Astrologian - "Reverse" Card Effects

Was thinking about how people find some of the card effects pretty "meh" or too situational in a lot of cases. Without adding more cards, or even touching the existing cards, I think an interesting way to handle this would be to make them omni-targetable...Ally and Enemy.

Ideally, each card would have a positive and negative effect, depending on who it was cast on. Think Tarot cards with their "Reverse"/upside-down meanings, and have them apply a pseudo-mirror effect when cast on an enemy.

Card = Ally Effect/Enemy Effect
Balance = Damage Up/Damage Down
Ewer = Mana Refresh/INT Down
Spire = TP Refresh/STR Down
Bole = Defense Up/Increased Damage Taken
Spear = CD Down/Silence
Arrow = Speed Up/Slow+Heavy

That way, every card has a good use in most situations. Only one I can see a real issue with balance-wise might be Balance and Bole potentially. Honestly, Balance should do 5% damage down and Disable should be buffed a bit personally.

Tottaly aproved!!

This would actually be quite neat, and would propaply (hopefully?) Make AST more wanted for end game. Love it!

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Originally Posted by spelley

Was thinking about how people find some of the card effects pretty "meh" or too situational in a lot of cases. Without adding more cards, or even touching the existing cards, I think an interesting way to handle this would be to make them omni-targetable...Ally and Enemy.

Ideally, each card would have a positive and negative effect, depending on who it was cast on. Think Tarot cards with their "Reverse"/upside-down meanings, and have them apply a pseudo-mirror effect when cast on an enemy.

Card = Ally Effect/Enemy Effect
Balance = Damage Up/Damage Down
Ewer = Mana Refresh/INT Down
Spire = TP Refresh/STR Down
Bole = Defense Up/Increased Damage Taken
Spear = CD Down/Silence
Arrow = Speed Up/Slow+Heavy

That way, every card has a good use in most situations. Only one I can see a real issue with balance-wise might be Balance and Bole potentially. Honestly, Balance should do 5% damage down and Disable should be buffed a bit personally.

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Yea I was thinking about this too in my list of AST changes i'm drafting. It would be very useful when we draw junk cards.

Bole Card = Decrease Physical Defense
Ewer Card = Decrease Magic Defense
Spire Card = Decrease enemies HP (DoTs)
Spear Card = Diminishes enemy abilities
Balance Card = Decrease enemy damage dealt
Arrow Card = adds slow effect to enemy

I suppose one method for this would be stance swapping in combat. Buff in Diurnal and debuff in Nocturnal.

I really like this idea. Approved.

neat idea but i don't think the chances of this happening are very high

Approve completely. I honestly had the same idea a few weeks ago while day-dreaming.

Then ast would truly be a supp / buff healer BUT se too busy with other stuff i guess to even consider the output of the ppl giving new feedback after the recent ast buff.

I love this idea as well. If you create a petition, I will gladly sign.

Loving this!!!

This could fulfill the enfeeblement class idea they polled a few years back.

I love reverse reading though since it is practiced by some tarot readers ^^

Signed. I play AST because it's the closest I could find to classic support jobs in FFXI. This would make it even better with flexibility / options.

Love this idea!

Something like this might work, but I think the actual effects you've suggested would need changing. The chance of getting the silence card when you actually needed to silence something would be so slim, and most bosses are immune to Heavy/Slow. So I don't think those would ever be used in this "new" way which would defeat the purpose of changing them.

But in general, I like the idea of the cards doing different things on different targets.
But I also just think AST needs a buff overall anyway

I like this idea, it adds more utility and options for the cards.

I highly doubt it will happen. I believe SE will save the de-buffing for a separate job entirely, most likely the red mage. paralyze, slow, str down, int down, etc.

It would break the mold of the game entirely. SE states they do not have debuff/buff jobs and that would straight up turn the astro into a universal debuff job.

Ermm? We already have these in game but other jobs apply it instead... Unless u want to make those jobs change there rotation based on what u applied to the boss??..... We have reduce slash/pierce/Blunt/ magic/ int,str, / we have slow/ heavy as well... We do not need this as other jobs can already apply these effects ... How ever it was a nice idea but it is not needed in the game currently

I agree with above poster. It's nice on paper, but based on our debuff on the enemy(which is RNG based), the other jobs will need to change their DPS rotation and it might ruin their rotation timing completely(although if it's done perfectly, an increase in total DPS can be expected because the debuff skill rotation can be substituted with the strongest DPS skill rotation). It's another matter if the debuff uptime can be keep at 100% of the time, but alas, the notion of 100% upkeep does not fit the card concept at all unfortunately :)

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Originally Posted by AmiraHargal

I agree with above poster. It's nice on paper, but based on our debuff on the enemy(which is RNG based), the other jobs will need to change their DPS rotation and it might ruin their rotation timing completely(although if it's done perfectly, an increase in total DPS can be expected because the debuff skill rotation can be substituted with the strongest DPS skill rotation). It's another matter if the debuff uptime can be keep at 100% of the time, but alas, the notion of 100% upkeep does not fit the card concept at all unfortunately :)

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So long as the debuffs stack and do not overwrite each other, and the AST debuff is considered a bonus rather than a mandatory part of a rotation, I do not see the issue. No one's going to drop a WAR from a group because the AST has a 1/6 chance of reducing the boss's defense.

I'm glad people seem to think this is a neat idea. I also really doubt it'll happen, but it DOES Fit the bill for "buffing the class using its unique mechanics"

Love the idea, had suggested something similar earlier but this is a far better design.