AST fix ever?

[Nhala_Levee]

The old Astro was perfect. Why even needed to bother something that perfect?... Story matched to it, royal road was easy and understandable in every way and it was the best thing in the whole game. Combining the cards into greater effects was the real control over fate as a "fortuneteller" style of story matched to it perfectly. Every card had its uses even if just a filler pulling a greater crit or aoe crit buff or simply just helping out the other heal with mp regen or help survive a whole aoe mechanic of bosses through aoe Bole (dmg reduction buff was back in that time) for whole group. Its ways of use was endless. Yes, needed to feel the character to use it cause you needed creativity for it. Even if you pulled a card that had no use in the moment, you could keep it for later use or royal road it for more effects. It was so perfect.

Now cards and the whole card system is simply meaningless. Cards have no effects, have no uses. Gives dmg... oh my... ah wait! All gives only dmg and nothing useful. No need to rework astrogian. Need simply restore it, nothing more. Only one change would afect the old astro. The overall remake that every class now use only MP, even the Disciple of War classes. But that is easily solvable by makeing The Spire card gives MP instead of TP like in stormblood. And like this, you still only have 2 card what do the same effect, not 6...
And astro become useful again. Thousands of player gived up healing cause of the broke of asto.

Btw, i never understanded why need to try to upgrade what is perfect already...

[Gemina]

The old Astro was perfect. Why even needed to bother something that perfect?... Story matched to it, royal road was easy and understandable in every way and it was the best thing in the whole game. Combining the cards into greater effects was the real control over fate as a "fortuneteller" style of story matched to it perfectly. Every card had its uses even if just a filler pulling a greater crit or aoe crit buff or simply just helping out the other heal with mp regen or help survive a whole aoe mechanic of bosses through aoe Bole (dmg reduction buff was back in that time) for whole group. Its ways of use was endless. Yes, needed to feel the character to use it cause you needed creativity for it. Even if you pulled a card that had no use in the moment, you could keep it for later use or royal road it for more effects. It was so perfect.

It was not perfect. It was broken AF. It was a convoluted mess of RNG, and methods to shave away the layers of it. If that does not convince you, then you need to look no further than the Spire. A card that already had been changed once, only to be turned into a fodder card because there was literally no other use for it. Like the TP it used to refresh, it went away entirely. Similar mentions could be made for all the other cards except for the Balance. That was the only card your party members ever desired. Your enjoyment from the mechanic exists through the illusion of choice. Players accepted your Boles, Ewers, Arrows, and Spears because they knew that sometimes, after all the damn fishing, you still somehow did not end up with the Balance.

The system as it is now is closer to perfection than the previous by far. It just isn't fun. But for the purpose the mechanic serves and always has due to the meta, it works just fine. I know as a DPS, I love having the consistent buffs an AST provides, but as an AST I simply cannot stand being a dmg buff turret.

I don't want you think that I am dismissing your enjoyment with the old mechanic. I understand fully that many AST really enjoyed this system, but you can still play board games with missing pieces. To think it was perfect and did not warrant changes is erroneous thinking. Hopefully if/when they rework it, they can find a way to incorporate some of the things that really made it enjoyable; but if the only way you feel this can happen is by reverting back to the old system, then you are going to be disappointed going forward.

[Nhala_Levee]

It was not perfect. It was broken AF. It was a convoluted mess of RNG, and methods to shave away the layers of it.

It was only broken for those, who didnt had creativity to use the other side of the cards. 1 single card had 3 diferent effect to use it. If you couldnt think out of anything from them, it is only your fault and not the games fault.
I always could used every of the old cards. Every one of them had they own uses and they combinations. TP was useless, maybe yes. But you forgot that The Spire card had 2 other side to use. If you cant come up anything with 3 diferent effect, than this game is not for you, sorry.

[Gemina]

It was only broken for those, who didnt had creativity to use the other side of the cards. 1 single card had 3 diferent effect to use it. If you couldnt think out of anything from them, it is only your fault and not the games fault.
I always could used every of the old cards. Every one of them had they own uses and they combinations. TP was useless, maybe yes. But you forgot that The Spire card had 2 other side to use. If you cant come up anything with 3 diferent effect, than this game is not for you, sorry.

Lack of creativity is what has caused issues for AST in the first place. Instead of creating a true third healer, they decided to make AST a job that could fill in for whatever the group needed. Since this was done poorly, AST were left in the dust for prog raid content. In order to get more players to use AST, they once again showed a lack of creativity and just overtuned it to the stratosphere.

No, no. If you want use creativity as your angle, then I would trace it all the way back to the roots. Players have always shown an exceptional amount of creativity in mmos, and because most follow the path of least resistance; if there is an exploit to be found, they will find it. Yet, AST card mechanic remained, and basically remains the same: Draw the right three cards in order to boost everyone's damage. Any, and I do mean any utility from the cards other than DMG boosts was not desired by your party members. If your fishing resulted in something other than the Balance, then you use it if the situation warrants it, and if not then you just used minor arcana instead. Another broken ability back then because you did not always need the heal.

I am also not sure what you're talking about with each card having three different effects. Each card had one effect that could be augmented three different ways, but those augments were the same for every card: 50%potency+AoE, 200% duration, or 150% potency iirc. From those, you would always aim to get the AoE, despite how nice the other ones were.

[Nhala_Levee]

Lack of creativity is what has caused issues for AST in the first place. Instead of creating a true third healer, they decided to make AST a job that could fill in for whatever the group needed. Since this was done poorly, AST were left in the dust for prog raid content. In order to get more players to use AST, they once again showed a lack of creativity and just overtuned it to the stratosphere.

No, no. If you want use creativity as your angle, then I would trace it all the way back to the roots. Players have always shown an exceptional amount of creativity in mmos, and because most follow the path of least resistance; if there is an exploit to be found, they will find it. Yet, AST card mechanic remained, and basically remains the same: Draw the right three cards in order to boost everyone's damage. Any, and I do mean any utility from the cards other than DMG boosts was not desired by your party members. If your fishing resulted in something other than the Balance, then you use it if the situation warrants it, and if not then you just used minor arcana instead. Another broken ability back then because you did not always need the heal.

I am also not sure what you're talking about with each card having three different effects. Each card had one effect that could be augmented three different ways, but those augments were the same for every card: 50%potency+AoE, 200% duration, or 150% potency iirc. From those, you would always aim to get the AoE, despite how nice the other ones were.

Jesus girl you ever played AST?... dmg boost is the only thing that a party need? We talking about the same game? Final Fantasy 14? Defense and survivability far overpriority than dps as even mp regen as you cant do anything without mp or without life. Maybe in atom savage raids (what is meaningles even they existence) its works but in any other raid damage boost is simply useless. Dont have meaning for its existence in any way. AST always was an utility support healer, not a dps. And it was perfect in it. I saved whole groups even in roulette raids with an aoe bole card and keep up the aoe crit card for places where needs fast short burst in mechanic. Need to know the bosses and they mechanics to adapt with ast to it. Not easy, yes, for me needed years to learn all but then i already knew what use where. Even spire... when the bards and mchs depleted they tp in seconds in aoe burst. Now the cards not even worth to waste time with them. The boost they gives are worthless even in savage raids cause too small and too overcomplicatedly rng. If they dont want unique char then simply copy holy paladin from wow or druid. This is my point of viev and as i could used ast in every situation perfectly well, i wont change my mind for anything.

[Mansion]

Jesus girl you ever played AST?... dmg boost is the only thing that a party need? We talking about the same game? Final Fantasy 14? Defense and survivability far overpriority than dps as even mp regen as you cant do anything without mp or without life. Maybe in atom savage raids (what is meaningles even they existence) its works but in any other raid damage boost is simply useless. Dont have meaning for its existence in any way. AST always was an utility support healer, not a dps. And it was perfect in it. I saved whole groups even in roulette raids with an aoe bole card and keep up the aoe crit card for places where needs fast short burst in mechanic. Need to know the bosses and they mechanics to adapt with ast to it. Not easy, yes, for me needed years to learn all but then i already knew what use where. Even spire... when the bards and mchs depleted they tp in seconds in aoe burst. Now the cards not even worth to waste time with them. The boost they gives are worthless even in savage raids cause too small and too overcomplicatedly rng. If they dont want unique char then simply copy holy paladin from wow or druid. This is my point of viev and as i could used ast in every situation perfectly well, i wont change my mind for anything.

You are stretching the old cards value by a large amount. "TP regen for AoE burst" wasn't a thing, as it was used un dungeons and people had Tactician / Goad / Motivation if needed (because they are reliable) rather than hoping for a Spire. And as I said, it was for dungeons, TP regen would be enough in between packs of trash.

So yes, DMG was the most valuable, and "defense and survivability" are nothing relevant for the card system when you had shields / collective unconscious / a co healer / party mitigation that you knew would be available. You couldn't hope for a Bole to save anyone. Yes I'm sure someone has a story about that one time they saved a situation thanks to a Bole, but it isn't needed thanks to all the mitigation we have now.

Arguably, I think people miss Royal Road, the old Minor Arcana, Arrow and perhaps the occasional Ewer (but MP regen could have been easily fixed otherwise, and it seems to be coming at last in 5.3). Spear was valuable when Crit was interesting in the Crit meta we had, but they nerfed it so that this kind of buff isn't that valuable anymore.
But yes, DMG buff were what made AST so desirable and OP in the first place. As its healing was on par/better than WHM's own healing.

[MintnHoney]

Yes I'm sure someone has a story about that one time they saved a situation thanks to a Bole, but it isn't needed thanks to all the mitigation we have now.

Conversely, none of those situations are possible anymore at all, because Bole (and, in fact, the rest of the cards) can no longer function in a way that make a significant difference for critical moments. Which is part of the class fantasy: being able to take critical moments and "manipulate fate" to work around the undesirable outcome.
Now, AST must either power through with healing (yay, bad habits!), or (though it's usually "and") they have to stay the course and hope someone else finds a way. They now have a significantly more passive role, in direct contrast to their unusually high APM potential (which is why many ASTs used to find themselves not even bothering).

To that end, I would say a majority of AST players, who miss the old cards, myself included, typically enjoyed having the ability to significantly manipulate/alter battle situations in the moment, which is completely lost on a system of only being able to keep up a constant slow burn (made even slower when you're not working with the tippy topiest of the top players, in only the endiest of end-game raids).

I do agree that TP regen was not truly a big thing for the cards, but, truthfully, it wasn't really much of a thing at all (hence the removal of TP requirements from actions). To that end, that same majority of AST players sought a suitable replacement for the card itself, rather than the whole deck.

[QooEr]

You couldn't hope for a Bole to save anyone. Yes I'm sure someone has a story about that one time they saved a situation thanks to a Bole, but it isn't needed thanks to all the mitigation we have now.

it wasnt about "hoping" for a bole. a lot of times during savage or ultimate prog you would **hold** onto a bole for a hard hitting mechanic, especially at minimum ilv. the issue was that using utility cards "wasted" your royal road, which means itll be harder to get an expanded balance next time around.