Shadowbringers Healer Role: Complaints, Feedback, and Suggestions

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Originally Posted by Raikai

I like the idea of giving damage + something else that is minor... I wish the elemental aspect you thought of would be of any weight in the main content, but alas, that's too much to ask, I suppose. My take, however would be something like this (numbers are just a draft idea):

Bole: Damage reduction
Ewer: Back to Piety buff
Spire: Remove 15s off the Weakened status (rez debuff)
Balance: 30% evasion buff
Arrow: Add the sprint buff for 15s
Spear: Refresh the last shield or HoT applied
Minor Arcana: This would be the one that would increase %damage to either melee or ranged depending on the card.

I know some people will brand stuff like Piety buff as trash, and they are right. For some of this to work, stuff would have to be changed, like MP being relevant for healers again, or a harder dungeon mode that would justify an evasion buff for trash. And to be honest, such changes are needed in general, so the healer and tank role can be more interesting outside of Savage and up.

And back to the cards, I honestly think the only way the regular cards can have unique flavors again is if the damage component is accopmanied by something else (like the poster I quoted) or simply just being buffs related to defensive utility.

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It's definitely a cool idea, but it would likely be additional complexity with no real change to the AST's playstyle (IMO).

ASTs will (likely) still just give the card to the highest performing DPS that matches the type (or, be ostracized by their group for not handling cards that way). I don't see that changing from adding additional buffs because it's still mostly all about DPS in the game. The other buffs would need to be more than just minor and then you'd possibly run into some balancing issues. The randomness involved in the card system really doesn't lend itself to the strategy that would be needed to make good use of a lot of those different buffs. Also, I feel like the card system was simplified so that people didn't need to remember what each card type did, I'm not sure they'll ever change that back.

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Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

It's definitely a cool idea, but it would likely be additional complexity with no real change to the AST's playstyle (IMO).

ASTs will (likely) still just give the card to the highest performing DPS that matches the type (or, be ostracized by their group for not handling cards that way). I don't see that changing from adding additional buffs because it's still mostly all about DPS in the game. The other buffs would need to be more than just minor and then you'd possibly run into some balancing issues. The randomness involved in the card system really doesn't lend itself to the strategy that would be needed to make good use of a lot of those different buffs. Also, I feel like the card system was simplified so that people didn't need to remember what each card type did, I'm not sure they'll ever change that back.

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SE knows most of the community who mains Ast are livid about the simplicity of the card system. They completely destroyed the lore of Astro just because some people fished for balance. I believe they will find a way to give everyone what they want in Endwalker. I wouldn’t be surprised if they change nocturnal stance into a toggle that changes the cards back to the old system and diurnal will be the current system.

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

I wouldn’t be surprised if they change nocturnal stance into a toggle that changes the cards back to the old system and diurnal will be the current system.

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I love this. What a tremendous idea for AST! Diurnal can be "all cards are Balance" and Nocturnal can be a cool card system. I would love it if SE revamped the old card system to provide more obvious effects. Obvious, rather than gamebreakingly powerful. Imagine if a party member would glow a different color, based on which card was played! And it would be abilities that you can feel, like haste or being granted a Swiftcast. Flavor matters. Especially with AST.

Some of the most fun I ever had in FFXIV was playing AST in a dungeon with 2 other friends. We were also on voice chat and I would yell out the next person that was getting a juicy card. They would see their DPS shoot up and it was exciting! It required verbal cues. Adding constant visual effects to receiving a card would remove the need for notification that you got boosted.

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Originally Posted by NYCLouisGamer

I love this. What a tremendous idea for AST! Diurnal can be "all cards are Balance" and Nocturnal can be a cool card system. I would love it if SE revamped the old card system to provide more obvious effects. Obvious, rather than gamebreakingly powerful. Imagine if a party member would glow a different color, based on which card was played! And it would be abilities that you can feel, like haste or being granted a Swiftcast. Flavor matters. Especially with AST.

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I doubt we’ll get something like that. If we get defensive cards we have to get ways to play them that don’t involve DPS cards which also means we can’t have Draw remain fixed because having a finite number of cards limits the number you can use in total.

I have a speculative rework drafted out that describes how the cards could be made better and it integrates Diurnal/Nocturnal and Neutral Sect as cooldowns that can only play a specific subset of cards and fixes the StB Version of Minor Arcana. The downside that really isn’t a downside is it reworks Draw and Sleeve Draw into Traits. Traits which give you a stacked Hand of cards to start off in every instance. Those Sects and Play (along with Royal Road) then draw cards after the fact and give you more slots to hold cards, making your primary gameplay about micromanaging your hand to ensure you always draw the cards you need ahead of each window.

I compensate for all of this by nerfing Play to a 1 minute cooldown, since you have other ways to play cards. Divination also becomes the old Celestial Opposition effect, but for cards only since I added some new cooldowns and trimmed back on some old ones to balance out the healing kit. It feels SCH-like in terms of versatility but in a way that fits its flavour, but doesn’t keep the raw value it currently has.

[QUOTE=NYCLouisGamer;5548611]I love this. What a tremendous idea for AST! Diurnal can be "all cards are Balance" and Nocturnal can be a cool card system. I would love it if SE revamped the old card system to provide more obvious effects. Obvious, rather than gamebreakingly powerful. Imagine if a party member would glow a different color, based on which card was played! And it would be abilities that you can feel, like haste or being granted a Swiftcast. Flavor matters. Especially with AST.

I love your idea of colours added. That would be great. Sometimes people don’t even realize they have a card on them but if their avatars glowed like red for balance etc that will be amazing and they can go ham for sure.

you know, why not treat the deck of cards as a deck while we're at it. All 6 cards are drawn at random order before the deck is reshuffled. That way even if one of the cards is a damage buff the other cards still need to be used to get to it regardless.

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Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

It's definitely a cool idea, but it would likely be additional complexity with no real change to the AST's playstyle (IMO).

ASTs will (likely) still just give the card to the highest performing DPS that matches the type (or, be ostracized by their group for not handling cards that way). I don't see that changing from adding additional buffs because it's still mostly all about DPS in the game. The other buffs would need to be more than just minor and then you'd possibly run into some balancing issues. The randomness involved in the card system really doesn't lend itself to the strategy that would be needed to make good use of a lot of those different buffs. Also, I feel like the card system was simplified so that people didn't need to remember what each card type did, I'm not sure they'll ever change that back.

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that's the whole thing about the main cards not providing a dps gain, and instead contributing to the defensive support.

Of course, the Minor Arcana would still remain, and yeah, the AST would probably still choose the best dpser to give it to, but at least while fetching the 3 Divination seals, the cardplay would still focus on actual decisions about who needs card X to get out of a tight spot, or a tank spiking a lot needing more defense, or Ewer on you allowing to go ham with some expensive heals (again, in the case of MP being relevant once more).

I mean, they could even actually just also revert the minor arcana to a direct damage or healing spell. I wouldn't mind healers providing any kind of support but offensive, and pass that role to the support dps jobs.

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

I love your idea of colours added. That would be great. Sometimes people don’t even realize they have a card on them but if their avatars glowed like red for balance etc that will be amazing and they can go ham for sure.

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Expanding on the color thing, a glow might be too obvious. However, when a card is played there is this asteroid belt effect that swirls around the target for a second, perhaps this swirl could be colored to the card FX and have this belt rotate slowly around the buffed person after the initial swirl, that way it's still obvious but not as prevalent as a bright glow effect.

Also, fix your formatting, you dropped a "[/QUOTE]"

The issue is defensive cards would have to have so much impact to be reliably useful.

For example, no one is building their class or fight mapping around AST cards. So in a standard run, you probably won't need extra mana because you already stacked Piety to your desired comfort level. You probably wouldn't need minor damage reduction because your tank CD's are planned out and sufficient. Evasion could spoil TBN for DRK. Cooldown reduction results in misalignment. Regen extension can lead to overheal. Movement speed has to save a GCD to help, fights are usually designed so you can get from A to B in time to avoid mechanics and most classes have movement tools.

A lot of utility ideas are things that would feel useful to inexperienced players, but very often wouldn't change the outcome of the run. Which is often the case, where some players who want utility cards just want the illusion of being useful even if they wouldn't be in reality.

However, if any of the utility became too good, it would create issues where you need to fish for it or AST becomes OP. It's not as easy to balance as it seems.

I prefer the illusion of utility to the illusion of fun the current cards offer