Would varied Astro buffs work without the RNG?

[Nhala_Levee]

HY there

As was an astrologian main, i can tell i loved the old astrologian far more. It was perfect. The feeling to play with it was far sperior and far much unique than any class even worldwode not just in FF. Now astrologian is nothing... can do nothing, and its buff dont do anything compared to the real astrologian what it was in stormblood.
Astrologian is something like prophetess. Fate guides you nothing else. If the fate gives you The Bole card, go and find a use for it. It have so many way to use that card. The new astrologian, well, i wont call those things cards anymore, much more a piece of paper with some low lvl enhancement, nvm, so the real thing, this astrologian is not astrologian anymore.
The real astrologian was the old one, what was guided by fate (RNG cause fate is probably is that) and followed by luck and creativity, to find use for what fate choses for you.

But to take aways from the "RP" side of the class, astroologian old card system was far superior and enjoyable in every way. Every card has its own use. For me, as a not that professional gamer, ewer was everything. Free mana? Jesus, need.
But for other options, with AOE + Bole combo + aspected helios with nocturnal was a great boss aoe mechanic blocker. What is main priority in this game afterall. Yet its gone.
Other realy useful thing was for me in dungeon runs, it was pretty much helpful The Arrow card, for faster recasts and such.
In other situations, a +50% buffed The Spear card was a very nice buff for a dragoon or other high dmg dps to melt even bosses in no time.
So please, peoples... The Balance is not the only card. As that it is most worthless card in the whole deck. Yes, the combination effect to gives +50% to the effect of the next used card was good. But realy... still that was the lowest card in the deck.
Cause as a healer, my role is not dmg buff but saveing the group. And well, dmg dont gives defense nor anything else. For dps boost, there is many support class like Bard for example or now Dancer.

But please, be somewhat "realistic". The role of the healer is not to support damage output of the dps's. Its role save them and heal them.

So anyway, i prefer the old astrologian much more. For player experience and for usefulness too. I hope Developers will see the logic in this and hope they undo this astrologian called charlatan.

Fate be with you everyone.

[Saefinn]

Technically I think they can work without the RNG. Heck there's already existing card systems out there that can be stolen. When AST was announced and saw the cards, I was excited because I loved Corsair in FFXI and card buffs there were good fun, but a little sad when I realised it wasn't going to be that. But you chose the buffs you wanted but you gambled the potency through a version of Black Jack modified for the game. Giving a whole risk/reward thing going. If you got overzealous you could debuff your party. Whilst many things from FFXI wouldn't work so well in FFXIV, I think this is a kind of card system that could still work in FFXIV.

But I don't think it'd work so well with AST's theme. For Corsair it was fine, gambling is a thing pirates do so gambling with numbers was appropriate and kinda plays to Setzer a little, with his being a gambler. AST is Astrology and the card system is a little more like a Tarot reading, cards are always randomly picked out of a deck and the telling will depend in the card you've drawn from the deck. At least this was a case before they made it about seals instead. They kept it loosely appropriate, but doesn't work with the lore they already set out.

However, much of the RNG is mitigated by how you can use them. As one must make the best you can out of the cards you've been dealt with in life, it was the same for AST. Although I never properly leveled it in SB, as I understand it, no cards were actually useless. I feel maybe that should have been SE's approach to the "useless card" syndrome, offer more tools to make the most out of what you've been dealt instead of residing to a 'wasted' card. I thought Lord/Lady was a good approach to that.

[Zfz]

I wonder why they didn't just take the old card system and slap a dps buff on all of them as a secondary effect, then change only Balance to have a different main effect? I mean it must have came up as an option.