An idea for revamping the AST card system

[RichardButte]

I feel as though you're not taking into account the other skills that aide in cards (I didn't read the entire post, sorry.). Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition really help with the duration. Honestly, if they lasted as long as, say, a minute, that'd be way too power. Already, you can have someone with an Enhanced the Balance for about 45~ seconds if TD and CO are used. This can lead to several 6k crits from a BLM. I just feel like you're underestimating some of the cards a little too much.

Thing is, you're describing perfect circumstances, here: RRing a Balance to double duration and then blowing a 90 and 150 sec cooldown to push the duration longer.

Yeah, it's great that you can keep that BLM running at full potency (until they run out of mana and need to switch to ice to regen, I mean), but in order to get that, not ONLY are you relying upon a circumstance which is far from guaranteed, but you're also talking about a class that outright brings much weaker heals to the table than a SCH or WHM.

When it comes down to deciding what classes to bring to my raid, I would absolutely not bring an AST in their current state. As you described, if everything goes right and they blow every cooldown, they can make a single player do a lot of extra damage once every 2-3 minutes (if RNG favors them).

And in the meantime, their heals are far worse than those of other healing classes, their emergency buttons are worse and they just don't have the coverage either (their range on AoE heals is actually worse than WHM, too: 15y as opposed to WHM's 20y).

It's not worth bringing a sub-par healer for a CHANCE at them doing something that will help kill the boss faster once every 2-3 minutes. The risk outweighs the potential reward. ASTs will be used for content that's on farm for the hell of it, but they're just not going to be welcome on progression raids run by any semi-competent raid leader.

I understand you're not happy with the effects, but it is what it is. If Astro DID get these effects, then the other healers would have to have things added to them to make them more favorable, or the Astros ability to heal would be nerfed to an even lower ability, although the latter is unlikely and the former probably wouldn't happen.

It's not just me. Many others are pointing out the same thing in other threads: the AST healing pales in comparison to that of the other healers, and that WOULD be find, if their buffs had the potential to really swing a fight, but they don't.

I forgot to mention this, but I would consider extending the range of AoE RR to 30 yards. It takes a minimum of 60 seconds to throw out that buff (whatever it is). It should at least be all but guaranteed to hit all party members...

[Erecii]

Yes, it is a perfect situation. There are also a LOT of perfect situations with the cards.

Yes, I know Astro effectiveness is not the best, with skills that pale in comparison to other classes.

People need to at least wait for the new Alexander raids to come out before completely ignoring them. Coil, to my logic, is not a good example as they are made with the knowledge that WHM and SCH would be healing it, not Astro. Take that how you will.

If changing the cards is what makes this class "viable" in others eyes then SE should just do it.

[kiraan]

i like the concept of attibuing a general theme to cards, a bit more pronounced that what we have now.

The balance should affect potency, damage and healing as well like you said

The bole is actually fine i think with a main theme of damage reduction

The arrow is fine with the theme of speed. An increase to run speed like you mentionned would be nice too, but not as much as 50%

The spear with the theme of cooldowns reduction is nice too. Only adjustement i'll make is for already used cooldowns, to reduce your ongoing cooldown by the 20% you would have benefited if you casted it under the card effect. But in this case, 20% might be a bit too much, 10% seems more reasonable but less affected by who use what and when.

The ewer with a theme of ressource regen is nice too. So your idea of combining 2 previous cards into one and changing the reduction to a regen is a nice thing.
I'll just put HP and MP regen, not the HP one, would be bordeline OP.

And now we're left with The spire and i don't really know what to put here, lots of ideas comes to my mind, but if i were to take the more reasonable one, i'll say that the spire should increase healing received by X% ( 10% just the card, 15% RR, or 5% seems a nice addition withou being OP)

[DeadRiser]

The ONLY thing I'd change about the card system is that...

My Astrologian does not know what the hell SHUFFLE means because she seems to draw the same card every single time I shuffle. Every. Single. Time.

Please, don't let us draw that same card lol

-_-

[VitalSuit]

The more I read your post, the more I change my initial reply.

I still don't agree with the numbers but the cards definitely need a large buff. Very large buff (although my stance has always been this) seeing your suggestions is much better but a drastic change like that would unfortunately have be some kind of major update rather than a hotfix.

[VanEinstein]

I really like your suggestions, OP. I haven't got anything to say about the numbers, be they appropriate or otherwise, but I feel as though the cards are in need of *some* form of adjustment. There are those rare perfect world scenarios that make me feel triumphant, but most often I feel I'm drawing cards without benefit. At present Spire & Spear generally cause me to curse aloud, with Ewer being only marginally acceptable under specific circumstances.

It seems odd they felt the need to reduce AST potency for unreliable RNG buffs w/ little impact outside perfect world scenarios. WHM & SCH have their own niche, but keeping AST from infringing on either has put the job in a weird place. By reducing potencies AST is most certainly not stepping on any toes, but if the card mechanic is to be what defines the job, let it be worth the cost of sacrificing reliability and consistency. All that being said though, despite its flaws I find the style to bring me more enjoyment than WHM.

[Miiu]

The most common theme I see in terms of AST not being happy is the card mechanic. We all can agree to the fact that its okay to have less healing power if we get something else in return to make up for that. When I first heard of what the Astro class was I thought they might take the corsair from FFXI as a template. Where you can choose a certain buff but RNG-Roll a number that determines the effectiveness. Which I'd have been perfectly happy with but okay thats not what we got instead we have a random chance to draw one out of 6 cards, which at its core is fine. I don't mind that RNG is involved in what buffs we get to play but the lengths of the cooldowns + the actual buff durations are not only lackluster but inefficient, at least when we take a look at the other two healer options.

So I for one like the proposed changes while the numbers definitely need tweaking, it is at least change aimed in the right direction. This might be overkill but the cooldown for draw should be reduced too. The card system should be the bread and butter of the job but right now its a side dish with the occasional odd ingredient.

[Tegh]

Hi, I don't want to make a new topic just to complain, so I am doing so here.

Let's look at AST's numbers for their buffs. DPS is easy to measure so we'll focus on The Balance. We're ignoring cast animations and GCDs and stuff like that; it makes AST look worse.

Best case scenario, we draw The Balance 100% of the time. The buff duration is 15s, cooldown on card draw is 30s, and the buff effect is +10% damage. The average damage increase for a single target is +5%. K. Royal Road does not improve the average damage increase.

Time Dilation exists. It also has a 90s cooldown. So, every 180s we get 2 Time Dilation'd Balances and 4 regular Balances. 120s / 180s. That's +6.66% average damage on a single target. AST confirmed for being the preferred class of Satanists.

Selene is now a +3% groupwide deeps buff apparently? 30s / 60s, +1.5% average buff. Slightly greater than AST's group Balance, which is +1.25% average.

Pls feel free to correct me if I'm wrong anywhere.

[Tegh]

Also AST has dumpster AoE heals. Imagine trying to do t9 (normal or savage) without a WHM.

I'll compare multi-target buffs to single target ones because I'm bored, and because this needs clarification for people who fish for group buffs.

The Balance on a single target is +5% average damage. On the group, it's +1.25% average, since you can only use it once every 60s.

Including the tanks and healers, +1.25% group damage is almost the same as +1.25% x 8 = +10% average single person damage. More realistically it'd be like +6-7% because healers/tanks/machinists don't contribute as much. Not worth the effort, stick w/ normal Balance draws + Time Dilation.

(Selene is +1.5% x 8 = +12%, for comparison.)

Edit: In case it wasn't obvious, I assumed everyone does the same damage.

[loreleidiangelo]

I'm with Roxas on this one...I've also pondered changes to the cards/Draw system, but what you're suggesting is, frankly, ludicrously OP. 80% mitigation on a single hit for the tank? That's a DOUBLE SENTINEL-LEVEL COOLDOWN, and you're suggesting ASTs get the possibility to Draw one every 30 seconds. 50% reduction on CDs? That drags Hallowed Ground and Benediction from a whopping 5 MINUTE COOLDOWN to a mere two and a half minutes...Draw Spear again and that CD is reduced even further, to a scant 1 minute and 15 seconds. 20% attack speed reduction? On my MNK, at 50, my GCD was pretty much a flat 2 seconds under GL3...20% attack speed up makes that only a 1.6 second GCD! My WHM and AST have shorter cast times than that...I can only imagine what a 20% speed up would do to THEM! @__@

You can say that it "doesn't matter if the buffs are OP because the only chance to Draw them is 17%", but to me, that doesn't justify it. Every hardcore progression group would just roll an Astrologian trying to fish for those lucky 4 Spears in a row to use HG to let tanks cheese tank busters that they wouldn't ordinarily survive, or that Royal Roaded Bole to let the raid survive what should ordinarily kill them, but IN NO EFFING WAY CAN WITH A GROUP-WIDE 40% DAMAGE REDUCTION ON THEM, PLUS whatever other mitigation tools your group brings (Disable, Virus, Sacred Soil if you roll a SCH, Collective Unconscious under Nocturnal Sect, MCH's Dismantle/Mind Rend if you roll a MCH, Dragon Kick if you roll a MNK, etc). ASTs would go from being (theoretically, nobody frickin' knows yet because raids aren't OUT yet) neglected in endgame content to being pretty much REQUIRED because of how game-changing those moves would be. 6 of one, half a dozen of the other, if you catch my drift.

...and then, hilariously, you go and give the Spire this super esoteric, extremely situational card after previously complaining that the current Astrologian cards are too "useless" and "situational". >__> How will you increase your healing throughput under this new Spire that you propose if only the tank is taking huge amounts of damage? You could Draw Spire then, and it would STILL be the RR fodder that people are complaining that it is currently.

Also...am I the only person who doesn't find Ewer/Spire to be "useless"? In extended 8-man content there's almost always someone to use those cards on...they only SEEM crappy because right now we're all doing dungeons (where boss fights rarely last longer than 5 minutes) and soloing. If you Draw them during boss downtime/periods of heavy movement, you can either Spread them and use them when the boss returns from its untargetable state, or you can just WAIT the 15 seconds you have to use the card until a moment when its beneficial.

For instance, I was frequently doing the Darkscale FATE in the Churning Mists during my questing there, and I was often thanked by melee DPS and other healers for using Ewer/Spire on them as the fight wore on. Using Ewer on myself was also a blessing, as even though the FATE boss pretty much only targets the NPC in the arena, it still allowed me to churn out more attacks while under its effect. I wouldn't be OPPOSED to the effect being changed to a MP/TP regen, but I also feel like that treads a bit too much on the support aspect that BRDs and MCHs are supposed to bring.

/shrug Just my two cents, though. I'm definitely not opposed to AST changes...I've thought of several myself. But these are just a little silly in the OP-ness department.