AST changes for 6.0: Let's forget 5.0 happened, and just fix what was wrong with 4.0

[Satarn]

If they refuse to give Royal Road back due to AoE cards being sunsetted, then I'd at least want it to be replaced with Play Inverted.

Going with your idea, how about this:

The cards get divided into 3 “pairs” based on their seals. Current melee cards get different – but roughly equally valued - offensive effects and the ranged cards get defensive/utility effects.

Solar seal:
Balance - Increases damage dealt by a party member or self by 6%. Duration: 15s
Bole – Decreases damage taken by a party member or self by 20%. Duration: 15s

Celestial seal:
Spear – Increases critical hit rate of a party member or self by 10%. Duration: 15s
Spire – Grants healing over time effect to a party member or self. Cure Potency: 200. Duration: 15s

Lunar seal:
Arrow – Increases direct hit rate of a party member or self by 15%. Duration: 15s
Ewer – Refreshes MP of a party member or self. Potency: 50. Duration: 15s
(Keep in mind the potencies are just examples. The goal is to make all offensive effects roughly equal in value, hence why the weaker buffs get higher potency, but I can’t be assed to math out the exact values just to present the idea.)

You can still Draw any of the 6 cards, but you can also swap them to their “opposites” with the new action:

Reverse – Flips the currently held arcanum, turning its effect into that of its opposite. Cooldown: 1s
(Of course this ability works like current Minor Arcana, in that the hotkey is replaced with the opposite card automatically, so you don’t have to weave both Reverse and then Play like it was with 5.0 Minor Arcana.)

Divination and Sleeve Draw can be kept as they are, but Minor Arcana and Redraw get tweaked for the new system:

Minor Arcana – Plays the currently held arcanum’s offensive side at increased potency, while sacrificing its seal effect.
(Alternatively it could just play – and enhance - the effect of current card including utility ones, but that would add extra weaving while trying to play optimally, which is something I’d like to avoid – however it might not be as much of an issue now that Sleeve Draw no longer grants 3 cards at once.)

Redraw – Draws an arcanum with a different seal from your deck.
(Small change to ensure you don’t just get the opposite of your current card like with Reverse, or even straight up the same card as it does occasionally happen right now sadly. It might also be a good idea to remove or reduce the charges on this ability with this change though, as getting a guaranteed different seal and not having to worry about ranged/melee dichotomy along with 3 charges, could trivialize things too much.)

What this accomplishes:
- People happy with the current system who just want to optimize based on fight timeline can play with nearly no changes.
- In fact this system is even more stable as you don’t need to worry about the melee/ranged divide in cards and can just always buff the most optimal person based on where they are in their rotations at the time. It also means you no longer get screwed by rng giving you only melee cards in parties with less/no melee dps and so on.
- At the same time, this allows people who preferred the old system to enjoy the “clutch moments” of using an Ewer or Bole at the right time, without sacrificing the pros of the current system.
- Since the chance of drawing a specific utility card becomes 1/3 rather than 1/6(and Redraw being 1/2), it’s much more likely than before that you can actually use them to save a sticky situation(or even plan to a degree), which allows for some extra skill expression during prog or just when playing in any unoptimized setting where things can get very bad, very fast.

[Aurelius2625]

Dude execution is what this game is about lol.

I don't play AST because the Bole has some lore b.s. or w/e. I play AST because of how it feels to play.

"Play healer only for training dummies."

Wow pal. I guess Savage healing doesn't count then, the only content I haven't attempted as healer is Ultimate, but that's because I don't devote my time in ultimate to healing, I reserve tanking and melee for that.

What I'm saying is that afflatus does get used... it has to be...it's how WHM was built, to sacrifice a gcd of damage for movement, or for healing and building up to a misery to use for another weave slot and to recoup some damage lost, especially if it crits.

Y'all want these clunky ass abilities back that don't really make sense to have really. You need to check your condescending attitude my dude.

Time dialation? Really? It is just a fun niche little skill in 4.x that had some use for extending regens on a tank mostly. The old cards were garbage.

"The new cards are drained of personality", no life, no character.... dude... it gives your party a constant stream of damage buffs that are guaranteed on the dps players, like what?

But no, play AST because in the JOB story quest (lmfao) it said something cute about Spire or whatever lol. Okay.

My comment about WHM was that it's very design is to sacrifice damage for healing, whereas on SCH and AST, you do not really have to do those things given your ability to weave at will or take a very minor loss if you have an energy drain to spare. WHM does not get this consideration and you must give up damage for healing, and has horrible clipping issues unless you burn a lily and need it, and sometimes you just don't and overheal for nothing just to weave.

"Flavor and Fun" LOL. Punishing rng of getting spire five times in a row. Okay. Yeah buddy you keep your fun in the past, I'll keep the actual good, functioning, useful cards.

You still have Royal Road giving out an aoe buff... it's called divination lol. You build the cards to the aoe form of the card buff.

You get divination as much as you would get an AoE Balance pretty much. Unless you were blessed with RNG.

[Burmecia]

Balance: 10% damage buff
Bole: 20% damage resist buff
Spear: 10% crit buff
Arrow: 10% direct hit buff
Spire: 10% physical damage buff
Ewer: 10% magic damage buff

Used to be, draws any card but Balance: Oh nuu >((
Would be, draws Bole: Oh nuu >://

Did I got that right?

[elioaiko]

"Flavor and Fun" LOL. Punishing rng of getting spire five times in a row. Okay. Yeah buddy you keep your fun in the past, I'll keep the actual good, functioning, useful cards.

You still have Royal Road giving out an aoe buff... it's called divination lol. You build the cards to the aoe form of the card buff.

You get divination as much as you would get an AoE Balance pretty much. Unless you were blessed with RNG.

I don't disagree that AST's gimmick was changed for the better on a design level to match the consistency that the game demands. RNG in job design has no place which is why they're slowing and surely rid them of such.

But I find your tone also condescending as well. It's not wrong that people would miss the old flavor of cards. I think you underestimate how many people play this game on a very casual level and play jobs for the lore behind them.

There's a reason why the AST play rate is abysmal and there's a split in the community itself. People aren't happy with how AST turned out in 5.0. Be it the cards or the removal of time aspects.

I still play AST because it's the best of healers that feel active but that doesn't mean it wasn't without being sad over they've done to it. Personally, I miss those things but I understand why they did it.

SE has a history of neglecting the healing community with silence (check fairy ghosting and 4.0 WHM). People are allowed to voice their unhappiness because the role isn't in a best place. Balance wise sure there's no bad healer anymore but for play style issues? SE missed a huge mark on that one.

Let's also remember that SE has a history of removing things from existing healers and putting them on another or even repackaging them for a new ability which is quite lazy to many of us. Temperance is just largesse with a Shield Samba attached to it. Celestial Opposition is just Diurnal Helios and Horoscope is an AoE Excog. That's not to say that all of these are bad but SE has dulled down interesting parts of healers for simplifying them with nothing in return (check SCH's Dots).

So my belief and it's likely is that SE will yet again change the cards for better or worse because tbh, it could have been well thought out if they had just committed to it instead of making it clunky. And no, I find 5.0 Sleeve Draw literal trash and 5.2 Sleeve Draw just as painful. Only 5.3 made it bearable to use.

Main take away, casual players wanting their cards back is not wrong, misguided maybe but this notion that AST should be the endgame tier healer that only us raiders can use is stupid.

[Crushnight]

Y'all want these clunky ass abilities back that don't really make sense to have really. You need to check your condescending attitude my dude.

Time dialation? Really? It is just a fun niche little skill in 4.x that had some use for extending regens on a tank mostly. The old cards were garbage.

But no, play AST because in the JOB story quest (lmfao) it said something cute about Spire or whatever lol. Okay.

"Flavor and Fun" LOL. Punishing rng of getting spire five times in a row. Okay. Yeah buddy you keep your fun in the past, I'll keep the actual good, functioning, useful cards.

You still have Royal Road giving out an aoe buff... it's called divination lol. You build the cards to the aoe form of the card buff.

You get divination as much as you would get an AoE Balance pretty much. Unless you were blessed with RNG.

Your pretty condescending yourself and based on what you say about Time Dilation makes me think you didn't even touch Ast beyond levelling it prior to 5.X.

Time Dilation could be used to extended HoTs on a tank to prolong not needing to use heal gcds or it could be used on a Balance Dps to extend to be beyond your next Draw cd where you could give another Balance making that Dps player have over a minute of 10% dmg up (depending on just using single cards) combined with old CO and you could make that single Dps have a Balance for nearly 2 mins straight(one of the most satisfying things, because it was very impactful).

How many of you would want something like that with the current system where you could have a near minute of a single card on your best Dps team member. Time Dilation was anything but niche and works even better with the current system than it did the old. Obviously they would have to compensate both Sch and Whm for this huge increase in rDps but what harm does Time Dilation or old CO being readded do?

Rng is still a factor with the current card system so long as it is you will always have a "I feel punished for bad luck" group, it moved from Not getting Balance/Spear to dear God stop going Spire,Ewer,Spire when I want a melee card for this pure melee group (baring yourself), which to some people feels worse because the likelihood of it happens is meant to be lower.

Divination is not Royal Road that is a huge fallacy, if Divination changed from 1 seal was single target but longer, 2 seal was more powerful but current time, and 3 seal was AoE like it is now, you would be correct that it be the replacement for RR, it doesn't so it is not a replacement and this is why I want RR back.

All 3 skills I mentioned, Time Dilation, 4.X Celestial Opposition and Royal Road can work with the current card system, the playstyle of the current card system would change to how can I optimise both my buffs but my extension and manipulation skills as well, increasing the skill ceiling while not making it how can I spam my nuke more.

[ASkellington]

Dude execution is what this game is about lol.

I'm a person who came into FFXIV during Shadowbringers. I have never experienced the original cards, rightly can't say I miss them, even though their original design as told by a friend was what got me into playing with AST in the first place.

This current iteration of AST is still riddled with problems:
The amount of times I have gotten the same seal even after using 3 Redraws is too high.
The fact that one of the reasons AST's cards got changed was to deal with "fishing for balance" yet we still fish makes me laugh at the failure to solve this issue.
Divination is worthless. 4%/5%/6% damage increase is laughable on how you can feel it without a parser, and is not worth the effort of getting it, before and after Sleeve Draw's changes.
As much as I hated Sleeve Draw, and still hate the old iteration and don't want it back, this wasn't the change I really wanted to it.

Its execution is still poor.


As seen on the many posts about Astrologian from card effects to Sleeve Draw the point you are missing is thus: There were many ways that Square could have cut down on RNG while keeping the flavor of the original cards and of the job in general; they didn't do any of it. Instead they alienated people who enjoyed the job for what it was with half baked changes that they ultimately had to fix (remember when Lord/Lady of Crowns used to be its own button and animation? I do!). If that isn't poor execution of a class, then I don't know what is.

[LariaKirin]

There were many ways that Square could have cut down on RNG while keeping the flavor of the original cards and of the job in general; they didn't do any of it.

Would you be so kind as to show us at least one of the many ways?

[Crushnight]

Would you be so kind as to show us at least one of the many ways?

New ability Destiny, changes Draw to Balance, Shuffle to Bole, Minor Arcana to Spear, Sleeve Draw to Arrow, Spread to Ewer, Royal Road to Spire, does not overwrite any effect, cd or stored card, card selected gains RR effect currently available, 1 min 30s cd. (DNC's UI show this is possible)

Just one of the ways to alleviate the old rng system. Not perfect but definitely an improvement on the old system as it was.

[LariaKirin]

New ability Destiny, changes Draw to Balance, Shuffle to Bole, Minor Arcana to Spear, Sleeve Draw to Arrow, Spread to Ewer, Royal Road to Spire, does not overwrite any effect, cd or stored card, card selected gains RR effect currently available, 1 min 30s cd. (DNC's UI show this is possible)

Just one of the ways to alleviate the old rng system. Not perfect but definitely an improvement on the old system as it was.

New ability, Balance. Plays a Balance with current RR effect. 90s cooldown.

[MintnHoney]

There's one major problem you're all missing.... Hitting those highs, pulling the right card at the right moment can feel amazing...but what about when you don't?

Considering you acknowledge:

Like you've all said, highs and lows.

For there to be highs, there must also be lows. You can't have a system of highs and lows with only "highs," and even with the old cards, the lowest "low" one could get wasn't a total catastrophe, it was just a smaller "high."

That "famine" (I assume you mean that a player could get stuck with the old Spire effect, which would be totally useless after the removal of TP) was still able to be mitigated, either via a Redraw (which was updated in later patches to guarantee that we would not get the same card) or with Minor Arcana.
Further enhancements to mitigate the issue could have been implemented, preferably learned as a new trait or ability while AST leveled up.

Frankly, with regards to famine, they made it more prevalent again with the new redraw; I, and many others, I'm sure, have come across times where I've drawn the same seal more than 4 attempts in a row (Draw, redraw, redraw, redraw, Draw). That's certainly a lot more than I would have had to deal with getting the same card that I didn't want before coming to this seal system. The unfortunate double-edged upside to this, is that the difference in potency in the seal combinations is so minuscule that it really doesn't matter if a player puts effort into different seals or not in most content. This system of "highs and lows" has the "highs" too low, and that's a problem when the difference used to be far greater, and was where the excitement lay for many of the players.

Was it "unreliable?" Technically, no, because the job could still clear content, and could still provide boons, even if one or more boons weren't considered as helpful as the others.