Astrologian: what is your understanding about it?

[Kissune]

For what it's worth, I saw your point of view too, I just think that AST could've been better. Well, it turns out it can be a lot worse too. So we both lost out here.

Yeah, seems like every AST main loses now. Nothing pisses me off more too now than the people saying 'oh my god stormblood cards are back I can finally play the job' and not realizing what made stormblood cards interesting, even if I didn't like them. Never thought I'd see the day this job gets straight up removed. No more healers left for me, I guess. At least Viper looks cool.

Seeya in 8.0? ;3

[Aravell]

Yeah, seems like every AST main loses now. Nothing pisses me off more too now than the people saying 'oh my god stormblood cards are back I can finally play the job' and not realizing what made stormblood cards interesting, even if I didn't like them. Never thought I'd see the day this job gets straight up removed. No more healers left for me, I guess. At least Viper looks cool.

Seeya in 8.0? ;3

Here's hoping 8.0 is better, but for now, I'm a tank main.

[Kissune]

Here's hoping 8.0 is better, but for now, I'm a tank main.

Yeah, I'm gonna be on viper or monk for most of it. Honestly, with as much of a fuss as the JP forums are making about the changes, I expect a 7.X rework, but we'll see.

[ForsakenRoe]

Yeah, I'm gonna be on viper or monk for most of it. Honestly, with as much of a fuss as the JP forums are making about the changes, I expect a 7.X rework, but we'll see.

Oh even JP is making a racket about it? Maybe there's a chance it gets looked at then, since clearly NA/EU have no pull when it comes to influencing decisions they make.

I didn't want to say 'I could make a better AST than SE' until I saw what they were making, but now... Yeh, I think I could make a better AST than SE has here. When they set the bar this low, it's pretty easy to 'do better than the multi-dollar company' too

Here's hoping 8.0 is better, but for now, I'm a tank main.

Might join you on that one. That, or PRanged since the Melee and Caster slots in PFs will be instafilled by Viper/Picto FOTM rerollers I expect

[Kissune]

Oh even JP is making a racket about it? Maybe there's a chance it gets looked at then, since clearly NA/EU have no pull when it comes to influencing decisions they make.

I didn't want to say 'I could make a better AST than SE' until I saw what they were making, but now... Yeh, I think I could make a better AST than SE has here. When they set the bar this low, it's pretty easy to 'do better than the multi-dollar company' too



Might join you on that one. That, or PRanged since the Melee and Caster slots in PFs will be instafilled by Viper/Picto FOTM rerollers I expect

Yeah. A lot of people questioning what is left of the identity of 'playing with fate and destiny and using what you're given' when this is just... buttons that do X. No flavour or substance. The big astrologian thread I don't think I've seen a single positive response about it over there. I personally don't want a return to random unique effects as cards but, at this point? I'd take it. I'd take anything, just not this. Just as long as they're cards.

Also I'm not picking viper because it's FOTM, thank you very much >;3. I'm picking it bc it has a 20s duration personal buff with 2 charges with a 40s CD and that's the most interesting thing they've added since shadowbringers. Which makes me even more mad about this AST rework/deletion because I would have loved figuring out the card timings for Vipers and adjusting to them, instead of just playing two dps cards every 2mins and thats it!

[ForsakenRoe]

Yeah. A lot of people questioning what is left of the identity of 'playing with fate and destiny and using what you're given' when this is just... buttons that do X. No flavour or substance. The big astrologian thread I don't think I've seen a single positive response about it over there. I personally don't want a return to random unique effects as cards but, at this point? I'd take it. I'd take anything, just not this. Just as long as they're cards.

Also I'm not picking viper because it's FOTM, thank you very much >;3. I'm picking it bc it has a 20s duration personal buff with 2 charges with a 40s CD and that's the most interesting thing they've added since shadowbringers. Which makes me even more mad about this AST rework/deletion because I would have loved figuring out the card timings for Vipers and adjusting to them, instead of just playing two dps cards every 2mins and thats it!

See, the way I see AST's current issues is this:

SB AST was good because unique card effects, bad because 4/6 of them were 'not damage' and therefore pointless
SHB/EW AST was/is good because every card is damage, bad because every card is the same effect (damage, more damage if you get the role right)

So why not just... Take the good aspects of both and combine them? That is, 'every card deals damage' and 'every card is unique'? Just have the method by which the damage is dealt per card, be different based on the card used. That way, the 'unique utility' of each card eg Bole's Mit or Ewer's MP regen, those can be 'bonuses on top' that you can choose to prioritize over the damage if you feel it'd be better for the run (eg you need to recover from a death, or the mit going on a squishy for a hard raidwide they keep dying to). So I'd do these effects:

Balance = 10% damage up
Spear = 10% Physical damage up (priority target: Melee)
Spire = 10% Magic damage up (priority target: Caster)
Arrow = 10 stacks of 'your autoattacks are 400% faster', 12 for PhysRanged (priority target: PRanged)
Ewer = 3 stacks on a Healer of 'your spell hits a second time for 100% potency, but cannot crit or DHit' (priority target: Healer)
Bole = 3 stacks of 'counterattack when you are hit, dealing a hit equal to 10% of your Max HP' (priority target: Tank)

If all 6 cards are balanced to have roughly equal damage output, there's no reason to 'fish' for one. Especially if the Seals weren't removed, since they incentivize you to prioritize filling those out and getting all 3 Seal types, rather than playing the same 1 card over and over. By having something like the above, it also means that there's a proper reason to play a card on a Healer or Tank again, something that SHB removed (except for wacky DRK burst trickery)

[ASkellington]

See, the way I see AST's current issues is this:

SB AST was good because unique card effects, bad because 4/6 of them were 'not damage' and therefore pointless
SHB/EW AST was/is good because every card is damage, bad because every card is the same effect (damage, more damage if you get the role right)

So why not just... Take the good aspects of both and combine them? That is, 'every card deals damage' and 'every card is unique'?

Because part of the people who liked SB AST having differing card effects liked the fact that not all of them were damage.

Making them deal damage differently doesn't change the fact that they're all doing damage. And with the effects you listed specifically, these aren't in fun ways either imo. I understand why Haste is an issue in this game and why people don't want it, but that would be more fun for me to give to some one than a blatant 10% physical/magical damage up.

If I'm forced to give nothing but stupid damage then I'd like them to be fun effects - Haste, Freecasts, the counter you mentioned, no blatant % damage up. That's what Divination is for. The cards can do something else.

[Zaytex]

The problem with designing cards to do something other than damage, is that increasing damage output will always be king and the card which gives the most DPS, will be selected every time. Make all the cards not buff DMG and do a different effect? You'll still find little use for most of them, as current healer toolkits are bloated beyond belief and a card which gives damage reduction, will just be overshadowed by exaltation or celetial intersection anyway, for example.

Conceptually giving cards different effects is interesting, and maybe it can be done well. But looking back at SB, I think the best state of cards is if they're all the same (i.e balance). Is it interesting? No, but in practice and gameplay you're always using them. I'd rather have buttons which are less interesting, but find use every time, than interesting buttons which are never pulled out or see the time of day.

[ASkellington]

The problem with designing cards to do something other than damage, is that increasing damage output will always be king and the card which gives the most DPS, will be selected every time. Make all the cards not buff DMG and do a different effect? You'll still find little use for most of them, as current healer toolkits are bloated beyond belief and a card which gives damage reduction, will just be overshadowed by exaltation or celetial intersection anyway, for example.

Conceptually giving cards different effects is interesting, and maybe it can be done well. But looking back at SB, I think the best state of cards is if they're all the same (i.e balance). Is it interesting? No, but in practice and gameplay you're always using them. I'd rather have buttons which are less interesting, but find use every time, than interesting buttons which are never pulled out or see the time of day.

The best state of the cards is not having them all the same. If that's the case delete 5 of them because there's no point in drawing all but one. Divination currently exists as the AOE Balance buff everyone wanted and it can stay for more consistency in AST's kit.

Now I don't disagree that utility cards are going to be niche due to what is in AST's kit but it isn't as if they're going to be dead (I can always substitute Lady over Celestial Opposition if I have it) and it isn't as if we can't make RNG mitigation options instead. One idea I had back when we had Nocturnal for instance was splitting the deck into 3 with damage being drawn under one sect and utility under the other while AST stance danced for instance.

And again, if you're going to talk about "damage cards" being the only thing we are allowed to get, I still stand by no % up buffs. That is what Divination was for. Give me things like Haste, or shorter cast times (Lightspeed for the party?), reflective damage, double cast. Give me things to interact with party's kit instead of just a blatant buff they can pretty much place on themselves. <---That's pretty much what I want out of diverse cards.

[Kissune]

Because part of the people who liked SB AST having differing card effects liked the fact that not all of them were damage.

Making them deal damage differently doesn't change the fact that they're all doing damage. And with the effects you listed specifically, these aren't in fun ways either imo. I understand why Haste is an issue in this game and why people don't want it, but that would be more fun for me to give to some one than a blatant 10% physical/magical damage up.

If I'm forced to give nothing but stupid damage then I'd like them to be fun effects - Haste, Freecasts, the counter you mentioned, no blatant % damage up. That's what Divination is for. The cards can do something else.

The problem is that in current EW design, fights are designed around each class having not only X amount of mit, but X amount of predictable mit. If you make the cards all utility, it doesn't matter what they do bc you can't plan around them. They just end up being cute little bonuses on a static healplan. If you make them all damage, then all cards are useful even if they're boring, and each one has to be played. If you make them a mix of both damage and utility... well, the utility cards will be for lack of a better term 'fucking useless' because you can't rely on them, and drawing one of them means not drawing a dps card. This was well and good with how the rest of the game functioned back in stormblood, but nowadays that's impossible to balance. (It was impossible to balance back then too, they just cared less). Minor arcana is a terrible enough button as it is, and I think people who look at StB with rose tinted glasses don't realize that minor arcana is essentially the distilled version of the stormblood card system in its essence. You either drew damage, or you drew not damage. Yeah you could do some funky stuff with royal road but at the end of the day you basically just wanted to aoe the balance as much as possible because relying on RNG utility to handle incoming damage meant either playing like you're never going to draw the bole, or getting used to dying. A lot.

Like idk about you but I'd rather each card do something I can rely on (doing more damage), with variance on where those cards go and in what order than having to roll the dice on whether or not I'm rolling my eyes and pressing undraw on my third ewer. If you understand why haste in this game is an issue, you should understand why RNG utility is also an issue.

The best state of the cards is not having them all the same. If that's the case delete 5 of them because there's no point in drawing all but one. Divination currently exists as the AOE Balance buff everyone wanted and it can stay for more consistency in AST's kit.

Now I don't disagree that utility cards are going to be niche due to what is in AST's kit but it isn't as if they're going to be dead (I can always substitute Lady over Celestial Opposition if I have it) and it isn't as if we can't make RNG mitigation options instead. One idea I had back when we had Nocturnal for instance was splitting the deck into 3 with damage being drawn under one sect and utility under the other while AST stance danced for instance.

And again, if you're going to talk about "damage cards" being the only thing we are allowed to get, I still stand by no % up buffs. That is what Divination was for. Give me things like Haste, or shorter cast times (Lightspeed for the party?), reflective damage, double cast. Give me things to interact with party's kit instead of just a blatant buff they can pretty much place on themselves. <---That's pretty much what I want out of diverse cards.

Because then AST becomes highly volatile in terms of how much it actually contributes to specific comps, and they are trying to avoid more situations where one class is excluded due to how niche it is. Haste fucks over how a lot of jobs play. Shorter cast times is literally only relevant for exactly black mage. Reflective damage is a dead card 90% of the time. Double cast is again, highly comp restrictive. You might think flat % is boring, but short of adding crit or DH buffs to the mix it's really the only thing that actually functions without feeling like absolute ass to draw sometimes. You might want crazy, wild effects, but I want cards that I don't have to toss in the trash half the time. I still want to have to think about where I'm putting them, but I don't want that thought to amount to 'oh, this card is worthless. Cool.' And if they add in utility cards, they need to strip a lot of AST's kit or it'll be overloaded and the cards will be pointless half the time. And if they do that, it'll mean that if it doesn't draw the right cards it's just an ineffective healer. DPS cards always do something. % DPS cards are always relevant. You can't have super inconsistent jobs anymore, not with how tight everything is. And if AST is inconsistent as hell and the other jobs aren't, then AST is just playing dice with your odds of clearing any content harder than an extreme. Or every fight is made easier just to account for it.

Also, if you can substitute lady for opposition, why not just use opposition? Now oppo is just sitting there, bc I'm hoping you would plan around the next raidwide as if you didn't draw lady here. All lady is, and all it would ever be, is just... an extra 400 potency overheal on top of what you were already doing. Maybe it could replace a helios, yeah, but I'm gonna be real I can't remember the last time I pressed helios in literally any content and I do ultimates and criterion.