About Shuffle,Spread,Royal Road and Draw.

[Blueyes]

I made a topic a while back that talked about some of these points. With Spread in particular, I don't really see the need for it to have a cooldown period aside from putting limits on how much control over the cards they want us to have. To give an example, let's say you use Royal Road on a card we have set as your Spread for some fancy combo. Then the next card you draw is Balance. You feel compelled to use it right away despite no Royal Road effect active at the time and since Spread is on cooldown you aren't able to set that Balance aside to wait for a Royal Road effect to use with it. Allowing us to use Spread more frequently would add a little more power to the job in that we would be able to use cards with Royal Road effects more strategically, as well as giving us more freedom to strategically use cards at optimal moments of an encounter, but I don't see that as something Astrologian shouldn't be able to do. When we're dealing with RNG, when we draw something useful I would like to be able to make the most of it.

In regard to shuffle, when I first heard about it I hoped we would get to shuffle at least once with every card draw. Again, this would add a degree of power to the job in that we would be granted better odds at getting what we want, but I still don't feel like being able to shuffle once with every card draw instead of every other is asking for too much.

I've also been thinking about Royal Road a lot lately. It always bothers me when I draw a card that could be useful, but using it with the current Royal Road effect would make it feel "wasted." This mostly happens with the expanded effect. To give an example, let's say you draw Spire and decide to burn it for the expanded effect. You then draw Spire again. Using that Spire with the expanded effect may not be the best use of that card considering it may not even benefit half the party and at half potency it might not be enough for those it can benefit. I would love to be able to use that Spire on an individual without expending my Royal Road effect. Which leads me to wonder, would it be too much if Royal Road were changed into a triggered action instead of automatically applying to the next card used? It would add another button to push, but we would no longer have cards simply dropping to the floor. I can't imagine they intended for us to be right-clicking on cards to turn them off, but Royal Road is the reason people do that.

[Muahbec]

...

Agreed, asking for lower cooldowns would not be "asking too much" as just like you mentioned, we are dealing with RNG.

As for the royal road problem this player gave the perfect idea:

Also posted in the suggestion forum...

My biggest annoyance with the AST is that I often find myself in a position where I draw a card that would be useful, but not one I wish to use with the current RR buff.

I have three choices in this circumstance, and all of them stink:
1. Right click the RR buff off, thus wasting a card.
2. Right click the card buff off, thus wasting a card.
3. Spread the card (if it's up), even if it's not the card I wanted to spread because I don't want to waste it.

For example, if I have expanded RR and I draw a Bole: I very much want to put that Bole on the tank, but I also don't want to lose my precious AoE buff.

A solution here could be to have the following system in place:

-If a player presses the buff button (be it the draw or spread button) to use the card, it is cast as usual with the RR buff

-If a player presses and holds the buff button, the card would be cast while bypassing the RR buff

RNG is still a pretty big wall for getting the most out of our card buffs (or sometimes getting anything out of them at all). This would at least allow us to not have to lose the setup we're trying to create.

[BlueMageQuina]

Having played AST before and after they were buffed, I do feel that another buff to the cards effects is less needed than before but somewhat necessary. The difference in duration of their card skills after they were buffed has been amazingly useful, useful enough in my opinion that I question whether lowering the recast times of Spread, Shuffle and Royal Road would break the job, making a mandatory healer to have. However some simple fixes may be necessary.

I believe that SE needs to EITHER lower recast times to 30-40 secs as you suggested OR change how the card's action skills function. Not both. I feel that if we do both, things (such as make Shuffle unable to redraw the same card as well as lower its recast), we will come to a situation where AST is getting its optimal setup more often than we are willing to admit. I am no statistician, but as there are only 6 cards and therefore a low ratio of options to draw, lowering recast times AND limiting RNG will change this ratio a lot. This will potentially make AST a required healer. As it stands now, this RNG is the only thing that keeps it balanced with WHM—the job it heals just as well as now—by giving cards an unreliability. Without this balance, there's no necessity to have a WHM other than for Benediction, which you shouldn't need anyway unless people are eating damage they should be avoiding.

If they don't change the duration, these are my suggestions:

Shuffle: Make it impossible to draw the same card already! It was a really bad design to be able to redraw the same card after we obviously didn't want it because we pressed Shuffle. Yes, this is a bad design even in RNG. I've been lucky enough not to draw the same card or its RR counterpart too often in a row but this needs a definite change.

Royal Road: It would be nice to be able to save this effect without wasting a useful card we don't want RRed by letting it time out. I propose that we must USE the current RR card before we use the newly drawn card for the new card to be given the RR effect. In order to keep the current option where we can replace RR with the drawn card, it can work this way:

• To use RR + drawn card; first cast the previously saved RR effect on the desired target, which will have a 10s duration before the new card needs to be used on the same target to receive the RR enhanced effect.
• To replace a RR effect; use RR on no target, or on an enemy (since we cannot buff enemies) which will clear RR and allow the newly draw card to be RRed.

Spread: I don't believe Spread needs rework alongside the other two. It has the simplest job of the card actions and it does its job as intended.

[Muahbec]

Lowering the recast time would not be OP. If SE knew how to balance stuff...

Of course if timers were reduced Bole Balance and Arrow durations would obviously be reduced as well.
If we want to make AST different than WHM and SCH, we should buff their only unique aspect and not their "copies"

Thats why i said that i wasn't expecting a buff on their potencies but a buff on their only unique aspect (cards)
In my opinion what SE should have done:
Not buffing their potencies (380>400 etc...) but changing some of their cooldowns, or maybe reworking some of their cooldowns AND reducing their card skills CDs.
With better CDs to face emergencies (Turning synastry into a toggle like many MANY players have suggested, adding the HP recovery through spells buff to Lightspeed instead of synastry and making it reduce GCD by 1s, add a healing potency or a barrier -depending on your sect- to CO so it would be ASTs version of Assize/Indomitability, etc) and card skills on lower recast timers they would be able to heal and do what their were meant to do > Buff the party enough so they wouldn't need to toggle CS and DPS...

WHM would still have higher potencies (many players are complaining about AST potencies being the same as WHM with the addition of buffs, throwing the only thing that made WHM unique away- their raw healing power, and their amazing high potencies- and after thinking for some time, i'm starting to agree with them...)

The hybrid idea was horrible but the card idea was AWESOME, what AST need is a buff on their cards so their only uniqueness can shine, and not a buff on their potencies only to turn them into a complete copy of WHM with buffs attached to it.
SE messed it up

Not trying to be rude btw, is just that, this whole hybrid idea make my nerves explode. -________-

[BlueMageQuina]

Snip...

You're not being rude. I was only commenting on the card buffs, and not the healing buffs since those already happened and probably won't be debuffed back to the original potencies.

So, let me clarify: as it currently stands now, AST can heal as well as WHM in Diurnal and isn't far off from SCH in Nocturnal. Changes to both the cards' RNG setup and cooldown durations can potentially allow for optimal set ups more frequently than imagined which would in such a case make AST more desirable than the other healing jobs since they heal just as well and can buff, or they may inadvertently render other jobs obsolete. I'm not saying it will happen with card buff changes, it's just a potential result. This possibility is exactly why they took so long to buff AST and why they said what they said in their live letters, something along the lines of "Pushing the AST just a little too much may overpower it."

I agree that card buffs and healing cooldowns is what they should have changed. I just question to what extent they should be changed now, since they changed healing potencies instead.

[Muahbec]

...

Yeah, i understand your point and i totally agree with you.
SE had the chance to truly fix AST and make it unique but messed it up ... sadly :/

[Zaj_Quilos]

Spread cooldown should be reduced considerably and they should make it so you don't lose the card in there when you die.

[spelley]

Royal Road

Or just have it so that using Royal Road again while you have something Royal Roaded causes you to use the card w/Royal Road effect. If you want to use the card without the Royal Road, just use the Draw command again as normal.

[Rongway]

I've also been thinking about Royal Road a lot lately. It always bothers me when I draw a card that could be useful, but using it with the current Royal Road effect would make it feel "wasted." This mostly happens with the expanded effect. To give an example, let's say you draw Spire and decide to burn it for the expanded effect. You then draw Spire again. Using that Spire with the expanded effect may not be the best use of that card considering it may not even benefit half the party and at half potency it might not be enough for those it can benefit. I would love to be able to use that Spire on an individual without expending my Royal Road effect. Which leads me to wonder, would it be too much if Royal Road were changed into a triggered action instead of automatically applying to the next card used? It would add another button to push, but we would no longer have cards simply dropping to the floor. I can't imagine they intended for us to be right-clicking on cards to turn them off, but Royal Road is the reason people do that.

I have very few complaints about AST, and I've reconciled with this being one of the cost-benefit trade-offs of Royal Road. Let's consider the alternative for a second.

Suppose using Royal Road the first time consumes your Drawn card and gives you a Royal Road buff. Then, while that buff is active, Royal Road becomes "Use current drawn card with the Royal Road buff effect." This would allow you to Draw and play a card unbuffed (so when you get Draw->Spire->Royal Road->Draw->Spire->Shuffle->Spire, you can throw the persistent Spire at a DD or tank without wasting your Royal Road). Sounds pretty convenient, right?

The problem there would then be that we can't use a held card with Royal Road, or if we could, we wouldn't be able to choose whether we want to use a drawn card or a held card. Something like
Draw->Arrow->Spread->Draw->Spire->Royal Road->Draw->Spire->Use held Arrow->Royal Road drawn Spire
would no longer be an option.

Yes, it would be nice to be able to opt to use a card unbuffed so as to preserve Royal Road, but giving us that option would take away some other equally good (or better) options.

[Blueyes]

Suppose using Royal Road the first time consumes your Drawn card and gives you a Royal Road buff. Then, while that buff is active, Royal Road becomes "Use current drawn card with the Royal Road buff effect." This would allow you to Draw and play a card unbuffed (so when you get Draw->Spire->Royal Road->Draw->Spire->Shuffle->Spire, you can throw the persistent Spire at a DD or tank without wasting your Royal Road). Sounds pretty convenient, right?

The problem there would then be that we can't use a held card with Royal Road, or if we could, we wouldn't be able to choose whether we want to use a drawn card or a held card. Something like
Draw->Arrow->Spread->Draw->Spire->Royal Road->Draw->Spire->Use held Arrow->Royal Road drawn Spire would no longer be an option.

Actually, in that example, it would be possible to use Royal Road with the drawn Spire card assuming they design it in a way that allows for that to happen. I should note that it has been a while since I made that post and since then my play style has changed with me refraining from grabbing the expanded Royal Road buff prior to having a card setup to use with it, but that aside, I'll explain what I had in mind. Royal Road would be changed into a triggered ability and when used you would receive a short buff with an affect such as "the next card used received the effect of Royal Road" or something along those lines. This would allow you to use your Royal Road effect with either the drawn card, the Spread card, or simply held for later.

Where the issue lies is replacing that Royal Road effect with a new one. Off the top of my head it's possible they could come up with a way, though it would be a tad complicated. When using Royal Road with a card you would not get the buff and instead the icon for Royal Road would change to represent that buff. When activated the action icon goes back to being a "blank" Royal Road and you receive the buff which would have a 10 or 15 second window to be used with a card or it disappears. Perhaps if you trigger Royal Road a second time instead of using a card during that short time frame the card would be applied to Royal Road and the buff you had would disappear. It would have to be brought down to a 5 second recast, or less, to allow time to replace the Royal Road effect before the held card expires.

Basically it would be changed to do one of two things. It can be used to absorb a drawn card to generate a Royal Road effect, then after which it can be used a second time to receive the actual Royal Road buff, but it would have to have a short duration to prevent "stacking" with one buff active while Royal Road holds a second effect, though I think it actually would be pretty cool if we were allowed to do that as long as it's appropriately balanced to avoid abuse.

I didn't think I would ramble on this much about Royal Road. I'm not expecting SE to change how it works and wouldn't say it's a necessary thing to do, but it is fun to think about how Astrologian could play differently or in a more interesting way.