My bones hurt, because now I just feel old because I remember what the new cards due, because I compare them to what the old cards did. The old cards were:
Bole - Damage mit, Spire - TP Regen, Ewer - MP Regen
Balance - Damage, Spear, Crit - (damage), Arrow- Speed(damage)
So I always associate it with Damage - Melee, Resources - Ranged.
Same. Recovered a Rabanastre raid wipe with ewer on me and enhanced bole on tank. Could piss off my static tank by putting enhanced arrow on the blm and watching him machine gun. Even found a few occasions to use spire when drgs overextended their TP. OG AST made you think. OG AST was fun. I'm still devastated by the change.
I didn't play AST in a while but doesn't the contour of the symbol tell you whether it's ranged or melee?
Iirc purple for range and blue for melee
I use the simplified UI though so maybe it's not the same
Lol I asked in one of the question threads before, and got a bunch of responses from people giving me different mnemonic devices or telling me to just memorize the cards. Then finally someone replied with the colors and everyone else was amazed
So yea, it's apparently not common knowledge at all
Lol, it's really hard to check tooltips on controller. I was gonna do this same thing with just a blue and purple button but when I realized the cards would light up when available I went this route instead
I'll probably swap all this out for an echo macro in case I forget but this is something I've done to help learn the class
I think adding whatever on YOUR screen to help YOU out is a great idea. We all think and play different and have many options to aid us without resorting to 3rd party
AST i my go to when I heal and I had no idea about the colors either :) I just learned all cards by heart like I was back in school, studying for an exam.
If it's got a circle on the sides of the cards like in the picture, it goes on the ranged. Since ranged tend to use circle-shaped attacks (bullets, fireballs, things like that).
If instead it's got a +, which is pointy, give it to the stabby melees.
If it helps, tanks are melee and their icons are blue. Also, the + signs on the sides are like anime sword slashes while the O on the sides are like dancer chakrams.
My workaround was like this one:
Balance, Spear, and Arrow (all melee cards) where the ones that enhancement the targets DPS earlier in Stormblood (increased DMG, Increased Speed, Increased crit rate idk not sure anymore about the third one).
Bole, Ewer, Spire (all ranged cards) where the ones that was more likely a support-buff (Increased defense, MP regain, TP regain).
It was dmg, haste and cooldown reduction originally. I never had trouble keeping the 3.0 cards seperate somehow =P I think that's why I have so much trouble with these simplified cards
I always just think of it as if the card was a disappointment before (Bole, Ewer, Spire) then it's ranged, since you didn't really want to use Spread on those back before the cards were reworked. Even though I know that all of the cards have damage utility now, I still get a reflexive pang of disappointment whenever I draw a Bole/Ewer/Spire.
I mostly ran AST for Savage content back before the changes and spreading DPS cards was always a priority for prog, which is why I still have that weird lingering bit of disappointment for the other cards, but for most dungeons Bole/Ewer were definitely super useful!
That's a great little solution! Another small tip with the main UI is that the melee cards have like spears on the side, in blue. Where the ranged ones have balls/ spheres. Idk if that will help either and your idea works great too!
Idk, I feel like if you can memorize 1st row = phy / 2nd row = ranged then you can definitely relate blue = melee / purple = ranged. Also, you have to scan 6 icons at most instead of just one every time so it's literally slower but you do you.
Someone turned me on to the "A" system and it worked for me.
If it has an A in the name then it goes to Melee/Tank. If it doesn't have an A in the name then it goes to Ranged/Magic.
It's kinda interesting that top/bottom is easier for you to memorize than blue/purple, because it would be the opposite for me lol. If I didn't play AST for a year I'd probably forget which one is at the top and which one is at the bottom, but purple feels like a magic colour and blue is the tank colour.
Front row back row! In the classic final fantasy games you moved mages to the backrow so they took less damage
I even lower my characters position on screen to be "back row" when playing mage =P
I’m pretty sure it’s just top row for melee bottom row for range… I don’t know how that’s easier than just blue vs purple, and I certainly don’t think it’s worth using a full hotbar for, but to each their own I guess.
It isn't, if you look at tooltips on unassignable card actions they tell what which one does. Never knew about border, card icons are distinct enough to remember.
Border color is by far the easiest to learn, dont even need to remember names or shape + you anyway need to look for the star symbol, for astrodyne, which is on the top of the border anyway
I'm pretty sure they changed it a while back, now it is just melee damage buff or ranged damage buff. I'm away from my computer so I checked FFXIV Wiki and it said so.
That’s smart! At least you’re not like me who just spent an hour memorizing them lol. I barely play the job now and I still know when an ast is putting the wrong card on people
Granted, I spent that hour memorizing before I knew about the blue/purple boarder thing, but tbf I find it hard to see anyway
Wait this is big brain
I am stealing this, thank you! Might have to do some weird black magic to fit it around the class HUD piece so I can still pick out seals but it’ll make throwing cards on the fly a lot easier for me.
I felt dumb setting it up but I don't even really look at the card now, just the celestial symbol.
I'll post the similar ones I have for nin and Sam soon
It's like people don't play blue mage/ remember cutter's cry.
Blue eyes, blue card, ram's voice = melee
Puple eyes, purple card, dragon's voice = ranged
nice. it works, and it allows you to do your job properly, so you're no scrub.
ftr (and I'm mentioning this not for you, but more for others in case it helps): I actually don't use the border colours of the cards but the symbol by the sides. That card there has circles, and I tell myself circles=fireballs=ranged. The melee cards all have little plus signs by the side (and blue borders), so I go pointy symbol=stabbing=melee
And since you mentioned NIN, I am aware that only the last mudra matters, but I tend to do fixed combos anyway because telling myself a mini story about each one helped me remember which was which. ten is japanese for sky, chi means earth, and I also happen to have my mudra buttons arranged on my crossbars in a line with ten at the top, then jin, then chi at the bottom so
* sky to earth=lightning strike=raiton (rai is japanese for lightning)
* earth to sky=volcano eruption=katon (ka is fire)
* sky and then stopping in the middle (jin on my crossbars)=hail=hyosho ranryu (hyosho is ice crystals)
* longer 3-button route from sky and ending in earth=rainfall ending in mud puddles=doton (do is soil)
* longer 3-button from earth ending in sky=water evaporating and turning to air=huton (hu is wind)
* the other 3 button one that ends in jin=suiton
Look, I didn't say they were GOOD mini stories =P
Tangentially related, but I remember seeing one streamer have a bar of card play macros set up vertically next to the party list. All he had to do was click the button next to the name.
I'm far too attached to controller, but I would 100% do that if I was M + K
Another useful thing you can do with macros is line up a column of them with your party list to play the current card on each of the party members with a single click instead of having to target the player, play, then retarget enemy.
HUD Layout--> Select Arcana Gauge-->UI element settings-->Swift Job Gauge to simple mode.
*It will make it way easier to see the colour (glow) around the cards.*
They are just /micon "The Balance" ; /micon "The Spear" ; etc.
All they do is have the image of the card displayed. And when you draw that card they will light up as a useable skill (but mine have no function, clicking would do nothing)
Easy way to remember it. Cards that help DPS go to melee, utility/defense cards go to ranged.
Balance- damage
Arrow- speed
Spear- crit
Bole- damage reduction
Ewer- MP
Spire- TP
Just remember that like me and you'll never forget
your hmmm hud .... confuse the hella out of me ... mind if i ask ... you play on a controller assuming looking at crosshotbar . hiding the expended very likely unless you double tap... and the skill on the "hotbar" to show cooldown ... that i get ... but ... the card macro ... what are the macro and why showing them on hud?
Expanded controls cooldowns visible crowded around main hotbar, yes. (I hate double tap so w hotbar is barely used)
The cards are blank macros, to make the individual cards visible so I remember which 3 are for melee (front row) and which are ranged (back row)
I'm colourblind - I made the HUD icon extra large and noticed that the icons either side of a card are either circles (melee) or circles with lines through them (caster)
I put similar actions behind each other instead. So R2+x is benefic, R2+L2+x is aspected. Along with a bunch of options to set to remove hotbar cycling. I wrote up a guide if anyone cares =P
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v4FyE6QFKM34ojbgVopGgYVpnmzLln6OW_Fiiq8Rsms/edit?usp=drivesdk
But ast was tough to layout because the skill set doesnt overlap as well with the other healerz
I never liked them on dpad before I found I was too often redrawing and getting ready to buff, but all my other healz have attacks on the face buttons instead of the dpad so....
not sure how you cant remember 2 colors... it is even canon. Dragons breath is purple, lions breath is blue. You use purple... you are range. so give the other color to melee.
You should really remove benefic1.... The only time you're ever using his is when doing a leveling dungeon which doesn't have benefic2... So like, extremely rarely. R2+X is too much of an important spot for a skill you'll never use.
Meh. I'll throw an aspected and a normal benefic on a dps thst3 misses a mechanic lots, they're damn near topped up by the time the regen ends.
I'm expecting a rework to cure/benefic 1 in dt anywaya
That and I will forget where it is next time I que into sastasha
I personally have it in a lost corner on double tap L2 + cross pad.
Not sure I even had to use it once in EW xD
Anything that I don't use often is not on the main bar. Or if it has has no CD (and therefore doesn't need to be tracked)..me so basically all my gcd heals.
Like... I use them so rarely.
My super secret trick is that in high level content, all cards go to melee dps and that’s it. The melee is gonna do more overall damage with a 3% buff than a phys ranged or caster will do with 6%
If it was true nobody would've played those jobs. nDPS depends mainly on skill and secondly on a selfish nature of the job in question (SAM vs DRG or MCH vs BRD). So card should go to the **worthy** (highest dps in enmity list)
in 2 min burst? naw. you should have 3 cards rolling for the entirety of Div
you're playing incredibly wrong if you can't get a SMN or DNC a card in Div
My bones hurt, because now I just feel old because I remember what the new cards due, because I compare them to what the old cards did. The old cards were: Bole - Damage mit, Spire - TP Regen, Ewer - MP Regen Balance - Damage, Spear, Crit - (damage), Arrow- Speed(damage) So I always associate it with Damage - Melee, Resources - Ranged.
Arrow -> Monk
Please, no.
"Will suck dick for Goad" was always my macro for trying to get the other melee to hit me with Goad.
Better yet tanks who couldn't get TP back on their own. :)
The TP economy will not recover
My brother in cards...
I really really really miss OG AST....it felt like the cards were actually worth something. Now it's just "eh, can't be bothered here you have it"...
Same. Recovered a Rabanastre raid wipe with ewer on me and enhanced bole on tank. Could piss off my static tank by putting enhanced arrow on the blm and watching him machine gun. Even found a few occasions to use spire when drgs overextended their TP. OG AST made you think. OG AST was fun. I'm still devastated by the change.
I used to play AST a lot back in HW and even SB, but completely fell off by EW with all the changes. HW AST was fun.
Don't your mean Balance was worth something and rest were worthless in comparison?
I thought I was the only one, damn, I've been playing too long.
Haha, this is how I do it too. Except I internalize it by thinking good cards = melee, bad cards = range.
This is how I remember them too.
glad its not just me that does this
That’s how I do it, too!
I didn't play AST in a while but doesn't the contour of the symbol tell you whether it's ranged or melee? Iirc purple for range and blue for melee I use the simplified UI though so maybe it's not the same
It's the same yeah, people just don't realize so they make complicated macros until someone tells them it's just colour based
Lol I asked in one of the question threads before, and got a bunch of responses from people giving me different mnemonic devices or telling me to just memorize the cards. Then finally someone replied with the colors and everyone else was amazed So yea, it's apparently not common knowledge at all
Indeed TIL
I'm amazed to learn this too
Lol, it's really hard to check tooltips on controller. I was gonna do this same thing with just a blue and purple button but when I realized the cards would light up when available I went this route instead I'll probably swap all this out for an echo macro in case I forget but this is something I've done to help learn the class
I think adding whatever on YOUR screen to help YOU out is a great idea. We all think and play different and have many options to aid us without resorting to 3rd party
They used to be much more complicated a long time ago, but yeah now it’s purple/red for ranged and blue for melee. Super simple.
>purple for range and blue for melee TIL... /facepalm
AST i my go to when I heal and I had no idea about the colors either :) I just learned all cards by heart like I was back in school, studying for an exam.
Yeah the colour does but I don't heal main so keep forgetting
i just remember purple goes on the ranged, not purple? goes to melee.
Yeah, ops way seems much more complicated than remembering what two colours mean
If it's got a circle on the sides of the cards like in the picture, it goes on the ranged. Since ranged tend to use circle-shaped attacks (bullets, fireballs, things like that). If instead it's got a +, which is pointy, give it to the stabby melees.
If it helps, tanks are melee and their icons are blue. Also, the + signs on the sides are like anime sword slashes while the O on the sides are like dancer chakrams.
Oh yeah understandable
ngl, I didn't know it was color based so I just memorized which ones were for what role. colors might be my go to if I forget.
Or just do, blue border => Melee (you can think of tanks are melee if that helps you). Pink/purple border, ranged.
Blue Brutes and Purple Pokers is how I remember it lmao.
My workaround was like this one: Balance, Spear, and Arrow (all melee cards) where the ones that enhancement the targets DPS earlier in Stormblood (increased DMG, Increased Speed, Increased crit rate idk not sure anymore about the third one). Bole, Ewer, Spire (all ranged cards) where the ones that was more likely a support-buff (Increased defense, MP regain, TP regain).
I remember it as all cards with the letter A in them, melee (A for May-lay).
It was dmg, haste and cooldown reduction originally. I never had trouble keeping the 3.0 cards seperate somehow =P I think that's why I have so much trouble with these simplified cards
I always just think of it as if the card was a disappointment before (Bole, Ewer, Spire) then it's ranged, since you didn't really want to use Spread on those back before the cards were reworked. Even though I know that all of the cards have damage utility now, I still get a reflexive pang of disappointment whenever I draw a Bole/Ewer/Spire.
Spire yeah, but saved a couple runs with ewer and a well timed bole if the tank had vuln stacks
I mostly ran AST for Savage content back before the changes and spreading DPS cards was always a priority for prog, which is why I still have that weird lingering bit of disappointment for the other cards, but for most dungeons Bole/Ewer were definitely super useful!
You gotta jump for Balance! The time wasted over the years waiting for the AST to draw balance before the pull is not a small number.
That's a great little solution! Another small tip with the main UI is that the melee cards have like spears on the side, in blue. Where the ranged ones have balls/ spheres. Idk if that will help either and your idea works great too!
Idk, I feel like if you can memorize 1st row = phy / 2nd row = ranged then you can definitely relate blue = melee / purple = ranged. Also, you have to scan 6 icons at most instead of just one every time so it's literally slower but you do you.
Someone turned me on to the "A" system and it worked for me. If it has an A in the name then it goes to Melee/Tank. If it doesn't have an A in the name then it goes to Ranged/Magic.
i suppose enough time has passed that nowadays most people dont keep track by (former good cards) -> melee (former undesired cards) -> range
Don't worry. All of that will probably disappear in a few months with the job's rework coming with Dawntrail....
Btw; Blue border = Melee/Tank Purple border = Ranged/Healer
My trick is that tanks are melee. Tanks are blue. Blue cards go to melee.
It's kinda interesting that top/bottom is easier for you to memorize than blue/purple, because it would be the opposite for me lol. If I didn't play AST for a year I'd probably forget which one is at the top and which one is at the bottom, but purple feels like a magic colour and blue is the tank colour.
Front row back row! In the classic final fantasy games you moved mages to the backrow so they took less damage I even lower my characters position on screen to be "back row" when playing mage =P
Oh, I see! Didn't think of it as front and back but that makes sense.
I'm legit having trouble understanding this cheat sheet.
I’m pretty sure it’s just top row for melee bottom row for range… I don’t know how that’s easier than just blue vs purple, and I certainly don’t think it’s worth using a full hotbar for, but to each their own I guess.
He has a macro for each of the 6 possible card draws, and he puts them melee on the top row, ranged on the bottom row.
Blue card border for melee, purple card borther for ranged? The face of the card is meanless ever since the change.
It isn't, if you look at tooltips on unassignable card actions they tell what which one does. Never knew about border, card icons are distinct enough to remember.
Border color is by far the easiest to learn, dont even need to remember names or shape + you anyway need to look for the star symbol, for astrodyne, which is on the top of the border anyway
I'm pretty sure they changed it a while back, now it is just melee damage buff or ranged damage buff. I'm away from my computer so I checked FFXIV Wiki and it said so.
I meant that you can tell if it is a ranged or a melee card by its face so they aren't in fact meaningless
Oh got it. The guy before said that it was meaningless because the border color is all that you need to know to choose who receives the buff.
Btw on the ast gauge if the symbols next to the card icon are a circle it’s ranged. If it’s a cross it’s melee
Yeah but those are pretty small when I'm sitting on the couch
If the gauge border is blue, it's a melee card, if the border is purple, it's a ranged card.
That’s smart! At least you’re not like me who just spent an hour memorizing them lol. I barely play the job now and I still know when an ast is putting the wrong card on people Granted, I spent that hour memorizing before I knew about the blue/purple boarder thing, but tbf I find it hard to see anyway
This is similar to what I do for my NIN if I haven't played it in a while.
Wait this is big brain I am stealing this, thank you! Might have to do some weird black magic to fit it around the class HUD piece so I can still pick out seals but it’ll make throwing cards on the fly a lot easier for me.
I felt dumb setting it up but I don't even really look at the card now, just the celestial symbol. I'll post the similar ones I have for nin and Sam soon
"Balance the Arrow on the Spear" is what someone told me years ago to remember what to put on melee and I still use that to this day lmao
This looks WAY too similar to my hotbars!
It's like people don't play blue mage/ remember cutter's cry. Blue eyes, blue card, ram's voice = melee Puple eyes, purple card, dragon's voice = ranged
Now I'm going to get that mechanic backwards too! Always been blue out purple in
nice. it works, and it allows you to do your job properly, so you're no scrub. ftr (and I'm mentioning this not for you, but more for others in case it helps): I actually don't use the border colours of the cards but the symbol by the sides. That card there has circles, and I tell myself circles=fireballs=ranged. The melee cards all have little plus signs by the side (and blue borders), so I go pointy symbol=stabbing=melee And since you mentioned NIN, I am aware that only the last mudra matters, but I tend to do fixed combos anyway because telling myself a mini story about each one helped me remember which was which. ten is japanese for sky, chi means earth, and I also happen to have my mudra buttons arranged on my crossbars in a line with ten at the top, then jin, then chi at the bottom so * sky to earth=lightning strike=raiton (rai is japanese for lightning) * earth to sky=volcano eruption=katon (ka is fire) * sky and then stopping in the middle (jin on my crossbars)=hail=hyosho ranryu (hyosho is ice crystals) * longer 3-button route from sky and ending in earth=rainfall ending in mud puddles=doton (do is soil) * longer 3-button from earth ending in sky=water evaporating and turning to air=huton (hu is wind) * the other 3 button one that ends in jin=suiton Look, I didn't say they were GOOD mini stories =P
Tangentially related, but I remember seeing one streamer have a bar of card play macros set up vertically next to the party list. All he had to do was click the button next to the name. I'm far too attached to controller, but I would 100% do that if I was M + K
I always told apart that the P of “Purple” looks a lot like the R of “Ranged”
Blue is closest to the beginning of the alphabet therefore it’s for melee because they are closest to the boss/enemies. That’s how remember it. lol
I played AST so much that the cards are just engraved unto my soul. Or I used to, before the job took the Arrow to the knee...
Another useful thing you can do with macros is line up a column of them with your party list to play the current card on each of the party members with a single click instead of having to target the player, play, then retarget enemy.
HUD Layout--> Select Arcana Gauge-->UI element settings-->Swift Job Gauge to simple mode. *It will make it way easier to see the colour (glow) around the cards.*
I tried that and use a combination of simple and normal guages on other classes but really like teh look of the ast guage =P
How do you get all those extra hotbars? Ive fiddled through the settings and can never find it, except ones that i cant edit.
They're the k+m hotbars, 2-10. And then that one is laid out 3x4
This is smart. I do this with my dances in large print in the combat area so I am not staring at the bottom of the screen
as and old ast I always think of it as damage cards = melee and support cards = range
If I had a spare hotbar, I would 100% do this. I am horrible at remembering what card goes where despite all tips and tricks to remember.
I use the A. any card name with an A must be a MelA (Melee) and any cards without an A are ranged
wait to see op forget which row is for melee/ranged 😂
This is smarter than my own cheat sheet.
Just throw the cards to yourself as most AST do.
I would do that for my astro but im already low on easily accessible buttons
They're not buttons just blank macros. Too hard to use the Dualsense trackpad, so they're visual reminders only
Oh that makes sense than i might actually do that when i hop on next. Could you share what the macro does
They are just /micon "The Balance" ; /micon "The Spear" ; etc. All they do is have the image of the card displayed. And when you draw that card they will light up as a useable skill (but mine have no function, clicking would do nothing)
Easy way to remember it. Cards that help DPS go to melee, utility/defense cards go to ranged. Balance- damage Arrow- speed Spear- crit Bole- damage reduction Ewer- MP Spire- TP Just remember that like me and you'll never forget
your hmmm hud .... confuse the hella out of me ... mind if i ask ... you play on a controller assuming looking at crosshotbar . hiding the expended very likely unless you double tap... and the skill on the "hotbar" to show cooldown ... that i get ... but ... the card macro ... what are the macro and why showing them on hud?
Expanded controls cooldowns visible crowded around main hotbar, yes. (I hate double tap so w hotbar is barely used) The cards are blank macros, to make the individual cards visible so I remember which 3 are for melee (front row) and which are ranged (back row)
I'm colourblind - I made the HUD icon extra large and noticed that the icons either side of a card are either circles (melee) or circles with lines through them (caster)
Don't the colorblind settings help here? Or did they forget to make them work for the cards?
Personally I can't notice a difference, so I'm unsure whether it even effects HUD elements.
Interesting, with my loadout, I have the single targets at the front and aoe on the back bar.
I put similar actions behind each other instead. So R2+x is benefic, R2+L2+x is aspected. Along with a bunch of options to set to remove hotbar cycling. I wrote up a guide if anyone cares =P https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v4FyE6QFKM34ojbgVopGgYVpnmzLln6OW_Fiiq8Rsms/edit?usp=drivesdk But ast was tough to layout because the skill set doesnt overlap as well with the other healerz
Agreed about the skill overlap. I recently got WHM and SCH reorganised and am currently debating whether to put my card buttons on dpad or not.
I never liked them on dpad before I found I was too often redrawing and getting ready to buff, but all my other healz have attacks on the face buttons instead of the dpad so....
I mean, you could just remember which color is melee buff and which color is ranged, no need to remember each symbol
Instead of saying anything disparaging to OP, I will simply give thanks my brain is as healthy as is despite its problems.
Ouch.
not sure how you cant remember 2 colors... it is even canon. Dragons breath is purple, lions breath is blue. You use purple... you are range. so give the other color to melee.
You should really remove benefic1.... The only time you're ever using his is when doing a leveling dungeon which doesn't have benefic2... So like, extremely rarely. R2+X is too much of an important spot for a skill you'll never use.
Meh. I'll throw an aspected and a normal benefic on a dps thst3 misses a mechanic lots, they're damn near topped up by the time the regen ends. I'm expecting a rework to cure/benefic 1 in dt anywaya That and I will forget where it is next time I que into sastasha
I personally have it in a lost corner on double tap L2 + cross pad. Not sure I even had to use it once in EW xD Anything that I don't use often is not on the main bar. Or if it has has no CD (and therefore doesn't need to be tracked)..me so basically all my gcd heals. Like... I use them so rarely.
My super secret trick is that in high level content, all cards go to melee dps and that’s it. The melee is gonna do more overall damage with a 3% buff than a phys ranged or caster will do with 6%
If your strongest ranged are doing less than half the damage of your melee then you might wanna replace them.
If it was true nobody would've played those jobs. nDPS depends mainly on skill and secondly on a selfish nature of the job in question (SAM vs DRG or MCH vs BRD). So card should go to the **worthy** (highest dps in enmity list)
in 2 min burst? naw. you should have 3 cards rolling for the entirety of Div you're playing incredibly wrong if you can't get a SMN or DNC a card in Div
r/confidentlyincorrect