AST changes for 6.0: Let's forget 5.0 happened, and just fix what was wrong with 4.0

[Gravagar]

The reason a lot of people want old cards back, is because they have variety and the highs and lows were what gave the job flavour and fun. Contrary to what a lot of savage raiders here try to force, most of the game is not savage raiding and the rest of the buffs available had their uses outside of it- different cards for different situations.

Just want to chime in as someone who is a savage raider- I also DO want varied cards back. The most convincing argument I've heard in favor of these samey cards had a big ask attached to it. "They're better than the old cards if you memorize every single job's burst windows to time your card plays perfectly!" How do we know the absolute numerical best time to play them? Well, you need third party tools. Considering how anti-3PT Yoshi's stance is, it's really baffling how AST suddenly became a job that requires them to gain any sort of intrinsic satisfaction...


If they refuse to give Royal Road back due to AoE cards being sunsetted, then I'd at least want it to be replaced with Play Inverted. As per tarot cards, an arcana drawn upside-down has a different meaning... Let those who want to ignore all utility have their samey deck of balances, and let the non-speedclear players have their other fun buffs. It doesn't need to be the case where only one party gets what they want!!

[Recon1o6]

Just want to chime in as someone who is a savage raider- I also DO want varied cards back. The most convincing argument I've heard in favor of these samey cards had a big ask attached to it. "They're better than the old cards if you memorize every single job's burst windows to time your card plays perfectly!" How do we know the absolute numerical best time to play them? Well, you need third party tools. Considering how anti-3PT Yoshi's stance is, it's really baffling how AST suddenly became a job that requires them to gain any sort of intrinsic satisfaction...

Please note, I never said every raider ^^ I personally do savage raiding too, or did till rl forced me off. Still on the lookout for a TEA group :/

You are correct though, that is a big ask. Though I found it along the lines of "no matter how you play it, it will be beneficial" well...that's bad design as it encourages just flinging cards instead of playing smartly given you can't see the difference. decision making is an important part of healing, and this just shows how further braindead its become.

That being said, a lot of astros just flat out dont get any satisfaction from the job anymore givne what they stripped out of it. That's why so few play it and sch next to whm

If they refuse to give Royal Road back due to AoE cards being sunsetted, then I'd at least want it to be replaced with Play Inverted. As per tarot cards, an arcana drawn upside-down has a different meaning... Let those who want to ignore all utility have their samey deck of balances, and let the non-speedclear players have their other fun buffs. It doesn't need to be the case where only one party gets what they want!!

Another great idea. Hell we have a button for that: minor arcana. Convert the cards energies to pure magic and throw it on player. Could keep the lord vs lady, which would likely be an acceptable loss ot most of the disgruntled majority given how older minor arcana worked

Though a lot of players would prefer draw and play to be put back together again to reduce bloat. Nobody missed the 30 second draw window anyway, or if they did, they seriously need to look at how they were playing.

[Satarn]

If they refuse to give Royal Road back due to AoE cards being sunsetted, then I'd at least want it to be replaced with Play Inverted.

Going with your idea, how about this:

The cards get divided into 3 “pairs” based on their seals. Current melee cards get different – but roughly equally valued - offensive effects and the ranged cards get defensive/utility effects.

Solar seal:
Balance - Increases damage dealt by a party member or self by 6%. Duration: 15s
Bole – Decreases damage taken by a party member or self by 20%. Duration: 15s

Celestial seal:
Spear – Increases critical hit rate of a party member or self by 10%. Duration: 15s
Spire – Grants healing over time effect to a party member or self. Cure Potency: 200. Duration: 15s

Lunar seal:
Arrow – Increases direct hit rate of a party member or self by 15%. Duration: 15s
Ewer – Refreshes MP of a party member or self. Potency: 50. Duration: 15s
(Keep in mind the potencies are just examples. The goal is to make all offensive effects roughly equal in value, hence why the weaker buffs get higher potency, but I can’t be assed to math out the exact values just to present the idea.)

You can still Draw any of the 6 cards, but you can also swap them to their “opposites” with the new action:

Reverse – Flips the currently held arcanum, turning its effect into that of its opposite. Cooldown: 1s
(Of course this ability works like current Minor Arcana, in that the hotkey is replaced with the opposite card automatically, so you don’t have to weave both Reverse and then Play like it was with 5.0 Minor Arcana.)

Divination and Sleeve Draw can be kept as they are, but Minor Arcana and Redraw get tweaked for the new system:

Minor Arcana – Plays the currently held arcanum’s offensive side at increased potency, while sacrificing its seal effect.
(Alternatively it could just play – and enhance - the effect of current card including utility ones, but that would add extra weaving while trying to play optimally, which is something I’d like to avoid – however it might not be as much of an issue now that Sleeve Draw no longer grants 3 cards at once.)

Redraw – Draws an arcanum with a different seal from your deck.
(Small change to ensure you don’t just get the opposite of your current card like with Reverse, or even straight up the same card as it does occasionally happen right now sadly. It might also be a good idea to remove or reduce the charges on this ability with this change though, as getting a guaranteed different seal and not having to worry about ranged/melee dichotomy along with 3 charges, could trivialize things too much.)

What this accomplishes:
- People happy with the current system who just want to optimize based on fight timeline can play with nearly no changes.
- In fact this system is even more stable as you don’t need to worry about the melee/ranged divide in cards and can just always buff the most optimal person based on where they are in their rotations at the time. It also means you no longer get screwed by rng giving you only melee cards in parties with less/no melee dps and so on.
- At the same time, this allows people who preferred the old system to enjoy the “clutch moments” of using an Ewer or Bole at the right time, without sacrificing the pros of the current system.
- Since the chance of drawing a specific utility card becomes 1/3 rather than 1/6(and Redraw being 1/2), it’s much more likely than before that you can actually use them to save a sticky situation(or even plan to a degree), which allows for some extra skill expression during prog or just when playing in any unoptimized setting where things can get very bad, very fast.