Question for those who didn't pick up AST til 5.0 or after.

[QooEr]

While i enjoy new ast, i still really hate the new card system despite playing it for more than a year. even if the new cards are better for balance and consistency, the playability is awful. having to scroll the party list every time you want to use a card is so annoying that people both in computer and controller made macros to make it easier on them. and if you dont like the clunkiness of macros you have to deal with the clunkiness of the job. I want old ast back just so i dont have to target party members so often; i remember that before sleeve draw got changed my hands tendons would hurt from all the targetting, and while its better in that regard now, that was still only a bandaid fix.

I think the past card system couldve been improved by cycling the cards (makes it consistent) and by giving alternate uses to the "useless" cards instead of just minor arcana and hope its a lord. Or if they let us use a card without using up royal road, a lot of cards wouldve seen more use.

And there was also no reason to get rid of time dilation.

[Rilifane]

While i enjoy new ast, i still really hate the new card system despite playing it for more than a year. even if the new cards are better for balance and consistency, the playability is awful. having to scroll the party list every time you want to use a card is so annoying that people both in computer and controller made macros to make it easier on them. and if you dont like the clunkiness of macros you have to deal with the clunkiness of the job. I want old ast back just so i dont have to target party members so often; i remember that before sleeve draw got changed my hands tendons would hurt from all the targetting, and while its better in that regard now, that was still only a bandaid fix.

I understand a lot of complaints about ASTs current cards but this is something I have to disagree with.
Healers involve target switching by nature. And depending on the content/ party, lots of it. AST is designed as a busy, high APM job with more target switching than the other two. But "clunky" isn't something it deserves to be called.
A free weave after every Malefic. High baseline mobility with more mobility on demand. Coolowns naturally lining up.
And then we have WhM with the awkward PoM cooldown, forced clips, little mobility.
Or SCH with fairy skills still ghosting unless spread to seperate instants, fairy generally being fairly slow, DT requiring a seperate weave to properly catch the shield, Seraph shield requiring two weaves.

I'm not saying your tendon problems didn't exist and it's unfortunate that you couldn't find a way to make it work for you without hurting your hand but a lot of complaints about old SD were not coming from people with actual health problems but people who didn't want to put the effort into learning to target switch (which really isn't rocket science on M+K) and instead of being content with not using it optimally but simply to the best of their abilities wanted to see it nerfed. Another layer, that was completely optional in most types of content, is now gone.