How could you do this to AST?

[Rilifane]

Something that might work is something like
- a card that gives a x % damage bonus fo the next x attacks with a potency of or above certain threshhold (e.g. 350 potency). Great for classes that have some hard-hitting skills outside their 2min burst phase like SAMs Midare and combo finishers, NINs combo finisher, DNC Standard & SD if it coincides with them having to dump Esprit, RDM melee combo and to a lesser extend DRG
- a card with longer/ shorter duration but weaker/stronger damage buff for classes that have less spiky dps of very short spikes
- a card that lets them use a skill without having it consume the special resource e.g. free Xeno, Midare, Shinten, Saber Dance, Bhava, Misery (yes, a card could actually be nice on a WhM), melee combo
- a card that gives x % damage bonus for every party member in a x yard radius, preferably with dynamic scaling checking with every server tick, making it stronger if the raid is (and stays) properly stacked and encourages rerolls when mechanics forced you to spread

There are more options but those are some from the top of my head that could work with properly adjusted numbers.

Freecure and Enhanced Benefic alter the next cast and it's possible to cast Cure II with Freecure below 1k mana, so it seems entirely possible with how combat and skills are coded to design buffs that enable the use of skills without having the required resources.
Not as easy to balance as flat damage increases because the cards have to be fairly close together in terms of rDPS if played correctly but ASTs would need to pay more attention to which card goes to who and where players are in their rotation. Higher skill ceiling than holding onto cards for as long as possible and then slapping them on the classic 90s/ 2min burst windows because they're a bit more situational and class-dependant.
Could also make for some fun combinations if you're lucky and cards with different effects stack like giving the resource-free skills card to someone with a damage boost for skills above x potency right after. Nukes go BRRRR.

[IDontPetLalas]

Something that might work is something like
- a card that gives a x % damage bonus fo the next x attacks with a potency of or above certain threshhold (e.g. 350 potency). Great for classes that have some hard-hitting skills outside their 2min burst phase like SAMs Midare and combo finishers, NINs combo finisher, DNC Standard & SD if it coincides with them having to dump Esprit, RDM melee combo and to a lesser extend DRG
- a card with longer/ shorter duration but weaker/stronger damage buff for classes that have less spiky dps of very short spikes
- a card that lets them use a skill without having it consume the special resource e.g. free Xeno, Midare, Shinten, Saber Dance, Bhava, Misery (yes, a card could actually be nice on a WhM), melee combo
- a card that gives x % damage bonus for every party member in a x yard radius, preferably with dynamic scaling checking with every server tick, making it stronger if the raid is (and stays) properly stacked and encourages rerolls when mechanics forced you to spread

There are more options but those are some from the top of my head that could work with properly adjusted numbers.

Freecure and Enhanced Benefic alter the next cast and it's possible to cast Cure II with Freecure below 1k mana, so it seems entirely possible with how combat and skills are coded to design buffs that enable the use of skills without having the required resources.
Not as easy to balance as flat damage increases because the cards have to be fairly close together in terms of rDPS if played correctly but ASTs would need to pay more attention to which card goes to who and where players are in their rotation. Higher skill ceiling than holding onto cards for as long as possible and then slapping them on the classic 90s/ 2min burst windows because they're a bit more situational and class-dependant.
Could also make for some fun combinations if you're lucky and cards with different effects stack like giving the resource-free skills card to someone with a damage boost for skills above x potency right after. Nukes go BRRRR.

That sounds like a nightmare to manage, not to mention being lackluster at best when soloing. No thank you.

[RyuDragnier]

For the cards, they could simply keep how they work currently (in terms of pulling, redrawing, using, and the seals), revert the old card effects back (while keeping current Minor Arcana), and make Minor Arcana only usable once every minute. This still allows that valued damage buff via Minor Arcana and Divination, but also allows them to bring back the old cards back into the equation while changing up Spire and Balance to be more in line with current game systems. Spire I feel would be best as a Direct Hit buff. Balance...that one is up in the air, but I'm thinking it giving the player hit an HP drain on their attacks would probably work.

[ForteNightshade]

For the cards, they could simply keep how they work currently (in terms of pulling, redrawing, using, and the seals), revert the old card effects back (while keeping current Minor Arcana), and make Minor Arcana only usable once every minute. This still allows that valued damage buff via Minor Arcana and Divination, but also allows them to bring back the old cards back into the equation while changing up Spire and Balance to be more in line with current game systems. Spire I feel would be best as a Direct Hit buff. Balance...that one is up in the air, but I'm thinking it giving the player hit an HP drain on their attacks would probably work.

Direct Hit is essentially weaker Crit. So that instantly slots Spear ahead of new Spire in every scenario.

As for new Balance. Do you mean the chosen target loses HP in exchange for increased damage? If so, that could cause some serious issues with raid wide AoEs. If the effect can more or less be negated with Bloodbath, it isn't much of a drawback. Conversely, were it to deal enough damage to be impactful. You're now forcing the selected target to stop attacking in order to survive. And they may still die if not thrown extra heals. Considering the dev team went out of their way to avoid HP drain effects on Dark Knight, a job whose entire history is surrounded those mechanics. There's no chance they would even consider putting such an effect on Astro's cards.

[RyuDragnier]

As for new Balance. Do you mean the chosen target loses HP in exchange for increased damage?

I mean it basically gives Bloodbath to a target, regardless if they're DPS, healer, or tank. So if you put it on a WHM, and they use Glare, they're healing for a percentage of the damage they dealt to a target. Same would go for anybody it's put on, including say, a DRK who just entered Walking Dead.

[ForteNightshade]

I mean it basically gives Bloodbath to a target, regardless if they're DPS, healer, or tank. So if you put it on a WHM, and they use Glare, they're healing for a percentage of the damage they dealt to a target. Same would go for anybody it's put on, including say, a DRK who just entered Walking Dead.

This just makes Balance extremely situational, if not entirely worthless. Not only would this almost never see use, you're trading a damage card for it when simply slapping a Regen or having the DPS use Second Wing or Bloodbath themselves. Part of the issue with Astro's old cards is mitigation simply can't compete with damage buffs. Hence why Spire and Ewer were often relegated to Royal Road fodder.

[RyuDragnier]

This just makes Balance extremely situational, if not entirely worthless. Not only would this almost never see use, you're trading a damage card for it when simply slapping a Regen or having the DPS use Second Wing or Bloodbath themselves. Part of the issue with Astro's old cards is mitigation simply can't compete with damage buffs. Hence why Spire and Ewer were often relegated to Royal Road fodder.

And that's why Royal Road will still not exist. You redraw or use the card. And for the record, DH and Crit buffs are ONLY damage buffs if you actually DH or crit. If you don't, it wasn't a damage increase. Because of people constantly trying to find Balance instead of using what they had, we ended up with what we got this expansion. By removing the hard damage increase on Balance and instead giving it to Minor Arcana (albeit with a cooldown), you fix the problem because anything can be a damage increase once a minute. Meaning you have to keep seals going for Divination, or just sit on a card for Minor Arcana that could have been used another way.

Now tell me, if you got a Solar, Lunar, and Celestial seal already, Divination and Minor Arcana are on cooldown for 30s, and Sleeve Draw is on cooldown for 60s...are you going to use another Celestial seal for a crit/dh buff that would result in a damage loss on Divination's buff due to 2 Celestial seals? Are you going to hold onto the card and just use it with Minor Arcana? Or are you going to attempt to reshuffle it to another Solar card in the hopes you get some use out of it?

[Payadopa]

For the cards, they could simply keep how they work currently (in terms of pulling, redrawing, using, and the seals), revert the old card effects back (while keeping current Minor Arcana), and make Minor Arcana only usable once every minute. This still allows that valued damage buff via Minor Arcana and Divination, but also allows them to bring back the old cards back into the equation while changing up Spire and Balance to be more in line with current game systems. Spire I feel would be best as a Direct Hit buff. Balance...that one is up in the air, but I'm thinking it giving the player hit an HP drain on their attacks would probably work.

I like that idea. Best of both worlds and a nice compromise.

[Yuletide]

Ok. I really don't think it's a problem.

And if you and your friend want to play WHM & AST then just do it. Who cares if they are both main heal. If you are a true savage raider then you'd understand you can do savage content with basically any healer comp. Only the tank comp really matters. The fact that you have Bene from WHM is all you need for tank invul. Like what is the issue?

[ssunny2008]

Sry if i repeat something, but i don´t have time to scroll and read through 12 pages imo.

I´m fully with OP. It´s sad to say that AST is going to be changed once again and losing pretty much the rest of his uniqueness. It´s not even about "meta-play" or balancing. Even if noct has worse shields than a SCH and diu might be the overall better choice, it does its job and for badass mechanics everyone can use neutral. To take that from AST away is a bad thing.
It´s something which is up to the players choice and preference. You was able to adjust to your Co-heal or to different bosses as you thought "it´s better to play noct/diu this time." Again, it might doesn´t match perfectly in numbers to be called balanced, but it worked. To get ride of such variety and players decision making is a step back in game design. It´s the same with the cards before. "All for the damage!". Why not change the cards that you can hold more cards at once and cards you already own can´t appear anymore? So you could´ve always give the tank the damage reduction at tank busters or dps at burst phases meanwhile searching for new cards? No... all have to become simpler until the last guy on earth can press this one button...

It´s sad and it shows once again how stubborn and uninspired SE can be. They don´t want to give the players more than one option to play different classes. They force them into that major role until every tank, every heal, every dps plays and feels pretty much the same. This is a big mistake in my eyes and lots of different MMO´s do a way better job here. That the player can choose between different skill upgrades or stances by his own, situational or preference based is a good thing! Even if a metabuild will appear and balancing might be a bit harder, variety and uniqueness is what all classes need in FF14, that´s what SE can´t get in their head and probably one big reason why 99% don´t give af about PvP too.

R.I.P AST, i don´t want to play a WHM 2.0 version.