As someone who hated AST in SB and who prefers the new card system

[Billythepancake]

I don't think they should've changed the card system at all from what it was in SB, at least not to the degree that they did, and the card system was the main reason I hated AST. I absolutely cannot stand RNG, it is one of the most annoying things in most games, imo, but that doesn't mean it doesn't belong, because to so many people what they loved about the class, and RNG in general, is the concept of "making the best out of what you got", it's why games like The Binding of Isaac are so popular.

Yes, I understand for raiding purposes, for savage and such, the new card system is a better foundation for optimization, but appealing only to the hardcore raiders when they make up such a small percentage of the fan base comes off as a mistake to me. Plus, as much as I hated AST, at least there was a certain high you felt when you got that spread balance, it was like spinning a slot machine, you didn't win every time, but that made the times you DID win all the better, and I feel like what a lot of ASTs are complaining about (on top of the class being just weak overall now, with no real benefits of having it on a team) is that those moments are gone now and their main mechanic feels so much less interesting and unique.

Yes, I prefer the new AST, (or at least its card system) and I'd be much more likely to play this one over the old one (granted that's IF they made it actually not a struggle to play with), that doesn't mean I think the changes are good, because I don't think it SHOULD appeal to me, or to people like me that aren't fans of RNG. This is a game where your 1 character can play like, 20 different classes, and the entire point of this system is to try multiple classes, see how they play, and find the one, or the few, that are fun for you. I believe in a system like this, not every class SHOULD fit for everyone, but that's okay, because, surely, there's a class that does fit you, and this push to make all the classes similar and appeal to everyone is having the opposite effect because now almost nobody likes this class.

I know it's unlikely, but as someone who does prefer this new AST, I do think it'd be best for it to go back to its previous iteration, or at least something similar, though, knowing SE, the soonest that'd happen would be 5.1 if you're lucky, and much more likely is 6.0.

Anyhow, sorry if this comes off as a incoherent mess, as I'm both terrible in grammar/syntax and it's 4am as I'm writing this, but I'm hoping I got my points across clear.

[Saefinn]

I concur that in terms of feel and how it works, I like the new card system and I wasn't a big AST player before. But I've found myself migrating to it because it gives me more to do in my downtime than SCH. But the potencies and benefit of the cards is currently lackluster, especially the pay off for Divination, it's too infrequent and the pay off doesn't feel good for the work you put in to build it. It's like Technical Finish but less frequent and takes more effort to build without any more of a pay off... in fact less of a payoff considering the 1,500 potency hit Technical Finish does too. Fortunately, this is the kind of things they can fix in a patch, rather than something fundamentally wrong in the job's design...not to dismiss any of the other glowing issues people have with AST ATM.


However, also as somebody who was never much of an AST player. I have no preconceptions that AST should be designed to suit how I like to play, as it'd be unfair on those who enjoyed the job. I'd have not started migrating to AST if my own job still gave me the kind of experience I had when I fell in love with it. I'm also against homogenisation of healers too for a similar reason, people get something different out of each healer and have different preferences to cate to. I figure the people who should most be listened to the most are the ones who play it the most.

[Yakugami]

honestly, i find it disgusting, really, and somewhat of a joke at this point

yes, the card system had to change, sure, fine, i'll agree with that

if it had to go, it had to go, they had valid reasons for wanting to remove the previous system:

ewer/spire were unnecessary and would be even more so in this expansion, quite literally for spire, only "meh" for ewer

bole was useless (you shouldn't need external, randomly generated damage mitigation, that's something that should be consistent)

and balance/spear/arrow were just damage bonuses, plain and simple, merging them into one "damage" category is fine

however, the implementation of this change was absolutely garbage

before, you had draw, which was 1 button for 6 outcomes; damage resist, mp refresh, tp refresh, damage, GCD speed, crit chance (sure, you could say 4, if you count all 3 damage booster simply as a damage boost, though, technically, a GCD speed boost and crit boost could also output more healing)

minor arcana, which was 1 button for 2 outcomes; damage or heal

royal road, which was 1 button for 3 outcomes; aoe, sustain, or burst (even though, yes, you'd mostly always want to AoE it regardless, but, the concept is there)

spread, which was 1 button for 6 outcomes (or 4, see draw)

then fluff buttons, involving undraw, shuffle, etc, counting up to 8 total buttons, simply because of the 3 different "undraw" buttons, 5 without

currently, we have 7 buttons, 6 without undraw, all of which are only focused around one single outcome: a single target damage bonus

the ONLY "different" one is Divination, which is AoE, instead

this is just appalling

we lost a single button on our bar (or, ignoring undraws, we GAINED one button) to have LESS mechanics
(even ignoring if half of them were bad, like previous minor arcana, and half of the Draw cards, and burst/sustain versions of royal road, it's just the fact of gaining more button presses just to do less)

and, honestly, to make things "even" worse:

"Minor Arcana" are the cards we spam the most

that's just thematically disgusting

who thought using the "Minor Arcana" the "Majority" of our time was a good concept, even though they're "stronger" than the other cards? (rather than spammable, weaker cards)

and then, PLUS, an actual-in game mechanical issue, in order to do this, it's "another" button press in the rotation, rather than just making us "draw" INTO Minor Arcana cards, and turn those into the Seal cards????

[Miziliti]

I absolutely hate Divination in the new card system. It changes fishing cards into fishing the right seals. The worst part is seals can be overwrite. I f'd up so many times in a boss fight to the point I stop giving a damn with it anymore. My perfectly fine royal road got changed into this garbage. Now is you get a card, you get another card, and one of you get a card. Need help? Sorry, I'm still giving out cards.

Whew finally, I have no cards left. Let's check seals. They are all freaking same seals!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Typhoria]

I concur that in terms of feel and how it works, I like the new card system and I wasn't a big AST player before. But I've found myself migrating to it because it gives me more to do in my downtime than SCH. But the potencies and benefit of the cards is currently lackluster, especially the pay off for Divination, it's too infrequent and the pay off doesn't feel good for the work you put in to build it. It's like Technical Finish but less frequent and takes more effort to build without any more of a pay off... in fact less of a payoff considering the 1,500 potency hit Technical Finish does too. Fortunately, this is the kind of things they can fix in a patch, rather than something fundamentally wrong in the job's design...not to dismiss any of the other glowing issues people have with AST ATM.

I agree that Divination is pretty tedious and clunky, but the Dances aren't a fair comparison. The dances and steps are on the GCD, so the potency per GCD is like 250. At least card interaction is oGCD, but I would like if Draw had 2 stacks.

[TankHunter678]

ewer/spire were unnecessary and would be even more so in this expansion, quite literally for spire, only "meh" for ewer

Spire needed a rework yes, but Ewer would never have been unnecessary this expansion. Actually its more Ewer is even more necessary this expansion then it was last expansion and we simply do not have it. As a result Noct is even weaker then it should be and our increased need to GCD heal gives us the worst MP economy of all the healers. I am sure WHM would be feeling it if you took away Assize 5% MP recovery and Thin Air then made it more dependent on GCD healing. SCH would be feeling it if Aetherflow lost its MP recovery and SCH had to GCD heal more often.

bole was useless (you shouldn't need external, randomly generated damage mitigation, that's something that should be consistent)

Bole was never useless, and was a key contributor in helping AST deal with large pulls and deal with high impact TBs, because AST lacked the big healing options that other healers had. Being able to throw down a tank cooldown was never useless. Throwing an Enhanced Bole and extending its time on a tank gave them the equivalent of being able to chain 3 rampart cooldowns that they could stack other cooldowns on top of. Allowing the healers to pump out more DPS and given the healers more time to boost rDPS because of reduced need to GCD heal.

[Wawachume]

I absolutely cannot stand RNG, it is one of the most annoying things in most games, imo, but that doesn't mean it doesn't belong, because to so many people what they loved about the class, and RNG in general, is the concept of "making the best out of what you got", it's why games like The Binding of Isaac are so popular.

I normally hate RNG also, but this is something I really liked about the old cards.

Yes, I understand for raiding purposes, for savage and such, the new card system is a better foundation for optimization, but appealing only to the hardcore raiders when they make up such a small percentage of the fan base comes off as a mistake to me.

This is kind of my issue with the new card system also. Not so much that it's geared toward hardcore raiders, but that it's very optimization-friendly, and I just don't enjoy playing that way.

I posted this in the "Level-headed review of 5.0 AST" thread—I'm sorry for the repost if anyone's already read it—but it probably fits better here because that thread seems to be more about general AST stuff than cards specifically:

<looks back and forth nervously> Okay, I'm a lurker and haven't posted before, but—

I think what bothers me about the new cards is that they feel like a DPS mechanic. I don't mean that their function is to boost damage done; I mean they feel like the sort of playstyle you'd see on a DPS class.

For healers in FFXIV and many other MMORPGs, gameplay focuses on things like resource management and situational decision-making. You have to choose the right ability for the right circumstances. Often, there are enough variables that decisions have to be made via fuzzy rather than deductive thinking, so healing is famously called an art rather than a science. DPS gameplay, meanwhile, focuses on "rotation"—that is, interaction between abilities. Since this is less situationally-dependent, it's more predictable, and DPS is called a science, not an art.

I like healing in MMORPGs largely because of this difference—I'd rather make decisions intuitively rather than deductively.

The pre-5.0 cards let me do that. When I drew a card, I had eight choices: give it to one of four players, or use royal road, minor arcana, spread, or redraw/discard. And what I did varied based on my situation. Normally, I'd put an extra balance in the spread and save it for a boss fight. But if I was, say, doing Ser Charibert with an incompetent group, I'd rather have a ewer in the spread. My favorite card was the Arrow: Not only did it require me to know how other classes worked, so I didn't give it to someone who didn't want it, but I could also use it to boost either damage (by giving it to a DPS) or healing (by giving it to myself).

But the Shadowbringers cards feel like a DPS mechanic. Their function is much simpler—to boost damage done by players in the party—so there's no need to choose the right ability for the right situation. Instead, the challenge is to execute the abilities quickly, and in the right order, so as to produce the maximal damage boost. Where Stormblood had card abilities, Shadowbringers has a card rotation.

Honestly, I think it's impossible to change this situation within the current card system. There's a reason why DPS classes focus on ability interaction rather than situational decision-making—it's because there are only two possible situations for a DPSer:

1. Do as much damage to this thing as possible.
2. Do as much damage to all these things as possible.

Since this is supposed to be the "level-headed" thread, I guess I should say that none of this means the new cards are objectively worse in any way. People who like planning and deductive decision-making, but still enjoy healing, may like the new cards better. But for me, the new system lacks what drew me to healing in the first place. If they were determined to make all the cards +damage only, I'd have honestly preferred that they make the card system much simpler and increase complexity elsewhere in the job, rather than create this convoluted seven-button system whose only function is a simple damage boost.

On the other hand, WHM and SCH still feel very healer-y to me, so maybe it's good to have one that works differently. I just don't think I could main it myself.

[KanameYuuki]

The old ones just made every encounter completely different that the previous one, now you just press Draw and will have basically the same outcome, except even that is done poorly, sleeve draw is a mess, after getting your 3 seals all you ever do is minor arcana them, so might as well just deleted all 6 cards and keep only those two but with the seals.

[Yakugami]

gives us the worst MP economy of all the healers.

this is something easily alleviated, so i still say it's not a ewer problem, but an AST problem, that, or a healer problem overall

the card itself being an outlier, and coming in randomly, makes it a poor comparison to Aetherflow, and Assize, this is on top of the fact that, when your other cards are damage-focused, you're trading a damage mechanic for an mp refresh, something the other healers don't have to do, so in concept it's just really meh overall, then you just pad in the damage mitigation and it muddies that concept even further

Being able to throw down a tank cooldown was never useless.

it is when the other healers don't require a "tank cooldown" to handle the same content

this is another thing that should be filled through a separate mechanic, or just not exist at all, since the other healers don't have it, but certainly not rolled into being "randomly" acquired, on top of being at the cost of the damage boost that's already coming at the cost of lacking oGCDs or other "big healing options" so that you can technically get oGCD damage:

it seems like they went for WHM being the hard-casters, SCH being the oGCD healers, and AST being the oGCD DPS
this is basically fine in concept, even if they haven't hit that mark perfectly yet

however, having damage mitigation output fluctuate completely sporadically is just not a good or healthy mechanic overall, not when it turns it into "did i draw this or did we die" or "did i waste my spread slot on this or not simply because i'm incapable of healing the upcoming pull"

which.... pulls in a dungeon... like, that's just... that doesn't make sense to balance around, you either shouldn't be having that much of a problem, or there's something else going wrong there, but dungeon "big pulls" are not a good enough reason for something to exist, nor should that be something that comes into your rotation out of random

and in harder content, you can't bottleneck your healers based on one ability that only one healer has, that they only have a chance of even activating;
if there's a specific tank buster, all the healers are going to be able to get around it, not because you probably drew the bole for that one time that it hit

now, the argument could be made that AST IS supposed to be the "random utility" class, and i get it, spread existed, and that helped smooth out the "random" concept, along with Sleeve Draw and Redraw, but even still, that's too many variables, and this is all at the expense of their biggest contributor to the group; the damage bonus, which is what they were picked for in the first place because they lacked the potency and cooldowns elsewhere

(cont...)

[Yakugami]

(...cont)

i dislike this "homogenization" concept that they went for, as well, don't get me wrong, but honestly, if they were going to make them this "random utility class", and make The Bole "worth" it more, along with the rest of the utility, then it still turns into what we had before, where AST just simply ends up offering too much to give up their slot for something else


also, if anything, honestly, probably unpopular opinion, but like, at this point, they should probably just give up altogether if they really can't balance this, and make it a real "Time Mage" DPS spec that's a support like BRD and MCH were, or just make a whole new role consisting of supports that queue separately, so every group gets a support spec from AST, BRD, MCH, and DNC

Rift has this, and it works out well enough, in my opinion, especially since that Support slot was still allowed to pick a DPS, so it wouldn't actually ruin any queue times or, really change much of anything, it's just "if your group wants a support class" for a casual setting, and then end-game and harder content you'll probably want one, which is.... already how AST worked before, and i think how DRG and NIN worked and probably still work now, not to mention i'm pretty sure a large majority of BRDs are also generally upset that they lost their "uniqueness" from songs, rightfully so, and i'm not sure how most MCHs feel, i personally like current MCH, but i can also feel for those who wanted it to be "another supportive class" like BRD

i just don't think the healer roles are something that should really be toyed with for these "take or don't come with us" concepts and utility, because there's fewer slots available, which previously, that pushed out WHM, but DPS get to have more leniency, so long as they pass damage checks