AST concept changes

With astro's rework coming up next expac I was thinking about stuff they could change to make the class feel better to play. Given there are other posts with their own iterations on changes I figured I would make my own.

• Astrodyne

Generating 3 identical or 3 unique seals generates Harmodyne. Otherwise, generates Discodyne. Casting Astrodyne twice consumes both these dyne's to different effects.

Each stack of Harmodyne gives allies in an area a shield/regen (based on sect) and damage up, while each stack of Discodyne afflicts enemies with Omen for a few seconds, increasing damage they take and dealing a small chunk of damage each time the astro damages them (think damage Plenary Indulgence).

• Bring back Nocturnal Sect

Make Diurnal and Nocturnal sect share a button. When you activate it, you enter that sect, and the opposing sect is shown. Additionally, allow the player to swap sect in-combat. This would come with the previous iterations of the Aspected spells, CU, CO and CI.

• Bring back Time Dilation

Also change it from 90s recast to 120s with 2 charges. Perhaps make it affect enemies too, pushing negative effects like Combust forward 15 seconds to immediately deal the 5 ticks of damage. Would be interesting to see it interact with other newer buttons like Macrocosmos.

• Collective Unconscious

Rather than having the mit drop if you don't hold it, keep the 10% going for the full duration, and make holding the ability have an additional effect, such as halting card and divination expiration.

• Gap Closer

While it was a consideration for a while, playing Sage and having Icarus at my disposal really cemented the thought that other healers should have one too, if only for the convenience of keeping up with a running party. Nevermind the mechanical benefit.

• Gravity

Between ogcd healing and cards, astro already has a lot to do. Making sure to target the centermost enemy in a pull is just added tedium, so Gravity/Gravity 2 should be centered on the caster. Or allow it to target allies/self. Also, considering how much less damage it does than the other healers, it would also be nice to add a 5-10% slow as well, even if it's only 4s like whm.

• Lightspeed

Change the lv. 68 trait to give it 2 charges, rather than reduce the recast time.

• Minor Arcana

Change the effect to be a reiteration of Royal Road;
Enhance the effect of the next card.
Lord of Crowns: 150% potency.
Lady of crowns: 50% potency, extends effect to nearby targets.

• Unify Draw and Play

Rather than showing the cooldown on the button, they could add it to the card gauge so there is a better visual for exactly when another card is available without having to split up buttons. A bit like how other classes have a timer gauge. This way, Draw and Play can share the same button. Similarly, playing a card should automatically draw a card immediately after, if a use of Draw is available.

• Potential new ability

Given Astrologian's penchant for the time mage aesthetic, it would be interesting if they had an ability similar to the follow;

Temporal Dither (120s, oGCD ability)
Grants Temporal Dither to self or target party member.
Duration: 15s
For the effect's duration, damage taken and healing or barriers received is inhibited and compiled. Damage, healing and shielding compiled applies to the target all at once when the effect expires.

Alternative idea(s) and clarifications:

Level 30
Remove Undraw, and make Draw a trait instead;

Draw
Draws a card (arcanum) from your divining deck automatically every thirty seconds.
Maximum cards: 3
Can be charged outside of combat.

Cards drawn and recharge timer would be shown on the Arcana Gauge like WHM lilies or SGE addersgall.


Level 50
Remove lvl 50 trait Enhanced Draw II and moves the effect to divination;

Divination
Increases damage dealt by self and nearby party members by 6%.
Duration: 15s
Grants 3 random astrosigns to be read when you play an arcanum.
Maximum Astrosigns: 3

Enhanced Redraw
Redrawing an arcanum will also replace the latest astrosign.

Astrodyne - 20y radius
Grants Harmony of Body and Harmony of Mind using the astrosigns read from your divining deck.
Can only be executed after reading three astrosigns.
Duration: 15s
Harmony of Body effect: Reduces spell and weaponskill cast time and recast time, and auto-attack delay by 10%
Harmony of Mind effect: Gradually restores own MP
Potency: 50
Additional effect: Grants a dyne determined by the number of different astrosigns read.
1 or 3 unique astrosigns: Grants 1 Harmodyne
2 unique astrosigns: Grants 1 Discodyne

After generating a second dyne, both dynes are consumed to grant additional effects and grant Harmony of Body and Harmony of Mind to nearby party members.
Harmodyne effect: Grants Earthshite and Prograde to self and nearby party members.
Earthshine effect: Increases maximum health and healing received by 5%
Prograde effect: Reduces spell and weaponskill cast time and recast time, and auto-attack delay by 10%
Duration: 20s
Discodyne effect: Grants Libration and Retrograde to all nearby enemies
Libration effect: Increases damage taken by 5%
Retrograde effect: Compiles damage based on the attack executed for the duration.
Melee Attack or Spell potency: 20
Ranged Attack or Spell potency: 20
Area Attack or Spell potency: 10
Duration: 20s
Deal damage to target equal to compiled damage when the effect expires.

Of course, other more unique buffs would be interesting, though exactly how they would be incorporated without falling into the same trap as minor arcana where not getting exactly what you want just feels bad.
To clarify what is going on as well; the idea is that every 2 minutes, between Divination and the below ability/trait, you generate 2 dynes. By the 2nd cast of divination, the rotation rounds out to giving you the double dyne line up within the divination window, assuming you cast it prepull to get a prepull dyne ready, or simply hold off using Astrodyne until your next Divination cast to get it immediately, since the seals are already read so you can effectively stack astrodyne casts.
You can have any combination of harmodyne and discodyne, be it one of each, or a duplicate pair. Regardless, each dyne provides unique buffs/debuffs that in turn stack with eachother and themselves. You could go for double harmodyne for a massive boost in healing potential and cast time reduction. Alternatively you can use double discodyne for a huge bonus to damage. The ideal situation is to have one of each since they feed into eachother, given discodyne's Retrograde focuses on its delayed burst of damage based on GCDs cast, while harmodyne's Prograde focuses on getting you more GCD's in a given window of time, meaning more Retrograde damage, which in turn is boosted by its partner buff Libration. The idea is that each dyne gives a unique effect, but in the long run the combination of buffs you are given, while random, never really feel bad to have. Sure there are situations or jobs/compositions that prefer one over the other, but it would rarely be too much of a damage difference to ever really feel bad. Plus unlike something like the cards themselves, those meatier buffs or chunks of damage would generally feel far more satisfying to execute or see the results of.


Level 70
Minor arcana change, or perhaps return of sleeve draw;

Ability, Instant, 120s
Generate a random Dyne. If this is the second Dyne, immediately read both Dynes.


Gap closer concept:
Predetermined Fate - Ability, Instant, 60s, 25y range
Places an astrological sigil at the designated location and grants Pending Fate to self.
Duration: 30s
Rush to the sigil's location at the end of the duration or upon executing this action a second time.

I'd like to see Astrologian get something like the Mage's "Alter Time" from World of Warcraft

WoW's alter time is as follows

Quote:

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Alter Time
1% of base mana
Instant 1 min cooldown
Requires Mage
Requires level 58
Alters the fabric of time, returning you to your current location and health when cast a second time, or after 10 seconds. Effect negated by long distance or death.

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A version I'd like to see on FFXIV would be as follows

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Alter Time 90 second recharge

Grants Alter time to self or a party member, after 5 seconds or dropping below 30% health return to the location and health value at time of cast.

Effect negated by death.

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WoW borrows stuff from us so I don't see the harm in us borrowing something like this.


Or something like the Preservation Evoker's Time Dilation ability

Quote:

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Time Dilation Bronze
Talent
2% of base mana 30 yd range
Instant 1 min cooldown
Requires Evoker (Preservation)
Stretch time around an ally for the next 8 sec, causing 50% of damage they would take to instead be dealt over 8 sec.

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I hope they bring back sects i only got to play nocturnal sect for a short time but it was so much fun. I kind of wish i was around when the cards were more unique. It would be nice to have a Card thats just a flat buff of 6% since they all do it anyway, a Card thats a 10% defense buff like exaltation without the heal and then maybe a 3rd unique card. It would be really nice to have all of the healers main aoe spell (gravity, art of war, and i forgot the sages) have a secondary effect like how holy has a stun.

While Time Dilation from WoW is very cool (and the whole Echo concept for Prevoker in general), I don't think I'd want to see it used on AST. Rather, I think it'd be technical enough to play around for it to be a whole job of it's own. Delay burst damage into a DOT, place HOTs to counteract it, manipulate both HOTs and DOTs in some way, ie extend the HOT to make it last longer (more ticks), or extend the DOT to make it last longer (more ticks, but that means each tick hits for less). Also I vastly prefer how Rewind works compared to Macrocosmos (press to apply buff, then press again to detonate is janky compared to 'press and it instantly rewinds the past 5s of damage)

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Rewind works compared to Macrocosmos (press to apply buff, then press again to detonate is janky compared to 'press and it instantly rewinds the past 5s of damage)

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Its because Macrocosmos isn't a rewind. Gives you health based on 50% of the damage you take. I think it would be awesome if it was a rewind thematically but I do like how it complies damage. It makes healing bleeds slightly more interesting than pressing CO.

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

Its because Macrocosmos isn't a rewind. Gives you health based on 50% of the damage you take. I think it would be awesome if it was a rewind thematically but I do like how it complies damage. It makes healing bleeds slightly more interesting than pressing CO.

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Rewind is 'heals you for 50% of the damage you took over the past 5 seconds', it also compiles damage, it just doesn't have the 'put a buff on people first' part. You see people go from 100% to 10%, hit Rewind, now they're back at 55%. You put up Macro, watch people go from 100% to 10%, hit Microcosmos, they're back at 55%. Same functionality, just one doesn't involve the 'press to apply a buff' first, it dynamically keeps tracking the past 5 seconds. Macro's advantage is that it lasts longer (more window of compiled damage), but Rewind's is that it's a lot better as a 'o shit' button, which is probably more suited to the incoming damage profile that WOW has. Also it can be talented to either have 1min lower CD, or 2 charges but half effectiveness (healing 25% instead of 50%) so there's some versatility in it's functionality to be thought about too. I just don't like how Macro feels to use, having to press it once to apply a buff, then press it again to get the actual healing. It's like the server can't handle constantly tracking what damage was done in the past X seconds, so it has to be worked around with this janky hack method

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

Its because Macrocosmos isn't a rewind. Gives you health based on 50% of the damage you take. I think it would be awesome if it was a rewind thematically but I do like how it complies damage. It makes healing bleeds slightly more interesting than pressing CO.

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When I think of a "rewind" I think of things like Mage's Alter Time from World of Warcraft or Ekko's Chronobreak from League of Legends