Question from a new player - can AST change back to what it was before ?

[TankHunter678]

You misunderstand me.
Of course their effects were beneficial, but relying on RNG to access them was not. We now have Celestial Intersection, and a more effective Lucid Dreaming.
Potencies could do with tweaking still, that's ASTs main problem now across the board, but the reliability of these skills is much better than hoping you draw a Bole or a Ewer.

There is really no effective difference to choosing between ranged/melee or crit/speed.

If you had a BRD/MNK/NIN, then you're giving them Crit.
If you had SAM/BLM, then you're giving them Speed.
The rest? Doesn't really matter, redraw for a chance at a Balance or just use Spear/Arrow on them anyway.
There's no superior decision making taking place. The effects of increase Crit/Speed might have 'felt' better, but for entirely irrational reasons, you weren't the one receiving the boost.

All of this "choosing between ranged/melee is trash" is utterly disingenuous, salty overdramatisation. It's just different targets, that's all.

It is not over dramatization when you realize that you could just change the current cards into their seals and remove the melee/ranged split you reduce the cards from 6 to 3, if you removed the seals and split it drops down to 1, it also feels like crap when you get all ranged for DPS or all melee for DPS and half of your cards become worthless when with the old system none of your cards became worthless.

Even your idea is the same. You could just turn the cards into their seals and remove the melee/ranged split resulting in you reducing the cards to just 3. The only benefit your idea has is at least each seal has its own effect. Unless the cards were brought down to 3 though you still suffer the issue of half your cards becoming worthless just due to party composition.

And sorry but Celestial Intersection is nice and all but it does not hold a candle to the amount of effective damage reduction that Bole gave which made the effective healing of regen effects or the effective durability of shields much better not to mention Celestial Intersection having weak potencies for its cooldown making it worse then an aspected benefic. Even with the current more effective lucid dreaming AST remains as the worst of the healers when it comes to MP management if it dares attempt to use Noct. Thanks to use having no access to a secondary source of MP recovery unlike the other two healers.

[ErryK]

It is not over dramatization when you realize that you could just change the current cards into their seals and remove the melee/ranged split you reduce the cards from 6 to 3, if you removed the seals and split it drops down to 1, it also feels like crap when you get all ranged for DPS or all melee for DPS and half of your cards become worthless when with the old system none of your cards became worthless.

You still have tanks and you still have healers to use those cards on... and if they're not DPSing well that's another issue entirely.

With the new system it never was a choice because the only thing we can do with the cards is play them or arcana them to a stronger version. With the old system even a card that does not mesh well with the classes in your party can be turned into something useful, be it an oGCD attack, oGCD heal, or burned to provide a better effect to another card you play. Which was an actual choice in addition to playing the card anyways.

This seems like a non-issue, they just turned the cards into a damage buff which is always good, especially if you had people dying and you're trying to beat the enrage.

You wanted balance BUT you still could use the rest of cards almost ALWAYS, be it for dps or to Royal Road it.

Now you seek something and you are failing if you don't get it.

What? All cards are useable in any party setup...

[TankHunter678]

You still have tanks and you still have healers to use those cards on... and if they're not DPSing well that's another issue entirely.


This seems like a non-issue, they just turned the cards into a damage buff which is always good, especially if you had people dying and you're trying to beat the enrage.



What? All cards are useable in any party setup...

Sure I can throw it on the tank... draw the next card throw it on the tank... draw the next card throw it on the tank... (I have gone nearly entire dungeons pulling almost exclusively melee cards even with redraws) and not really feel the difference in clear speed because the damage output of the tank does not compare to a DPS that knows their job. Throwing a buff on the healers is likewise meh, unless they happen to be a WHM. Course if you are doing dungeons then you wont ever be buffing yourself because you spend more time trying to plug up the ever growing hole in the dam flooding your tanks health down the drain.

And frankly with the old system every card was always good for one purpose or another. The current system is so weak and pointless I can see PFs that wont accept ASTs because if you want to beat that enrage despite people going down then you are better off going 2x WHM for their sheer DPS output which eclipses AST being maximized which requires people not dying at all to get as much rDPS.

Old system had all cards usable regardless of party setup. New system means matchmaker can make half of your cards pointless because the buff is too weak or the target is just not that good a choice.

[Seraphor]

Sure I can throw it on the tank... draw the next card throw it on the tank... draw the next card throw it on the tank... (I have gone nearly entire dungeons pulling almost exclusively melee cards even with redraws) and not really feel the difference in clear speed because the damage output of the tank does not compare to a DPS that knows their job.

I used to go entire runs drawing only Spires and Ewers. At least that tank is getting a buff.
And a decent tank should be doing about 70% of the damage of a DPS, so it's not pointless.