AST fix ever?

[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.

[Mansion]

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.

Fully agree.
Actually, although the flavour of each card (Minor Arcana included) did have an importance for me, personally what I miss the most in AST now is Royal Road. I loved the card set-up it allowed, compared to the card-spitting machine we can be with Sleeve Draw now. If we just had Royal Road back, I'd be quite happy, even if all cards have the same effect.

[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.