Ast Cards

[Ari_Calithiel]

To be frank, I hate the new card system with a passion. It feels meaningless when 4 of the 6 cards essentially go to the tank and the tank does not need them as they are all decked out with their new mitigation and self sustain. To quote another poster, the cards feel like fluff. I do not feel as though they contribute in any meaningful way to aiding my team or better assisting in the fight.

The way FFXIV's system works is everyone is a dps with the healer and tank roles having a few extra buttons that allow them to take damage or heal it. But a team's goal is to kill the boss as fast as possible before the boss kills you. So why is it that the card system of EW and ShB which focused on maximizing this core belief of FF combat, the card system which focused on improving the team's dps was scrapped for this... Fluff? Playing Astro is a challenge anymore. The main skill expression of the class is gone and replaced by preassigned, scripted cards with only 2 of them having any real impact. And for those advocating for the mitigation card, we already have single target mitigation. Why do we need more? If a tank is that bad at rotating their mitigation that we need more mitigation to help them, then there is a problem with the tank. No other healer has more than one single target mitigation.


I did not mind the randomness of the cards. It gave me, and I'm sure, other Astro players, a chance to flex their skills by reacting on the fly. But now, every minute I get 1 useful cards and 2 others I dump on the tank. I had hoped and prayed that 7.05 they would revert these awful changes, but all they did was apply a bandaid in the form of removing the cool down on the play. Yay... I can now play my 4 useless cards faster. Please give us back the old card system at least until you devs can figure out what else to do with astro in 8.0. I truly hate this new one.

[PyurBlue]

The current system could be improved, but I'd rather not go back to EW cards. Damage is always useful, but I like variety and having cards that don't need to be played immediately most of the time.

Having multiple mitigation options isn't a bad thing. It could even be argued to be a good thing because it means there is the potential to combine different mitigation tools to increase effectiveness which can be more interesting that just having a dedicated single use button for it that's always the same. SE could probably lean on this more and make the support cards have more of an augmentation effect on other skills, though the main problem remains the undertuned damage of most content.

[Zolvolt]

The problem with astro cards right now is largely community perception on healing. Astro cards effects are not going to save someone from death by themself, so many astro's just opt to not use them. (even the bole despite how strong a 10% mitigation CD is). Many astro's seem to not understand how the arrow works too, which doesn't help things.

But right now astro's mitigative and restoration cards are designed to make mechanics comfier, or to throw on someone who messed up a mechanic, where as the community seems to think that if it doesn't directly prevent death then it's not worth pressing. Which is pretty silly honestly. I wouldn't complain if the cards got a buff, but it'd be nice if players just learned that mitigating more = a good thing.

[Sani2341]

The problem with astro cards right now is largely community perception on healing. Astro cards effects are not going to save someone from death by themself, so many astro's just opt to not use them. (even the bole despite how strong a 10% mitigation CD is). Many astro's seem to not understand how the arrow works too, which doesn't help things.

But right now astro's mitigative and restoration cards are designed to make mechanics comfier, or to throw on someone who messed up a mechanic, where as the community seems to think that if it doesn't directly prevent death then it's not worth pressing. Which is pretty silly honestly. I wouldn't complain if the cards got a buff, but it'd be nice if players just learned that mitigating more = a good thing.

It's more that I have more than enough tools that do the exact same thing often on shorter cooldowns, with better potency. and by the point I ran out of all of those, the cards aren't gonna save the aoe lickers butt either.

[Ari_Calithiel]

The current system could be improved, but I'd rather not go back to EW cards. Damage is always useful, but I like variety and having cards that don't need to be played immediately most of the time.

I agree, multiple mitigation isn't terrible. But it is only truly useful at the beginning of a tier. Once people start to gather gear, it becomes entirely useless. The healing increase on target card only works with GCD heals and more often than not, your scholar is sprealo-ing on times when you won't have the card available and you typically don't need to spam GCD heals. And if you do, you would use Synastry, not the card. The HOT and shield cards are so entirely useless. I know the official forums hate using 3rd party tools and sites, but if you were to go on FFLogs and look at the actual healing done in fights from those cards, it is a miniscule fraction of your actual healing. It is so little I honestly won't be bothered using it unless I have no other buttons I need to press in my oGCD.


At least with the DPS cards, you had a need to use them. I was never bored using them because I personally was always trying to optomize when to use them. Trying to catch the Dancer's dance in the card or giving it to the Reaper before their enshroud. I feel like the people who say they are boring were never really trying to use them when they were the most useful and instead just tossed them out whenever they felt like without thinking about when it would be most beneficial.

[Ari_Calithiel]

The problem with astro cards right now is largely community perception on healing. Astro cards effects are not going to save someone from death by themself, so many astro's just opt to not use them. (even the bole despite how strong a 10% mitigation CD is). Many astro's seem to not understand how the arrow works too, which doesn't help things.

But right now astro's mitigative and restoration cards are designed to make mechanics comfier, or to throw on someone who messed up a mechanic, where as the community seems to think that if it doesn't directly prevent death then it's not worth pressing. Which is pretty silly honestly. I wouldn't complain if the cards got a buff, but it'd be nice if players just learned that mitigating more = a good thing.

Like I said in a response to another person, the actual healing done by those cards is nothing. If you go to any Astro's logs on FFLogs and look at the actual numbers, it is miniscule. I know people here don't like that site because of the parsing and whatnot, but it is useful in seeing what the actual math comes out to be. And it is not amaze. Unless you have nothing else to do, those cards aren't really worth it. Especially the regen.

[Zolvolt]

Like I said in a response to another person, the actual healing done by those cards is nothing. If you go to any Astro's logs on FFLogs and look at the actual numbers, it is miniscule. I know people here don't like that site because of the parsing and whatnot, but it is useful in seeing what the actual math comes out to be. And it is not amaze. Unless you have nothing else to do, those cards aren't really worth it. Especially the regen.

Yeah if you look at logs for people who utilized all of the uses of their cards properly the healing adds up. On an 8 minute fight with 5 uses of bole, 5 uses of spire, 5 ewers, it well over 239k total healing/mitigation. Thats more than multiple casts of aspected benefic. Thats more than 7 uses of horoscope helios. Thats more mitigation than 4+ uses of exaltation.

It's not the cards don't do any meaningful mitigation, it's that people don't know how to look at logs or use their cards correctly. In order to claim that the cards don't do anything you would have to concede that most of astro's toolkit does not do anything. Which is silly.

[Payadopa]

Yeah if you look at logs for people who utilized all of the uses of their cards properly the healing adds up. On an 8 minute fight with 5 uses of bole, 5 uses of spire, 5 ewers, it well over 239k total healing/mitigation. Thats more than multiple casts of aspected benefic. Thats more than 7 uses of horoscope helios. Thats more mitigation than 4+ uses of exaltation.

It's not the cards don't do any meaningful mitigation, it's that people don't know how to look at logs or use their cards correctly. In order to claim that the cards don't do anything you would have to concede that most of astro's toolkit does not do anything. Which is silly.

I'd like to have the fun RNG back, please. I don't care about the math and someone's parse. It's about fun gameplay. Drawing the exact same cards at the exact same time is the opposite of fun. If people don't like the RNG there are 3 other healers to choose from.

[Connor]

It's not the cards don't do any meaningful mitigation, it's that people don't know how to look at logs or use their cards correctly. In order to claim that the cards don't do anything you would have to concede that most of astro's toolkit does not do anything. Which is silly.

Classic.
‘Everyone who doesn’t like this thing is just doing it wrong except me!’

It’s as if Yoshi-P himself is speaking through you

[Zolvolt]

Classic.
‘Everyone who doesn’t like this thing is just doing it wrong except me!’

It’s as if Yoshi-P himself is speaking through you

The numbers speak for themselves imo. The only time I see them not adding up to decent numbers is when you see ewer casts at like 3 per ancounter and spire at 1, or bole being used improperly.