothing but melee cards or ranged cards while there is already one on my teammate, making me waste the effect of the remaining card that was already on them. The animation turning a card to either Lord of Crowns or Lady of crowns? I miss it.

[Rai_Takara]

Speaking as a controller player, the amount of button-pressing that you have to do to deal with current Sleeve Draw is quite excessive. I can feel my D-pad getting prematurely worn out from it. The only alternative is a set of macros, which would now have to double thanks to Play/Minor Arcana being separated. Which is excessive in terms of hotbar real-estate; and macros come with their own set of problems, such as GCD clipping and queuing/execution issues. Lightspeed doesn't really help mitigate the amount of finger gymnastics needed to deal with Sleeve on a controller. It can be done, but I find it unnecessary.

Based on my opinions on current Sleeve Draw, I'd have to disagree. I really didn't find trying to fish for a pre-pull Balance that difficult, and I honestly didn't mind the RNG with old Draw or with old Sleeve. Bad runs always happen, so having a poor run with the cards was no skin off of my back, really. I'd rather have a more varied system than one that could essentially do away with over half of the current arcana for two versions of the same, boring buff.

Again, I think adjusting some of the cards as they once existed would have been better than making all 6 (and really, all 8) of them carbon copies of one another. The removal of variance is something that really killed the job for me, and I'd rather see it return.

And based on prior experiences with statics that had ASTs that insisted on single-target padding one person day after day, week after week, I really disagree with single-target only as an option for the cards. Personally, speaking. I enjoy buffing my party as a whole if they deserve it, not just a handful of players in it.

In terms of optimization, perhaps that was the case. However, giving Lady a higher potency for an RNG heal would have been a fairer way to mitigate this discrepancy between the two Minor Arcana instead of reskinning them into another damage buff that's only slightly better than regular Arcana. In my opinion, anyways.

Then perhaps they should rework sleeve and/or the draw/play issue. I can macro both play and draw together so it's the same as HW/SB draw (always had anyway). I'm currently enjoying that I still don't know what I draw and as a result, have to decide who to card, ranged/melee, and on top of that figuring out if they are bursting at the present moment or not. It was a lot easier back in SB because you can just throw a balance on someone and guarantee that they'd be in some buff window, but I do enjoy having to consider that.

But yea, I'd have to disagree with variance. For me it was really boring having to balance or bust or basically be playing poorly when I know better. And nothing is worth to me than offering nothing to my group in terms of buffs when the entire reason I'm justified over a WHM is that I can also buff them to compensate for my poor damage. Single target padding is thankfully gone thanks to how FFlogs and their rework on rankings. Cards are purely a measure of how good you are are at carding the right person and how good the person you carded used that buff.

Perhaps, but it would be tricky as you can easily have too many heals, but rarely ever too much damage.

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?

Lightspeed paired with Sleeve since sleeve is what causes the cluster of cards in the first place. It was no different than in SB where you paired lightspeed with sleeve draw and extended it for 20 seconds intsacasts.

[Gemina]

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.

You take the cards out, and AST functions just fine as a healer, but designing a healer so that it can meet the healing requirements is likely the easiest part of it; considering how low those requirements are. Obviously that is not the answer to resolving the card mechanic issues. I won't pretend to know how to resolve the problem, but I do know that a high APM works against the GCD, and this makes a job's mechanic feel clunky.

Sleeve draw, draw, and redraw all need to be reworked. However, the one thing I don't have a problem with when it comes to AST is Play. This change was godsend to me compared how we played cards before because it drove me nuts that the timer would not start counting down until I actually used the card. I am on controller and I find using play to be no different than using an ogcd heal. The only difference being that I have to take a split second to determine who to use the card on, which is why I feel it was made to be the coin flip that it is. If I had three or more choices on who to use a card on with the current system, I would derp them constantly.

[Greywolfamakir]

I like how when people suggest changes, they still put in an effect that will make all others useless because that's what people will fish for.

Two cards increase damage? Redraw until you get those.

The End.

Totally true.

"New card system appears"..."math working hard to find the best card"..."Redraw until you get the best one".

[MitsukiKimura]

Totally true.

"New card system appears"..."math working hard to find the best card"..."Redraw until you get the best one".

If you want to waste time trying to draw that one card out of 6 then be my guest. If you couldn't make the best out of what you drawn then AST wasn't for you.

[Gemina]

If you want to waste time trying to draw that one card out of 6 then be my guest. If you couldn't make the best out of what you drawn then AST wasn't for you.

Neither version of the card system is this way, that has been my constant frustration with it.

In my AST perfect world, each card has an impact, is on a greater CD, and there isn't all this Spread, Royal Road, Redraw nonsense. You play the card you draw. Period. RR and Spread can be skills used to make your draw more favorable such as a two-faced card to apply two effects, remove cards from the deck to increase the chance of drawing a more favorable one, or be MA'd to apply a generally beneficial effect if your draw is unfavorable to the situation. But trying to manipulate a card after it is drawn is far more cumbersome than using the RNG to get a favorable card in the first place, which you can then just play.

In my honest opinion, both card systems were/are a total mess. And at this point, we might want to start talking about how many expansions it will take for them to get it right.

[Malmstrom]

It could never be a full reversion, obviously.

And we could have avoided a bunch of unrelated stuff if you had just led with that, because that is my point.

[HyoMinPark]

And we could have avoided a bunch of unrelated stuff if you had just led with that, because that is my point.

Except that we wouldn’t, because your point is that they would never do it ever; and mine is that it’s likely that they could choose to due to request—even if 6.0 AST isn’t exactly like 3.0/4.0 AST (and it would be impossible for it to be, simply thanks to the removal of TP). If you can’t see the difference between what you’re saying and what I’ve been saying, then there’s nothing more to discuss.

[Side-Eye]

Lightspeed paired with Sleeve since sleeve is what causes the cluster of cards in the first place. It was no different than in SB where you paired lightspeed with sleeve draw and extended it for 20 seconds intsacasts.

But if you have PLAYED the job, you'd know that Lightspeed has more important purposes than to make one particular ability less clunky ... and why should one of our best long-cooldown abilities be spent just making another ability less cumbersome, when that shouldn't have been DESIGNED to be so clunky in the first place? I'm tired of having non-AST players tell us that we should spend a long recast to make another long recast less of a headache.