Astrologian changes feedback

[AnotherPerson]

The highs and lows of the new card system is quite substantial. The good thing is that we have diverse card effects and some stability to what we draw. The bad is that we have no RNG or ways to manipulate it if we don't need those card effects at the time (the problem here is not having options, like how healing actions that we don't use in 60s becomes a wasted action that contributes nothing to the healer gameplay decision-making -- the most present complaint about healers currently), or at least have not seen any ways to manipulate the card system in the Job Action Trailer.

I think a portion of the problem also stems from not knowing what the card buffs even do. We have a preconceived notion that it's just a damage buff, a defensive buff, and a form of heal. With ShB and Endwalker iterations of the card system, the card buffs were just the same thing, just renamed slightly differently. How different are each of the card effects in Dawntrail, and how big of an impact do they have in gameplay from one another? Do we have any form of control on what cards we specifically choose or is there a predetermined order on how they must be played?

From what I tell based on just the job trailer, AST's Draw 4 cards mechanic draws 1 damage card, 1 defensive card, and 1 curative card in that order. This system can be really good if they added a bit more depth into it and encouraged its usage every 60s by adding ways to manipulate the cards you want to play rather than holding it for a burst window in 120s for 2 Draws due to how heavy the emphasis for DPS is. I like the concept... However, I dislike how the card system feels neglected in the toolkit, or rather the job actions seem to only work in a vacuum. For a level 50 skill, drawing 3 or 4 cards and picking what works best in that situation works well because you aren't full of healing skills to fall back on, so every card can get its use and reach its full potential. At lv 90 and lv 100, AST has so many healing actions that they generally don't need more healing actions on cards unless those healing actions provide very substantially different utility in regards to encounters. From what I can tell currently, the cards themselves don't have any synergy to the rest of the toolkit or isn't executed in a way that promotes synergy in a fluid manner.

It would be good to have the ability to manipulate the card system or have skills that interact with it to make AST's card gauge the focus of the gameplay rather than just a small addition, so the player can adapt around it based on the circumstances at hand.
Examples:
1. An additional action to redraw a card and combine the previous card effect to the newly drawn card effect.
2. An additional action to return a card and merge the effects into Minor Arcana - turning the card effects into AoE, but you will no longer draw this card on your next [Draw 4] action.
3. An additional action to return a card and double the next dawn card effect, but you will no longer draw this card on your next [Draw 4] action.
4. Horoscope - additional effect: Draw one additional card with random effects (If 3 cards are already drawn, become old ShB sleeve draw effect and automatically load in the next card as your last card)
5. Be able to choose what card to play at any given moment (cycling the choice of cards you want to modify).

That way, there's the initial level of guarantee with what your base cards do, but the card system evolves in a way where the player can aim for other effects if the cards isn't suitable at this point in time. I'd have to wait for the media tour to conclude before giving further feedback to the card system since I'm not sure what the new card effects specifically do. I'm also equally worried the amount of incoming damage being too low and the frequency of the damage isn't enough to warrant the need for the support aspect of cards (damage frequency failed to meet healing expectations for the last 2 expansions to encourage healing gameplay over DPSing). If the damage isn't consistently frequent enough to need all those healing abilities, my feedback would be to remove some of Astrologian's healing actions and emphasize the card system more. I don't think AST needs Essential Dignity with a third charge when there's plenty of other single target healing skills and GCD actions like Aspected Helios is getting buffed further. Let GCD heals be impactful so those hotbar slots dedicated to them don't feel like they aren't doing anything.