Thread: Astrologian 5.0 Discussion

Originally Posted by Pomp

Balance being heavily desired and ewer/spire being royal road fuel aren't things people liked. Those three cards needed a rework, but this way is crazy lazy. I don't want to be a the raid damage buff bot, and instead they not only doubled down on that role, they gutted every bit of complexity from the mechanic.

Even if AST in general didn't like having to burn those cards and wanted them to be something different, I'll point back to your party caring about one thing and one thing only; increasing their damage. I hate to say it but you are the raid damage buff bot. You're just now realizing this? It's a big reason why I left the job in the dust after using it for a while after getting it to 70. It wasn't for any reason revolving around feeling like the job didn't play well. I strongly disliked the card mechanic because it gave the illusion of choice. 5.0 card mechanic doesn't hide behind this ruse and doesn't have as many layers of RNG to go through.

I also really haven't seen too many good suggestions about what to do with the other cards either. A popular suggestion was changing the sects so that they changed what the cards do such as one sect providing buffs to the group and the other sect using debuffs on the mob. Now AST can debuff too! It's gotten too far. Having a skilled one in your group is like having a Gameshark. It's not a case of bringing the other healer up either. AST had to be knocked down some pegs, and most of us knew it was coming too.

Originally Posted by Gemina

...while the other three are all just variations of what they ultimately do; Increase DMG. Yet, AST got to keep what was desired most. If I was a dev, I would feel like I just bought my daughter who loves ponies six of them, and then she got mad at me for it. Color me confused as eff.

Taking that logic to its extreme, why have ten DPS jobs when they all do basically the same thing: kill monsters until they die from it? Just make everybody a BLM. And why does BLM need eleventy dozen spells that all do damage? "Rotation?" There's one mathematically optimal rotation every BLM follows, therefore the job only offers the "illusion of choice," therefore the devs should just roll all BLM damage into a single I WIN button that they press on every GCD.

That's basically what's been done to AST's card system.

Execution matters. Executing a rotation on a training dummy is easy. Executing a rotation while dodging mechanics is hard, and what makes any MMO interesting. Knowing that Balance is the goal is easy. Making split-second decisions about how to use the cards you get, while dodging mechanics, DPSing the boss, and healing the raid? That's hard.

Nu-AST takes those decisions away. You can just randomly target any party member and throw any card at them and buff the party's damage. You can ignore seals completely, because the "penalty" is Divination being a tiny bit less awesome, once every three minutes. You can Netflix and chill while playing Nu-AST and still keep everyone buffed and alive.

Originally Posted by Punslinger

Taking that logic to its extreme, why have ten DPS jobs when they all do basically the same thing: kill monsters until they die from it? Just make everybody a BLM. And why does BLM need eleventy dozen spells that all do damage? "Rotation?" There's one mathematically optimal rotation every BLM follows, therefore the job only offers the "illusion of choice," therefore the devs should just roll all BLM damage into a single I WIN button that they press on every GCD.

That's basically what's been done to AST's card system.

That indeed is taking the logic to the extreme. Jobs are not cards though. We can't just have BLMs as DPS role options because not everyone enjoys playing BLM. Cards differ because everyone wants only one of the possible six an AST can draw. I take no pleasure in swinging the reality hammer, I'm only echoing the status quo. If this comes as a revelation, it is indeed due to the illusion of choice. I can't say with any kind of confidence that non-AST players know what all six cards do, but I'd put a lot of money I don't have on they all know what the Balance does.

I understand why many are upset by the changes. Even though what your party ultimately wants from you doesn't necessarily take away the fun of how you got there. I'm not arguing that the job's card mechanic hasn't been simplified, or that it is devoid of issues. However one of those issues is not the loss of five effects because nobody cared about them anyway. I also wouldn't worry about Divination as I am confident that those return numbers will be adjusted in the near future. Probably not by 5.0's launch, but I would expect it to happen around 5.1 or 5.2 after they see how things play out initially.

THe thing is for me this actually takes out some of the job fun out of in ultimate. Because a good amount of the dps checks there are really lenient. But all the cards in there felt useful in there, with the exception of Spire. Bole for some of the Bahamut tank busters and aoe bole for the trios, add phase and golden, ewer in case a healer or caster dies, Spear with potentially higher shields. Yes balance was probably the best but we were making the dps check even before Tenstrike with minimal balance use. The cards were just so much more useful in UCOB ultimate.

OF course, we have to see what content is like and if the rdps is still there despite these changes.

My biggest concern is that because cards all do the same thing now, it'll be viewed as an unnecessarily convoluted system for what is essentially putting a 6% damage buff onto one or all party members, and by the time 6.0 or 7.0 job changes come around, they'll decide it's all unnecessary fluff and remove the card system entirely.
It'll just be:
Draw: Bestows a 5% damage buff on party member. 30s cooldown.
Minor Arcana: Bestows a 6% damage buff on all nearby party members. 3m cooldown.

Originally Posted by Mansion

- You never used Bole
- you scarcely used Ewer for MP, otherwise it was royal road.

I must have been dreaming then. I always use bole and ewer is awesome for MP using classes. I even keep an ewer in case a boss goes horribly wrong and I need to refresh my MP. These card changes are terrible.

Originally Posted by Payadopa

I must have been dreaming then. I always use bole and ewer is awesome for MP using classes. I even keep an ewer in case a boss goes horribly wrong and I need to refresh my MP. These card changes are terrible.

I mean, you can. But i also had asts holding ewer for bad situations and see where that went. Not used at all. And them playing with 4 cards instead of 5(draw, redraw, royal road, hold, minor arcana). Or less in case of it being a level 50 raid.
So you effectively play with always 1 card less in case something bad may happen where an ewer honestly wouldn't do much difference. Healers usually CAN recover after dying and even res some people here and there and keep them alive. As long as the rest alive does mechanics. If everybody just dies, then it is more of an extended wipe most of the time, if 2 dps comfortably stay alive, both tanks are alive and only 1 healer, it usually works but if everybody fails, it doesn't

Also using an enhanced or aoe bole for a tankbuster is flat out a waste since you, yourself, have essential dignity. It heals more damage the less hp a tank has. And most tanks know how to hit cooldowns and not take more than half damage(if they only pop one cooldown for example) and your essential+ aspected benefic should just do the same job.
Mitigating damage IS nice and all, but if you or a sch can do it on demand and reliably, wasting card uptime for that.... never felt worth it for me at all.

also as Seraphor said, you can use spear and arrows. I give arrows to caster usually, even to smn. And spear to monks and especially bards. Just because. But bole/spire/ewer are still filler cards that make you think "heh nice i'm doing this, aren't i cool that i don't just use damage ups?" while nobody else really cares nor sees a difference honestly

Even if Bole and Ewer were rarely used, and Spire was nevery used, there was still meaningful nuance for Arrow and Spear.
Giving Arrow to BLM, SAM or DRG, or Spear to BRD, etc. Felt more inpactful than a flat damage buff.