Please Return Randomness to Astrologian's Card System

[Rithy255]

I feel as the simple fact that if you were to add back RNG to astro (which I agree with) is that you can't really have variant damage cards mixed with more utility focused cards.

I think is Obvious that Lord/Lady Cards should become Ranged/Melee damage buff cards, while Draw should become utility cards, having a way to spread utility on a 90s-120s cooldown is also something that I think is needed, to make astros utility cards feel impactful, right now they're literally just "put on the tank and forget cards" if you even need to use them (lol you really don't 90% of the time)

I also don't think haste works in the current design of the game, maybe in a less strict system it can work but right now I'm pretty sure haste buffs can mess with rotations and burst windows, though haste buffs are likely the buffs you actually feel, so it would be nice if it can work..

[Wyndam]

Here's my two cents and I realize this will be unpopular in this particular thread: the current version of the cards is my favorite. Here's why.

Stormblood cards with their wildly different effects had the end result of fishing for Balance via redraw. In the end it was a lot of busy work to get a marginal benefit over playing a different healer and having stronger direct DPS contributions. Then we had a system where it was 6 cards in theory but really only two types and the three cards within each type were identical to each other outside of the name and icon. So I put AST aside and didn't play it outside getting it to max level until pretty much last week when I decided to get all my healers fixed up and playable.

AST now is in the place where I think its DPS rotation is probably the most interesting of any of the healers. It's a very low bar to clear. The busy work of manipulating the RNG is gone, though. I have two damage buff cards, pretty much exactly what I had before. And now the healing/defense oriented cards exist. They're not so powerful I feel compelled to save them for anything and if I don't use them by the time I need to redraw, they're gone anyway. So I throw them on the tank and the effect ends up being something similar to the fairy on SCH or kardia on SGE where it takes care of some garbage damage and I just don't need to think about it.

[Supersnow845]

I don’t really see how “the other 4 cards are so weak they can basically be ignored or thrown around like pointless garbage like druachole” can really be sold as a facet of good design ESPECIALLY considering AST already has 6 charges of other pointless single target heals

Who is using this many heals on a target that basically heals itself anyway.

Why is making the healer that required the most thinking more braindead a good thing, like if you want a braindead regen healer WHM is right there

[Rithy255]

I don’t really see how “the other 4 cards are so weak they can basically be ignored or thrown around like pointless garbage like druachole” can really be sold as a facet of good design ESPECIALLY considering AST already has 6 charges of other pointless single target heals

Who is using this many heals on a target that basically heals itself anyway.

Why is making the healer that required the most thinking more braindead a good thing, like if you want a braindead regen healer WHM is right there

Agreed, the current cards make no sense with how they're implemented having the majority of the cards be "put on tank or forget" skills just makes the entire "card system" feel slapped on, which it is, astro has three essential dignity charges, 2 celestial intersection charges, a single target mit+heal, I don't know when I've ever felt like I needed to use a card, not to mention the amount of AOE ogcds astro has, when are you ever going to need a card??? outside the DPS ones they current serve zero purpose.

I doubt this astro will get reworked honestly, Despite getting reworked every expansion I think they will see this rework as a "success" which is what bothers me the most.

[Valence]

Much like for damage rotations on other roles, you'll be hardly pressed to have compelling actions that are all very different and unique in effect from each other because the current pve battle system doesn't allow for more than 2 main variables: something that does damage, and something that either mitigates or heals. Good luck designing more than 5 different healing buttons with so little building blocks to work with.

But it certainly doesn't excuse the slow merging of what's left of differences notably for healer bubbles, that now mitigate AND regen for example. So imagine having to design healing and support cards on top of that... But HW/SB AST design was definitely the superior version in what it allowed to juggle with, even though cards were imbalanced between each other in terms of effects.

Still one variable they don't play enough with is movement speed, and much like Expedient, I'd love having a mobility card or two.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

They could achieve the same effect that is DT AST save the card VFX if they just did with the following:

• +2 Charges to Essential Dignity (This is Ewer. We only got one extra in DT).
• +1 Charge to Celestial Intersection (This is Spire).
• +1 Charge to Exaltation (This is Bole).

Done. No need to turn the cards into what they are today. Balance and Spear essentially remains unchanged. Arrow is the only one that doesn't have any equivalence, but pray tell what are they used for when you don't have SCH on your party? As 2nd Synastry? That one button we barely even press since forever? Making their ST healing stronger? I doubt. Because they need any effect that is not damage% but also not duplicating any of those 3 cards without thinking how it plays into AST's kits? I think that's it... lol.

There's a reason why DT AST has been called "WHM but star/card VFX". It's just 'all flashes no substance'.

[Chasingstars]

I prefer the stacked deck feeling as it just feels like the natural progression of a job that is meant to divination stuff, at most it could have evolved into that through level progression where at lower levels your more subject to RNG. I like how the cards do different things. And I disagree with putting utility cards as part one of the cards you could randomly draw like in Pre-Shadowbringers time as that would be just as much a feels bad if you actually wanted to damage-buff someone, or the vice-versa.

To me ,as someone who started on the free trial during shadowbringers and remembers when my level cap went from 35 to 60 when my jobs were all level 35, SHB/EW was fundamentally the most boring and lazy in design for AST's cards. Like sure it's random then, but it's like the equivalent of a rng coin flip for the difference of 2% when it came to damage buff for putting it on the correct target.

[Carighan]

I think is Obvious that Lord/Lady Cards should become Ranged/Melee damage buff cards

You mean Divination is dropped, and instead we alternatingly buff melees and ranged every 60 seconds? This has a weird side-effect in that only tanks and melee DPS are buffed during the main bursts, you are aware of that, yes?

[Connor]

You mean Divination is dropped, and instead we alternatingly buff melees and ranged every 60 seconds? This has a weird side-effect in that only tanks and melee DPS are buffed during the main bursts, you are aware of that, yes?

Sleeve Draw: Am I a joke to you?!

[Supersnow845]

The two minute burst window should go anyway so that suggestion being hampered by the burst window is probably a null point

Unless we want to argue them murdering the demi rotation to force solar Bahamut into all the burst windows was a good move