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.

[Colino]

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

[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.

[Rowde]

Yeah I'm fairly disappointed that they've removed pretty much all the decision making from the job.

I'm rolling Celestial Opposition and Time Dilation into that too. Celestial was more about whether to use NOW or save for a specific phase, but Time Dilation often required thought and planning (and luck!).

[Nalien]

Honestly, Astrologian just joined Red Mage at the bottom of the list of Jobs I'm interested in playing in 5.0. Cards are completely boring now, and all Time Mage aspects have been removed instead of built upon...

[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.

[seraseth]

Honestly, Astrologian just joined Red Mage at the bottom of the list of Jobs I'm interested in playing in 5.0. Cards are completely boring now, and all Time Mage aspects have been removed instead of built upon...

Maybe might lead to an actual time mage support/buffer job in the future?

[Kalise]

Want to know my favourite thing about the new AST cards?

Watch the Job Actions Trailer again: https://youtu.be/jaGxC7wnBDo?t=208

*Draws Arrow* "The Bole" (Provides the Spire seal)
*Draws Bole* "The Spear" (Provides the Balance seal)
*Draws Spear* "The Arrow" (Provides the Ewer seal)

I think that could be an indication of just how much attention SE made to AST cards for 5.0...

[Xelanar]

I want to be able to toss a bole on a tank who had to pull a cooldown out of schedule for emergency reasons.
I want to be able to regenerate mana for co-healers who resurect with lucid dreaming on CD.
I want to toss spire cards on melees who AoE a lot in dungeons.(sure, this one would be quite a challenge with TP being removed ^_^)
I want to make black mages happy because their cast time just got really fast.
I want to stack HoT effects on my tank and time dilate them all.
I want my cards to be versatile Utility. Not ALL of them have to be meaningful all the time.

"Support" is more than just a damage buff for party members. I don't even care about damage buffs at ALL. They are boring and have no thought process involved besides 'buff best ranged/meele DPS with card'.

The new card system is very consistent, and very effective - but it is also boring.


I like playing support oriented roles/classes/jobs because they can turn the tide of combat if something goes wrong. My consistent DPS increasing cards can turn the tide of nothing - because their effects will already be taken into consideration in the overall damage formulas. So strictly speaking Astrologians lost all their Utility and gained nothing in return. I'm speechless.