Astro Card system is useless!

[Raikai]

I was a bit skeptical trying the DT AST, but honestly?... While is not the SB or even ShB, it's still better than Endwalker's.

Granted, I'm only lv 93 but It's really nice not having RNG and having cards as a defensive/healing resource.

To note, I'm still sympathetic with the healer strike movement. I'm only leveling the job because I want all role quests completed.

[LU_K]

I wonder if the solution for astro was to draw one card at a time but have it be one or the other and like let you save them for a burst. SO you would use draw and either get balance or spear, arrow or bole, etc etc etc. It would still have some sort of RNG but it would be much harder to game the system and it would stick with the tarot theme as when you draw tarot cards you typically draw with SOMETHING in mind already and the card will be in response to that.

I also think each card should offer a damage increase buff anyway but at a lesser value

And we still should have something to work towards- I liked the seal system personally. Perhaps drawing seals would offer a dps ability or something. IDK I still love astro but the drawing cards was the most fun aspact and now I draw once a min and play only a fraction of the cards.

[bitofabother]

I tried them out running some stuff with my FC, and... oof. They just don't feel impactful, at all. There's not a single moment where I put one of the 4 heal-or-mit cards on someone where it felt like the card did anything compared to just the background of the fight.

[elioaiko]

Stormblood AST was best AST. Nuff said.

Screaming this from the mountain top. If they had just evolved this version of AST instead, we'd get a better AST.

I don't really get the notion that RNG on AST is annoying. It's makes the job interesting. Every run is different. Sure it's not consistent in the damage buffs you want but that's why Divination exists.

If we can't have SB AST back, then I would have settled 4.5 ShB AST which was a good compromise.

[Cicilla]

Overall as an AST main, my rating is firmly...okay. The cards don't have MP regen (so now if shite hits the fan, I have lucid dreaming to mp regen) and the effects have little to no reason to even bother tossing them out anymore. Yes, the seals were a bit of a pain, but astrodyne made the speed and extra mp regen worth it.
I've started power-leveling SCH to take over MSQ because it's just not interesting enough to stay on. At this point, yay more AST players, but they lobotomized the class to the point WHM has more personality.

[Katish]

"Riveting" gameplay we lost two cards and now we have to save them all for the burst. Play 2, Play 3 can be straight up removed which makes AST have even less buttons. I truly dislike this iteration of AST over them all, this is not AST this is WHM. Although AST was previously WHM with the RNG element to try and change them, that nuance is what made AST, AST. Now it is just WHM in feeling, nothing to break the monotony...and heals saved for when you would use them similar to any other healer. I wanted the card system expanded not shrunk as with these changes that's exactly what happened.

Below is a spoiler dungeon, if you have not completed DT I don't recommend watching it.
https://youtu.be/gZsOGSW2vl4

[Connor]

Playing AST with the new cards, it felt like I had to completely invent reasons to use Arrow / Bole / Ewer / Spire. I mean, it’s not like there’s enough damage output to warrant actually caring about how you use them, and even then why bother when you have things like Exaltation and Celestial Intersection.

Literally the only use I could find for Arrow was putting it on tank and slapping them Aspected Benefic even though they didn’t really need it. Spire and Ewer frankly I just dumped on the tank every time before redrawing. There’s rarely any instances I can think of where you’d want to give a dps a small HP shield, and Ewer is kinda pointless when you can just use one Essential Dignity’s many many charges lol.

Basically we draw 3 cards every time but 2 of those three at entirely redundant. Like not only do the effects majorly suck, but they’re not even things we couldn’t do before. Every card except damage has an oGCD ability equivalent (that’s usually better)

[SieyaM]

Absolutely, cards all had different effects and with royal road and lord and lady you had enough options to dump cards you didn't want.

[OliverQ]

I don't play Astro much, but I did try the new system and I agree, 4 of the 6 cards just feel kinda pointless. They're just extra abilities we already have that are rarely needed.

[Sairys]

I don't feel like the new cards really hit the mark for me. I thought the idea was we'd be throwing cards around at different party members instead, maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I end up just aiming to get things lined up so I can throw Balance on a Melee and Spear on a Ranged in the divination window. Everything else just goes on the Tank.

For me, at least, I also keep fumbling things when I've got an Astral draw and I use divination. I'll get used to it in time, of course, but right now I keep going... balance, divination, "ooh I should draw to get spear in", umbral draw, "oh damn I forgot lord of crowns". So it feels like it'd flow nicer if we got Spear with Astral draw so we'd have our two damage buffs with Lord of Crowns, I can appreciate potentially the desire is to allow us to mess up and make us ensure we time our draws but I'm not sure that's really "skilled" play.

That would also kinda address a nitpicky disappointment I have, they haven't preserved some of the lore they expressed previously.
We've got the cards grouped into Astral and Umbral now, but they were already grouped into the Elemental Conquests and Submissions in Shadowbringers. (Minor arcana with Balance, Arrow, and Spear gave Lord of Crowns. Bole, Ewer, and Spire for Lady of Crowns).
Similarly, all the cards are now paired into I, II, and III but... they were already paired into Solar, Lunar, and Celestial.

Rearranging the cards to align with those bits of lore while keeping their current effects... would result in us having both damage buffs ready alongside Lord of Crowns and Arrow to hit someone harder with heals. Again it's a nitpick, but it does hit a little cause I'd find it easier to work with if the cards stuck with the existing lore so it's also a bit ironic I guess.