An idea for revamping the AST card system

[loreleidiangelo]

Here's the thing: potency increases aren't going to cut it. Mitigation of RNG needs to be put in effect to NOT ONLY reduce the likelihood of Drawing 4 Spires in a row in a caster-heavy group, but also to mitigate the possibility of drawing 4 BALANCES in a row, too. This is why "stronger card buffs" won't work - there's a possibility that you could Draw 4 Balances in a row, and if the potency is upped to 25% damage up that's just insane. Rather than giving the cards more "oomph", as the OP put it, there simply needs to be a stopgap in place so there is some measure of reliability.

My suggestions:

-Give each card an "internal timer" of 89 seconds. If a card is Drawn from your deck, it cannot be drawn again for another 89 seconds. Assuming both "perfect" and "worst" card use, this will essentially mean that the same card cannot be Drawn twice in a row, but CAN be pulled from the deck again on a third Draw.
What this will do: It will ensure that if you Shuffle a card, Royal Road it, or manually discard it by right-clicking off the Draw buff, that you cannot Draw it again immediately thereafter. It would not affect USAGE of said card, so that if you Royal Roaded a Bole card you could still use Bole if you had one in your Spread. This would prevent multiple Spire/Ewers/Spears, but would also prevent multiple Arrows/Balances as well, making this change more of a QoL sidegrade than a buff.

-Retain the original potency of the cards when their effects are expanded under Royal Road. The fact that it doesn't is frankly a little silly.
What this will do: It's pretty obvious...this is a buff intended to make the "optimal combination" of Expanded Royal Road and Balance a little less lulzy.

-Combine certain cards into the same effect. Notably, combine Ewer and Spire into a flat TP/MP reduction (NO regens; we are intended to supplement MCH/BRD, not replace them), and Bole and Spear into a damage taken and CD reduction. Leave Arrow and Balance separate, for a total of 4 possible cards you can Draw, rather than 6. Redo the Royal Road effects such that the damage reduction/CD reduction card offers Extended Royal Road, the TP/MP reduction card offers Enhanced Royal Road, and both Balance and Arrow separately will offer Expanded Royal Road.
What this will do: You will almost guaranteed have to Spread Balance for the AOE effect, as under my proposed Draw internal card timer it will be impossible to Draw twice in a row for the Expanded Balance effect. However, you could still try to sacrifice Arrow for the Expanded effect, then hope for a Balance on your next turn, or vice-versa if you wanted the AOE attack speed increase. Also, Bole could be used for tank busters, or it could be used on DPS to shorten their CDs...it would give AST more flexibility with their card usage while reducing the odds of Drawing something you don't want. In addition, this change would give you 50% odds of Drawing a straight DPS increase, rather than the 33% we have currently. It will also allow for more involvement with Spread, as you will be forced to decide whether you want to AOE a CD reduction/defense up card, extend an MP/TP reduction, or enhance a defense up/CD reduction card. A CONCERN: with no more halved potencies from AOE RR, that the Expanded effect will be the only one used more often than not. Fine-tuning needed.

-Give us a 30% spell-based HP restoration increase move on a 120 second CD. This is the halfway mark for CDs between Divine Seal and Fey Illumination, and this would fit in nicely with AST's current purported role. This would also make it so that the move won't ALWAYS be up with Lightspeed, which has a 90-second CD.
What this will do: give us more clutch healing options for "oh shit" moments, and can be used in conjunction with Lightspeed to offset the potency loss (on healing spells, at least...gg still on those fast-cast Gravities). Since all heals cast under these effects still cost the same amount of MP, it's unlikely that this will be "spammed" as part of AST's regular toolkit, but will provide much-needed recovery power for when encounters go south.


These are the changes I've been pondering... I think "flat buffs because RNG sucks" is a solution with too much potential to swing the scales in the OPPOSITE way. I'd much rather reduce/mitigate the RNG of the buffs themselves through both a reduction of the sheer NUMBER of cards you can possibly Draw, as well as the ELIMINATION of getting the same card multiple times in a row.


tl;dr: 30% healing potency up "oh shit button" on reasonable CD, reduce cards from 6 to 4 so that the chance of drawing the one you "want" is 25% instead of 17%, and make it so that you can't draw the same card twice in a row for less rage-inducing Spire/Spear/Ewer chains.

Thoughts? I tried to draft a workaround for the buffs that wasn't just MOAR POWAHHHH, since as I said, under a bout of good RNG that would be just as broken as under a bout of bad RNG.

[RichardButte]

I'm all for discussing changes to Astro, because I could think of a couple off the top of my head, but how can you possibly say to someone with a level 58 Astro that they DON'T understand how unreliable the buffs are. From what I'm seeing, you're not even showing yourself to be familiar with the class with your profile that has no evidence of even starting one.

Keep up the discussion sure, but don't be so arrogant to state outright you know better than someone who's clearly invested time and has experience in the class.

1. My AST is 54.

2. You don't need to have played an AST to 60 in raids to see where the problems lie.

Again, the numbers are already there for us to see. We KNOW the healing potencies of the classes. We KNOW what the buffs do. We KNOW that the AST lacks the big heals, emergency buttons and AoE coverage.

More to the point, we know how much MORE capable WHM and SCH are with their numbers and their new tools.

Is a 17% chance of making a tank spend 20% less TP for 20 seconds worth bringing a healer with terrible emergency options? Is it worth a healer with the worst AoE coverage of the three?

Even the VERY BEST buffs that the AST has to offer don't make the class worth it, and that's even IF an AST manages to get those buffs, instead of drawing 10 Spears in a row. And the other thing: we're a healer, and none of our card buffs actually heal, with only one even mitigating damage. How do we fill the shoes of a SCH or WHM (both of which will no doubt also have to work hard to heal the new content even WITH all of their tools, otherwise it'd be faceroll easy) when we don't have those same tools?

The only answer is that our buffs have to be so good that they compensate for our lack of ability to keep the party alive as well as a WHM or SCH, and without that, we're going just not gonna have what it takes to heal raids.

I'm not saying this to be arrogant. I don't mean to come across that way, but the unreliable nature of these buffs mean that they NEED to be absolutely amazing in order to justify bringing ASTs over other healers who have more reliable heals, emergency coverage AND DPS.

I see the AST as a high risk, high reward healer that, when played correctly and with a bit of luck, can compensate for their lack of raw healing power.

But I think two key things need to happen for the AST to truly become that class:

1. The buffs need to be stronger overall.

2. The buffs need to be more versatile so that you can at least use every card in SOME degree, regardless of what the situation is (or at least it's extremely likely that you'll be able to find a use for it).

And I really hope SE follows through with it, instead of taking the easy route and buffing the AST's healing so and calling it a day, thus ruining the uniqueness of the class.

[VanEinstein]

You arnt the only one disregarding what Richard says, he clearly hasn't played the job yet. He keeps saying astros healing potency is MUCH worse, over and over. But the complaints from current 55+ astros are about the card system and emergency cures, not the general potency.

There are other pressing concerns, but by not representing them here, we'd be staying on topic. I've seen a host of threads about the reduced potency, lightspeed, collective unconscious, and celestial opposition. Aside from AST, it seems both DRK and MCH are having a host of issues themselves that are causing similar reactions, and they each need adjustments before they'll be on par with the alternatives.

[RichardButte]

Aside from AST, it seems both DRK and MCH are having a host of issues themselves that are causing similar reactions, and they each need adjustments before they'll be on par with the alternatives.

And I think this should be expected.

I anticipated SE would release these classes a bit on the nerfed side and then buff them later as it A) prevent them from being over-rolled and B) it prevents the nightmare that happened when Blizzard first released the Death Knight in WoW (overpowered like crazy, BTW).

I want to main AST, but I've played SCH long enough to know that playing SCH with my Selene out (the far more badass of the two pixies, BTW ) not only adds a welcome challenge to healing but it kills everything faster and more reliably than an AST would, thanks to her speed buff every 30 seconds (and she doesn't have a 17% chance of casting it on only one person. :P ). Selene also received a mass dispel for removing harmful effects from the whole party AND has a SILENCE as well!

Seriously, SCH is friggin' CRAWLING with utility, powerful heals, "OH SHI-" buttons and raid-saving cooldowns now, and though I've not looked much into it, I know WHM has received buffs in raw healing output and DPS (which they were previously lacking in).

I want people to stop and consider just how much utility ASTs will need to bring to a raid to justify taking them over the other healing classes, classes who don't rely on RNG one bit to get the job done (crits are nice, but not necessary to keeping a party alive as either class).

Again, I kinda wish AST had been a DPS class with these buffs instead. Balancing a class' DPS around utility is WAY easier than trying to balance utility while also balancing its ability to keep the party alive...

[KisaiTenshi]

Without having played AST long enough to actually use the cards, but I have played several consecutive runs of Haukke and Brayflox NM to see how beginner AST's are using it...

1. As I mentioned earlier. They need to be color coded. At least half the time the AST's use all of the cards on themselves. Even AST's who have everything at 50's and should know which classes would best fit.
2. Owing to the time issue, I think it would be best if each card just stacked a number of uses instead of time. While playing BLM I realized that most of the cards were only good for about 2-3 casts, and if I had to switch to Umbral to regen MP, any card was wasted. What might have been a better approach is for the ones that affect skill-use time/costs to only count down on skills that have a cast-time/cost. While anything that affects a CD/Regen regen-effect would be time based.
3. I do think the slightly-weaker heals were intended to be made up with the faster skill cast times (eg lightspeed.) It's no PoM. I haven't yet checked the base MP calculation to compare it to WHM/CNJ/SCH (need to get to level 38 to compare SoS to LA) but on preliminary guesswork, AST looks to be slightly lower than CNJ/WHM but above SCH in terms of MP. We're talking about 1-2%.
4. As for the values... well I certainly notice when the cast speed increases because suddenly I'll be out of MP on BLM. On the other hand, if if MP costs are reduced, it's pretty much meaningless for everyone but chaining the AOE-bombs that SMN and WHM can throw out. BLM's big boom (Flare) uses all MP regardless. So really the MP-costs cards are useless for BLM just based on how BLM works (you might get one extra Fire II/III, but it only takes like 8 seconds for 100% of MP to recover, so it's only meaningful if the card was played as soon as Fire starts being cast.) So this is why I think this specific card needs to be a set number of casts.

If we want to be a bit cheeky, you know how the Ninja summons a rabbit when they mess up? The AST should get something similar if they use a card on a player that can't benefit from it.

[RazeLandale]

"The Ewer" - Should be used on Casters, AST, WHM, SMN/SCH, but probably not BLM. Also DRK (yellow)

Ewer's pretty good for blm. While they've got infinite mana keeping them in astral fire longer with ewer means more damage. If the healers need it the healers need it, but otherwise blm is a solid choice. I love landing with them in dungeons because then ewers not a wasted draw.(Although ewers not as bad as it used to be now I have gravity spam to eat my mana)

[SuzakuCMX]

Ewer's pretty good for blm. While they've got infinite mana keeping them in astral fire longer with ewer means more damage. If the healers need it the healers need it, but otherwise blm is a solid choice. I love landing with them in dungeons because then ewers not a wasted draw.(Although ewers not as bad as it used to be now I have gravity spam to eat my mana)

I've had several BLM tell me not to use it on them because it screws their calculations for how many fires they need to use before they have to blizzard.

[VitalSuit]

I've had several BLM tell me not to use it on them because it screws their calculations for how many fires they need to use before they have to blizzard.

I've heard the same which is why I only use it on myself or another healer and SMN.

BLM have their own self restoring resource which their rotation is pretty strict on. If you suddenly change how much they're using and they don't realize soon it could potentially screw up their whole rotation and cause their dps to drop.

[PetiteMalFleur]

I really love astrologian. I was on the fence about it but the more I play the class the more I enjoy it. Throw arrow on my monk (unbuffed) and watch him get 6 combos inside his pb. Yes plz. Potentially buff a dps every 30 seconds? Sure! Really looking forward to trying out my new class in raid.

One little trick I figured out: before going in a dungeon autoattack a striking dummy and prep a card to hold. You still hold it when you zone in.

[Ethos]

I like the general idea of changing the card effects from the OPs suggestion but they still need to be balanced and I feel that each card should always be useful on every target in some way while still being optimal on specific targets in different situations.

Something like:

Balance: 10% increased damage dealt and 10% reduced damage taken
Bole: 10% increased healing potency and 10% increased healing received
Arrow: 10% faster attack speed and 10% faster movement speed
Spear: 20% faster cooldown rates and 10% longer ability duration
Ewer: 20% less MP and 20% less TP costs
Spire: 5% increased critical hit rate and 10% increased critical hit damage