AST (and DRG) had their improvements pushed to 7.0 PLD are getting theirs in 6.3

[Renathras]

While I can but speak for myself based on the observations made,

Yeah. Though never say never - FFXIV has shifted in the past, and may yet again. Honestly, the stuff about AST that I thought was most interesting (though I can't imagine doing it while juggling heals) was some of the modifiers and stuff you could do with them back in...HW/SB? I don't remember the ability names, but where you could draw a different card, turn a card into a diminished effect but AOE, swap a card into the Minor Arcana (think this was ShB when I finally got around to leveling it - I feel that to be a truly good healer, one should at least understand the other healer kits, even if not using them, so you have some idea how your abilities mesh with the randoms you're paired with in DF content), and so on. I felt that was kind of an interesting bit of gameplay that was unique from the other healers.

...but, as I say, maybe everyone hated it and it was too difficult to juggle while healing, and that's why it was all removed? That and everyone wanted...I think it was Balance for single target (hence Balance fishing) and I think there were one or two passingly useful ones, one if it could be converted to AOE (if that ability was coming off CD) and one (Ewer?) that restored MP that was useful on healers sometimes, like after Raises or after being Raised.

Also, hope this mini skirmish ain't wearing on you too much. Kudos on speaking your mind nonetheless; it can be a trifle daunting sometimes to be the one holding an unpopular opinion.*

It's a bit taxing. My bigger issue is the personal attacks and people avoiding actual arguments or strawmanning/caricaturing them. If it wasn't for that, I think we could have a really good discussion maybe. But either way, I feel that it's important to express the different position - most especially in a place that might otherwise be devoid of it. With a playerbase of 3 million, I can't imagine that I'm the only one that feels as I do, and if changes were made without that in mind, I think the game would be worse for it. People talk about a healer shortage now, but I would quit healing if some of the changes people push for were made. I might quit the game or I might just main Tank or something. The Healer shortage, I feel, would not be improved by alienating the people who most enjoy the act of casting healing spells on people as its own end. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't think I am about that, at least. Especially since my own proposal is a compromise that would leave everyone with something.

Not that it matters, I suppose, as the Devs probably won't read any of this, and won't make any decisions based on it if they do. But hey, sometimes shouting into the void is a meaningful act unto itself.

....

/sigh

Could you not?

For ONE post, could you just...not?

[Cygnia]

I think it was Balance for single target (hence Balance fishing) and I think there were one or two passingly useful ones, one if it could be converted to AOE (if that ability was coming off CD) and one (Ewer?) that restored MP that was useful on healers sometimes, like after Raises or after being Raised.

I believe the ability you're thinking of that could alter the card was Royal Road; the problem with it derived from the core problem that was Balance itself - every other card failed to land as a reliable buff one could slap on the party. MP regeneration was the closest to useful, while leaning on your fellow mages to screw up their MP management. Bit like how using Piety (was it piety?) for added MP amounted to a fringe benefit, but one was far better off just plonking their efforts into more raw power. So the end result was burning any card not Balance.
At least, that's how I recall it. Played more White Mage than Astrologian during the Heavensward heyday; like you, only really tried the class properly during Shadowbringers. It had a reasonable tempo then.

And though developers don't interact much with the forums, they sometimes will keep abreast of the latest squall/debate. Either way, certainly far from alone - everything else aside, asking for more than the odd damage spell here and there will just lead to the monkey's paw of healers performing rotations that inflict the *same* total amount of damage as our glare/broil/malefic/dosis spam plus dots. That's my reckoning anyway, unless Square raises the bar for healer damage.
Also yes, debate over the internet has a high chance of veering off into vexing hyperbole and the worst possible interpretation in the name of 'winning' without engaging. Engaging might mean an end to the conflict!

[T-Owl]

/sigh

Could you not?

For ONE post, could you just...not?

What? Openly express discomfort? Can you openly engage with the arguments I make?

I believe the ability you're thinking of that could alter the card was Royal Road; the problem with it derived from the core problem that was Balance itself - every other card failed to land as a reliable buff one could slap on the party. MP regeneration was the closest to useful, while leaning on your fellow mages to screw up their MP management. Bit like how using Piety (was it piety?) for added MP amounted to a fringe benefit, but one was far better off just plonking their efforts into more raw power. So the end result was burning any card not Balance.
At least, that's how I recall it. Played more White Mage than Astrologian during the Heavensward heyday; like you, only really tried the class properly during Shadowbringers. It had a reasonable tempo then.

And though developers don't interact much with the forums, they sometimes will keep abreast of the latest squall/debate. Either way, certainly far from alone - everything else aside, asking for more than the odd damage spell here and there will just lead to the monkey's paw of healers performing rotations that inflict the *same* total amount of damage as our glare/broil/malefic/dosis spam plus dots. That's my reckoning anyway, unless Square raises the bar for healer damage.
Hoping this thread takes a turn for the more constructive.

I feel like what SE probably could do to make the cards system a little bit more interesting again would probably be just let the cards give players different offensive stats, which casually you can just apply like right now with the added complexity of learning which class scales best with which stat?

And when it comes to damage, I feel like the current amount of damage healers deal is fine, it is quite significant on all levels of content, the problem is lack of engagement while dpsing.

[Cygnia]

I feel like what SE probably could do to make the cards system a little bit more interesting again would probably be just let the cards give players different offensive stats, which casually you can just apply like right now with the added complexity of learning which class scales best with which stat?
And when it comes to damage, I feel like the current amount of damage healers deal is fine, it is quite significant on all levels of content, the problem is lack of engagement while dpsing.

So you would be fine with an involved DPS rotation that yielded the same results? Well, alright. I'm not as certain others would feel the same, though. Quite a significant number of people.
As for the idea to spice up cards, while it has merit in adding the sense of complexity to cards the end result I feel will be the same optimised singularity the original cards faced with certain classes/cards favoured and others shunned. Apologies if I've misunderstood your suggestion, theorycrafting and the like isn't exactly my forte.

[Supersnow845]

So you would be fine with an involved DPS rotation that yielded the same results? Well, alright. I'm not as certain others would feel the same, though. Quite a significant number of people.
As for the idea to spice up cards, while it has merit in adding the sense of complexity to cards the end result I feel will be the same optimised singularity the original cards faced with certain classes/cards favoured and others shunned. Apologies if I've misunderstood your suggestion, theorycrafting and the like isn't exactly my forte.

Relative DPS output with more engaging rotations is already what the old healers had, healers are by nature not DPS, 50-60% of a DPS damage is already significant they don’t need to do more than that otherwise you start basically becoming a weak DPS with a limitless amount of support

I’m fine with the level of damage healers do I’d just rather achieve that with an interesting rotation, not dosis spam

[T-Owl]

So you would be fine with an involved DPS rotation that yielded the same results? Well, alright. I'm not as certain others would feel the same, though. Quite a significant number of people.
As for the idea to spice up cards, while it has merit in adding the sense of complexity to cards the end result I feel will be the same optimised singularity the original cards faced with certain classes/cards favoured and others shunned. Apologies if I've misunderstood your suggestion, theorycrafting and the like isn't exactly my forte.

If every single healer class gets a more involved DPS rotation, then yes. I mean, if we would go with that one idea of crippling the most iconic healing class into being the one for people wo hate healers, absolutely no. But who is taken this idea seriously to begin with? But in general if healers across the board would get more involved rotations, I don't think they would need to increase their overall dps performance. Healer DPS is already fairly high in this game.

When it comes to the cards, it was just a spontaneous idea how to make cards different, by giving each an offensive stat increase but of different ones.

Relative DPS output with more engaging rotations is already what the old healers had, healers are by nature not DPS, 50-60% of a DPS damage is already significant they don’t need to do more than that otherwise you start basically becoming a weak DPS with a limitless amount of support

I’m fine with the level of damage healers do I’d just rather achieve that with an interesting rotation, not dosis spam

Like I mentioned, its actually insanely high compared tof or example WoW, where healer dps has become more important over the years as well, especially in m+. Don't know how its right now, but I think in WoW its roughly healers doing around one fifth to maybe oen fourth of the damage of a dedicated dps and that already matters often.

[Mithron]

Yeah. Though never say never - FFXIV has shifted in the past, and may yet again. Honestly, the stuff about AST that I thought was most interesting (though I can't imagine doing it while juggling heals) was some of the modifiers and stuff you could do with them back in...HW/SB? I don't remember the ability names, but where you could draw a different card, turn a card into a diminished effect but AOE, swap a card into the Minor Arcana (think this was ShB when I finally got around to leveling it - I feel that to be a truly good healer, one should at least understand the other healer kits, even if not using them, so you have some idea how your abilities mesh with the randoms you're paired with in DF content), and so on. I felt that was kind of an interesting bit of gameplay that was unique from the other healers.

I actually LOVED HW/SB AST's card system so much. A lot of what you said is correct, I'll try to explain it in a bit more detail. In HW, you drew the same 6 cards as you did now, but they all had unique effects:
Balance: Increases target's damage dealt
Bole: Decreases target's damage taken
Arrow: Haste effect on target (Faster GCD)
Spear: OGCD cooldown reduction on target
Ewer: MP Regen on target
Spire: TP Regen on target

But of course, simply throwing the vanilla card it self without "buffing" it first with another card using the skill "Royal Road" was something you rarely did. Instead, you would draw a card and "burn" it with Royal Road, which made the next card you play have an additional effect. Each card had its own separate "burn" buff:
Balance and Bole (Enhanced): Increased potency of next card played by 150%
Arrow and Spear (Extended): Increased duration of next card played by 200%
Ewer and Spire (Expanded): Made the next card play as an AoE for all party members, but potency reduced by 50%

So the main goal of course was to get AoE Balance, you would generally burn a Ewer or Spire then pray you got Balance. You'd live with AoE Arrow sometimes as a budget Balance when you couldn't get it. But the real fun was enhanced Arrows on BLMs. They'd cast Fire 4s like a race car, it was awesome. You'd throw it on a MNK and they'd hate you for ruining their rotation hahah, or make PLDs run out of TP even faster than they already did.

In Stormblood (I think), they changed Spear from OGCD cooldown reduction to increased crit chance. This was baller. You'd throw an Extended Spear on BRDs and they'd proc like crazy. They also added Minor and Major Arcana for those times you had too many cards and/or already had everyone with an AoE Balance. Lady of Crowns was a single target small heal, Lord of Crows was a single target damage spell. Kind of meh, but it was okay. The best thing was Sleeve Draw: you could now "store" a card in your deck for later, which meant if you drew Balance before having Royal Road set up, you could "hold" it for later, draw a new card, Royal Road that, then throw out that Balance. Mad fun.