Astro Card system is useless!

[Valmaxian]

After spending a few weeks with DT AST I agree with the general consensus that the cards don't feel impactful enough. I like the idea of having more diverse card effects, but in most of the content I enjoy the Arrow is super niche, and Ewer/Spire, while somewhat useful are never necessary. If the plan was to impose the same four cards every minute, I'd rather have two DMG+ cards, one utility, and Lord/Lady. But I'm also among those who much prefer HW/StB Astro. DT AST has been relatively enjoyable, but my least favorite iteration of the job thus far.

[Post]

I feel like cards are better than EW AST in some ways, namely that outside of 8 mans the system is more lively, but the effects are so redundant with AST's (and increasingly your other party member's) kit(s) that it feels even more tacked on overall.

For starters, cards feel even worse solo, the only way they could feel better without reintroducing Royal Road is to make them ALL have an amplified effect on the AST themselves imo. It also bugs me even more that healers have so many tools they just cannot aim at non-party members, it's gonna feel worse in the 24 man than ever when most of my cards are centered on utility the one tank I have that's not even tanking right now doesn't need.

You can completely ignore the system now except for MP, which was the same as in EW, because the biggest utility you bring is Divination which is wholly untied to the cards like it was when the new system was conceived in ShB. So now cards have even less of a reason to exist now that their effects are all things AST already does without them, where it used to be the devfining aspect of the job.

Instead of the cards building up to a lacklustre Astrodyne the cards themselves feel lacklustre instead.

I really think the interactions of the cards between themselves and the rest of the kit is where old AST shined, from Celestial Opposition/Time Dilation and Royal Road/Spread to Shuffle and Minor Arcana being consolations (my favorite Minor Arcana was in ShB when it just became a 'stronger' basic card for no Seal gain -- again this interacted with the cards further by turning good Seal luck into an even stronger burst phase on the teammate you chose, letting even a normally non ideal card shine in certain circumstances, which is what stars are all about).

I don't see why this couldn't be further improved with DT's kit as it stands -- if they were to let each card card you play amplify the effect of the rest in the set based on the order you play them then there could be some more fun to be had I think. Problem I see is that as they are now, 4 of the 6 cards are just oGCD cooldowns that you have to unlock every minute, a sort of contrived and very weak Aetherflow system, while the other 2 just get used in the 2 minute window. But like, if I play Spire before Spear and that made Spear suddenly the melee damage card or something, and then the arrow after that has a group wide effect because of the Spear... I guess it would be more complicated and possibly pointless and probably 'solved' as well since there's no RNG, but at least you'd get some more variety and cards interacting with each other.

[Sani2341]

Tbf. Even a solved 'card Rotation ' would be better than the 'dps buff+ unneeded oGCDs ' it is rn.

[Mapleine]

Stormblood AST was best AST. Nuff said.

I miss it so much. The last time I enjoyed healing.

Sleeve Draw in Stormblood was Christmas morning. Everything on AST after StB feels like a fake, pretend version of the job.

I remember hoping for a little targeting QoL going into Shadowbringers and instead they took soul out of the job

[Nahmazu]

I need someone to explain to me why I should even bother using the new cards over Aspected Benefit, Essential Dignity, Celestial Intersection, Exaltation, or literally anything else on our already packed healing kit? At least dps buffs added something, now I just toss out the dps card to the melee and spam Malefic for a full minute until I can draw for MP again. Literally falling asleep on it last alliance raid (Aglaia) 'cause there's rarely anything that would warrant that many spot heals/mit in casual. Maybe it could have been slightly more interesting if they were aoes, but then we've already got several of those too. Switching back to the single-card draw with a redraw option would at least help to make it feel more active, but I still wouldn't find spot mit or heals super useful. I can't speak for how it is in high end content or pre-SHB, but I mained it through SHB and EW for healing casual content and had a great time, but this...ain't it. This is soulless and boring.

[KDSilver]

I know people being vocal about it mostly don't like.

I personnaly have no problem with it.
Originally, I'm a HW/SB AST lover (for cards). I accepted the new system, it was fun it's own way.

Now, I was also looking for a way to make both defensive and offensive cards work together.

I think this AST version is a good middle ground between what I like about the old and the new system.

What I like the most I think is making Lady finally a good choice and a reliable healing skill to plan in the rotation.

I like the healing boost from arrow coupled with spire shield.
Most of the time, it's good for tanks, but I had situation it was great for DPS.

The 2min burst still stay satisfying to do.

[PyurBlue]

The problem is that we're trying to find interesting effects on support cards but the battle system is too thin to offer actual options to feed the concept beyond damage. Healing and mitigation is already covered by AST's toolkit (like all healers). What's left? MP? Nobody cares about MP anymore. Mobility? Sure maybe, but again, very niche especially if it's not AoE.

I think this is the problem. AST itself is fine, possibly the best it has ever been. But the game only cares about damage buffs because we have 180% of the healing and support we need for any given encounter and everything is so heavily scripted that after a couple of runs you memorize the steps and stop thinking about what to do.

If we had more dynamic content with higher healing demands the current cards, or something similar, would shine. I don't want to revert to EW's system as I found nothing interesting about it. The same card over and over, but with a forced melee/ranged divide to prevent putting one card on the same player, though even that may have been unnecessary since cards don't stack.

[Rysou]

I ran my first alliance raid in DT. The tank in my party was never the main.
I did not know what to do with my 4 "tank" cards so I just threw them on random party members. It's just meh in light party and 8-man. I prefer the dps buff cards.

[Connor]

I would like the ‘defensive’/‘healing’ cards if they were actually good personally. I love the supporting the party in any way. But the effects on them currently are so uninspired and useless that even I can’t enjoy them lol.

Bole doesn’t really do anything because tanks have billions of mitigations already and Exaltation does the same thing but better.

Ewer is literally just Aspected Benefic wearing a wig, and is by far the least useful card of them all lol. The one thing Astrologian has on basically all its spells / skills (regen) and devs thought we needed a card for it? I still cannot find a reason to ever use it besides yeeting it at the tank and out of my sight lol.

Arrow just feels like a joke…who has ever needed a 10% healing bonus? Like ever? lol

Spire is just extremely weak lol. Feels like I can barely hit Intersection fact enough to get them both on tank to double up on shields lol.


My fanfic fixes:
Bole - 10% HP increase and restores the difference. Can’t be devalued by tank mitigations, strength scales with tank’s max HP, extra HP can save potentially save dps with vulns.
Ewer - MP Regen. Yes it’s problematic, gamebreaking, etc. But it would be useless in the current game design as MP management no longer exists. So I mean, why not lol? Can’t break the balance of something when it’s too simplistic to unbalance lol.
Arrow - Haste. But: It only works on healers! I mean, a mini-PoM effect perfectly fits the ‘healer support’ card but also gives them the opportunity to leverage it for faster dps or whatever.
Spire - Keep the shield strength but make it like Haima where it reapplies itself once or twice before dissipating. Or maybe something like, stores target HP when shield breaks. Idk just something more interesting than literal Intersection lol

[PyurBlue]

Bole doesn’t really do anything because tanks have billions of mitigations already and Exaltation does the same thing but better.

...

Bole - 10% HP increase and restores the difference. Can’t be devalued by tank mitigations, strength scales with tank’s max HP, extra HP can save potentially save dps with vulns.

Isn't that the same? The problem with tanks is too much mitigation/healing. Extra HP doesn't change anything and it doesn't make it more or less useful than damage reduction when it comes to vuln. In fact that's a good use for the current bole, players with vuln stacks.