No genuine AST main worth their salt (i.e who's cleared high level content) ever really complained about the RNG for the main cards. The only time they would be an issue is if you queued a dungeon and got 2/2 melee or ranged in your party, which doesn't even matter because casual content can be cleared without hitting your buttons anyway. The third seal for astrodyne was the equivalent of WHM's freecure trait, and fishing for it was a mistake given how the personal DPS buff is only equivalent to half a malefic's potency for the entire buff window. The RNG issue was with Lady/Lord, since bloated healer toolkits meant you would always want Lord in 90% of cases.

The developers saying ''We've heard feedback of people disliking the RNG, even if some people like it. So we are removing RNG'' is crystal clear to me they listened to people who don't even play the job. I bet they also listened to those people who look back at AST in SB with rose-tinted glasses, who want their unique and individual cards back, so they can look at their hotbar and go ''wow, my cards are so interesting!'' as they continually keep pressing for the DPS increase card, because ironically, as conceptually interesting that different/unique cards may be, it is inevitable a damage increase variant will always be supreme with FF14's design. So instead of letting players fish or choose what unique card they want, they'll give you all of them at once per minute to avoid the ''fishing for balance'' issue of SB, forced and fixed on you, so you can see even clearer how useless and unneeded those mitigation and curative cards really are amidst your other abundance of healing and mitigation OGCD's. Oh, did I also forget to tell you AST is getting a third stack of ED and an entirely new (Level 100 I presume) mass AOE healing spell too? I'm sure you'll need those new cards you're getting!

AST mains of present lose what they love about their job, watching it get simplified and stripped down to something which doesn't resemble the core identity of the job to begin with. Pulling cards out of a deck and having RNG/fate guide you as per lore? Gone. A difficult and high APM burst window which took genuine skill and effort? Gone. Yet, even former AST mains from SB who want their old job back aren't getting what they want. Unique and interesting cards which have different effects and you could fish for what you want? No, you'll get your cards chosen for you and forced, where the mit/curative card will probably be nothing as interesting as MP regen or reducing cast times.

It's phenomenal how SE have missed the mark. I thought Shb into EW was bad... but in comparison, it was glorious compared to this shite.