Ast cards 6.0 rework

[YusiKha]

I agree. I'm all for making things more fun. I'm just heavily against going back to the old system where the "balance or bust" situation can occur.

So.
Balance is worth 10% damage.
Arrow is worth 6.66%, though depends on the party comp
Spear is 4~6% depending on crit substat

We have an obvious outlier here. Just reduce Balance's duration to 2/3 of the other cards. Makes it roughly equal to the others in general use, but makes it better if you can extend its duration.

[Rai_Takara]

So.
Balance is worth 10% damage.
Arrow is worth 6.66%, though depends on the party comp
Spear is 4~6% depending on crit substat

We have an obvious outlier here. Just reduce Balance's duration to 2/3 of the other cards. Makes it roughly equal to the others in general use, but makes it better if you can extend its duration.

Arrow is hated by most people because it messes up their rigid rotation. Only few jobs like BLM can get away with it.

I think buffs to chance is not good either because rng. The point of the new cards is to avoid rng to damage. An AST will always output a consistent amount of damage buffs is the idea. Either all cards dont buff damage or they all buff it equally. Perhaps putting all the damage into divination and making cards just pure utility might be an option.

[YusiKha]

Arrow is hated by most people because it messes up their rigid rotation. Only few jobs like BLM can get away with it.

Wrong. It is a gain for everyone, and only MCH's rigid 60s rotation made it unlikeable (but you can adjust by doing nothing for ~1/2 a GCD, and still have your Autos buffed). 'Most people' didn't actually care about it, since even if you didn't adjust it was still an undeniable DPS boost.
I can tell that you barely played AST in StB with how you're firing off conjecture that is literally rebutted in the guide to the class

And I agree with you that RNG choosing whether you get a buff or not is a bad idea - but my preference is to change 'will I get card?' to 'when I get card?'
If Draw gave you all 6 cards but in a random order, then you have to shuffle it into the desired RR+Card pairings.

[AdamFyi]

It is a gain for everyone

Actually, with all the changes made in ShB, Haste buffs would massively throw off rotation timings for a lot of jobs which is why external Haste buffs are pretty much non-existent now. As an example, it would basically be the difference between throwing off your rotation to get the last three ticks of a Drg’s Chaos Thrust, or being forced to clip the dot early and losing three ticks worth of potency. From my limited knowledge, BLM also has a SpS threshold they want to stay within so as to not throw off their rotation. Scholar has this problem too with their Chain Strategem getting desynced from their Biolysis reapplications.

Haste buffs would also prevent some jobs from performing double/triple weaves effectively without clipping into their next GCD, which is pretty detrimental especially with players playing with higher ping. Simply porting the old card system and changing its values into the game’s current state would not translate well at all. Having both utility and damage cards results in more varied usage, but if there isn’t a system in place to discourage players from simply just fishing the most optimal cards, then there’s no point in bringing it over. We’d just end up in the same situation Stormblood left the Healers in.

[MitsukiKimura]

Actually, with all the changes made in ShB, Haste buffs would massively throw off rotation timings for a lot of jobs which is why external Haste buffs are pretty much non-existent now. As an example, it would basically be the difference between throwing off your rotation to get the last three ticks of a Drg’s Chaos Thrust, or being forced to clip the dot early and losing three ticks worth of potency. From my limited knowledge, BLM also has a SpS threshold they want to stay within so as to not throw off their rotation. Scholar has this problem too with their Chain Strategem getting desynced from their Biolysis reapplications.

Haste buffs would also prevent some jobs from performing double/triple weaves effectively without clipping into their next GCD, which is pretty detrimental especially with players playing with higher ping. Simply porting the old card system and changing its values into the game’s current state would not translate well at all. Having both utility and damage cards results in more varied usage, but if there isn’t a system in place to discourage players from simply just fishing the most optimal cards, then there’s no point in bringing it over. We’d just end up in the same situation Stormblood left the Healers in.

Regardless how you put it, speed killers will always try to find the best part no matter what way you put it at. What they need to do is change the cards from just being balance cards, bring back it's utility while offering the different card abilities. Even if not bringing arrow back, anything would be better than what we have now. If you can't handle drawing different cards then pick another healer. Nothing should be dumbed down to this kind of judgement calling of the cards.
Also to add on to my post, this also forces players to play a specific way with how the cards work now. You fish for the card for the best DPS out of the party outside of sleeve draw, rinse and repeat. There's no variation, anything else doesn't bring the best benefit out of the party.

[YusiKha]

Haste buffs would massively throw off rotation timings

60% of a GCD is not 'massively thrown off'. It might make 1 GCD not land in a raid buff, or another land in a raid buff when it wouldn't. Worst case scenario? Wait it out.

As an example, it would basically be the difference between throwing off your rotation to get the last three ticks of a Drg’s Chaos Thrust, or being forced to clip the dot early and losing three ticks worth of potency.

Are you mathematically issued? 3 ticks is 9 seconds. Each Arrow, in total, gains you 1.5s. That makes it only a 50% chance of even losing the DoT tick.

Haste buffs would also prevent some jobs from performing double/triple weaves effectively without clipping into their next GCD

Nobody triple-weaves, and if you clip into your next GCD because of the haste boost, then it's either invalidating the Arrow (best case) or you would have clipped anyway (worst case)

Simply porting the old card system and changing its values into the game’s current state would not translate well at all. Having both utility and damage cards results in more varied usage, but if there isn’t a system in place to discourage players from simply just fishing the most optimal cards, then there’s no point in bringing it over. We’d just end up in the same situation Stormblood left the Healers in.

Aside from WHM being undertuned (but still very popular), healers' gameplay was fine in 4.5.

[Rai_Takara]

Wrong. It is a gain for everyone, and only MCH's rigid 60s rotation made it unlikeable (but you can adjust by doing nothing for ~1/2 a GCD, and still have your Autos buffed). 'Most people' didn't actually care about it, since even if you didn't adjust it was still an undeniable DPS boost.
I can tell that you barely played AST in StB with how you're firing off conjecture that is literally rebutted in the guide to the class

And I agree with you that RNG choosing whether you get a buff or not is a bad idea - but my preference is to change 'will I get card?' to 'when I get card?'
If Draw gave you all 6 cards but in a random order, then you have to shuffle it into the desired RR+Card pairings.

I can tell you haven't done your research on me. I can also see you barely have any savage AST experience whatsoever in SB and in ShB.

Those kind of guides are for newer players, not seasoned ASTs. There are some non-truths that exist and one of those is that AoE arrow is worth playing. You only ever played single target arrow on the jobs that don't have rigid rotations like BLM (or heck your cohealer even). I can also tell you from experience, most people that I've ran with have specifically asked me to not arrow them as it messed up their rotation. If we bring up the top end optimization people build their gear to specific GCD per fight and arrow messes that up. In fact people have setup macros to remove arrow if they receive it. Really the people that would be capable of squeezing DPS don't want it, so to anyone else, arrow is just a fun card that doesn't help their damage but makes them got faaaaaast.

I'm still a big fan of the seals being a combo system where you throw 3 cards in and get a unique buff out along with the standard 6% damage buff, every time. Leaves the damage portion out of RNG but still gives you card choices.

[inhaledcorn]

Perhaps putting all the damage into divination and making cards just pure utility might be an option.

I would honestly love this. Have one that's a HP/MP refresh, one that reduces incoming damage, and one that heals and applies a shield. It's more "tank focused" on cards, but there's some minor self utility with the MP refresh. They could decide to make a strong, single-target version and a weak AoE version, too.

[AdamFyi]

What they need to do is change the cards from just being balance cards, bring back it's utility while offering the different card abilities. Even if not bringing arrow back, anything would be better than what we have now.

Mhm. I’m with you with wanting to change the card system cause I don’t like it either. However, just bringing forward the old system as is is not the solution. Though, I really like the idea of turning the cards into being purely utility and just dumping all the damage buffs into Divination. That sounds a lot more interesting than most other suggestions I’ve seen so far.

[MitsukiKimura]

Just came up with this random Idea
Bole: Grants target Physical defense boost 10% for 20 seconds
Ewer: MP refresh potency 25 for 10 seconds
Spear: Grants target Magical defense boost 10% for 20 seconds
Spire: Grants target HoT effect potency of 150 for 15 seconds
Arrow: Extends the buffs you casted on target by 10 seconds
Balance:
Lady of Crowns: Cure Potency 300
Lord of Crowns: Attack Potency 200
I can't think of anything for balance yet
This though grants utility to each card, removing arrow haste, no balance, no crit, no direct hit, giving back time extender to a card. Arrow does not extend divination, only manual spells casted on a target.