Astrologian Cards Can't Be a Coin Flip: A petition

[ZoeZephyri]

http://chng.it/Tqkk2NSBVd <---- Petition link that wasn't added yesterday for some reason(edit)


Shadowbringers plans to strip all variety from Astrologian cards to the point it won't feel like you're even drawing from a deck anymore, but flipping a coin.




This is not Astrologian. Astrologian is a fate based fortune teller. The cards having varied effects and differing power levels is required for class identity. In the same way that Fate feeds you cards of different strengths, it's up to you as the interpreter to carve your own path through the hand you're dealt with Royal Road and Spread. Shadowbringers would remove the flavor from the class to the point of it being stripped of its key feature and not being Astrologian anymore.




Fun Note: This scenario is actually exactly like the Astrologian questline. SE is Ishgard, only using the Balance constellation and rejecting the others. Isn't that kinda ridiculous? They're removing Sharlayan astrology literally to be replaced by Ishgard astrology, just like we fight against in the story. Save Sharlayan Astrology.



Bole / Ewer / Spire: "Increases damage dealt by a party member or self by 6% if target is ranged DPS or 3% for all other class types"

Balance / Arrow / Spear: "Increases damage dealt by a party member or self by 6% if target is melee DPS or 3% for all other classes




Each set of 2 cards has a color that stacks on a new job gauge. Once you have 3 separate colors you can activate an ability on a 180 second cooldown that increases your group's damage in an aoe around you by 3-6%.

The only time you think about which card to use, is once every 180 seconds, where your reward is to get an AoE Balance. Yes. Your reward for thinking about which cards to play is the same effect as the cards themselves.



No longer will you have to decide to use a Ewer for mana regen or as a dps increase. No longer will you have to decide to use a Bole on the tank to give yourself more room to dps, or to burn it for a royal road effect for your dps classes. Should you use an Arrow to give your black mage cast speed? Or risk rerolling it into a spire for the chance to get a Balance? Doesn't matter.


There's no reason to use spread, because, there's no effects to save. Every card can just be auto-used. I was excited to see redraw getting more power, but what is the point of buffing redraw when there's no longer a reason to use it?




I feel cheated. It's like turning the Scholar fairy into a totem that has literally no spells, but increases healing done by a flat amount when it's active.



Edit to address common concerns in the comments:

A lot of people seem to think I'm complaining because Astro is getting 'nerfed'. Far from it. It could be half of the performance of SCH and WHM and I'd still play it. Yes, everyone fishes for AoE balance because it's the "Ace" of the deck. That doesn't mean we want to only have that card.


Getting rid of the varied cards to be replaced by 6 types of the exact same effect is like removing our ability to see the future at all. There's no fortune to be telling when every card means the same thing. There's no room to be a Fortune Teller when we lose Spread and RR to the point we're unable to influence our Fate at all.


This has nothing to do with class-balance or how Astro interacts with the other classes. A lot of people say it's to give Dancer room to be the buff class. That's fine, I don't care if we lose the utility. If SE wants to give us only DPS buffs, at least give us 6 flavors of different ways to boost DPS. Why do we lose Arrow and Spear if we're going this way?


I don't want to lose Royal Road or Spread either, because I think that's very important for our flavor of being able to manipulate fate. But I would be okay with losing them if AST could still feel like the same fortune teller class.


SE is telling Astrologians: You get what you get. You can't fight fate. There's only one path now, and we're not letting you interact with that path. If you stick with the old ways of Sharlayan, you're a heretic. There is only room for The Fury in new Astrology.




http://chng.it/Tqkk2NSBVd

[NessaWyvern]

Yeap, as an Ast main this looks really bad. I enjoy toying around with my cards, it was a fun way to add to group dps, rather than just spamming our 3 dps moves. And I really liked having bole for squishy tanks, ewers for healers and mages that die, etc. If its all gone now, that really sucks.

[kidalutz]

Yeap, as an Ast main this looks really bad. I enjoy toying around with my cards, it was a fun way to add to group dps, rather than just spamming our 3 dps moves. And I really liked having bole for squishy tanks, ewers for healers and mages that die, etc. If its all gone now, that really sucks.

If I had to guess they did it so things werent as much of a crapshoot I mean I cant be the only AST that's needed a specific card only to have something utterly useless pull up not once but twice on a sleeve draw then dump the cards and redo it only to get another set of useless cards for the situation. More damage will be needed always. Will I miss the old effects absolutely especially when I was in Noct and people kept eating so much damage my sheild spells were making my MP look like my bank account every first of the month. and an ewer would pop up so i could regen mp even quicker with that and lucid dreaming popped. But will I survive yeah absolutely.

[PyurBlue]

If I had to guess they did it so things werent as much of a crapshoot I mean I cant be the only AST that's needed a specific card only to have something utterly useless pull up not once but twice on a sleeve draw then dump the cards and redo it only to get another set of useless cards for the situation. More damage will be needed always. Will I miss the old effects absolutely especially when I was in Noct and people kept eating so much damage my sheild spells were making my MP look like my bank account every first of the month. and an ewer would pop up so i could regen mp even quicker with that and lucid dreaming popped. But will I survive yeah absolutely.

This is sort of how I feel too. Replacing the random nature of cards with a structured build up is infinitely better. The only problem I have is that the new system might be a little too shallow. Great concept, not sure on the execution.

[Kalise]

If I had to guess they did it so things werent as much of a crapshoot I mean I cant be the only AST that's needed a specific card only to have something utterly useless pull up not once but twice on a sleeve draw then dump the cards and redo it only to get another set of useless cards for the situation. More damage will be needed always. Will I miss the old effects absolutely especially when I was in Noct and people kept eating so much damage my sheild spells were making my MP look like my bank account every first of the month. and an ewer would pop up so i could regen mp even quicker with that and lucid dreaming popped. But will I survive yeah absolutely.

Yeah... Though, they could have alleviated that in a way that didn't just turn all cards into the same thing...

For example, they could have simply given us 3 card slots and 3 draws that grab one of a pair.

Such as:

Utility pair - Ewer and Bole for MP regen/mitigation
Damage pair - Balance and Spear for Damage/Crit
Speed pair - Arrow and Spire for SkS/SpS

With the Minor Arcana pair: Lord and Lady for a damage spell that heals nearby allies and a heal skill that damages nearby enemies.

They could have made it so that Draw got a reduced CD if we had to Undraw/Undraw Spread so we could more easily fish for specific cards.

I dunno... It just feels kind of lame that they all just... Give the same thing which is basically just Balance. Even more so if you think back to the Job Quests where you open all the gates and learn about them all...

[Colino]

They went from Poker level interesting to Uno level interesting really quick.

[ScarboroughFairy]

They went from Poker level interesting to Uno level interesting really quick.

Hey. Uno is serious business. I almost watched someone get stabbed over a game of Uno.

[Shurrikhan]

They went from Poker level interesting to Uno level interesting really quick.

Uno? This is literally Heads & Tails. And without any Rosencrantz and Guildenstern humor.

[CarnivalNights]

They went from Poker level interesting to Uno level interesting really quick.

I know we're going off-road here, but Uno's pretty interesting. Especially with those evil reverse cards when you're sitting on a huge combo.

[Selova]

The cards were always a coin flip, now they're just less of a annoying coin flip. Having to fish for balance was never fun and with the way the new cards work it gives AST more consistent and reliable utility.