Astrologian: what is your understanding about it?

[Kissune]

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.

The problem is that in current EW design, fights are designed around each class having not only X amount of mit, but X amount of predictable mit. If you make the cards all utility, it doesn't matter what they do bc you can't plan around them. They just end up being cute little bonuses on a static healplan. If you make them all damage, then all cards are useful even if they're boring, and each one has to be played. If you make them a mix of both damage and utility... well, the utility cards will be for lack of a better term 'fucking useless' because you can't rely on them, and drawing one of them means not drawing a dps card. This was well and good with how the rest of the game functioned back in stormblood, but nowadays that's impossible to balance. (It was impossible to balance back then too, they just cared less). Minor arcana is a terrible enough button as it is, and I think people who look at StB with rose tinted glasses don't realize that minor arcana is essentially the distilled version of the stormblood card system in its essence. You either drew damage, or you drew not damage. Yeah you could do some funky stuff with royal road but at the end of the day you basically just wanted to aoe the balance as much as possible because relying on RNG utility to handle incoming damage meant either playing like you're never going to draw the bole, or getting used to dying. A lot.

Like idk about you but I'd rather each card do something I can rely on (doing more damage), with variance on where those cards go and in what order than having to roll the dice on whether or not I'm rolling my eyes and pressing undraw on my third ewer. If you understand why haste in this game is an issue, you should understand why RNG utility is also an issue.

The best state of the cards is not having them all the same. If that's the case delete 5 of them because there's no point in drawing all but one. Divination currently exists as the AOE Balance buff everyone wanted and it can stay for more consistency in AST's kit.

Now I don't disagree that utility cards are going to be niche due to what is in AST's kit but it isn't as if they're going to be dead (I can always substitute Lady over Celestial Opposition if I have it) and it isn't as if we can't make RNG mitigation options instead. One idea I had back when we had Nocturnal for instance was splitting the deck into 3 with damage being drawn under one sect and utility under the other while AST stance danced for instance.

And again, if you're going to talk about "damage cards" being the only thing we are allowed to get, I still stand by no % up buffs. That is what Divination was for. Give me things like Haste, or shorter cast times (Lightspeed for the party?), reflective damage, double cast. Give me things to interact with party's kit instead of just a blatant buff they can pretty much place on themselves. <---That's pretty much what I want out of diverse cards.

Because then AST becomes highly volatile in terms of how much it actually contributes to specific comps, and they are trying to avoid more situations where one class is excluded due to how niche it is. Haste fucks over how a lot of jobs play. Shorter cast times is literally only relevant for exactly black mage. Reflective damage is a dead card 90% of the time. Double cast is again, highly comp restrictive. You might think flat % is boring, but short of adding crit or DH buffs to the mix it's really the only thing that actually functions without feeling like absolute ass to draw sometimes. You might want crazy, wild effects, but I want cards that I don't have to toss in the trash half the time. I still want to have to think about where I'm putting them, but I don't want that thought to amount to 'oh, this card is worthless. Cool.' And if they add in utility cards, they need to strip a lot of AST's kit or it'll be overloaded and the cards will be pointless half the time. And if they do that, it'll mean that if it doesn't draw the right cards it's just an ineffective healer. DPS cards always do something. % DPS cards are always relevant. You can't have super inconsistent jobs anymore, not with how tight everything is. And if AST is inconsistent as hell and the other jobs aren't, then AST is just playing dice with your odds of clearing any content harder than an extreme. Or every fight is made easier just to account for it.

Also, if you can substitute lady for opposition, why not just use opposition? Now oppo is just sitting there, bc I'm hoping you would plan around the next raidwide as if you didn't draw lady here. All lady is, and all it would ever be, is just... an extra 400 potency overheal on top of what you were already doing. Maybe it could replace a helios, yeah, but I'm gonna be real I can't remember the last time I pressed helios in literally any content and I do ultimates and criterion.

[MascheRano]

The best state of the cards is not having them all the same. If that's the case delete 5 of them because there's no point in drawing all but one. Divination currently exists as the AOE Balance buff everyone wanted and it can stay for more consistency in AST's kit.

Now I don't disagree that utility cards are going to be niche due to what is in AST's kit but it isn't as if they're going to be dead (I can always substitute Lady over Celestial Opposition if I have it) and it isn't as if we can't make RNG mitigation options instead. One idea I had back when we had Nocturnal for instance was splitting the deck into 3 with damage being drawn under one sect and utility under the other while AST stance danced for instance.

And again, if you're going to talk about "damage cards" being the only thing we are allowed to get, I still stand by no % up buffs. That is what Divination was for. Give me things like Haste, or shorter cast times (Lightspeed for the party?), reflective damage, double cast. Give me things to interact with party's kit instead of just a blatant buff they can pretty much place on themselves. <---That's pretty much what I want out of diverse cards.

Disagree. Imagine having that one PF AST griefing you by giving you a haste "buff", which throws off your entire rotation for the rest of the fight. No.

At least with damage cards it is always useful. Since I play AST on a controller, I've accidentally handed out cards to the wrong people before, but I don't have to worry about misaligning people's rotations.

[Zaytex]

The best state of the cards is not having them all the same. If that's the case delete 5 of them because there's no point in drawing all but one. Divination currently exists as the AOE Balance buff everyone wanted and it can stay for more consistency in AST's kit.

Now I don't disagree that utility cards are going to be niche due to what is in AST's kit but it isn't as if they're going to be dead (I can always substitute Lady over Celestial Opposition if I have it) and it isn't as if we can't make RNG mitigation options instead. One idea I had back when we had Nocturnal for instance was splitting the deck into 3 with damage being drawn under one sect and utility under the other while AST stance danced for instance.

And again, if you're going to talk about "damage cards" being the only thing we are allowed to get, I still stand by no % up buffs. That is what Divination was for. Give me things like Haste, or shorter cast times (Lightspeed for the party?), reflective damage, double cast. Give me things to interact with party's kit instead of just a blatant buff they can pretty much place on themselves. <---That's pretty much what I want out of diverse cards.

The stance dancing wouldn't even happen since AST's would just stay in the damage stance and ignore the utility-based one, since yet again we have an abundance of mitigation and healing tools right now.

I don't think you're understanding the point either. Just because a card buff can be ''reflective damage'' or ''double cast'', or ''shorter cast times'' doesn't mean those things aren't DPS buffs in a sense, it's just in an indirect version of a DPS increase by %. Whatever card gives the player the most amount of damage increased or dealt will always be selected the most, and everything else ignored. Unless you make every card never interact with damage dealt in this game, then you will always run into the problem of one card dominating and all others being ignored. Now let's say you make every card never interact with damage - so let's say, damage reduced, healing increased, movement increased, or whatever. Then all of those utilities become very niche and unusable in most fights.

No matter how you slice it, a card system where every card is unique and different to each other, whether damage-based or not will result in either all of the cards being niche and useless, or one card dominating and every other card being niche or useless.

Every card being balance was the best way to go.

[ASkellington]

You may as well keep AST as its going into 7.0 then because you're getting what you want.

You want to have to think about where to put cards? Explain to me how a damage buff does so. It doesn't. You toss it onto the highest damaging player of either Melee or Range during a potential burst phase outside of the 2min window that the classes barely even have anymore. There is 0 thought or planning that goes into it.

Why have 6 cards then? For the seals system that was trash from the get go? Do you REALLY want to go back to a 1% difference on Divination? All that "work" if you can call it that for something only a parser can tell you the difference for? Or Astrodyne? A self buff that's Haste a free Lucid Dreaming and the chance for a 6% increase on the weakest class in the game?

Frankly at this point the best thing for the job in my honest opinion is a straight up deletion. If the cards are going to be the same, there is no point in them existing. There isn't. Divination and Chain Strat does their job just fine. The entire concept of AST is to draw cards and deal with the hand you're given to the best of your abilities. There is no point if every card you draw is an ace.

[Aravell]

I agree with Skellington, if there's no unique effects, what's the point of having 6 cards? Might as well just have 1 or 2, for all damage or melee/range split.

While I understand the point about the 2 minute meta restrictions, please also understand our point about all cards doing the same thing being an absolute bore. Some may enjoy choosing who to give the biggest damage to, but for people like me who don't care about logs, it's just a melee/range distinction and an utter bore.

I liked AST more when every decision I made with the cards impacted my future decisions, that was what made the job fun. The ShB/EW card system does not impact future decisions, all you do is think about now, that basically cut the thinking down to half for me. I do appreciate that current AST does still maintain the speed though, something that will be gone in DT.

As for haste drifting rotations, all I can say is skill issue, it's really just that. There's no immediate negative consequences to overcapping anymore, like a MCH in SB overheating earlier than they expected. Haste is just extra damage, a little bit of overcapping would get you an extra GCD or 2 before the end of the fight, that's more damage no matter how you look at it, assuming the player of receiving the card understands their job well enough to not completely bork their own rotation from a speed boost.

[Zaytex]

I mean yeah you could have it just be 2 balance cards, one for melee and one for ranged, but the seal system is something that makes you think about your cards more than just who you give it too. The solution would be to make the seals feel more impactful, perhaps bringing back sleeve draw so you can always get the third seal and buff astrodyne so its not just a tiny buff.

[MascheRano]

As for haste drifting rotations, all I can say is skill issue, it's really just that. There's no immediate negative consequences to overcapping anymore, like a MCH in SB overheating earlier than they expected. Haste is just extra damage, a little bit of overcapping would get you an extra GCD or 2 before the end of the fight, that's more damage no matter how you look at it, assuming the player of receiving the card understands their job well enough to not completely bork their own rotation from a speed boost.

Okay, ask how the black mage would like it if you hasted them during TOP part 1 and told them "Skill Issue".

Frankly at this point the best thing for the job in my honest opinion is a straight up deletion. If the cards are going to be the same, there is no point in them existing. There isn't. Divination and Chain Strat does their job just fine. The entire concept of AST is to draw cards and deal with the hand you're given to the best of your abilities. There is no point if every card you draw is an ace.

As of right now, each card has a unique seal and priority combo:
a) whether or not the card is melee or ranged
b) the card's seal

Card priority changes based on what time you play it in the fight; it changes 2/4/6 minute, or even the 1/3/5 minute. It's simply a little mini-game with a little RNG involved that makes the game a little more interesting, similar to Dancer's Tech/Standard Step.

In practice, this is just as unique as always giving the tank the damage mitigation card, or giving the crit rate increase card to the SAM every time, and then wishing you had a Balance. TP is gone, mana regen is situational.

Honestly, Astrodyne wasn't a bad idea. At the very least, it fixed tying Divination to the seals, and the self-haste/mana regen is actually pretty useful in prog. It can certainly do with a bit of refinement, but instead of making it useful, they straight up deleted it and the seals.

There can be a lot of things improved over 7.0. Minor Arcana can be deleted or changed so that it actually becomes meaningful instead of straight damage or heal. They could have given us a second charge of Lightspeed to make up for the fact that it's always burned in the burst phases. They could also bring back some of the aspects of HW/StB AST, where you could burn cards to apply a unique to the next card, instead of using it. I think DT's idea of drawing multiple cards at a time like a spread is an interesting step to take. Heck, I don't even disagree with the idea that maybe AST could be a little less busy, but it's now being done in a way that erases the job's identity.

[Aravell]

Okay, ask how the black mage would like it if you hasted them during TOP part 1 and told them "Skill Issue".

Ah yes, 1 case in 1 piece of content. Surely that means it rings true for the entire game.

[ASkellington]

I mean yeah you could have it just be 2 balance cards, one for melee and one for ranged, but the seal system is something that makes you think about your cards more than just who you give it too. The solution would be to make the seals feel more impactful, perhaps bringing back sleeve draw so you can always get the third seal and buff astrodyne so its not just a tiny buff.

The seals system doesn't make you think about anything. And NEVER HAS.

In Shadowbringers it was you either got 2 different seals for 5% damage or 3 different seals if RNG graced you for 6% damage on Divination. What decision making is there? You don't sit there and think "I want 4% increase and not 6%".

Endwalker was worse. At the base line Astrodyne was a Lucid Dreaming for free. You either got Haste tacked on or both it and 6% damage for yourself while you were at it.

Please do explain to me what decision making is there?

THERE IS NONE. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY ZERO, ZILCH NADA DECISION MAKING IN THE SEALS SYSTEM. PERIOD. STOP PRETENDING LIKE THERE IS.

The seals system has NEVER:

• Made it so you could give the party mana
• Made it so you could give the party mitigation
• Made it so you could give the party movement speed
• Made it so you could give a fellow healer/caster mana you didn't need
• Made it so you could do literally ANYTHING other than a damage increase to the party and that was ONLY in Shadowbringers.

I have said MANY TIMES that it COULD have replaced card effects if the dev team actually had a creative bone in their body and allowed for the combination of seals to do different things so you could pick which effect you wanted and when.

I mentioned that back in SHADOWBRINGERS.

They failed to do it when they FIRST made the idea in Shadowbringers. They failed to do it in Endwalker when they gave us the perfect button to execute it with: Astrodyne.

The seals system was a FAILURE and I'm so tired of people thinking that simply because it was consistent it was even good. IT WAS DECENT at best and a WASTE of potential at worst.

[MascheRano]

Ah yes, 1 case in 1 piece of content. Surely that means it rings true for the entire game.

Honestly with the 1 button damage rotation healers have, you might be onto something. Let me dosis a little faster.

Surely the cards are the problem with AST's design and not at all the fact that the healer role in encounters has been minimized while having only one button to press.