Astrologian 5.0 Discussion

[MooceJuice]

Draw: Unchanged
Play: Unchanged
Sleeve Draw: Unchanged
Redraw: Unchanged
Undraw: Gone because you should never do this.
Spread: New, OGCd 30?s cooldown, makes the next card played AoE (Expanded Road effect).
Minor Arcana: Revert to 4.55 behavior
Divination: Gone, or gives a Dodge/Evade AoE buff for damage avoidance.

Seals: Gone or made Red/Green/Blue and obtained by Single Target carding DPS, Healer, Tank, respectively. We've had three role colors for yonks, we already did The Game in Deltascape 3, it's only natural to use this. This encourages spreading the cards around.

Cards last 20-25s?
Balance: 10% / 5% AoE Damage buff
Spear: 10% / 5% AoE Critical buff
Arrow: 10% / 5% Cast/Recast/GCD reduction. Should have some similar similar +Speed effects to Greased Lightning level
Spire: 10% / 5% AoE Determination buff
Bole: 10% / 5% AoE Damage Reduction buff
Ewer: 10% / 5% AoE MP regen buff.

I was thinking something similar to this actually. It would even be nice too if it were something simple like:

Melee cards-
Balance (solar): Damage buff
Spear (celestial): Critical buff
Arrow (lunar): Cast/Recast/GCD reduction

Ranged cards-
Bole (solar): Damage buff
Spire (celestial): Critical buff
Ewer (lunar): Cast/Recast/GCD reduction

Doing it this way preserves the current ShB system of 3 cards for melee classes and 3 cards for ranged classes. Additionally it returns some of the uniqueness of the old card system by featuring 3 of the old DPS increase card effects.

Solar cards: damage%
Celestial cards: Critical buff
Lunar cards: Cast/Recast/GCD reduction

With the old card system there was always a problem with balance fishing. I feel like the new Divination ability though already naturally encourages card variety. Even if there is a problem with balance fishing in the future then simply increasing the potency of divination should fix it. Devs could increase Divination potency and decrease Balance/Bole potency for example.

I don't mind the current system but it's not very engaging to fish for cards that all have the same effect. It's a bit like eating the same thing for dinner every night. Sure you're eating every night but it's not very exciting. For some people eating the same food/drawing the same effect every time might be okay, but currently I'm just drawing a card every 30 seconds because it's off cooldown. The thrill of picking a card and deciding what to do with it is gone. I think adding even a little variety to the card system could go a long way.

(First FFXIV forums post, please be gentle!)

[TankHunter678]

I was thinking something similar to this actually. It would even be nice too if it were something simple like:

Melee cards-
Balance (solar): Damage buff
Spear (celestial): Critical buff
Arrow (lunar): Cast/Recast/GCD reduction

Ranged cards-
Bole (solar): Damage buff
Spire (celestial): Critical buff
Ewer (lunar): Cast/Recast/GCD reduction

Doing it this way preserves the current ShB system of 3 cards for melee classes and 3 cards for ranged classes. Additionally it returns some of the uniqueness of the old card system by featuring 3 of the old DPS increase card effects.

Solar cards: damage%
Celestial cards: Critical buff
Lunar cards: Cast/Recast/GCD reduction

With the old card system there was always a problem with balance fishing. I feel like the new Divination ability though already naturally encourages card variety. Even if there is a problem with balance fishing in the future then simply increasing the potency of divination should fix it. Devs could increase Divination potency and decrease Balance/Bole potency for example.

I don't mind the current system but it's not very engaging to fish for cards that all have the same effect. It's a bit like eating the same thing for dinner every night. Technically it's a livable existence but there's no zest to it. I think adding even a little variety to the card system could go a long way.

(First FFXIV forums post, please be gentle!)

You may as well remove Balance, Spear, Arrow, Bole, Spire, and Ewer and just turn them into Solar, Celestial, and Lunar cards. There is no point for there being 6 cards if they share 3 effects. Splitting them into melee and ranged just makes it so that you get bad results if the matchmaker does not give you melee and ranged classes instead of just one or the other. If you want 6 cards then each needs to grant its own individual effect.

The old card system balance fishing could have been fixed by just changing the balance card specifically to something less universally applicable like Direct Hit. Not to mention balance fishing was only a major thing at the savage raid, ex trial, and ultimate levels. While the rest of the content made use of everything.

Divination at current does not encourage card variety, as there is no card variety. You get your seals and then minor arcana everything for the 3 min cooldown. Which is a far cry from the options that the old card system had with Spread, Royal Road, and the old Lord/Lady of Crowns which let you manipulate your card buffs to make them better in different ways or affect everyone.

It also does not help that the card buffs and divination itself have too short durations. This hurts especially bad because of Celestial Opposition no longer extending buffs and Time Dilation no longer being a thing.

[Lyss]

Divination at current does not encourage card variety, as there is no card variety. You get your seals and then minor arcana everything for the 3 min cooldown. Which is a far cry from the options that the old card system had with Spread, Royal Road, and the old Lord/Lady of Crowns which let you manipulate your card buffs to make them better in different ways or affect everyone.

What do you mean by Divination not encouraging variety? Our goal with seals is to give the best possible buff and we can and we have to do that with redraw. That's where the rng comes with our playstyle now. We try and get the max damage buff by trying to redraw cards that give a specific seal. So yes, there definitely is card variety -- in that aspect.

Our main complaint is that there is no variety in the effects of the cards. They're all just bootleg Balance. I think MooceJuice's suggestion would give us that variety of effects and still let us keep the current playstyle with Divination seals.

[Boomsmash]

What do you mean by Divination not encouraging variety? Our goal with seals is to give the best possible buff and we can and we have to do that with redraw. That's where the rng comes with our playstyle now. We try and get the max damage buff by trying to redraw cards that give a specific seal. So yes, there definitely is card variety -- in that aspect.

Our main complaint is that there is no variety in the effects of the cards. They're all just bootleg Balance. I think MooceJuice's suggestion would give us that variety of effects and still let us keep the current playstyle with Divination seals.

Yeah, and it's pretty much 1%er's faults, maybe tuned for Savage/EX, but not for the other 99% of content. 'Git good' indeed.

They also need to change the color of the constellations shown too or something to crunch down from what's currently being used. Stacking multiple redundant indicators on a card is bad design.

[TankHunter678]

What do you mean by Divination not encouraging variety? Our goal with seals is to give the best possible buff and we can and we have to do that with redraw. That's where the rng comes with our playstyle now. We try and get the max damage buff by trying to redraw cards that give a specific seal. So yes, there definitely is card variety -- in that aspect.

Our main complaint is that there is no variety in the effects of the cards. They're all just bootleg Balance. I think MooceJuice's suggestion would give us that variety of effects and still let us keep the current playstyle with Divination seals.

You hand out 6% single buffs to get a 6% party buff. Once you have done that then you hand out 8% single buffs instead until the cooldown is complete as until the party buffed is used seals cease to matter. Where is the card variety in that? Were it not for Divination there would be 0 reason to not minor arcana every card.

[MooceJuice]

You may as well remove Balance, Spear, Arrow, Bole, Spire, and Ewer and just turn them into Solar, Celestial, and Lunar cards. There is no point for there being 6 cards if they share 3 effects. Splitting them into melee and ranged just makes it so that you get bad results if the matchmaker does not give you melee and ranged classes instead of just one or the other. If you want 6 cards then each needs to grant its own individual effect.

I think I’m being misunderstood here. What I want is variety restored to the cards. If SE decided to give each card it’s own unique ability again of course I’d be more than thrilled. I was simply trying to make a suggestion within the parameters of the current Divination system. If SE decided to scrap the system entirely in favor of 6 unique card effects again I’d be more than happy and wouldn’t miss Divination, but I don’t think that’s likely to happen.

I’m not commenting at all on the Divination cooldown or the tendency to minor/major arcana everything in between its windows. I think it’s pretty well understood already by most who’ve tried the new ast.

Also when I said that the Divination ability encourages card variety, what I meant to say is that it’s in a good position to be able to encourage card variety in the future -if- cards had unique effects again and -if- there were card fishing problems. (not saying anything about savage content or otherwise.) Since cards currently have 0 effect variety I thought it would be understood that I wasn’t talking about the current situation. Apologies for not being clearer.

[Thoosa]

In the 70+ dungeons AST feels more like the pure healer because you don’t get much opportunity to cast your dps spells. I find diurnal sect not very useful since the tank gets hit with lots of damage, so I have to go noct.

I also find myself having to use lucid much more now and get through the 10000 mp fast which limits big pulls quite a bit.

Also the divination spell isn’t available enough and the cd is too long. Plus that other “blue looking” aoe spell doesn’t seem to heal for much.

[Ceasaria]

I love your suggestion but I see no mention of Royal Road but "revert all cards changes". Would you consider bringing back Royal Road? Or thats a thing of the past?

Thanks.
In my suggestion (mixing old and new system), I didn't bring it (because of the micro management), but it could (and Spread too) come back.
Or maybe, every card could have AoE effect instead of mono.

Another idea I just had is Minor Arcana could give Lady & Lord effet to the same card, and depending of the target : Lord --> enemy ; Lady --> ally.
To discuss.

[TankHunter678]

In the 70+ dungeons AST feels more like the pure healer because you don’t get much opportunity to cast your dps spells. I find diurnal sect not very useful since the tank gets hit with lots of damage, so I have to go noct.

I also find myself having to use lucid much more now and get through the 10000 mp fast which limits big pulls quite a bit.

Also the divination spell isn’t available enough and the cd is too long. Plus that other “blue looking” aoe spell doesn’t seem to heal for much.

I find Noct to be useless in the 70+ dungeons because the mobs hit so hard and the Noct shield is paper due to the weak healing potencies. Throw on top the fact that the massive mana cost difference between throwing the shield on or throwing the regen on is a good 2x cost increase on Noct and I would not be using Noct outside of boss battles really. Its too costly. While the diurnal regen potency is as strong as the WHM one and I can stack it with all the other regens.

Using DIurnal allows one to save on MP and be able to occasionally actually do DPS. Especially when you got a properly gear tank and not a paper tank running around in quest whites.

[Sanghelios]

I find Noct to be useless in the 70+ dungeons because the mobs hit so hard and the Noct shield is paper due to the weak healing potencies. Throw on top the fact that the massive mana cost difference between throwing the shield on or throwing the regen on is a good 2x cost increase on Noct and I would not be using Noct outside of boss battles really. Its too costly. While the diurnal regen potency is as strong as the WHM one and I can stack it with all the other regens.

Using DIurnal allows one to save on MP and be able to occasionally actually do DPS. Especially when you got a properly gear tank and not a paper tank running around in quest whites.

Totally agreeing here. Diurnal is absolute superior against nocturnal in dungeons. On top of that you have a shield (Intersection) ready for every pull and within pulls too.