Astrologian: what is your understanding about it?

[ForsakenRoe]

Yeah. A lot of people questioning what is left of the identity of 'playing with fate and destiny and using what you're given' when this is just... buttons that do X. No flavour or substance. The big astrologian thread I don't think I've seen a single positive response about it over there. I personally don't want a return to random unique effects as cards but, at this point? I'd take it. I'd take anything, just not this. Just as long as they're cards.

Also I'm not picking viper because it's FOTM, thank you very much >;3. I'm picking it bc it has a 20s duration personal buff with 2 charges with a 40s CD and that's the most interesting thing they've added since shadowbringers. Which makes me even more mad about this AST rework/deletion because I would have loved figuring out the card timings for Vipers and adjusting to them, instead of just playing two dps cards every 2mins and thats it!

See, the way I see AST's current issues is this:

SB AST was good because unique card effects, bad because 4/6 of them were 'not damage' and therefore pointless
SHB/EW AST was/is good because every card is damage, bad because every card is the same effect (damage, more damage if you get the role right)

So why not just... Take the good aspects of both and combine them? That is, 'every card deals damage' and 'every card is unique'? Just have the method by which the damage is dealt per card, be different based on the card used. That way, the 'unique utility' of each card eg Bole's Mit or Ewer's MP regen, those can be 'bonuses on top' that you can choose to prioritize over the damage if you feel it'd be better for the run (eg you need to recover from a death, or the mit going on a squishy for a hard raidwide they keep dying to). So I'd do these effects:

Balance = 10% damage up
Spear = 10% Physical damage up (priority target: Melee)
Spire = 10% Magic damage up (priority target: Caster)
Arrow = 10 stacks of 'your autoattacks are 400% faster', 12 for PhysRanged (priority target: PRanged)
Ewer = 3 stacks on a Healer of 'your spell hits a second time for 100% potency, but cannot crit or DHit' (priority target: Healer)
Bole = 3 stacks of 'counterattack when you are hit, dealing a hit equal to 10% of your Max HP' (priority target: Tank)

If all 6 cards are balanced to have roughly equal damage output, there's no reason to 'fish' for one. Especially if the Seals weren't removed, since they incentivize you to prioritize filling those out and getting all 3 Seal types, rather than playing the same 1 card over and over. By having something like the above, it also means that there's a proper reason to play a card on a Healer or Tank again, something that SHB removed (except for wacky DRK burst trickery)

[ASkellington]

See, the way I see AST's current issues is this:

SB AST was good because unique card effects, bad because 4/6 of them were 'not damage' and therefore pointless
SHB/EW AST was/is good because every card is damage, bad because every card is the same effect (damage, more damage if you get the role right)

So why not just... Take the good aspects of both and combine them? That is, 'every card deals damage' and 'every card is unique'?

Because part of the people who liked SB AST having differing card effects liked the fact that not all of them were damage.

Making them deal damage differently doesn't change the fact that they're all doing damage. And with the effects you listed specifically, these aren't in fun ways either imo. I understand why Haste is an issue in this game and why people don't want it, but that would be more fun for me to give to some one than a blatant 10% physical/magical damage up.

If I'm forced to give nothing but stupid damage then I'd like them to be fun effects - Haste, Freecasts, the counter you mentioned, no blatant % damage up. That's what Divination is for. The cards can do something else.