Potential AST Rework: Cards = Heals

[JaffaArchfiend]

Had a thought for an AST rework and wanted to get some thoughts on it.

One of its big mechanics is of course its card system and giving buffs through them... But what if they also healed as well? Could be like a small-ish AoE heal, centered around the person that you used the card on, same sort of heal % as the combat bonus boost perhaps?

Would be helpful at low levels as well and with the 30 second recast time on Draw, wouldn't be too overpowered compared to WHM and SCH heals.

And maybe, at higher levels, the Card based heals could even do the opposite effect of whichever Sect you're using. So whilst in Diurnal Sect (Regen Sect) the Cards could give a small shield. Whilst in Nocturnal Sect (Shield Sect) the Cards could give a small regen.

Not as powerful as the shields/regens as you would get in those Sects obviously, but enough to be a bit of help.

Thoughts?

[Mendalas]

I'm not sure that this is the answer tbh. This would lead to over healing in most situations and would confuse the decision making on whether to heal someone with it or buff their damage. There's also the thing of melee and ranged cards. So if the ranged dps needs a heal but you have a melee card, you will take the dps loss to heal the ranged? It's just a mess right now the way the cards are and this would make it even worse. They would have to completely rework the card system again, and that won't happen until next expansion if at all. People want to see things given back to AST that were stripped away for the sake of "balance". Time Dilation, CO extending buffs and stunning, the old card buffs for situational gameplay. Not whether or not the target is ranged or melee and what seal you need to get a 1% increase in damage. Myabe fix their mp problems since it's no where near on par with White Mage or Sch. Fix Nocturnal stance so its not absolute garbage compared to Dirunal. I could go on but you get the point I hope. Meanwhile I'm a level 76 white mage and critting mobs for 60k with Misery and can literally spam glare/holy the whole dungeon while barely touching cure. I ran my first 80 dungeon on sch and didn't touch physick at all. I on'y adlo'd before a huge pull and swiftcasted it. I don't think I ever hard casted a heal. Ast cannot do this with it's current kit as the heals are pretty weak in comparison. The card buffs are not strong enough to make up for the dps loss, so you see the dilemma. 5.1 would have to bring sweeping changes to AST but I just don't see it happening.

[Samsta]

What would this solve? Healing isn't a problem with astro, all the healers have plenty of heals and are fully capable of outputting enough healing. The problem is that they gutted all the variance from astro and made every card the same because the did not want players to "fish" for balance, now they fish for seals and every other card goes to minor arcana and their gameplay is boring and has no variance.

[Ilyrian]

Would it be too game breaking if they gave us an in-game choice between the new and the old card system?
I'd definitely pick the old one, but I appreciate not everyone would want to.

[Side-Eye]

The best rework they could give the card system would be to bring back the variety of buffs -- substituting something else for spire -- and restore the AST's abilities to extend buffs via Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition (and restore CO's stun, which should have never been removed anyway). That might not completely balance the job as far as DPS goes versus other heal jobs, but it would return some of the FUN and identity of the astrologian, which took a woodshed beating with 5.0.

[Vitreus]

What would this solve? Healing isn't a problem with astro, all the healers have plenty of heals and are fully capable of outputting enough healing. The problem is that they gutted all the variance from astro and made every card the same because the did not want players to "fish" for balance, now they fish for seals and every other card goes to minor arcana and their gameplay is boring and has no variance.

I don't understand why they didn't just nerf balance or buff the other cards. Even if you get bole or ewer when you didn't want to you could royal road them so it wasn't a waste.

[RyuDragnier]

I don't understand why they didn't just nerf balance or buff the other cards. Even if you get bole or ewer when you didn't want to you could royal road them so it wasn't a waste.

The only nerf Balance really needed was a change in effect. Changing it to a True North effect would have still kept the card useful (for melee at least), and would have dropped AST from being mandatory in all parties. The only thing that kept it mandatory was the damage buff on Balance. Removing that buff would have balanced AST out quite a bit.

[YusiKha]

The only nerf Balance really needed was a change in effect. Changing it to a True North effect would have still kept the card useful (for melee at least), and would have dropped AST from being mandatory in all parties. The only thing that kept it mandatory was the damage buff on Balance. Removing that buff would have balanced AST out quite a bit.

Everyone saying 'Balance is the issue' is completely forgetting that Royal Road was the true problem.
With Expanded Royal Road being the best effect (~3x pot, vs 2x extended & 1.5x enhanced) meaning that the job-based strength of Arrow (on SAM/MNK/BLM) or Spear (on MNK/BRD) was completely overlooked for the omnibeneficial Balance.

[Teraluna]

The core issue with the card system was not the effects - It was the rng structure behind this.

Whether it was heal buff, dps buff or whatever, the player would be looking for the appropriate output in any particular situation. That results in either 'yes got it' or 'don't need this, I'll pick again' and so on.
These character/skill buffs should never be associated with rng. This is a game supposedly based on skill, not mimicing a circus fortune teller.
I get where they are with an astro class - reading the stars and all that - but translating this into an rng 'do you feel lucky punk?' game play is an awful idea.

I said this at the introduction of the class and now here we are, with the devs not really knowing what to do with this roll the dice and you may or may not have a better output scenario.

[Brandedblade]

The current system, as boring as this forum may find it, is honestly the best compromise between consistency and randomness we can achieve. While there is certainly a thrill behind pulling the best possible card for the given scenario, there was always a risk of unfavorable draws giving you useless effects (aka those joke videos about constantly pulling Spires)

While this current system is still a luck based system of highs and lows, the best and worst case scenarios are not as severe of a loss as they used to be. You will always have your guaranteed effect (the damage boost), with the rng affecting the amount of said damage boost as opposed to either giving you increased damage or nothing.

At this point I believe the best thing is to streamline the process and make it more controller friendly as opposed to tossing it away and bringing back the old inconsistent system. An example I see alot that I agree with would be Minor Arcana automatically playing the appropriate Lord/Lady from the drawn card.

If there should be any additional effect, I'd go for 500 MP on every draw, which would give AST an active mp source akin to WHM's Assize and SCH's ED.