I wish AST never had a DPS buff

[ZeroFool]

One of the biggest balancing issues with AST seemed to stem from its unique ability(among the Healers) to flat out increase damage. While I can only wonder how removing this ability would affect the long-term perception of AST, I would personally prefer the RNG system with varied buffs to play with minus the DPS buff.

I couldn't care less about DPS numbers; as a Healer I should be responsible for keeping my team alive and the battle in our favor. DPS should be the responsibility of its assigned role and should a DPS need a buff to contribute effectively, then I'd rather not be their crutch.

By taking away the 'best' card, maybe the other buffs could be better appreciated as being the 'best' in a given situation. At the very least it'd stave off the parse junkies fishing for all meta play, all the time.

[Brandedblade]

One of the biggest balancing issues with AST seemed to stem from its unique ability(among the Healers) to flat out increase damage. While I can only wonder how removing this ability would affect the long-term perception of AST, I would personally prefer the RNG system with varied buffs to play with minus the DPS buff.

I couldn't care less about DPS numbers; as a Healer I should be responsible for keeping my team alive and the battle in our favor. DPS should be the responsibility of its assigned role and should a DPS need a buff to contribute effectively, then I'd rather not be their crutch.

By taking away the 'best' card, maybe the other buffs could be better appreciated as being the 'best' in a given situation. At the very least it'd stave off the parse junkies fishing for all meta play, all the time.

No, the ultimate issue with the AST cards was the randomness. What makes the current implementation work (despite its inherent clunkyness for controller players) is the guarantee of granting your party a damage up even if it's at its absolute weakest.

While having a Bole or Ewer drawn when you needed it might have felt thrilling. Such effects, in my opinion, should've never been tied to an RNG system. Besides. Bole's functionality is in Collective Unconscious and your shield spells. I could argue that Diurnal Celestial Intersection, with its low cooldown. Was meant to be a replacement for Bole by providing you an on demand damage mitigation.

As for Ewer and Spire. Well TP is gone and MP refresh was removed across the board.

[Jkap_Goat]

RNG was the best part of AST to me and what cards was dealt with when you pulled a card randomly in your deck, each card had unique buffs instead of now just all very small dps buffs. they completely killed everything I loved about AST.

[Kalise]

I'd actually argue that the biggest balancing issue for AST was that they were never given their own healing style.

With WHM being a "HoT" healer and SCH being a "Shield" healer.

AST came in with the style of "I can be either one" which lead to a situation where they are either a "WHM/SCH but bad" or "WHM/SCH but better"

The latter being the case in StB thanks to the damage boost from cards and SE's insistence that WHM can never, ever, ever, ever have an rDPS increase for... Reasons... While the former was also the case because Critlo was bonkers and Aspected Benefic was in no way, shape or form even close to its effectiveness.

Outside of that, AST's damage boosting was a major issue for the card system due to how useless non-damage utility is in the game, it meant that for the most part you were fishing for damage cards or bust (With the bust being "Hopefully" the Lord for the damage instead of the Lady for the heal)

[Risvertasashi]

Brandedblade mostly covered it. But just to give you an example - It didn't matter when SE doubled Bole's potency from 10% to 20% mitigation. Even though this put it on par, quite literally, with tank cooldowns. It was very powerful, but power wasn't the problem.

Because of RNG, you could never count on having it for any given tankbuster or raidbuster. Thus, you always had to plan on a regular cooldown for these powerful attacks.

DPS buffs, by contrast, are always useful. More useful on a burst window, but still helpful anywhere. Even if SE just deleted the Balance, the Bole would have never been considered useful due to its unreliability. And, ultimately - even if refresh effects were still in the game - same issue with Ewer and so on. There are situations when you'd need it, but RNG means you can't reliably have it when it needed.

[YusiKha]

Snip.

In addition, both Expanded Royal Road and The Balance were vastly stronger than the other choices of RR and Card.
Expanded: 2.8x
Extended: 2x
Enhanced: 1.5x

Balance: 10%
Arrow: ~6.6% (average team value - variation depending on team composition)
Spear: ~4-6% (variation depending on crit substat, MNK/BRD benefit more due to class mechanics)

You’d be a fool to think that HW/StB AST cards were flawless, but they didn’t even bother touching the balance of The Balance.

[ZeroFool]

Surely there would have been a far more creative solution to work within the RNG mechanic instead of just outright sterilizing it to be useful in every scenario and going against the very idea of RNG itself.

In my opinion, the point of situational, niche buffs was the feeling of having one at the 'right place, right time'. Optimization wasn't the point and was a futile dream in the face of RNG.

It just sucks that DPS is the only way to go and the old card system was at least defiant in that it seemed to be designed from its core to not be optimizable to accommodate that.

[Haxaan]

There was a recent post in the forums (sorry, at work and don't have time to link it atm) about changing the cards to hard press gcd buttons with cds which offers the freedom of allowing for differing buffs that can alleviate the "best card" scenario. I felt like this was a fantastic compromise. It would take away the need for draw and still offer the lore flavor that many AST mains are wanting back, but also taking away the RNG aspects that end gamers hate so much.

If they mixed this with a different style of healing, like "set and forget" style of "heal bombs", I think AST would take a huge step away from WHM and SCH in terms of play style and really offer something familiar yet different from the HoT/Shield dynamic. We already have a few abilities like this now with Horoscope and Earthly Star. If they changed Aspected Helios to a timed "pop" mechanic aoe it could (and this is purely speculative) change the way AST is played all together.

[ZeroFool]

There was a recent post in the forums (sorry, at work and don't have time to link it atm) about changing the cards to hard press gcd buttons with cds which offers the freedom of allowing for differing buffs that can alleviate the "best card" scenario. I felt like this was a fantastic compromise. It would take away the need for draw and still offer the lore flavor that many AST mains are wanting back, but also taking away the RNG aspects that end gamers hate so much.

If they mixed this with a different style of healing, like "set and forget" style of "heal bombs", I think AST would take a huge step away from WHM and SCH in terms of play style and really offer something familiar yet different from the HoT/Shield dynamic. We already have a few abilities like this now with Horoscope and Earthly Star. If they changed Aspected Helios to a timed "pop" mechanic aoe it could (and this is purely speculative) change the way AST is played all together.

I saw that thread and while it isn't exactly what I want, I agree that it is a decent compromise as it keeps individual card flavor while minimizing RNG (I'm still very much pro-RNG, but this is a step in the direction that consolidates the old and the new). I also liked the idea of delayed healing and I feel like it would go a long way to differentiating AST's healing style.

Really I'd be happy with anything that is less of the monotony of the current system where the only difference between placing every card appropriately while securing a three-seal Divination and eating every card to eject a Divination on cooldown is a few seconds off the Duty Complete timer, IF that at all.

[Averax]

Everyone wanted the balance, but it was a trap

Seriously, the old balance is why the system is the way it is today.