Quote Originally Posted by LeftHandedLion View Post

#3 rDPS is the single most important number in the game (for end-game raiding). After passing mechanics, the group still has to do enough damage. To me, the new card system feels more versatile than the previous while recognizing the importance of DPS. Each card can actually be played optimally; right seal, right role. Although the old utility cards are gone, they only were ever useful in seldom contexts. A caster died and needs some MP. A melee is doing AoE in a dungeon and could use a little bit more TP to keep AoE-ing. You have a BLM therefore Arrow was an option. You have a BRD therefore Spear was acceptable. The cards feel like an improvement to me because of a few reasons. A) Separating Draw and Play were a great choice cause now I'm always drawing every thirty seconds no matter what. This increases the throughput of my cards and the throughput of AST's contribution to rDPS. B) The seals add enough depth to require the AST to consider how to use the card but doesn't overwhelm them from performing elsewhere. C) Every card now contributes to rDPS. This was always, ALWAYS; the primary goal of the AST, get that Balance. Now you're always drawing a semi-Balance every thirty seconds.
I’d like to thank you for being constructive and providing feedback. Although, I have to say that this review doesn’t seem any more or less level headed than some of the prior threads I’ve read. That aside, I think almost all the AST community can get behind increasing the overall healing output.

To start with, I disagree with your opinion on seals being enough depth. We went from a system where 2 out of the 6 cards could be used for different Royal Road effects and where 6 cards have drastically different effects. Currently, when you draw a card your options are ranged DPS or melee. I think I can subjectively say that is incredibly boring in general and even more so when compared to the old system.

I will agree with you that three of the card’s effects were highly situational. That being said, the system was varied, interesting, and objectively provided more options for each card. For the old system, they could have just adjusted certain cards and gave the more situational cards different effects. However, the dev team decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so now we are stuck with a clunky mess that seems like a rushed last-minute job.

As for balance fishing, all of the ASTs I know that participate in high endgame content never fished for a balance, so I’m not sure how much of the community does it. That being said, balance fishing could be fixed by making the other cards appealing and/or nerfing balance to an acceptable amount. Sure, you’d try for a balance, but if it didn’t happen you had options to deal with the card, ranging from using minor arcana to using royal road. The only time I ever felt like the system was bad was when I sleeve drew a Spire in the held slot, a 50% AoE for the Royal Road effect, a Spire in the drawn hand, and a Lady of Crowns in the Minor Arcana slot. Even then, I would only have to discard the held slot since everything else in the hand was useful, even if only to a somewhat minor extent. Again, these small issues can be corrected by changing a few cards and making adjustments to the effects.

As for Sleeve Draw, in its current state, it’s a clunky nightmare of a mess since you will inevitably end of clipping GCDs minus using Lightspeed. Its prior incarnation was a much better ability and had thought put into it. Simply by using Sleeve Draw in its current state, you can tell that no thought at all was put into the class.

The current state of AST really shows how little effort was actually put into the healer classes. I mean just looking at all the healer classes, you can tell no one ever took the time to think” “Is this a fun design?”. Sure, the heals are designed well and fun to use, but the development team didn’t adjust outgoing damage enough to mandate using all of your healing kit. Now, we are still stuck with a DPS uptime of well over 80%, a flat card system that is dull to use, and a one-button rotation with one DoT to maintain. Unfortunately, this xpac has shown us that the developers truly don’t understand anything about how healers work in end-game content. I sincerely hope they prove me wrong come Tuesday, but I’m not holding my breath