AST suggestions for balance and fun

I realize that everyone and their pet hamster is posting this type of thing, but I think I've got some cool ideas. Might be worth a read for fun at least.

In my 'expert' opinion as an indie game dev who has shipped over 100 copies of a meh puzzle game, here's what I would do to the AST.

Problem
AST healing output has been reported to be lower than the other healing jobs. I believe taking the time to draw cards rather than heal is not helping this. Yes it is off the global cooldown, but there is still some time lost in animation/input time/decision making. Perhaps marginal, but not zero.

Solution
New Trait
"Read the Stars"
Using the draw command will call down a star from the heavens. The star will land on the party member with the lowest health, healing them X potency. If cleric stance is active, the star will instead crash into a random enemy that you are in combat with, dealing X potency damage.

Problem
AST cooldowns have been the target of many complaints. I think this cooldown would be a great addition or replacement for one of the current.

Solution
New cooldown spell
"The Stars Are Right"
Draw a constellation of 6 stars in the sky bearing the symbols of the 6 cards. Increasing your healing done by X% for Y seconds, and granting a number of card buffs.

When you are not in a party at all, you will gain all 6 card buffs at their regular potency. Quite powerful, but only applicable to solo play.

When you are in a party, everyone will gain buffs based on their job at 50% potency.
Tanks: The Bole and The Spear. (5% damage reduction and 10% recast reduction)
Physical DPS: The Balance and The Spire (5% damage and TP refresh)
Caster DPS: The Balance and The Ewer (5% damage and MP refresh)
Healers: The Arrow and The Ewer (5% cast speed and MP refresh)


I realize this might be overpowered, but the concept could be tweaked and balanced.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MistralLevante

Using the draw command will call down a star from the heavens. The star will land on the party member with the lowest health, healing them X potency. If cleric stance is active, the star will instead crash into a random enemy that you are in combat with, dealing X potency damage.

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Cool Idea, but you can't make a trait based on a skill you don't originally have. Or else you're making mandatory for people to have Cleric Stance. (It is kinda mandatory, but the game doesn't force you to do it)

Yeah that did cross my mind. The damage component could be removed entirely in that case. I just figured it wouldn't hurt to give it an additional interaction with the skill as a bonus. The healing part works always, the damage part happens if you cross class the skill that lets you focus on damage.

But you have a highly relevant point.

Problem : AST is the weakest healer job.

Solution : AST need to be removed from the game asap.








It's not serious, of course.

Its a fun idea, but Astrologian isnt an issue in itself.

The prayers to RNGesus that you draw a useful card to balance out lower potency is the main issue.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MistralLevante

Yeah that did cross my mind. The damage component could be removed entirely in that case. I just figured it wouldn't hurt to give it an additional interaction with the skill as a bonus. The healing part works always, the damage part happens if you cross class the skill that lets you focus on damage.

But you have a highly relevant point.

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I propose that instead of specifying Cleric Stance, it simply states that the effect is different if your INT is higher than your MND (which is, of course, only possible with Cleric)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MistralLevante

Problem
AST healing output has been reported to be lower than the other healing jobs. I believe taking the time to draw cards rather than heal is not helping this. Yes it is off the global cooldown, but there is still some time lost in animation/input time/decision making. Perhaps marginal, but not zero.

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Being able to make snap decisions with cards you draw in high movement/healing output fights and weaving them through your heals efficiently and effectively is what drew me to this job. I have a lot of my card abilities bound close at hand so muscle memory can take over even if the gap between one heal and the next is infinitesimal while doling them out. That and being able to quickly recognize the card and it's abilities/RR capabilities at a very quick glance helps largely.

I said this in the Alex Savage thread already but i think this would be a good start




Reduce Draw to 15seconds
Shuffle cannot re-draw the same card
Collective Unconscious = added benefits- 'Nocturnal- increases direct heals taken by 15%, Diurnal- increases shields by 20% - Remove the channel but silence the caster. Can click to stop it prematurely

Celestral Opposition = remove the stun and 5 second buff extension, gives everyone the Spread card to full effect.

Time Dilation = reduce cooldown to 1 minute, also doubles target Ast shield strength.


Synergy with the WHM/SCH, weaker heals stay but make up for the buffs they provide as they can be pumped out more frequently. I think this is a nice tradeoff.

OK here is one of my thought collections from another thread- slightly edited

IMO its really only some of our cds that need work. This class is designed to be a machinegun healer, and some of the cds just fly in the face of that. Focus on mobility, the healing is quick, cheap, and slightly weaker. EMBRACE IT!

Firstly: CU- Everything about this class screams 'quick, mobile healer' and then we get a sit-on-our-hands skill. Don't move or cast for 18 secs, for a long cd, or clip it and waste potential benefit for such a long cd. Before now I had simply wished to be able to place it like the other two healers but now I would like something a bit different- keep the barrier centered on us but once we cast it, it stays around us and we can move/cast normally. We now have a mobile barrier deserving of the long ass cd. We still have the penalty of needing to be up in the action, unlike the safely placed asylum/sacred soil but we keep MOVING. Reduce potency if necessary but I think the long cd is enough.

For my other idea that isn't focused on mobility and keeps the stationary aspect- since diurnal got buffed a bit but this is still a sit-still-cast-nothing skill we are talking about needs more OOMPH. give both diurnal and noct a % dmg reduction. diurnal now lowers damage and has large hot ticks. FOr noct I suggest a new effect- pretty much Spirit Link totem in WoW. It equalizes the HP among all inside. So if you have one person at 100% and someone else at 1% they would then both be set at 51%. This effect would tick like the regen ticks. Alternatively allow all incoming damage to be split evenly? Perhaps these are a bit op for tank busters though.

Second: lightspeed/benefic proc- Without a reduction in gcd we simply have the ILLUSION of being faster since nearly every spell you would cast under LS has a cast time shorter than gcd. Anyone who has played any of the mage classes is probably very familiar with being able to move>cast>clip the spell at the last moment to get the spell casts still but also move which would get you almost the same result as LS but without the potency reduction since very rarely do you have to keep moving with zero breaks for that long. Both LS and the proc don't reduce the gcd meaning you don't ACTUALLY pump out heals any faster even though it seems like the intent.

The proc should make next bene2 instant and off gcd, and LS should reduce the gcd by 1 second, or perhaps 1.5 seconds. This in addition to the change we already have of MP reduction and removal of the healing penalty. This makes LS our 'emergency cd' we so sorely lack without making it a potency increaser like divine seal/rouse/fey illumination or a carbon copy of presence of mind. If this seems too op either lower the duration of lightspeed buff (keeping in mind it can be increased with CO) or increase the cd. Remember though-other healers have 2 healing cds or more so if this is our ONLY one it should be DARN GOOD. (yes I know we have synastry which is great but it does not fill the same purpose of 'OMG tank/party needs it all RIGHT NAO')

Thirdly: cards- I actually think the cards are in a good place. They are a supplement and flavor to the class NOT THE MAIN FOCUS as most people seem to think. Make shuffle prevent redrawing the same card would be gravy. Since the spam-style of the class is designed to burn mp, I'd propose draw restore 1-2% mp. Not an emergency-mp restore like aetherflow, or a chunk like assize. Not a regen like LA or shroud, but a small constant upkeep. Rewards continuous use of the cards, but if you want to sit on a spread/rr combo you already have its not the hugest loss. Everyone wants the buffs to be super huge but I really think that unnecessary and potentially waaaay too op. since drawing the card is what restores mp, not using it, you can still spread/rr/shuffle without losing your gain.

Fourth: noct sect- I have said this in a few places but I really do think that making our shields ticking shields would be unique and wonderful. A regen-shield would build up, stacking to a larger amount if you aren't taking damage or continuously mitigate continuous damage a little bit, smoothing it out. Plus if they worked this way both time dilation and CO would extend them in a useful way. They should if left to build to a full stack, be close to but not as strong as a sch galvanize. I envision the regen-shield stacking to work like this- aspected benefic and aspected helios are themselves two buffs but the shield they grant is still the same buff it is now and separate. They both stack the same shield, refreshing it (this way the durations are tracked separately from the application duration). So a tank with both aspect benefic and aspect helios would get faster/more/stronger ticks of shielding.

Noct shields and scholar shields shouldn't overwrite each other :/ at the very least even if noct gets UNTOUCHED make only the strongest shield apply between noct/sch PLEASE. I would like AFTER this implementation to perhaps split the aspected benefic and aspected helios into separate buffs and split adlo/succor for scholar as well so they can stack, been thinking about that for ages. At least TRY it for a little while-I feel like SE can balance it so they can stack without being OP. I know se clearly intended for an ast/sch pair to use a diurnal ast but it's just plain limiting. Two sch can effectively work now with all their new tools, and 2 whm have always been able to stack hots. 2 diurnal ast can't stack hots either-again making a 2 ast comp someone is forced to use noct. Something needs to give here.

Perhaps my idea is too complicated but with wow having spells like sacred shied and stone bulwark totem I know the concept is already out there. On a slightly separate note the ONE thing I miss from my wow UI (default game's raid UI, mind) is the ability to see incoming heals (the ones with cats times but not instants) and see shields on the party hp bars. Huge QOL. Then again you can stack disc/pally shields in WoW too, and several classes have at least one ability to absorb damage. I know this isn't wow and doesn't need to work quite like it but hey....the game has been around for years they did get some things pretty nicely hammered out over that time.

Lastly: CO- This is our friggin level 60 skill with a stupidly long cd. WHY IS IT NOT SUPER AMAZING?! You have one of the most beautiful spell effects in the game but it does so LITTLE. I would like to add a heal component to this spell- a constellation like chain heal (the opportunity was perfect thematically I don't see how this missed the game already) that reduces damage taken a small amount in noct sect and increases healing received in diurnal sect. And change the stun to a unique debuff :/ I would say get rid of the stun altogether with adding a heal component but it IS supposed to be close to stopping time....I think with the constellation heal and the 5 sec buff extension it would be in a nice place.

And some QOL adjustments....
- stella change to paralyze. add heavy to gravity (come on, its gravity and a lvl 52 spell)
-disable not used on autoattacks
-perhaps switch the levels you gain gravity and combust2. Not having any aoe before lvl 52 is killer :/
-increase range on aspected benefic a teeny bit? mayhap not as large as medica 2 but it is way too small now.

I like getting my ideas all written down. And perhaps hearing how others feel about them. The star/card theme of the class is wonderful! Synastry and time dilation are great! Essential dignity is great! We have so much potential to stand alongside the powerhouses of whm and sch. We should not be a weaker version of both- we should be a strong and unique healer on our own. I don't want to be a copy. If I did I would go be whm/sch.

new idea since my original post- allow synastry to copy also half the healing from aspect benefic ticks and grant half the shielding of noct aspect benefic. If we keep it as is now and have so very FEW healing cds, they should all be very very awesome and not so...niche. And/or allow any single target heal on the synastry target to be raised by a % so we have a GOOD tank cd aside from poor ED, which is often only a delay of the inevitable.

With a souped-up lightspeed, better CU, buffed synastry, and CO being our assize/indomitability we could react to bad situations so much better than now.

The main things I'd like is the following:

1) Switch location of Combust II and Gravity, and give gravity the slow/heavy effect. That way it has utility like holy, especially at mitigating autoattack damage, and we'll have access to an actual AOE ability for lvl 50 dungeons like the other healing classes.
2) Give us some useful direct healing abilities after level 42. The only ability that directly heals after such an early level is Collective Unconcious at 58, which isn't that good to begin with. 18 levels without a direct healing ability specially 52+ is kinda odd and detrimental.