I could see some of the AST changes being applied - perhaps one third of them roughly. I would say that a number of them have been identified for a year or more such as removal of synastry, the benefic upgrades, some people
However some examples of where I would disagree would include the removal of CO or CI, or "cards like mudras"- I do realize that some ASTs might want that, it was interesting to read, my initial reaction is that I would prefer that we revert to the SHb cards, and that draw/play and add a DPS skill. If button bloat is a concern it could be comboed as in PVP.
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02-07-2023, 10:33 AMIDontPetLalas
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02-07-2023, 11:04 AMIedarus
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02-07-2023, 11:13 AMIDontPetLalasYes, those are some excellent ideas, to be honest I had just focussed on AST for the moment that post was just too long to wade through after work today - at least I get paid to analyze that at work.Quote:
Originally Posted by Iedarus
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02-07-2023, 11:31 AMRenathrasSorry...it's a topic I am passionate about, at least.Quote:
Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas
As I said, AST is more complicated to me for quite a few reasons. I'm also not sure I explained it all that well. By "like Mudras", I guess I mean where you have the three buttons and you use what you want then hit Play to lock in the effect (and apply it). In theory I suppose there could be some "combining" mechanics in the future, but I was more thinking "buffs laid out before you and you pick which one you need", since I feel like that's the reason we can't have neat and niche Cards in the game, because what if you get them at a time they aren't useful? That's what led to the Balance fishing in the past, which the Dev team seems to want to avoid. I'm not sure it's the best solution, but it's the one that came to me at the time.
[EDIT: And the Lord/Lady/Jester of Crowns Minor Arcana retains that RNG feel as well as working with Astrodyne, so AST still has that going for it, unless people just want to dump that entirely.]
CO and CI is more because I'm not sure you'd need them if Aspected Helios and Aspected Benefic are providing the same buffs (including Neutral Sect buffing them further), but like I said, those 8 were just the "we need to choose at least 4 to remove to have AST be button neutral with today", which may not actually be a concern, but if it is (since I did add several more buttons), those 8 would probably top the list of what to remove/combine.
I take it you liked/agreed with at least a fair bit of the rest?
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The SCH ones were basically giving it some more buttons, but not just a boring "here's another DoT on a shorter CD that you have to...press more often! Isn't that great?!", which I find kind of...a total waste of design.
I like the idea of a stacking buff, of Bane and Fester to spread/burst them, and with Biolysis stacking to 3 + Bio + Miasma + Miasma 2, that gives you a total of, effectively, six DoTs to manage, not including Shadowflare (which is a field effect rather than a DoT). Maybe Energy Drain rather than Fester could be what refreshes the DoT duration, or maybe we could just remove ED/have ED upgrade into Fester (would save another button and, in practice, the only time you'd be using ED is if you needed MP from it or couldn't get DoTs up on a target before it became untargetable, making ED a possible damage gain; but those are niche enough removing ED and just having the rotation use Fester would be fine as long as it had a short/no CD)
I don't mind "moar DoTs!" if those DoTs actually have some character and interactions that make them all more interesting. -
02-07-2023, 01:30 PMty_taurusSome details about the lore of the AST's arcanum deck, FYI, it's not a Jester, but a Knave in the deck. This is from the Encyclopedia Eorzea:Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
"The Deck of Sixty is most commonly divided into two distinct groups, the major arcana and the minor arcana. The six major arcana--the Spire, the Ewer, the Bole, the Arrow, the Balance, and the Spear--are said to represent the heavens and thus most often utilized in astrological and divinatory pursuits. Conversely, the minor arcana are believed to represent that land and its people, and feature six suits, each containing six cards numbered 1 through 6 (the pip cards0, and three face cards, for a total of fifty-four. Each suit possesses a corresponding element, class, and faculty, as well as direct tie to one of the six major arcana--all characteristics that can be employed (at the teller's discretion) during the scrying of a fortune."
A list of the six suits in the following order of detail:
Suit | Alternate | Faculty | Class | Element | Major Arcana
Crowns | Wreaths | Dominion | Nobility | Lightning | The Spire
Cups | Hearts | Emotion | Clergy | Water || The Ewer
Rings | Pentacles | Possession | Merchants | Earth | The Bole
Knives | Swords | Cognition | Military | Wind | The Arrow
Staves | Batons | Volition | Smallfolk | Fire | The Balance
Irons | Chains | Contrition | Prisoners | Ice | The Spear
"Face cards consist of the 'knave,' the 'lord,' and the highest-ranking 'lady.' When used in conjunction with the pip cards, their numerical values are 7, 8, and 9 respectively."
There's more, but this is I think the stuff not well known about. I'd love to integrate more aspects of this, such as having a Lord of Staves, or a Lady of Cups, rather than just the Crowns, and also include the Knave, but it gets convoluted very quickly. This is shared more just because I think it's interesting, not information that's easy to come by, and that there's a lot of worthwhile lore to try and build out of here, not to try and "um, actually" the reference to the Jester. -
02-07-2023, 01:33 PMDuskane
SCH should really get what SMN lost in terms of DoT bane,Fester etc etc
and WHM should have a similar cycle Through elements gameplay like RDM and BLM -
02-07-2023, 01:48 PMRenathrasNo offense taken at all! Jester was just the first thing that came to mind as a Joker or that FFXV line (probably among Noctis best, even if it IS quite ironic considering Ardyn is arguably the rightful king...): "Off my throne, jester; the king sits there." I suppose Jack or Knave would be the other face card.Quote:
Originally Posted by ty_taurus
Also, I love lore and don't have the EE (much as I'd like to get one), so always appreciate a bit more.
As far as the idea, I was more thinking of a third thing to make that (since it's the "new RNG element") feel a bit more RNG, and also to provide a third option for a third seal for Astrodyne. So Knave instead of Jester is perfectly suitable.
So, what did you think, btw? That's the most detail I've put yet into Healer Job reworks... -
02-07-2023, 01:50 PMIedarusThis. If SE is unable to think of more original mechanics to balance, why not have White Mage mirror Black Mage? Unprecedented, I know; it's not like the lore states they were locked in a war or anything unless you really want to believe the White Mages fended off the Black Mages' meteors, blizzards and lightning storms with their dinky little Glares. Instead they decided to compare apples to oranges and try to have White Mage compete with Astrologian when they are in two completely different planes. Have Astro be the handy utility regen focused healer and have White Mage be the stationary healer that heals like a god and hits like a freight train with Quake, Tornado and Holy (if it was made to be a finisher instead of a spammy blinding AoE) if they stand inside their ley lines.Quote:
Originally Posted by Duskane
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02-07-2023, 02:31 PMRenathrasTo be fair, being in a war is usually the result of having opposing interests, not alignment of techniques. In the lore, the White Mages of Amdapor's major power was Golemancy, and they fought against Mhach's Voidsent with their stone golems. In a bit of irony, the flying head mount you can get from PotD is probably the most White Mage-y mount in the game - the Unicorn you befriended as a Conjurer, but the flying head's description is that E-Una-Kotor created it from some of the stone of PotD in an effort to better understand the guardian golems from the Lost City of Amdapor. Indeed, Mhach's most powerful techniques were not Blizzards and Thunder spells, but things like Xenoglosy and Voidsent summoning.Quote:
Originally Posted by Iedarus
Despite a lot of the community mentioning the spells, we have no lore that really supports White Mages using a ton of Quake, Tornado, etc magics. Quake is used by Xande, who isn't a WHM and existed well before Amdapor. A lot of elder and eldrich spellcasters use spells like that, but not really a lot of White Mages in the lore.
Stationary Healer with more and longer cast times that's more of a caster would be kind of neat if it weren't for the combat/fight design demanding lots of movement... -
02-07-2023, 02:57 PMty_taurusFor now, I'll just go over WHM. It's getting late for me and I'll be going to bed soon.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
Without digging into old wounds, what I'll say is this: WHM can still be forgiving and simple while having a little more layers to its consistent gameplay--gameplay that exists regardless of whether healing is needed or not. Offensively, what I'd like to see is:
- Giving Holy a purpose in single target environments.
- The inclusion of a legitimate Water spell at lower levels which can upgrade later.
- Some type of small "payoff" spell. If Afflatus Misery is to BLM's Foul, then something that is a modest Flare.
This would only be two additional offensive actions, and they can be executed in a way that can be simple, yet elegant. For example, what if Water and its future upgrade replace Presence of Mind? Let's say it has 2 charges with a 30 second cooldown on the GCD, but only reduces cast/recast time by 10% for 8 seconds. This gives you a very simple-to-use tool that lets you more consistently pick and choose small burst windows for attack spells, and also makes solo content a little faster.
Additionally, I don't like making all GCD healing universally DPS neutral, and I don't think it actually benefits the appeal to simplicity argument as much as it would seem to at face value. If WHM's DPS contributions are effectively at 100% uptime because everything generates Glare damage, it means that's a factor that needs to go into fight design balance, and the "least" DPS you can do is also the "most" DPS you can do, meaning there's no room for improvement there. But if you let there be room for improvement, that means a WHM who gets better at a fight and can more comfortably trim GCD heals is also able to squeeze out extra damage, and potentially help a party hit enrages, or more optimally cut out mechanics from the end of fights. If all your healing is Glaring, you can't try to squeeze out that extra damage to potentially help your team skip Snake 2/Beast 2 in P8S phase 1, for example, or skip Cochexia 2 in P6S.
If not all GCD healing is DPS neutral, that also makes you think more critically about what tools to work with during healing-heavy phases. In a dungeon, you can rely on mostly just Afflatus Solace and Rapture to handle the shallow amounts of necessary healing you'll have to put out if things run smoothly, but certain phases during EX or Savage fights that ask for back-to-back healing can force you to rely on other tools, and I think that makes the healing side of WHM more fun, no? Having to decide what the most efficient way to heal through that phase is?
As for other tools, extra mitigation is absolutely necessary if it's going to keep being as mandatory as mitigation has been this expansion. Personally, I like the flavor of extending max HP on WHM more than flat mitigation, but that's besides the point. I also think WHM deserves some kind of strong utility to help it stand out more against the other healers. I'm not sure if you've ever responded to the idea of giving WHM Float which I've brought up, as a 2 minute cooldown that lets your party ignore puddle damage and floor damage for 10 seconds, and perhaps with some additional mitigation or a regen so that it's still useful even when those mechanics don't exist.