I wish AST never had a DPS buff

[Kabooa]

I wish it was nothing but buffing.

[Seoulstar]

Everyone wanted the balance, but it was a trap

Seriously, the old balance is why the system is the way it is today.

The vocal minority is the reason honestly. Implying that every AST to ever main the job was just fishing for balance and nothing else when in reality most of us used what we got and the fact we never truly knew what we were going to get was what made it intriguing.

[Kalise]

Everyone wanted the balance, but it was a trap

Now all I can think of is some Yu-Gi-Oh style scenario happening:

Boss: *Attacks Tank*

AST: "Hah! You've activated my trap card! I summon 100 Kuriboh Snurbles to block the attack!"

Tank: "Wait, what?" *Gets covered in Snurbles*

AST: "Now, watch, as I sacrifice the remaining Snurbles to summon my White-Eyes Blue Dragon!"

AST: *Whispers to party* "Hey, SMN, can I borrow your Bahamut for like 5 minutes?"

SMN: "Uhh... I guess? I was going to summon him anyway..."

AST: "Prepare to face your final end, as I now have all the cards I need to summon my White-Eyes ULTIMATE DRAGON!!!!"

*Summons Big Midgarsormr*

*Causes a Calamity*

Entire Party: *Sigh*

[Nerael]

The vocal minority is the reason honestly. Implying that every AST to ever main the job was just fishing for balance and nothing else when in reality most of us used what we got and the fact we never truly knew what we were going to get was what made it intriguing.

I really have to agree with this.
It always depended on the party for me. Bad tank? You bet your booty id be spamming those bole cards on them.
"But balance was better!"
No, I could fish forever for the balance card or i could use the one i was given, giving me more breathing room to DPS which overall would even out to the same amount (fishing for balance) at the end of the run.

Really the only thing i skipped over was generally the arrow card when there was a BLM as it messed up their rotation due to the way mana ticks work.
Everything had it's situational uses.

Yes, you might've pulled some bad cards at bad moments, but that just made it oh so much sweeter when you did pull that card you wanted.

Want to reduce the RNG? Fine, bring back the old system and let us hold a second card (and effect), reduce the potencies to mitigate the lesser RNG and voila.
Spire is useless now? Fine turn it into a time bomb AOE around the tank or something. There are so much possibilities and yet... we get the most limited one.

[Saefinn]

I'm starting to wish they just implemented the system from COR in FFXI, as this was clearly inspired by it. You choose the buff but the RNG plays into a game of blackjack, your risk/reward is in trying to getting the biggest buff whilst trying not to bust. Busting could apply a debuff, though I expect in FFXIv they'd avoid the debuff and just make it a fail mechanic and nothing more (though I liked the risk/reward)

This way, the only way you get a bad card is if you are too greedy and regain the power of choice.

[Risvertasashi]

The vocal minority is the reason honestly. Implying that every AST to ever main the job was just fishing for balance and nothing else when in reality most of us used what we got and the fact we never truly knew what we were going to get was what made it intriguing.

It's easy to claim this retroactively.

Every log I reviewed of high end AST players as balance, balance, balance. If another card got played, it was because their RNG wasn't playing nice. Not to mention the complaint that old versions of spear and arrow weren't useful, leading to them being changed to DPS buffs, albeit lesser ones, even before the expac.

[Sebazy]

It's easy to claim this retroactively.

Every log I reviewed of high end AST players as balance, balance, balance. If another card got played, it was because their RNG wasn't playing nice. Not to mention the complaint that old versions of spear and arrow weren't useful, leading to them being changed to DPS buffs, albeit lesser ones, even before the expac.

I've mentioned it a few times, but Bole did have it's little niche, granted that it was indeed very little and very very niche

My favourite example is A12S, I entirely solo healed the add phase and getting a bole allowed my warrior to not putting up tank stance for their add. Whilst it's fair to say that it wasn't particularly optimal play once you start factoring in combined DPS, it helped my Warrior's DPS a healthy amount and was enough to net my co healer the highest DPS by a SCH in A12S by a healthy margin at the time, enough so that it was only ever beaten by literally 2.2 DPS.

The card had potential IMHO and if SE had looked at allowing ASTs some way of countering the RNG, perhaps at a cost of GCDs I think it could have opened up more uses for the card, especially with it being as strong as it was and tank stances working the way they did back then.

I suspect it's a bit moot now though, with the way things are now it'd likely only ever find value as a way to abuse or skip a mechanic.

[Risvertasashi]

I've mentioned it a few times, but Bole did have it's little niche, granted that it was indeed very little and very very niche

My favourite example is A12S, I entirely solo healed the add phase and getting a bole allowed my warrior to not putting up tank stance for their add. Whilst it's fair to say that it wasn't particularly optimal play once you start factoring in combined DPS, it helped my Warrior's DPS a healthy amount and was enough to net my co healer the highest DPS by a SCH in A12S by a healthy margin at the time, enough so that it was only ever beaten by literally 2.2 DPS.

The card had potential IMHO and if SE had looked at allowing ASTs some way of countering the RNG, perhaps at a cost of GCDs I think it could have opened up more uses for the card, especially with it being as strong as it was and tank stances working the way they did back then.

I suspect it's a bit moot now though, with the way things are now it'd likely only ever find value as a way to abuse or skip a mechanic.

Fair enough. Just I feel the post-5.0 claims trying to downplay the balance card's popularity are misleading.

[Sebazy]

Fair enough. Just I feel the post-5.0 claims trying to downplay the balance card's popularity are misleading.

Agreed there, it had little to no value in any mainstream content that I can think of. Using it to replace tank cool downs was usually an exercise in futility and over complication. Even in big dungeon pulls you were typically better off macroing it off to avoid stalling your GCD or even better, just going in as a SCH in the first place

[ZeroFool]

So how would AST actually change were it to lose The Balance, or rather, the effect associated with it? With the discussion around the cards always coming back to chasing this one buff, how would people then react to the RNG mechanic if it was no longer there?

I saw the original idea of having different buffs being effective in their own ways but balanced around being unpredictable as a draw to its unique playstyle. But with how heavily weighted DPS is in combat, the problem becomes that only buffs which cater to that are seen as 'useful' in that it's more generally applicable than the others.

It was my hope that by removing the DPS buff and replacing it with something just as niche as its counterparts that the system can be embraced for what it was designed to be: random, varied and engaging.

As for the mentions of 'fishing', I wish to see Redraw as a skill removed too. In concept, it would provide more control over the RNG, but I find that it backpedals on the very idea of chance without actually doing anything to affect the outcome. It tricks people into delving for 'optimization' and only heightens the frustration at the end when it is not reached, instead of just making the most of a given draw. I attribute much of the distaste for the chance-based mechanic to this trap of a skill.