Ast cards 6.0 rework

[Lastelli]

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.

So your solution is making all cards close to useless. Well, that's one way to prevent cards fishing, I suppose. By the way, with these changes every card will be just used for minor arcana except for Spire that would be slapped on the main tank (and Bole, but only during big pulls in dungeons). The effects of the other cards are too situational and/or too weak.

[MitsukiKimura]

So your solution is making all cards close to useless. Well, that's one way to prevent cards fishing, I suppose. By the way, with these changes every card will be just used for minor arcana except for Spire that would be slapped on the main tank (and Bole, but only during big pulls in dungeons). The effects of the other cards are too situational and/or too weak.

Maybe offer your suggestion instead of just saying what I offered to be useless. Old card effects won't work with how things are now. Personally I don't think its useless so I'll wait for what you have to suggest.

[MitsukiKimura]

If you want the old cards then you will need to change
Balance
Arrow
Spire
And nerf or change crit.
If you come up with a solution let me know.

[Lastelli]

Maybe offer your suggestion instead of just saying what I offered to be useless. Old card effects won't work with how things are now. Personally I don't think its useless so I'll wait for what you have to suggest.

I'm perfectly fine with a system where all cards are damage buffs. They just need to find a less cumbersome way to distribute cards.

But if I could have it my way, I'd like something like this: make one card a defense buff and the other 5 different flavors of dmg up, some of which are better for some dps jobs (crit., direct hit, straight dmg buff, gcd speed up, autoattack speed up). Keep the seal system and divination. Bring back the old lord/lady and add an aoe+stun effect to lord and make them strong enough to be worth using over the normal buffs in some situations. Give AST a closed position equivalent to give cards to the selected target without having to directly select it every time you use play (effect is overridden if you're selecting another dps player when you use play). Don't bring back the royal road mechanic, but bring back time dilation. Sleeve Draw gives you one (not three) additional card.

What this achieves: 5 cards are always good, with little variation depending on party comp (gcd speed up -> better on a BLM, autoattack speed up-> better on a MNK etc.), the defence up card is situational and mostly used in dungeons or if you're lucky enough to draw it before a tank buster that isn't covered by tanks' cd (doesn't really happen, but whatever, let's pretend we want some freedom of choice), but if you don't need it you can redraw it and get something actually good. At the same time the AST should alternate cards to get 3 different seals. Seals should accrue only when they're different and divination should be usable on cd even if you don't have 3 seals: if you already have a moon, the next moon card you play won't give you any seal, so if you're unlucky enough to only draw moon you will then use a 1-seal divination that provides a 4% aoe dmg boost. Closed position makes it so that you can feed all cards to the same dps without having to switch target, making the card system less busy (especially in the opener, since you'd have 2 cards less), but you'd still have room to optimize by giving the right card to the right dps if you wanted to.

What I don't want to see: situational effects tied to rng that compete with universally useful effects (dmg buffs). That's asking for trouble.

[Seraphor]

Six months on and this is still going?
We're not getting the old cards back, please get over it, for your own sake.

[Crushnight]

Problem with making all cards utility is that it is vastly redundant (minus mp restore for Ast alone) as even in TEA hlrs are spending very large portions on dps as their healing tools aren't needed adding more is just giving bloat.

But I will offer a version of the system for pure defensive utility.

Draw gives 200 mp to Ast
Spire: cure potency 50, shield potency 200% Can stack with all shields duration 30s
Bole: 15% Dmg reduction, duration 30s
Balance: 400 potency heal
Ewer: cure potency 50, HoT potency 30 duration 30s
Spear: makes block/parry chance 50%(baseline) duration 30s
Arrow: movement speed increased by 20% duration 30s
Lady: Doubles card effects duration 40s
Lord: half card effects but makes them aoe based on target duration 40s
Sleeve Draw: Gives 3 cards 1 of each seal in succession.
Divination: 1 seal - 20% dmg increase for 15s, 2 seal - 22% dmg increase for 15s, 3 seal - 25% dmg increase for 20s


Even typing it I could feel the redundancy of it all, has problems where most go on tank alone unless people mess up, opener remains hectic but would feel more worthwhile for payoff, rng opener is eliminated but cards will have low impact since no real oomph, divination has better solo use but cards do not (with Lord being a hinderance).

I do not think this type of system could work without heavy encounter redesign, I really think we either have a 'balance or bust' system where 1 card would remain superior or an efficiency system where everything is just bland.

[HyoMinPark]

Six months on and this is still going?
We're not getting the old cards back, please get over it, for your own sake.

Apologies that some of us think this new system is terrible. You’re free to not click on AST discussions if they’re going to upset you that much.

[Mansion]

I think I'm kind of middle ground here.

I dont mind all cards being DPS up at all, because I still think the value of the old Bole for instance is quite overrated, and same for old Ewer. Sure they were nice when they came at the right time, but other than that, not so much.
What I do miss is Royal Road, namely I'd like to see it back in the shape "all cards have the same effect, but you can enhance that effect too". Time and potency could work, AoE I don't know... Maybe Ranged cards could give Duration extended and Melee cards could give Potency up for the card.
Arguably, old Minor Arcana was great compared to the one we have now, so this could change back too. But it could also be a separate Draw with a longer CD and stronger effects.

The "only" problem I really want to see fixed is Seals (and Divination+Sleeve Draw). I'd rather have Divination as a separate buff, and seals... well just gone at this point. Or reworked into another function like a passive buff or another ability (like Lilies do, but a DPS burst on AST makes less sense so I don't know really).
Sleeve Draw could just Draw, Royal Road and Minor Arcana again. Or buff the potency/duration of the next set of cards. But it should not be a "Card-slot machine" pressure action.

It's messy but the idea would be having technically one card effect but various ways of using it through Royal Road/Minor Arcana.

[inhaledcorn]

I was thinking further about making all cards utility, and this is what I came up with:

Current melee cards become single target effects, and range cards become AoE effects.

Sun Seal cards: cure + regen

Moon Seal cards: Heal + shield = amount healed

Celestial Seal cards: heal + incoming damage reduction

Minor arcana: booth boost next effect (Lord boosts single-target, Lady boosts AoE)

Bring back Spread. Store one each of single-target and AoE cards.

Sleeve Draw: Grants one ingle-target card, one AoE card in Spread, one active card (will not override already active effects)

[MitsukiKimura]

Six months on and this is still going?
We're not getting the old cards back, please get over it, for your own sake.

We're not happy with this system, don't be clicking on these threads if you're gonna complain about it.

I'm mostly tired. I can't think of anything nor else try to anymore
Balance changed to Determination 15% 30 seconds
Spear: Crit 5% 30 seconds
arrow : Extends buffs casted on target by 15 seconds
Bole: 15% damage reduction 30 seconds
Ewer : HoT regen potency 30 30 seconds
Spire: 10% direct hit buff 30 seconds
Im out of ideas, nor less just ready to stop trying