Astro Card system is useless!

[Middie]

Did the raids the other night as AST and the cards still feel clunky.

Half the time the non-DPS cards were just ignored, the value wasn't there for the GCD, and I had better tools available.

Someone else said it, and got flamed haha, but it really feels like a watered down Aetherflow. Hit it every minute, regardless of if I had cards left, the mana regen is more important.

In EW, yeah they're all DPS cards, but I was throwing them out quickly because they had clear value.

I still enjoy the job, but I do admit I care a lot less about the cards now which is a shame as it's part of the core identity.

[Zolvolt]

I will say there was too many dead space moments in the normal raids. Lots of cool stuff goes on, but even on Scholar thre was little roo. To need faerie tether, or AF that's not energy drain. Same with astro cards, just not enough going on frequently enough

[Zaytex]

This job went from constantly busy to having a whole lot of nothing to do. The malefic mashing really stands out more now that I have nothing to do outside the burst window unless damage or mitigation is required, which isn't always necessary given FF14's job design.

Massive L rework

[Ramiee]

Sat down to try new AST today to see what its like.
Yikes.

I get that people wanted utility cards but the lack of randomness makes it so boring. I think a better way of handling this is having the 3 buttons be; Damage card, utility card, redraw.
Damage card would be 3 cards one that buffs melees one for ranged and one for supports. Other 3 utility will be damage taken down, regen and shield. Might be better options. Make each draw random but you get a 1 in 3 chance and a garanteed damage buff and utility. Redraw works in the sense that it redraws all present cards so if you think the damage buff is good but the utility is bad for the moment you use the damage buff then redraw for the utility, reverse for reverse scenario and if both cards are bad for the situation you just press redraw and it redraws both, lack of button bloat.

[bitofabother]

I want to be clear, 55s draw helps a lot on the job functioning at all, the additional lightspeed charge feels great, macro potency being fixed is good...

but the cards themselves just... feel really bad. Astrodyne meant that even in some of the most boring content, we had something to do, and there was some thought around holding it or not in world content... I know it's not really something to optimize for, but without more frequent cards, FATES and such feel even worse on Astro than they did before. Not that the cards aren't somewhat useful effects for something like Palace, but ... I dunno. There's something really clearly missing -- I don't feel too bad when I hold cards for making sure Div gets full buffs, because the others are pretty useless, but it means that the main mechanic of the job just isn't there for extended periods of time if pulls are taking too long..

Out of combat free draw, maybe? Maybe that's too powerful. Dying losing all your cards not happening? That'd be nice, they'd probably feel pretty good as more recovery tools like that. Maybe the 50-70 experience doesn't matter at all anymore but it really sucks getting only 50 and below duties in roulettes for no reason.

[Rehayem]

New card system is meaningless. There's only 2 cards that are actually good, rest are only thrown at the tank. They should've been party benefits of sorts (think Arrow or Bole in PvP). The job used to be high APM but now it's just more Malefic spam.

But don't worry guys, just wait 2,5 years for yet another rework, and then yet another one in 4-5 years.

[Unyqua]

Maybe the other cards beside the DPS buff ones should enhance an existing spell...
like boost the effect of it so you dont really have the redundancy.
just a thought tho.

[Post]

Yeah, uh, maybe AoE balance was too strong comparatively to other cards, but they gave us Divination anyways to replace it. Why not just have ALL the new cards be AoE like PvP and toss Divination?

Still no RNG but then at least the cards wouldn't feel useless in the vast majority of encounters. They don't design bosses to focus damage on non-tank players, so unless your Tank is getting whacked (and how can they with all that THEY have, let alone all the non card free oGCDs we have) there's little for AST to do with its cards unless it's a really pedantic player.

That's what AST feels like to me, I'm not using the cards because they're fun or feel satisfying, I'm using them because they're there and they'll just go to waste. I'd say allow them to be converted into Minor Arcanas again but then it's just gonna be some half baked hopefully Lord of Crowns 'Energy Drain Spam', and that system's already weak enough on the job ostensibly designed for it.

I don't think this would fix AST or make it fun from where we are, but it would step towards making the cards feel central to its kit again. Honestly, they're starting to feel vestigial.

[Connor]

Having done some of the normal raids on Astrologian:

The defensive cards are still functionally redundant lol. Unless you’re paired with a WHM you’re going to have mitigations coming out your ass between the tanks, dps and SCH/SGE.

Bole just feels like a complete waste of an OGCD slot even on dps that have taken damage.

Ewer is made entirely redundant by the fact every job has instant healing so it’s extremely rare for anyone to require HP regen (it just becomes overheal lol). I’d rather just use Celestial Opposition or flash Collective Unconscious if I was that desperate for regen lol, at least those are AoE

Arrow is just lol . Single target mantra is probably the most useless effect I could ever think of, and serves essentially no purpose at all except creating the illusion you have more cards than you actually do.

Lastly the shield on spire is so weak a gust of wind breaks it lol. I’ve yet to find any actual way to turn it into a benefit and not just something completely unnecessary lol; Celestial Intersection already exists.

Did they make the card system for like min Ilvl ultimates or something lol? Literally 8/10 of all cards have effects that are completely out of place in ffxiv’s encounter design

[Supersnow845]

Having done some of the normal raids on Astrologian:

The defensive cards are still functionally redundant lol. Unless you’re paired with a WHM you’re going to have mitigations coming out your ass between the tanks, dps and SCH/SGE.

Bole just feels like a complete waste of an OGCD slot even on dps that have taken damage.

Ewer is made entirely redundant by the fact every job has instant healing so it’s extremely rare for anyone to require HP regen (it just becomes overheal lol). I’d rather just use Celestial Opposition or flash Collective Unconscious if I was that desperate for regen lol, at least those are AoE

Arrow is just lol . Single target mantra is probably the most useless effect I could ever think of, and serves essentially no purpose at all except creating the illusion you have more cards than you actually do.

Lastly the shield on spire is so weak a gust of wind breaks it lol. I’ve yet to find any actual way to turn it into a benefit and not just something completely unnecessary lol; Celestial Intersection already exists.

Did they make the card system for like min Ilvl ultimates or something lol? Literally 8/10 of all cards have effects that are completely out of place in ffxiv’s encounter design

Arrow is ironically the best of those 4 cards because it can buff spreadlo and it’s not like the power couple of AST+SCH needs more buffs