Ast cards 6.0 rework

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Originally Posted by MitsukiKimura

Better yet just change balance to a Determination % buff
Balance would be 10% Determination buff
Bole 10% defense
Spear 10% crit buff
Spire 10% Direct hit buff
Arrow 10% faster attack/spell speed
Ewer card can be a HoT regen instead of an MP regen
Each time you draw a card you earn 300mp
This allows each card to offer something, allowing MP gain through its main gimmick and changing the balance card.

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So fish for Spear or Spire, then.

I don't even know why you're here with a response like that

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Originally Posted by MitsukiKimura

I don't even know why you're here with a response like that

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Because that's exactly what it is.

You don't seem to be thinking the concept through if you keep throwing out cards that are going to be 100% superior to every other card.

That's what leads you to the current card system.

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Originally Posted by Malmstrom

Because that's exactly what it is.

You don't seem to be thinking the concept through if you keep throwing out cards that are going to be 100% superior to every other card.

That's what leads you to the current card system.

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Or maybe you're just so negative about the subject or any ideas towards it. Us healers or those who "Actually" play them don't feel happy with this current card system. I don't know why you come to these threads in the first place.

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Originally Posted by MitsukiKimura

Better yet just change balance to a Determination % buff
Balance would be 10% Determination buff
Bole 10% defense
Spear 10% crit buff
Spire 10% Direct hit buff
Arrow 10% faster attack/spell speed
Ewer card can be a HoT regen instead of an MP regen
Each time you draw a card you earn 300mp
This allows each card to offer something, allowing MP gain through its main gimmick and changing the balance card.

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Same issue as the previous system, except, I'm pretty sure 10% Crit is the best damage buff so it would just be fish Spear.

Once again we're back to "x card or bust", precisely what we fixed with ShB and what we can't have any longer.

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Originally Posted by MitsukiKimura

Or maybe you're just so negative about the subject or any ideas towards it. Us healers or those who "Actually" play them don't feel happy with this current card system. I don't know why you come to these threads in the first place.

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I played AST for 4 years and the cards were just as monotonous then as they are now. 9/10 you played balance if you were an AST worth your salt, and the 1/10 you reluctantly played spear. Once in a blue moon you might have to recover and then by chance you draw the card you want and you maybe save a run or help recover, but this was an exception, not the norm. The truth of the matter is, the rarely, if ever, mattered in the run when you wanted to save it. That came with being a good healer that could triage well and keep the party going.

I messed around with AST this expansion a bit and aside from sleeve draw shenanigans, it seems to have a good foundation, but it could use some work. Namely the seals need to be expanded upon as they are very barebones atm, but I believe SE plans to do this as it's the most obvious place to expand on the job. It's sad we lost the time aspect of our job but that I can see why they decided to remove it and can agree with it.

I'm curious to see if they do anything this patch and if they don't, it would just cement this iteration of AST till next expansion when they have to make that decision again.

I liked the idea someone brought up (not sure if it was posted in this thread) where we keep the current Seals and Divination system and bring back the old Major/Minor Arcana system but weakened slightly to accommodate the changes. If I remember correctly, they suggested that Arrow be changed to a Direct Hit buff because haste buffs are detrimental to a lot of jobs with all the new stuff, and change Spire to a Healing Potency Up buff. That way, in order to get the best value out of Divination (changed to 1/3/6%), you are forced to play at least one of each seal, and each pair of the three seals has one utility buff and one damage buff to give players options if the rare opportunity rises.

Edit: I mean, obviously not the best solution. You’d always try to fish for the damage buffing cards, but at the least it changes the gameplay from trying to fish for one specific card to fishing for three different specific cards. I liked this suggestion the most because you’d probably have to think strategically when using cards since playing only one card would screw over Divination’s potency, and being too greedy with fishing damage buffing cards would mean that it would delay your Divination pretty badly if you get unlucky making you lose potential uses. Unsure how viable this would be though.

Just for clarification, there was mention that for card values (single target/aoe) too. Can’t seem to find the post at the moment but from what I remember:

Balance dropped to 6/3% damage, Spear dropped to 8/4% crit, and Arrow set to 10/5% dh.
Bole remains at 10/5% mitigation, Ewer potency halved, and Spire changed to 10/5% healing potency.

1. Divination stays activated for as long as caster is alive

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Originally Posted by Malmstrom

So fish for Spear or Spire, then.

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Um, arrow is better for ranged casters, and it lessens the DPS loss when they move.

Try:

-divination will stay active for as long as AST is alive
-reset timer increased to 12 minutes
-Multiple like seals will decrease buff by 7% of potency while multiple unique seal will increase buff potency by 12% potency (100% potency max of 12% damage buff)
-balance: restore selected target MP or HP pool percentile to highest percentile pool amount (-45% of percentile if all is in affect)
- spire: increase job gauge for three units (2 for all) per two auto attacks or one stack per four (five if all) and 3% mp restoration
-ewer: restore 65% of maximum MP value (45% all)
-spear: increase critical hit chance and proc-rates by by 12% (4% if all)
-arrow: if all: 7%
-bole: 20% percent dmg reduction (8% + one-time 35% damage nullification stack if all)
-ewer &spire can be sacrificed for all
-bole & balance can be sacrificed for an increased potency
-spear and arrow can be sacrificed to add weakness removal or 12% reduced OGCD timers

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Originally Posted by Rai_Takara

Same issue as the previous system, except, I'm pretty sure 10% Crit is the best damage buff so it would just be fish Spear.

Once again we're back to "x card or bust", precisely what we fixed with ShB and what we can't have any longer.



I played AST for 4 years and the cards were just as monotonous then as they are now. 9/10 you played balance if you were an AST worth your salt, and the 1/10 you reluctantly played spear. Once in a blue moon you might have to recover and then by chance you draw the card you want and you maybe save a run or help recover, but this was an exception, not the norm. The truth of the matter is, the rarely, if ever, mattered in the run when you wanted to save it. That came with being a good healer that could triage well and keep the party going.

I messed around with AST this expansion a bit and aside from sleeve draw shenanigans, it seems to have a good foundation, but it could use some work. Namely the seals need to be expanded upon as they are very barebones atm, but I believe SE plans to do this as it's the most obvious place to expand on the job. It's sad we lost the time aspect of our job but that I can see why they decided to remove it and can agree with it.

I'm curious to see if they do anything this patch and if they don't, it would just cement this iteration of AST till next expansion when they have to make that decision again.

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If you fished for balance all the time, you were sub par at AST. If you got balance by RNG and played it then good on you. Problem is people aren't complaining no where nearly as much about the seal system, what needs to change is how the card system plays, the cards abilities being all balance cards is really shameful and lack of thinking outside the box. With the way it's being played it is the most boring concept I have ever seen something be dumb downed to. Not fixing the core of the problem and trying to give it tweaks to other things, won't make it better and you'll piss off more people. Arrow was just as good for a black mage as a spear was for a bard. This current card system is just as worse, you fish for that specific card for your highest DPS in the group and you throw it on them, anything less is a waste outside of sleeve draw which forces people into playing a specific way just as back then when balance was obviously the best card. There's a problem with the system if it's making people quit. I rather see this card system burned down in flames before the seals get worked. That'll just show how much they pay attention to the healer community.

I picked up AST again after having largely dropped it due to a massive distaste in how the new cards looked.

I've got to say, while I had my doubts about how enjoyable the new cards would be they actually turned out to feel even more pointless and boring than I was originally afraid of!
Instead of considering what the card is/what class most benefits from it, the royal road combinations, and the risk/reward of redrawing it, I can now just look at the card colour and seal before slapping it on someone. You don't even have to think or consider anything anymore, just a quick glance and presto. I've got to the point my draws/plays are robotic in nature and it's killing my enjoyment of this class (which is saying something since I've played it since it was trash early HW). It's boring and thoughtless as hell.

At this point I'm starting to wonder why they don't just straight up remove the cards, keep the animation and just make it a 30 sec CD Battle Litany like ability. I don't want them to do that, but it feels like it wouldn't change a damn thing if they did.

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Originally Posted by MitsukiKimura

Or maybe you're just so negative about the subject or any ideas towards it. Us healers or those who "Actually" play them don't feel happy with this current card system. I don't know why you come to these threads in the first place.

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People like that are why we have the current card system, which most AST mains dislike very much compared to the old system with its variety that didn't always contribute directly to dps, but contributed more to our adaptability (which the class was really created for -- to be able to compliment WHM or SCH in a party setting), and more importantly contributed to our sense of being able to make any sort of group successful.

The other component of AST -- the time-related ones like buff extensions and AE stun -- were also important to the job's identity, and making us feel like we could contribute even if it wasn't through personal dps.

Folks who don't play the job, or who never played it enough to learn that "fishing for balance" wasn't as fun or productive as learning how to use the old card system, cannot fully appreciate how special AST used to be.

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Originally Posted by Side-Eye

People like that are why we have the current card system, which most AST mains dislike very much compared to the old system with its variety that didn't always contribute directly to dps, but contributed more to our adaptability (which the class was really created for -- to be able to compliment WHM or SCH in a party setting), and more importantly contributed to our sense of being able to make any sort of group successful.

The other component of AST -- the time-related ones like buff extensions and AE stun -- were also important to the job's identity, and making us feel like we could contribute even if it wasn't through personal dps.

Folks who don't play the job, or who never played it enough to learn that "fishing for balance" wasn't as fun or productive as learning how to use the old card system, cannot fully appreciate how special AST used to be.

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Exactly how I feel about it. If they honestly can't make up their minds, then why not give us the option to choose between what divining deck we want? It would allow the parsers to keep their balance deck and we could have our fun back with our old deck just with a few minor nerf changes to the balance card, shire to direct hit and etc? With the way classes are getting buffed with their DPS, its literally all about how fast you can kill it. I don't see how that's fun, I honestly don't.

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Originally Posted by MitsukiKimura

With the way classes are getting buffed with their DPS, its literally all about how fast you can kill it. I don't see how that's fun, I honestly don't.

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From what I remember, fishing for Balance really only mattered at the highest levels of play — usually people speed running fights. Some people enjoy that aspect of the game, so who am I to judge what people find fun? Anyway, I’ll put that aside and won’t elaborate further on that.

I’d like the devs to at least look into the card system and do something about how annoying it is to target people for cards especially on controller. Its current iteration isn’t fun nor satisfying to play. The old system was miles better in this regard because you had to be a little more thoughtful with where and when to use certain cards and if the situation calls for it. Meaning it was slower paced compared that we ended up getting. The current opener and Sleeve Draw really sucks.

Healing and Mitigation wise, I think AST is already balanced with WHM and SCH.
I mean we can survive without RNG mitigation/healing tools in our card because we have CU, CO, CI, and Neutral Sect.
Thus, I propose to change the card system like below.

Both Redraw and Seals are no longer available to prevent fishing.
AST now have a card rotation which forces us to play all 6 cards (someone already mentioned this idea). The card rotation finisher is Sleeve Draw.
How does it work? Check below:
- 1st draw: obtain Bole (you can obtain all card)
- 2nd draw: obtain Arrow (you can obtain all card except Bole)
- 3rd draw: obtain Balance (you can obtain all card except Bole and Arrow)
- All continue until the 6th draw which is one last card
- Sleeve Draw is unlocked upon using the last card
- Use Sleeve Draw for party buff and reset the rotation
Job gauge will be changed (showing cards symbol that already used).
The gauge keeps all used card lists even if we die, so we can continue the card rotation after getting revived.

Draw will focus more to Offensive Support:
- Balance: +10% Direct Hit
- Bole: +10% Determination
- Arrow: +10% Skill Speed
- Ewer : +10% Spell Speed
- Spear: +10% Critical Hit
- Spire : +10% Cooldown Reduction (still not sure for this one?)
All buff duration are 20 sec (the potency can be adjusted if it is too strong/weak)
CD: 20 sec (120 sec per rotation)

Sleeve Draw will reset the card rotation and grant Fortune Star buff to all party members.
Unlocked after using all 6 cards.
Fortune Star: 5% damage buff for all party member (15 sec)
No longer have a long CD or only 1 sec CD

Minor Arcana will no longer convert a drawn card but draw either Lord/Lady (separate gauge):
- Lord: 400 potency Damage to target and surrounding enemy
- Lady: 80 potency DoT to target and surrounding enemy (15 sec)
(The potency can be adjusted if it is too strong/weak)
Recover 10% MP upon drawing Lord/Lady
CD: 60 sec

Divination will be a time manipulation skill.
Increase Card and Fortune Star buff duration by 10 sec.
Reset CD of both Draw and Minor Arcana.
CD: 240 sec

With this change, the dev can easily balance AST while retain different effect on the card system.

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Originally Posted by MitsukiKimura

If you fished for balance all the time, you were sub par at AST.

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I would say that it’s less Rai is sub-par at AST—he was a 99 percentile AST prior to ShB, so his play isn’t sub-par at all. The issue is that he’s considering AST only from the speedkill mentality—which, as I have said numerous times before: more people clear Ultimate than people who competitively speedkill. Balance or Bust only mattered at the cut-throat, competitive speedkill level. It didn’t matter everywhere else, and plenty of people enjoyed the old card system for what it was (including myself). This new system? The fact that there are so many new proposals for it on a near-daily basis speaks for itself.

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Originally Posted by GrimGale

Any card system that has a card that increases all damage by a flat percent will always be flawed.

Damage increase is objectively the strongest buff you could grant and is useful to all jobs.

If you want to make adjustments to the card system start by removing that damage buff.

You can still have Crit buffs, Direct Hit buffs and Sp/Sk speed.

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But, my dude, Crit and DHit increase damage by a flat perentage. It's 'random chance', but still damage increases.
Haste is job-dependent, but still just a damage increase.

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Originally Posted by MitsukiKimura

If you fished for balance all the time, you were sub par at AST.

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That tells me you don't understand how to play AST well. You fished for balance unless you needed an ewer or bole in some freak recovery scenario that happened 1/10 pulls at best. Otherwise yes, you fished for balance and tried to make it AoE balance or you put one on the highest dpsing player.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

I would say that it’s less Rai is sub-par at AST—he was a 99 percentile AST prior to ShB, so his play isn’t sub-par at all. The issue is that he’s considering AST only from the speedkill mentality—which, as I have said numerous times before: more people clear Ultimate than people who competitively speedkill. Balance or Bust only mattered at the cut-throat, competitive speedkill level. It didn’t matter everywhere else, and plenty of people enjoyed the old card system for what it was (including myself). This new system? The fact that there are so many new proposals for it on a near-daily basis speaks for itself.

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Correct wrt mentality but I'd describe it as efficiency rather than just speeds. However I played AST in prog and PFs too as well as dungeons and so forth. You always focused on balance until you needed something else. Really depends on the group you find yourself in (you either are trying to boost their damage or keep them alive). Really I only remember playing aoe boles and st ewer when recovering from healer deaths.

While the speedrunning community is small, it is still one SE cares about, so any changes to jobs keeps that in mind.

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Originally Posted by Rai_Takara

That tells me you don't understand how to play AST well. You fished for balance unless you needed an ewer or bole in some freak recovery scenario that happened 1/10 pulls at best. Otherwise yes, you fished for balance and tried to make it AoE balance or you put one on the highest dpsing player.



Correct wrt mentality but I'd describe it as efficiency rather than just speeds. However I played AST in prog and PFs too as well as dungeons and so forth. You always focused on balance until you needed something else. Really depends on the group you find yourself in (you either are trying to boost their damage or keep them alive). Really I only remember playing aoe boles and st ewer when recovering from healer deaths.

While the speedrunning community is small, it is still one SE cares about, so any changes to jobs keeps that in mind.

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That's your opinion then but maybe do some research first. Taking a speed runner focus on a healer class is about the most stupidest thing they could of ever done. Card system is at an all time low but I'm done talking about it. Time will tell if they do the right thing and fix this.

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Originally Posted by MitsukiKimura

That's your opinion then but maybe do some research first. Taking a speed runner focus on a healer class is about the most stupidest thing they could of ever done. Card system is at an all time low but I'm done talking about it. Time will tell if they do the right thing and fix this.

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Likewise that's just your opinion :3

I agree, time will tell, just don't be surprised if SE's vision for AST doesn't line up with yours.

Technically, both of you aren’t wrong. Efficiency is king, but only at the highest levels of play — anywhere else is just a small bonus. Job satisfaction is also king, but it does not necessarily make it enjoyable to play.

The old Card system was more satisfying for the general playerbase, but the new Card system is much more efficient. If anything, take both designs and look into incorporating them together as a middle ground. They have the foundation of a satisfying card system (Old cards) and an efficient card system (Seals) to make a card system that tries to actively discourage and punish fishing for cards (Divination). Whichever way they go about it, I’d honestly just want them to acknowledge that they’ll look into it.

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Originally Posted by AdamFyi

Technically, both of you aren’t wrong. Efficiency is king, but only at the highest levels of play — anywhere else is just a small bonus. Job satisfaction is also king, but it does not necessarily make it enjoyable to play.

The old Card system was more satisfying for the general playerbase, but the new Card system is much more efficient. If anything, take both designs and look into incorporating them together as a middle ground. They have the foundation of a satisfying card system (Old cards) and an efficient card system (Seals) to make a card system that tries to actively discourage and punish fishing for cards (Divination). Whichever way they go about it, I’d honestly just want them to acknowledge that they’ll look into it.

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I agree. I'm all for making things more fun. I'm just heavily against going back to the old system where the "balance or bust" situation can occur.

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Originally Posted by Rai_Takara

I agree. I'm all for making things more fun. I'm just heavily against going back to the old system where the "balance or bust" situation can occur.

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So.
Balance is worth 10% damage.
Arrow is worth 6.66%, though depends on the party comp
Spear is 4~6% depending on crit substat

We have an obvious outlier here. Just reduce Balance's duration to 2/3 of the other cards. Makes it roughly equal to the others in general use, but makes it better if you can extend its duration.

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Originally Posted by YusiKha

So.
Balance is worth 10% damage.
Arrow is worth 6.66%, though depends on the party comp
Spear is 4~6% depending on crit substat

We have an obvious outlier here. Just reduce Balance's duration to 2/3 of the other cards. Makes it roughly equal to the others in general use, but makes it better if you can extend its duration.

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Arrow is hated by most people because it messes up their rigid rotation. Only few jobs like BLM can get away with it.

I think buffs to chance is not good either because rng. The point of the new cards is to avoid rng to damage. An AST will always output a consistent amount of damage buffs is the idea. Either all cards dont buff damage or they all buff it equally. Perhaps putting all the damage into divination and making cards just pure utility might be an option.

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Originally Posted by Rai_Takara

Arrow is hated by most people because it messes up their rigid rotation. Only few jobs like BLM can get away with it.

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Wrong. It is a gain for everyone, and only MCH's rigid 60s rotation made it unlikeable (but you can adjust by doing nothing for ~1/2 a GCD, and still have your Autos buffed). 'Most people' didn't actually care about it, since even if you didn't adjust it was still an undeniable DPS boost.
I can tell that you barely played AST in StB with how you're firing off conjecture that is literally rebutted in the guide to the class

And I agree with you that RNG choosing whether you get a buff or not is a bad idea - but my preference is to change 'will I get card?' to 'when I get card?'
If Draw gave you all 6 cards but in a random order, then you have to shuffle it into the desired RR+Card pairings.

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Originally Posted by YusiKha

It is a gain for everyone

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Actually, with all the changes made in ShB, Haste buffs would massively throw off rotation timings for a lot of jobs which is why external Haste buffs are pretty much non-existent now. As an example, it would basically be the difference between throwing off your rotation to get the last three ticks of a Drg’s Chaos Thrust, or being forced to clip the dot early and losing three ticks worth of potency. From my limited knowledge, BLM also has a SpS threshold they want to stay within so as to not throw off their rotation. Scholar has this problem too with their Chain Strategem getting desynced from their Biolysis reapplications.

Haste buffs would also prevent some jobs from performing double/triple weaves effectively without clipping into their next GCD, which is pretty detrimental especially with players playing with higher ping. Simply porting the old card system and changing its values into the game’s current state would not translate well at all. Having both utility and damage cards results in more varied usage, but if there isn’t a system in place to discourage players from simply just fishing the most optimal cards, then there’s no point in bringing it over. We’d just end up in the same situation Stormblood left the Healers in.

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Originally Posted by AdamFyi

Actually, with all the changes made in ShB, Haste buffs would massively throw off rotation timings for a lot of jobs which is why external Haste buffs are pretty much non-existent now. As an example, it would basically be the difference between throwing off your rotation to get the last three ticks of a Drg’s Chaos Thrust, or being forced to clip the dot early and losing three ticks worth of potency. From my limited knowledge, BLM also has a SpS threshold they want to stay within so as to not throw off their rotation. Scholar has this problem too with their Chain Strategem getting desynced from their Biolysis reapplications.

Haste buffs would also prevent some jobs from performing double/triple weaves effectively without clipping into their next GCD, which is pretty detrimental especially with players playing with higher ping. Simply porting the old card system and changing its values into the game’s current state would not translate well at all. Having both utility and damage cards results in more varied usage, but if there isn’t a system in place to discourage players from simply just fishing the most optimal cards, then there’s no point in bringing it over. We’d just end up in the same situation Stormblood left the Healers in.

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Regardless how you put it, speed killers will always try to find the best part no matter what way you put it at. What they need to do is change the cards from just being balance cards, bring back it's utility while offering the different card abilities. Even if not bringing arrow back, anything would be better than what we have now. If you can't handle drawing different cards then pick another healer. Nothing should be dumbed down to this kind of judgement calling of the cards.
Also to add on to my post, this also forces players to play a specific way with how the cards work now. You fish for the card for the best DPS out of the party outside of sleeve draw, rinse and repeat. There's no variation, anything else doesn't bring the best benefit out of the party.

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Originally Posted by AdamFyi

Haste buffs would massively throw off rotation timings

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60% of a GCD is not 'massively thrown off'. It might make 1 GCD not land in a raid buff, or another land in a raid buff when it wouldn't. Worst case scenario? Wait it out.

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Originally Posted by AdamFyi

As an example, it would basically be the difference between throwing off your rotation to get the last three ticks of a Drg’s Chaos Thrust, or being forced to clip the dot early and losing three ticks worth of potency.

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Are you mathematically issued? 3 ticks is 9 seconds. Each Arrow, in total, gains you 1.5s. That makes it only a 50% chance of even losing the DoT tick.

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Originally Posted by AdamFyi

Haste buffs would also prevent some jobs from performing double/triple weaves effectively without clipping into their next GCD

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Nobody triple-weaves, and if you clip into your next GCD because of the haste boost, then it's either invalidating the Arrow (best case) or you would have clipped anyway (worst case)

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Originally Posted by AdamFyi

Simply porting the old card system and changing its values into the game’s current state would not translate well at all. Having both utility and damage cards results in more varied usage, but if there isn’t a system in place to discourage players from simply just fishing the most optimal cards, then there’s no point in bringing it over. We’d just end up in the same situation Stormblood left the Healers in.

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Aside from WHM being undertuned (but still very popular), healers' gameplay was fine in 4.5.

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Originally Posted by YusiKha

Wrong. It is a gain for everyone, and only MCH's rigid 60s rotation made it unlikeable (but you can adjust by doing nothing for ~1/2 a GCD, and still have your Autos buffed). 'Most people' didn't actually care about it, since even if you didn't adjust it was still an undeniable DPS boost.
I can tell that you barely played AST in StB with how you're firing off conjecture that is literally rebutted in the guide to the class

And I agree with you that RNG choosing whether you get a buff or not is a bad idea - but my preference is to change 'will I get card?' to 'when I get card?'
If Draw gave you all 6 cards but in a random order, then you have to shuffle it into the desired RR+Card pairings.

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I can tell you haven't done your research on me. I can also see you barely have any savage AST experience whatsoever in SB and in ShB.

Those kind of guides are for newer players, not seasoned ASTs. There are some non-truths that exist and one of those is that AoE arrow is worth playing. You only ever played single target arrow on the jobs that don't have rigid rotations like BLM (or heck your cohealer even). I can also tell you from experience, most people that I've ran with have specifically asked me to not arrow them as it messed up their rotation. If we bring up the top end optimization people build their gear to specific GCD per fight and arrow messes that up. In fact people have setup macros to remove arrow if they receive it. Really the people that would be capable of squeezing DPS don't want it, so to anyone else, arrow is just a fun card that doesn't help their damage but makes them got faaaaaast.

I'm still a big fan of the seals being a combo system where you throw 3 cards in and get a unique buff out along with the standard 6% damage buff, every time. Leaves the damage portion out of RNG but still gives you card choices.

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Originally Posted by Rai_Takara

Perhaps putting all the damage into divination and making cards just pure utility might be an option.

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I would honestly love this. Have one that's a HP/MP refresh, one that reduces incoming damage, and one that heals and applies a shield. It's more "tank focused" on cards, but there's some minor self utility with the MP refresh. They could decide to make a strong, single-target version and a weak AoE version, too.

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Originally Posted by MitsukiKimura

What they need to do is change the cards from just being balance cards, bring back it's utility while offering the different card abilities. Even if not bringing arrow back, anything would be better than what we have now.

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Mhm. I’m with you with wanting to change the card system cause I don’t like it either. However, just bringing forward the old system as is is not the solution. Though, I really like the idea of turning the cards into being purely utility and just dumping all the damage buffs into Divination. That sounds a lot more interesting than most other suggestions I’ve seen so far.

Just came up with this random Idea
Bole: Grants target Physical defense boost 10% for 20 seconds
Ewer: MP refresh potency 25 for 10 seconds
Spear: Grants target Magical defense boost 10% for 20 seconds
Spire: Grants target HoT effect potency of 150 for 15 seconds
Arrow: Extends the buffs you casted on target by 10 seconds
Balance:
Lady of Crowns: Cure Potency 300
Lord of Crowns: Attack Potency 200
I can't think of anything for balance yet
This though grants utility to each card, removing arrow haste, no balance, no crit, no direct hit, giving back time extender to a card. Arrow does not extend divination, only manual spells casted on a target.

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Originally Posted by MitsukiKimura

Just came up with this random Idea
Bole: Grants target Physical defense boost 10% for 20 seconds
Ewer: MP refresh potency 25 for 10 seconds
Spear: Grants target Magical defense boost 10% for 20 seconds
Spire: Grants target HoT effect potency of 150 for 15 seconds
Arrow: Extends the buffs you casted on target by 10 seconds
Balance:
Lady of Crowns: Cure Potency 300
Lord of Crowns: Attack Potency 200
I can't think of anything for balance yet
This though grants utility to each card, removing arrow haste, no balance, no crit, no direct hit, giving back time extender to a card. Arrow does not extend divination, only manual spells casted on a target.

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So your solution is making all cards close to useless. Well, that's one way to prevent cards fishing, I suppose. By the way, with these changes every card will be just used for minor arcana except for Spire that would be slapped on the main tank (and Bole, but only during big pulls in dungeons). The effects of the other cards are too situational and/or too weak.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lastelli

So your solution is making all cards close to useless. Well, that's one way to prevent cards fishing, I suppose. By the way, with these changes every card will be just used for minor arcana except for Spire that would be slapped on the main tank (and Bole, but only during big pulls in dungeons). The effects of the other cards are too situational and/or too weak.

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Maybe offer your suggestion instead of just saying what I offered to be useless. Old card effects won't work with how things are now. Personally I don't think its useless so I'll wait for what you have to suggest.

If you want the old cards then you will need to change
Balance
Arrow
Spire
And nerf or change crit.
If you come up with a solution let me know.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MitsukiKimura

Maybe offer your suggestion instead of just saying what I offered to be useless. Old card effects won't work with how things are now. Personally I don't think its useless so I'll wait for what you have to suggest.

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I'm perfectly fine with a system where all cards are damage buffs. They just need to find a less cumbersome way to distribute cards.

But if I could have it my way, I'd like something like this: make one card a defense buff and the other 5 different flavors of dmg up, some of which are better for some dps jobs (crit., direct hit, straight dmg buff, gcd speed up, autoattack speed up). Keep the seal system and divination. Bring back the old lord/lady and add an aoe+stun effect to lord and make them strong enough to be worth using over the normal buffs in some situations. Give AST a closed position equivalent to give cards to the selected target without having to directly select it every time you use play (effect is overridden if you're selecting another dps player when you use play). Don't bring back the royal road mechanic, but bring back time dilation. Sleeve Draw gives you one (not three) additional card.

What this achieves: 5 cards are always good, with little variation depending on party comp (gcd speed up -> better on a BLM, autoattack speed up-> better on a MNK etc.), the defence up card is situational and mostly used in dungeons or if you're lucky enough to draw it before a tank buster that isn't covered by tanks' cd (doesn't really happen, but whatever, let's pretend we want some freedom of choice), but if you don't need it you can redraw it and get something actually good. At the same time the AST should alternate cards to get 3 different seals. Seals should accrue only when they're different and divination should be usable on cd even if you don't have 3 seals: if you already have a moon, the next moon card you play won't give you any seal, so if you're unlucky enough to only draw moon you will then use a 1-seal divination that provides a 4% aoe dmg boost. Closed position makes it so that you can feed all cards to the same dps without having to switch target, making the card system less busy (especially in the opener, since you'd have 2 cards less), but you'd still have room to optimize by giving the right card to the right dps if you wanted to.

What I don't want to see: situational effects tied to rng that compete with universally useful effects (dmg buffs). That's asking for trouble.

Six months on and this is still going?
We're not getting the old cards back, please get over it, for your own sake.

Problem with making all cards utility is that it is vastly redundant (minus mp restore for Ast alone) as even in TEA hlrs are spending very large portions on dps as their healing tools aren't needed adding more is just giving bloat.

But I will offer a version of the system for pure defensive utility.

Draw gives 200 mp to Ast
Spire: cure potency 50, shield potency 200% Can stack with all shields duration 30s
Bole: 15% Dmg reduction, duration 30s
Balance: 400 potency heal
Ewer: cure potency 50, HoT potency 30 duration 30s
Spear: makes block/parry chance 50%(baseline) duration 30s
Arrow: movement speed increased by 20% duration 30s
Lady: Doubles card effects duration 40s
Lord: half card effects but makes them aoe based on target duration 40s
Sleeve Draw: Gives 3 cards 1 of each seal in succession.
Divination: 1 seal - 20% dmg increase for 15s, 2 seal - 22% dmg increase for 15s, 3 seal - 25% dmg increase for 20s


Even typing it I could feel the redundancy of it all, has problems where most go on tank alone unless people mess up, opener remains hectic but would feel more worthwhile for payoff, rng opener is eliminated but cards will have low impact since no real oomph, divination has better solo use but cards do not (with Lord being a hinderance).

I do not think this type of system could work without heavy encounter redesign, I really think we either have a 'balance or bust' system where 1 card would remain superior or an efficiency system where everything is just bland.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Six months on and this is still going?
We're not getting the old cards back, please get over it, for your own sake.

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Apologies that some of us think this new system is terrible. You’re free to not click on AST discussions if they’re going to upset you that much.

I think I'm kind of middle ground here.

I dont mind all cards being DPS up at all, because I still think the value of the old Bole for instance is quite overrated, and same for old Ewer. Sure they were nice when they came at the right time, but other than that, not so much.
What I do miss is Royal Road, namely I'd like to see it back in the shape "all cards have the same effect, but you can enhance that effect too". Time and potency could work, AoE I don't know... Maybe Ranged cards could give Duration extended and Melee cards could give Potency up for the card.
Arguably, old Minor Arcana was great compared to the one we have now, so this could change back too. But it could also be a separate Draw with a longer CD and stronger effects.

The "only" problem I really want to see fixed is Seals (and Divination+Sleeve Draw). I'd rather have Divination as a separate buff, and seals... well just gone at this point. Or reworked into another function like a passive buff or another ability (like Lilies do, but a DPS burst on AST makes less sense so I don't know really).
Sleeve Draw could just Draw, Royal Road and Minor Arcana again. Or buff the potency/duration of the next set of cards. But it should not be a "Card-slot machine" pressure action.

It's messy but the idea would be having technically one card effect but various ways of using it through Royal Road/Minor Arcana.

I was thinking further about making all cards utility, and this is what I came up with:

Current melee cards become single target effects, and range cards become AoE effects.

Sun Seal cards: cure + regen

Moon Seal cards: Heal + shield = amount healed

Celestial Seal cards: heal + incoming damage reduction

Minor arcana: booth boost next effect (Lord boosts single-target, Lady boosts AoE)

Bring back Spread. Store one each of single-target and AoE cards.

Sleeve Draw: Grants one ingle-target card, one AoE card in Spread, one active card (will not override already active effects)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Six months on and this is still going?
We're not getting the old cards back, please get over it, for your own sake.

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We're not happy with this system, don't be clicking on these threads if you're gonna complain about it.

I'm mostly tired. I can't think of anything nor else try to anymore
Balance changed to Determination 15% 30 seconds
Spear: Crit 5% 30 seconds
arrow : Extends buffs casted on target by 15 seconds
Bole: 15% damage reduction 30 seconds
Ewer : HoT regen potency 30 30 seconds
Spire: 10% direct hit buff 30 seconds
Im out of ideas, nor less just ready to stop trying