The Great Astrologian Divide

[Faxmonkey]

AST was a bad design idea from the start. A healing class with less healing tools than the other two healers, but a big buffing component.
That logically meant that it would be insanely hard to balance the classes. If you need too much healing AST is gone, if AST can heal through people would want its buffs.
Turning all buffs into balance just makes the problem worse and the card system soooo much more boring.
They should have invested some brainpower in the AST redesign and should have put more healing options into the card system or something. 5.xx is just crappy.

[TankHunter678]

AST was a bad design idea from the start. A healing class with less healing tools than the other two healers, but a big buffing component.
That logically meant that it would be insanely hard to balance the classes. If you need too much healing AST is gone, if AST can heal through people would want its buffs.
Turning all buffs into balance just makes the problem worse and the card system soooo much more boring.
They should have invested some brainpower in the AST redesign and should have put more healing options into the card system or something. 5.xx is just crappy.

Well the consistent approach to the minor arcana would have helped with that. Knowing that converting that bole/ewer/spire into minor arcana would produce a Lady of Crowns oGCD heal guaranteed would have been very nice. Horoscope could have also been a trait that made it so handing out cards gave a minor heal based on if it was Enhanced, Extended, or Expanded... or it could have been an ability that told you what your next 4 cards would be even if you redraw to enhance you ability to plan around the cards. A friend of mine even suggested a second spread slot to increase options.

[Seraphor]

AST was a bad design idea from the start. A healing class with less healing tools than the other two healers, but a big buffing component.
That logically meant that it would be insanely hard to balance the classes. If you need too much healing AST is gone, if AST can heal through people would want its buffs.
Turning all buffs into balance just makes the problem worse and the card system soooo much more boring.
They should have invested some brainpower in the AST redesign and should have put more healing options into the card system or something. 5.xx is just crappy.

This is precisely why the cards were changed this way though.

It was having a combination of rdps utility, plus core healer tools (Bole/Ewer) tied to an rng mechanic that made it hard to balance.
How do you factor in its MP regen and mitigation skills when they’re tied to rng? How much weight does Bole have, if it's a 1/6 chance of even being available?
How do you balance it’s rdps contribution when its rng is shared with its healer skills? Is Balance OP? Or is it underpowered because you might not ever draw it?

By making all cards essentially have the same effect for the party as a whole, it can be easily balanced against rdps contribution, allowing them to implement a full healer toolkit outside of the cards.

The Diurnal/Nocturnal sect system is still a balancing issue, but the new cards are objectively much easier to balance now.

[TankHunter678]

This is precisely why the cards were changed this way though.

It was having a combination of rdps utility, plus core healer tools (Bole/Ewer) tied to an rng mechanic that made it hard to balance.
How do you factor in its MP regen and mitigation skills when they’re tied to rng? How much weight does Bole have, if it's a 1/6 chance of even being available?
How do you balance it’s rdps contribution when its rng is shared with its healer skills? Is Balance OP? Or is it underpowered because you might not ever draw it?

By making all cards essentially have the same effect for the party as a whole, it can be easily balanced against rdps contribution, allowing them to implement a full healer toolkit outside of the cards.

The Diurnal/Nocturnal sect system is still a balancing issue, but the new cards are objectively much easier to balance now.

The problem is that the class identity was built around the old cards, so while reworking all the cards to be the same thing may have been objectively easier to balance the result is that you have an entire awkward system that could be dumped and replaced with 2 buttons. A button with a 30 sec cooldown to place a 15 sec DPS buff on a single target and a button with a 120 sec cooldown to place a 15 sec duration DPS buff on the entire party.

Which is a big part of why it feels so bad now. We do all this effort for what other classes can do in a single button press. With the old cards it did not feel this way because we could modify the buffs and we had a wide range of buffs to work with. If you wanted to raise consistency then you could have thrown in an extra spread slot, could have given the player foresight so they knew what cards were in their future to plan around, or could have even put in skills that allowed you to force a particular result with a decent cooldown attached to it.

[Seraphor]

The problem is that the class identity was built around the old cards, so while reworking all the cards to be the same thing may have been objectively easier to balance the result is that you have an entire awkward system that could be dumped and replaced with 2 buttons. A button with a 30 sec cooldown to place a 15 sec DPS buff on a single target and a button with a 120 sec cooldown to place a 15 sec duration DPS buff on the entire party.

Which is a big part of why it feels so bad now. We do all this effort for what other classes can do in a single button press. With the old cards it did not feel this way because we could modify the buffs and we had a wide range of buffs to work with. If you wanted to raise consistency then you could have thrown in an extra spread slot, could have given the player foresight so they knew what cards were in their future to plan around, or could have even put in skills that allowed you to force a particular result with a decent cooldown attached to it.

I think the problem is that AST has a lot of different identities.

It has it's Diurnal and Nocturnal Sects.
It has its Time Mage roots and Space/Time effects.
And then there's the tarot cards.

The latter never appealed to me as much as the other two.

[TankHunter678]

I think the problem is that AST has a lot of different identities.

It has it's Diurnal and Nocturnal Sects.
It has its Time Mage roots and Space/Time effects.
And then there's the tarot cards.

The latter never appealed to me as much as the other two.

Yet the class lore was built around the cards and the constellations they represented, while the sects merely represented daytime and nighttime fitting with the theme of astrology. Which makes the whole "neutral sect" odd because it does not fit in with the naming of the class. It probably should of been called Twilight sect as it is supposed to represent the point where day and night merge.

[Seraphor]

Yet the class lore was built around the cards and the constellations they represented, while the sects merely represented daytime and nighttime fitting with the theme of astrology. Which makes the whole "neutral sect" odd because it does not fit in with the naming of the class. It probably should of been called Twilight sect as it is supposed to represent the point where day and night merge.

I mean, I don't personally see the link between constellations and tarot cards, but that's what they decided to go with.

[TankHunter678]

I mean, I don't personally see the link between constellations and tarot cards, but that's what they decided to go with.

They went with the Major Arcana themselves being based off of the constellations rather then going with the typical tarot deck of the real world. Probably because it allowed them to not need to make as many cards as would be found in an actual tarot deck, and as a result the cards function as a focus allow you to draw upon the power of the constellation to bestow upon others to alter their fate. Which was the whole point of you seeing the constellation and unlocking full access to it lore wise.