AST Adjustments 6.2

[SeverianLyonesse]

I think they need to go away from the idea that cards = rng. Astrodyne feels terrible for a miniscule buff and often miss it when timing with lightspeed. If they want to do a tarot theme, they could instead have a fixed deck that you manipulate and stack, make a combo route of tarot readings, or have a tapping mechanic like mtg where you can set cards upside down for effects. I'm unsure how convoluted they can be with it since they still have to keep it inline with the amount of button presses with the rest of the healers being about 1-3 buttons for singular/aoe healing and buffing. It would be cool to see a gauge of 3 cards like Ewer, Arrow, Bole that change into Balance, Spear, and Spire based on a buff/timer you turn on. There's so much they could do to make it more thematically cohesive like sage, and I hope this 6.2 rework really is substantial now that they see the success of Sage.

Half disagree with this, for two reasons:

1) AST is the Gambler expy of the game, so removing RNG kind of ruins a core conceit of the job fantasy. Doubly so since the idea of randomness and probability pairs so well in a "theoretical physics" kind of way with time magic.

2) The game has already removed so much flavor in service of homogenizing jobs and scripting gameplay. Elemental typing, weapon damage typing, stances, pets, and now we are in the middle of removing debuffs, DoTs, crits, and any party damage buff that isn't 120s. I think a lot of players really don't know what they are asking for when they demand that jobs be less inefficient/randomized and more consistent--it has destroyed so much uniqueness and excitement in job design. Kaiten and the removal of SAM crits was already a huge blow, but I think removing all RNG from AST is a threshold beyond which the game would not be redeemable.

[Avenheit]

minor arcana and arcana play become the same button - Class fixed.

Welcome to my TEDTalk.

[Allegor]

I'm hoping they overhaul, or preferrably, remove the seals entirely. It was a redundant "mechanic bloat" in ShB and it didn't really get that much better in EW. It only exists to make it less obvious how dull neutering all the cards into 8 flavors of Balance is, which is a problem in on itself, but I doubt that's changing anytime soon.

[Xelanar]

I personally hope they change the amount of oGCDs needed during burst. Not because I'm having trouble, but because I don't like the idea of having to use my utility skills(Lightspeed in this case) exclusively for DPS, instead of - you know - phases where I actually need to move while casting.

Also... I want the old cards back. This will never happen, but I'll keep saying I miss them, because I miss them >.<.

[sesroza]

I am not particularly unhappy with the current AST as I still feel like the Healers all feel unique and sometimes things can be exaggerated on how boring something is, its very subjective and dependent on the content you do. If there was one thing I'd ask for is making some superfluous buttons just a TAD more useful.

Now I never played Heavensward, Stormblood AST but there seem to have been some good ideas in there, particularly Royal Road, Time Dilation. I think most people who are not high on nostalgia can see why the 6 diff buffs AST used to have was a nightmare for balance and how the current buffs although more same-y are not as problematic.

My suggestion although probably not likely judging from previous changes would be to have a semi-return to SHB Minor Arcana with some Royal Road flavor. Being able to randomly draw a buff to your next card could help Minor Arcana not feel like an afterthought.

It's also possible to just make Lord of Crown's DPS positive and do anything else with Lady of Crowns (sometimes the free instant AOE heal can be nice).

I think if anything whoever is handling AST changes, I beg to just try and reinforce ASTs identity in the changes and not have it be purely the same as what we have been getting. This includes trying to incorporate Synastry better in the Kit, reworking Minor Arcana, and streamlining Draw/Play cards. Additionally, I have heard that Lightspeed could use some QoL so that too.

Lastly, I can see some kind of change to Astrodyne, I'm not sure what it would look like but I do sometimes find it annoying to try and figure out how to line up those buffs with Divination. Idk to what extent MAJOR adjustments means to the development team but in short:

Minor Arcana: QoL: make play and draw one button, and making the cards feel more useful- possibly by giving them the Royal Road, Time Dilation, or SHB Minor Arcana effects aka being able to extend the duration, potency, or add utility to a card.

Synastry: Make it more useful in times when it's not in the niche cases. I do myself use it dungeons but it could be better overall. This could be anything to bring it in line with other abilities. This one is open to creativity.

Astordyne: Make it and Divination line up a tad bit better and review the current buffs to see if it can be more useful as a core mechanic.

Lightspeed: I'm not 100% aware of this issue with other players but it seems the cooldown could be shorter or it could have charges.

Sleeve Draw: I know they specifically mentioned button bloat as an issue which I don't 100% agree on, it's moreso cohesion with buttons for me. AST is inherently busy and that's okay. I think Sleeve Draw can be reintroduced to solve a plethora of issues such as Minor Arcana and Astrodyne.

All I can ask is for some of these changes to be implemented or that at the least some of the ideation behind PvP AST can translate to PvE with the knowledge that everything done in PvP can't just be transferred over easily but even just a discussion on those ides is good.

[Ylendale]

Astrologian is my main class since i have started to play the game in 2019. Since ShB was already out i do not know the HW or SB AST.
This being said i do have some complains about the current card system.

I want to "play" with my card:
The current card system is just damage increase wich is nice but why not give it more flavor ?
We have a total of 6 cards (without minor aracana) there is plenty of possibilities for differents effects.
I see a lot of you guys praising SB cards with each card having differents effects and i would love to see that, the PvP version already done that and i enjoy more PvP AST on this aspect.
If we got this change i would love to see a keep system where you're hold you're card because for now it's not useful but it would be later and also a "specific draw" ability where you pick the card you want (don't know if this one is feasible xD)


Maybe a little damage buff but that cherry on top
AST is a busy healer and that's what i like about this job, we buff we heal and we deal damage but i really want to see a change in the card system.

[MintnHoney]

The only thing I remember being said was that they wanted to look into adjusting how busy AST and DRG were. In that case, I can only imagine that they'd want to consolidate or remove buttons, maybe choosing to change the cards a bit while elongating the cooldown so that we don't have to go through the card mini-game so often.

Ideally, I would prefer it if they'd just reconsider and change certain elements (I've listed my thoughts in the past, and I don't think it's fair for me to put everything through that again), but I doubt they'd bother wasting enough time to do that if there's a DPS to consider. So I expect a lot of trimming with no meaningful replacement, as is usual, and then a ridiculous buff to ASTs potencies come the .3 patch, as per tradition with Yoshi-P and his efforts to try and make AST played more while simultaneously trying not to understand why people don't really play it in the first place.

[inhaledcorn]

Here's the thing about AST cards: either they all need to contribute to damage or none of them should contribute to damage. That was the problem with pre ShB era cards: Half (post Spear change) contributed to damage and half contributed to utility (or were used to set-up for damage). The utility cards, being RNG, were faaaaar less useful than the damage cards, even with Bole buffed out the ass to equal Rampart. How was slightly less damage on a tank/the group that you couldn't plan for compete with a 5% flat damage buff? 7% crit buff? It didn't. It couldn't.

We also have to look at the pre-HW skill set AST had. Most of their Job skills went to card management (Draw/Play, Royal Road, Spread, Redraw). Gravity, their AoE filler spell, used to be 52. They didn't have it for any of the ARR post game dungeons. A lot of skills that feel like they should be job quest skills are instead learned during level up (Essential Dignity is at level 4, btw). This caused major problems down the road on introducing new spells for level up. The job design was too limited in scope. The ShB card changes alleviated a lot of this problem.

However, EW introduced a new problem by giving AST a bonkers amount of buttons to hit with a seal system that isn't practical with how cards are doled out. So, my proposition is thus:

Minor Arcana: neither card does damage. Lady is now an AoE heal with a regen effect while Lord is an AoE heal with a shield effect. (Celestial Opposition might get nerfed to be just a flat AoE heal, but maybe gets both regen and shield effects if used while under Neutral Sect).

Basic cards: Now only do direct damage by the AST (half are single target, while the other half are AoE. Redraw is 3 charges again. Draw grants the Celestial Redraw effect which automatically redraw the single-target card to the AoE one of the same seal and vice-versa (this will not consume a charge of Redraw). MP gain is buffed back to 700MP. Sleeve Draw returned and put on a 60s timer (will also grant Celestial Redraw).

Astrodyne: sits on a 60s cooldown timer. Seals determine what kind of attack is performed when Astrodyne is used (3 of the same = big AoE hit [can probably use current Lady of Crowns animation]. 3 different = big single-target hit [can probably use old Lord of Crowns animation]. 2 same = Earthly Star).

I'm aware this greatly lowers the amount of support AST does, but this does make it more solo-friendly and controller friendly.

[Recon1o6]

snip

We really need to make some corrections here.
There's 3 major problems with astro: Its cards and time magic are gone robbing it of its flavour and playstyle, its one of the few jobs bloated to an excessive degree and losing its sects in favour of a nonexistant regen/barrier split when all healers have regens and barriers caused it more limitations.

1. Play is a shb thing and a stupid idea that they've kept around. Crown play likewise. These need to go. They did not exist back in HW/SB, draw/play was the same button. Likewise MA was also a single button.
HW cards were Draw, RR, Spread and Redraw. Nobody used Undraw or Undraw spread. Why Undraw has not been deleted is unknown to this day.
SB was Draw, RR, Spread, Redraw, MA and Sleeve draw. 6 buttons but this was also the time we got the brilliant W cross hotbar.

2. Once again, the support actions were FUN and had their niches in situations other than the raid environment. Yes some needed a buff, all had their uses however. The job identity has rng as described in earlier posts in this thread. Removing it takes away another chunk of the playstyle ast players new and old enjoy. The shb cards were a complete downgrade, it would have been far better to remove the balance and spire and put new effects in their place while keeping the dps buff as divination if removing rng from your damage buff is such a problem.

3. The astrodyne mechanic you have suggested is decent in theory, but the earthly star removal just to put it in there is very foolish as its one of Ast's best healing tools.

4. Your overall rework reduces further Ast's playstyle of a buffer when its already in the dumps. While no Ast would turn down more buttons to make its solo gameplay fun, removing the support for it would likely be unpopular.

[SieyaM]

Here's the thing about AST cards: either they all need to contribute to damage or none of them should contribute to damage. That was the problem with pre ShB era cards: Half (post Spear change) contributed to damage and half contributed to utility (or were used to set-up for damage). The utility cards, being RNG, were faaaaar less useful than the damage cards, even with Bole buffed out the ass to equal Rampart. How was slightly less damage on a tank/the group that you couldn't plan for compete with a 5% flat damage buff? 7% crit buff? It didn't. It couldn't.

We also have to look at the pre-HW skill set AST had. Most of their Job skills went to card management (Draw/Play, Royal Road, Spread, Redraw). Gravity, their AoE filler spell, used to be 52. They didn't have it for any of the ARR post game dungeons. A lot of skills that feel like they should be job quest skills are instead learned during level up (Essential Dignity is at level 4, btw). This caused major problems down the road on introducing new spells for level up. The job design was too limited in scope. The ShB card changes alleviated a lot of this problem.

However, EW introduced a new problem by giving AST a bonkers amount of buttons to hit with a seal system that isn't practical with how cards are doled out. So, my proposition is thus:

Minor Arcana: neither card does damage. Lady is now an AoE heal with a regen effect while Lord is an AoE heal with a shield effect. (Celestial Opposition might get nerfed to be just a flat AoE heal, but maybe gets both regen and shield effects if used while under Neutral Sect).

Basic cards: Now only do direct damage by the AST (half are single target, while the other half are AoE. Redraw is 3 charges again. Draw grants the Celestial Redraw effect which automatically redraw the single-target card to the AoE one of the same seal and vice-versa (this will not consume a charge of Redraw). MP gain is buffed back to 700MP. Sleeve Draw returned and put on a 60s timer (will also grant Celestial Redraw).

Astrodyne: sits on a 60s cooldown timer. Seals determine what kind of attack is performed when Astrodyne is used (3 of the same = big AoE hit [can probably use current Lady of Crowns animation]. 3 different = big single-target hit [can probably use old Lord of Crowns animation]. 2 same = Earthly Star).

I'm aware this greatly lowers the amount of support AST does, but this does make it more solo-friendly and controller friendly.

Might as well just get rid of the cards all together then and just buff their Malefic potency since they all are just dps buttons anyway with this set up. And people are still going to complain about getting AoE damage cards when they need single target ones since I assume single target damage will be higher than the AoE counterpart, so it does nothing to appease the min maxers who complained about the original iteration anyway.