4.3 AST changes/speculations

[KisaiTenshi]

I'm kind of fine with how Minor Arcana is, it's not supposed to be something you rely on, just a better alternative to simply undrawing a card. But perhaps they'll add more cards to it in the future like "The Knave of Crowns", since that is also one of the 3 faces of Minor Arcana according to the lore book. Or maybe change the effects of Lord and Lady depending on which card is sacrificed? The Minor Arcana we currently have are based on "The Crown" which belongs to Spire's suit, maybe if we sacrifice a Balance, we could get a Lord/Lady from "The Staves" suit? I think it will be unlikely, too many cards, but it's fun to think of.

But new instant GCD is very much needed as well as changes to the leveling of AST. You only have 2 DPS skills before level 52 and low level roulette with AST are so boring. I often refer to AST as being the most boring low level job.

Tanks still think AST's are WHM's and run off expecting benediction with a wall-to-wall pull. AST's do not have Assize, they have Earthly star, and Earthly star does not recover MP. Hoping for the Ewer card is relying on RNGesus.

The easiest tweak AST could get is to move Gravity to the same level slot as Holy and add a debuff like heavy or bind to it.

The Minor Arcana seems like yet another RNGesus thing that can't be relied on.

I think SE should just give up on the RNG aspect of AST and instead have a perpetual "set it and forget it" card buff going.

Step 1. Draw a card (0.5x, 1.0x, 1.5x, 2.0x),
Step 2. Place them on Balance (ATK PWR), Bole (DEF), Arrow (SPD), Spear (CRIT), Ewer (MP), Spire (TP)) slots. Optionally Place them on Lord/Lady of Crowns slots.
Step 3. Buff stays until replaced, or until AST is knocked out. Total Power of cards placed can not exceed 2.0. Placing a second 2.0 card removes all other cards placed except Crowns
CD applies to the specific buff, so once removed it can't be put back until the CD resets.

So this is moving the RNG to be more inline with how RNG works for crit rather than the buff itself being the RNG.

[KisaiTenshi]

That's a nice idea. I always did wonder why Gravity was essentially a worse version of Holy with less damage, targetting placement and no debuff.

Although, I have to say I'm fine with the RNG aspect of card drawing - it also fits with the lore and how tarot readings in general are complete RNG (some people even enjoy the RNG factor). When I get into bad parties, it's nice to suddenly draw a Bole or double Ewers, but the issue is those cards are only applicable in those situations.

I'm just worried that the RNG aspect makes players playing AST completely ignore the cards and 8 slots on their hotbars it takes up to deal with. Like below level 30 you don't even have the cards, so you're basically a baby-whm (Benefic II at level 26, where as WHM gets Cure II at 30, but gets Repose at 26.)

The fact that CNJ/WHM and THM/BLM are the only ones with Repose/Sleep, makes using it useless in all duties except Brayflox Longstop. Like I'm not sure what SE was expecting here. I've seen THM's try to use it in Sastasha, Copperbell and Halitali, but it really doesn't do anything in those, since other players just hit all the mobs at random. AST and SCH don't have them, so no content can ever be designed with "sleep" as a possible way to control the fight. WHM has Holy which is more useful for the stun effect than any damage it creates, since it resets all the mobs actions, thus making it easier to avoid their AOE's since they all appear at the same time. Gravity really needs to be at the same level (eg 42) since they have the same potency, but Gravity really needs Heavy or Bind to make it useful for crowd control beyond just being another AOE to throw at a group of mobs. SCH does not have a crowd-control skill at all.

Like I really don't care for "zerg"'ing dungeons, to begin with, but AST just ends up being slower to play, and slower to have in the party as the ideal card setup pre-pull is slow. I find it's more fun to play on the level 60 raids and level 60-70 Trials, but otherwise the lack of a AOE in all the level 50 and below dungeons makes it feel like you're the one slowing things down.

Something else SE could try is to remove the CD from all the card CD's when not engaged in a fight (eg allow draw/undraw/redraw with no CD.) That would speed things up a bit, particularly on Alliance raids where often there IS enough time to draw two cards, but not enough time to draw a second card once the fight begins.