AST Adjustments 6.2

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Originally Posted by rewd

People are starting to dislike parsing/minmaxing talk because it does suck the fun out of the game if everything needs to be mapped and all that.

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people need to realize that you can minmax anything, at any time, under any circumstances. like, minmaxing is the entire fun for some people, why make even minmaxing itself easy and boring? all i do with cards now is hold 3 cards and lightspeed every 2 minutes minutes. riveting .

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Originally Posted by rewd

RNG has always been part of AST's identity and while utility you can't plan around 100% of the time might just be "flavour" for you, a lot of people enjoy it and it's what drew them to the job in the first place.

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precisely. i used to do parse runs a lot in heavensward and Stormblood and not once did i ever think cards were a problem because to me it simply was another aspect of the job to make the most out of. yes is annoying to get bad rng sometimes but that's kind of the point of playing rng classes.

i guess the biggest problem i can see with rng utility is the reliability aspect, but they can have better rng mitigation without completely gutting everything. like, making sure you see every card every 6 draws, or giving options to use cards without using up the royal road youve been saving, or something like that.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

people need to realize that you can minmax anything, at any time, under any circumstances. like, minmaxing is the entire fun for some people, why make even minmaxing itself easy and boring? all i do with cards now is hold 3 cards and lightspeed every 2 minutes minutes. riveting .

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This. Absolutely this.

And it's not just an issue for AST either. Since SE reworked party buffs and big burst windows to be every 2 minutes the optimization part of fights has become rather stale, because almost every job automatically syncs up with party buffs anyway.
So now optimization boils down to either just doing your rotation for 8 minutes without letting it desync... or creating an incredibly convoluted custom rotation for a single specific fight, just to get an extra cast of your big potency abilities in.

As for the problem with rng... is it really such a big problem for parse runs when crit and direct hit already exist? You can already end up having to do the same fight a ridiculous amount of times just to get good crit rng.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

people need to realize that you can minmax anything, at any time, under any circumstances. like, minmaxing is the entire fun for some people, why make even minmaxing itself easy and boring? all i do with cards now is hold 3 cards and lightspeed every 2 minutes minutes. riveting .

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Indeed, but not all minmaxing is the same. Minmaxing with RNG feels like you are accepting a compromise, and I understand that some people might not like it. You can give AST six utility cards and unless you remove RNG, they won't ever be part of your healing/mitigation plan because they are not reliable. Still, some people might find the unreliability fun and AST is the only healer that can offer a similar playstyle.

DPS and utility shouldn't be connected, but I also don't think that having RNG utility would just be useless flavour. If anything, I think current jobs need more flavour.

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Originally Posted by rewd

But that's exactly what people have been asking for (just check previous comments).

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I think a lot of the arguments are because not everyone is on the same page on that. A lot of the statements are "bring back the old system" and attacks on the elitist parsers for ruining their AST.

Giving AST their utility cards separately from the dps cards would be great and I'd be all for it. The utility wouldn't always be useful due to RNG, but you're not sacrificing something that's actually useful. It's a bonus that isn't a detriment to the class in any way. Sounds much more fun.

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Originally Posted by rewd

Indeed, but not all minmaxing is the same. Minmaxing with RNG feels like you are accepting a compromise, and I understand that some people might not like it. You can give AST six utility cards and unless you remove RNG, they won't ever be part of your healing/mitigation plan because they are not reliable. Still, some people might find the unreliability fun and AST is the only healer that can offer a similar playstyle.

DPS and utility shouldn't be connected, but I also don't think that having RNG utility would just be useless flavour. If anything, I think current jobs need more flavour.

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Honestly, the RNG aspects were the only thing that kept me playing AST during HW and SB. I love gambler roles in games, even online games. Yes, it's unreliable and clashes with the concept of meta, but I love characters in games that have risk and chance involved in their gameplay.

Something that I think could work better for RNG utility is rather than just applying one short-lived buff to one party member, is if the effects instead augmented certain actions. You get windows where you know certain actions will apply certain buffs and can choose how to use them.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

I think a lot of the arguments are because not everyone is on the same page on that. A lot of the statements are "bring back the old system" and attacks on the elitist parsers for ruining their AST.

Giving AST their utility cards separately from the dps cards would be great and I'd be all for it. The utility wouldn't always be useful due to RNG, but you're not sacrificing something that's actually useful. It's a bonus that isn't a detriment to the class in any way. Sounds much more fun.

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I assume that when people say "bring back the old card system" they mean a generic "give AST six different cards again". After all a 1:1 copy of the old system wouldn't work now because they'd need to rework the TP regen card anyway.

But yeah, I think we are on the same page then. I don't think we will ever get different cards anymore though, so I'm not expecting anything.

In terms of bringing back unique effects for each card, I've always liked the idea of having three cards focused on offensive support while the remaining three provide defensive support, then have Minor Arcana directly tied to that system.

As examples, we could have three cards that increase determination, critical hit rate, and direct hit rate while the remaining three decrease damage taken, increase healing received from healing actions, and convert a portion of damage dealt into HP. Minor Arcana becomes accessible once a card is played. Upon playing an offensive support card, you are granted The Lady. When playing a defensive support card, you are granted The Lord.

Such a system would allow for unique card effects to return while maintaining a degree of consistency with results. Regardless of what you draw, you will always contribute damage (as well as support).

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Giving AST their utility cards separately from the dps cards would be great and I'd be all for it. The utility wouldn't always be useful due to RNG, but you're not sacrificing something that's actually useful. It's a bonus that isn't a detriment to the class in any way. Sounds much more fun.

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I don't care if DPS is separated from utility, or if we still have the melee/range split but 3 different damage effects to be placed on them.

All I want is a legit reason to have 8 difference cards instead of 2 and 1 repeated 6 times.

The seals system does not work. Give it up SE and make the cards unique.

Something I've brought up a few times now is the idea of putting the cards on the GCD, and recently I spent a little time fleshing out that concept with an AST redesign. This is the gist of the card aspect of that concept:

Lodestars: Certain spells grant you 1 Lodestar of which you can have up to 6. Under the effects of Celestial Intersection, spells and weaponskills cause 1 Lodestar to be consumed to perform an additional attack that is of the same potency as your current version of Malefic. This will effectively make these actions DPS neutral or DPS gains depending. This is something gained at level 30 along with your cards.

Level 30
At level 30, you gain Astral Draw and Umbral Draw, both are GCD spells with 30 second recast timers, 2 charges, and restore 8% of your MP when used. Both now grant a Lodestar when used. They do not share a cooldown, meaning you'll draw and play an average of 2 cards per 30 seconds in theory.

Astral Draw will pull either The Balance, The Arrow, or The Spire.
Umbral Draw will pull either The Bole, The Spear, or The Ewer.

Play, Undraw, and Redraw are removed. The cards you draw replace their respective Draw actions, and you have to deal with what the cards give you. Additionally, card buffs are no longer instantly applied. Instead, when you give a card to someone, that card sits on them until you use a new action to detonate the effect. You can only have 1 astral card and 1 umbral card on any given person at a time.
The Balance, when activated grants a 10% Determination increase for 15 seconds.
The Arrow, when activated grants a 10% Direct Hit increase for 15 seconds.
The Spire, when activated grants a 5% critical damage increase for 15 seconds.

The Bole, when activated reduces damage taken by 10% for 15 seconds.
The Spear, when activated increases max HP by 10% for 15 seconds and heals for that amount.
The Ewer, when activated applies a 150 potency Regen for 15 seconds.

All cards also generate 1 Lodestar when played.

Celestial Opposition is now a GCD AoE heal of 300 potency at level 90. It also detonates all Umbral card effects on all party members you heal. It also generates 1 Lodestar, inflicts Stop on enemies for 4 seconds, and costs 1200 MP.
Celestial River is a new GCD AoE heal of 300 potency at level 90, and it detonates all Astral card effects on all party members you heal. It generates 1 Lodestar, reduces damage dealt by enemies by 5% for 10 seconds, and costs 1200 MP.

Celestial Intersection is a GCD action on a 15 second cooldown. It gives a target party member a 15 second buff that causes their spells and weaponskills to trigger Lodestars. It also generates 1 additional Lodestar for you and costs 400 MP. You can cast it on yourself. This must be used in order for Lodestars to be deployed.

Level 70:

Minor Arcana is learned. This becomes a GCD spell with a 600 MP cost that draws both the Lord and Lady of Crowns and generates 1 Lodestar. It has a 60 second cooldown.

Crown Play is removed. Instead, the lord and lady replace specific actions on the hotbar.

The Lord of Crowns replaces Combust on the hotbar and acts as a GCD AoE attack. When played, it deals 400 potency for the first enemy that decreases by 60% for remaining enemies. It also applies your Combust DoT to all enemies. The DoT has 100% potency on the first enemy and 60% less potency on remaining enemies. It generates 1 Lodestar. It costs 600 MP.
The Lady of Crowns replaces Helios on the hotbar and acts as an AoE heal. When played, it heals for 400 potency for yourself and all nearby party members while also randomly granting one of the umbral arcanum effects as well (i.e. 400 potency heal and 10% damage reduction or 400% heal and 10% max HP increase, etc.) It generates 1 Lodestar. It costs 600 MP.

That concludes the concept.

This system would do a number of things:
- It reduces the total amount of weaving required, making it more approachable and freeing up Lightspeed to be used situationally rather than for burst windows.
- It makes AST highly mobile which can also make it easier at face value.
- It allows for the existence of offensive and supportive cards, and allows you to set them up in advance to be used at once rather than hoping that supportive cards specifically will be useful when pulled.
- It creates a new playstyle of healer who is significantly less offensive as many of their GCD uses will go toward drawing and playing cards as well as activating them with a heal. This both breaks up the Malefic spam monotony while also creating something more palatable for healers unhappy with the volume of direct DPS healers are responsible for.
- It reduces a fair amount of button bloat that currently just feels like clunk.

I genuinely hope we get cards back but I'm not gonna be surprised if they just delete astro at this point to put it out of its misery

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...4/ast_loss.jpg