Random Cards Were The Only Reason AST Felt Good/Different

[elioaiko]

I will die on the hill that is random card AST is the best AST.

Taking away that RNG just makes the job feel boring and predictable.

At this point, they're probably getting close to straight up deleting the card system entirely. They've spend 3 expansions trying to make it work for everyone complaining and trying to appease ppl to bring up AST's popularity only to realize that there's no way to make everyone happy with AST.

[Silver-Strider]

Stormblood was just fishing for damage cards. There was no interactivity with it, if you wanted to be optimal, you either successfully fished for damage cards, or you got a better-luck-next-time ticket.

As opposed to the current system where I hit draw and just disregard 2 out of 3 cards because they're functionally no different to every other oGCD in the toolkit. While I've never liked AST in any of its past incarnations, to say there wasn't any interactivity is just a blatant lie.

Between Redraw, Minor Arcana and Royal Road giving me ways to adjust my cards, Sleeve Draw to give me a mixed bag, and Time Dilation and CO to extend the duration of my cards (and regens), I had far more interactivity than I currently do, which is 0 now. I draw 4 cards now and that's it. There's no way to enhance the cards in any way, extend their duration, expand their effects to the party, nothing. The new system is probably the worst out of every system thus far because it lacks any interactivity at all, even seals for all their flaws had a goal in mind for their usage. Now, I just toss the 1 DPS card I get a minute on the highest appropriate DPS and the other 2 cards may as well just not even exist since I have other skills that do exactly the same thing they do but better, with the sole exception being Arrow and that's almost entirely because it buffs Addlo for SCH more than anything else of relevance. That 1 interaction between jobs though, is still nothing compared to what AST (and Healers as a whole) have lost.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

“WHM but card & star VFX” IMHO best describes the state of the job.

This is even worse than your day to day dad’s joke. It’s pathetic.

But I guess all the former WHM who wants stars and cards can now finally relish in getting their carbon copy? Lmao.

What’s next in the chopping block? GCD cards? Auto draw every 20s? :P

[velswen]

Randomness and being a pseudo-gambler was the thing that made AST fun. Cards had impact and meaning, so getting the right one felt good and winning came because losing was possible. So what's the point now?

Big agree, please bring RNG back to the job, the moment-to-moment decision making was the entire reason I played it.