Rotations: Making them DIFFERENT

[Renathras]

Honestly, I never talk about AST because (a) I don't feel super qualified to do so (some of you think I shouldn't on the other three, but I've played WHM for literally 9 years, SCH for 8, and SGE the entire time it's been in the game + it has a lot of SCH in it) and (b) am not the type of player it appeals to and so likely don't represent those people and don't want to pull a New SMN robbery of someone's existing playstyle they enjoy (when I say people shouldn't have things taken from them - to support keeping some Jobs simple - I actually mean this, and it's a principle I actually hold, which means it cuts both ways and I don't want to rob other people of things they enjoy, either)

But if I set those two things aside for a moment to "thought experiment" what I'd personally think could work for AST as the "buffing one" of the Healers:

I think the big problem with old AST wasn't the different buffs, it's that they were all competing for the same spot. Just like my problem with SCH's Energy Drain competing against Excog, Indom, and Soil as well as Lustrate (if it was ONLY competing with Lustrate, that wouldn't be an issue, hence my rework proposal to push ED to Faerie Gauge), I think the issue with old AST cards was that the clearly superior ones were competing for the "this is my one buff every 30 seconds" with the clearly situational or inferior ones. "Balance fishing" was a thing because it was just always, or nearly always, better. Likewise, dumping Bole was a thing because there were almost no situations you needed it, and you generally didn't have it when you needed it.

The second problem with AST, I think, though I will caveat this with "many people like this", is that it's far too busy during burst, and has far too many buttons. It and PLD are the most button bloat-y Jobs in the game, and that's before you consider things like adding macros. But not only does AST have more buttons, you have to cram a ton of them into a tight window, which also limits other ability uses. Like Lightspeed would be a great Triplecast-esque ability if you could use it when you felt like it during encounters, but many AST players feel obliged to use it during their burst because otherwise there's too little time to press all their buttons, along with target swapping between allies and the boss, in that window if you can't double weave and such.

And I also think that a problem is that for a "buff mage", they don't buff...often. I mean, sure, you can throw out three cards in a burst window along with Divination...but that's at the cost of only using 1 card in odd numbered minutes and only throwing out an average of one buff per 30 seconds. Contrast MMOs or games in general with full on Support/Synergist/Buffing as a role, where they are CONSTANTLY throwing out buffs. Where their "filler rotation" is throwing out buffs, not spamming a nuke button.

(A more minor/lesser issue is that AST has so little personal damage due to its balance around party buffs that it's a slog to play in Deep Dungeons and solo duties - not even boring, it's just SO SLOW compared to even SCH [which also has the benefit you don't have to worry much about your health since you can just shout "Eos, take the wheel!" for the most part.)

So if I was to propose fixes to AST, I'd do so to target those issues.

1) To the first, I'd propose a pretty extensive rework of the card system. At the risk of button bloat issues. I'd probably split the Major Arcana into two types - offensive buffs and defensive/situational buffs. The former would probably be like BRD's songs, just more powerful and single target. The 1/2/3 ratio between damage, crit, and direct hit. This keeps them distinct (so they don't "feel the same") while keeping them all relatively useful. For situational stuff, I'd probably put damage reduction, MP refresh, and likely movement speed for the other one. Call them Astral and Umbral, call them Lords and Ladies, doesn't matter, the two just need to be separated. The next change I would include is the ability to stock any card to use as a quick stock/quick play. So say I get the Bole. I don't need it right now, but I know a Tank Buster is coming up in 30 seconds or so. Maybe I stock that Bole so I can play it them to save me some other CD/heal cast, and I can keep drawing and playing that card type otherwise. And I'd probably bring back the "Deployment Tactics" effect of being able to make a given card AOE at a cost of reduced effectiveness or duration.

2a) I'd probably make card draws and plays GCDs. I know some people would hate this, which is why I hesitate to add it, but I think the big complaint about AST is its burst. While you could just give them a low CD and charges to Lightspeed to the point they play like SMN, at that point, you may as well make this change. It would also help with having to target swap so much when playing cards, since making them GCDs would give you a larger acceptable window to choose targets (while still being a max of 2.5). Note that this could be accomplished with only part of the mechanic being GCD (Draw, say, with Play still being oGCD), or both being GCDs.

2b) Of course, this all comes at the cost of even more buttons. There are different ways to deal with this sort of thing, like how SGE uses Eukrasia to get double duty out of buttons, and I'm not sure the best fit for AST. One thing might be to cut down some of their redundant buttons, or buttons that are already covered by cards. For example, you would have less need for Exaltation if The Bole is already Exaltation. Combining some lesser abilities could also help, such as the oft-suggested Trait to upgrade Benefic 1 into Benefic 2, and another could arguably be used for Helios (same argument as WHM with Cure1/2 and Medica 1/2). There also might be some consideration to weeding out some redundant and near-redundant oGCDs, as AST is hardly alone among Healer Jobs for having oGCDs that mirror effects of GCDs, or even other oGCDs, as well as some abilities that are extremely niche at this point, like 20 second Beacon of Light Synastry on a Job that tries to avoid using GCD single target heals in the first place.

...the thing is, AST has a similar problem to SCH in that it has some oGCDs that are redundant...but most of the buttons do feel distinct and unique. Neutral Sect and Collective Unconscious, for example, are fun and unique/interesting abilities, at least to me, even if you could argue they have some overlapping utility. Earthly Star is, at its core, a big AOE heal (that does some damage, but is planned around for healing), but it's interesting and forms the backbone of AST healing plans, so removing it because "You have Helios" seems unwise as well. So I'm not entirely sure where to "trim the fat", as it were, as there's not a ton of "fat" to trim, and other than Bole, none of the other cards really have an overlapping effect with oGCDs. Though one thing that could help is having things "trait" add to cards with levels, instead of cards being the same from the time you get them to level cap to infinity 10 years from now. Like Bole could start as just a 10% damage reduction for 8 seconds, and get an additional 500 potency cure on expiration at level 86 (when you get Exaltation), just as one example. Maybe the Expedient one (Arrow?) could have the 200 potency shield from Celestial Intersection added to it from level 74 on, etc.

It's kind of like I've long thought NIN Mudras - they technically allow a great number of abilities to be added without a single additional button on the hotbar due to being combinations of existing buttons (there could technically be up to 15 if order mattered. Leaning into cards with that, especially the situational cards, could be an interesting way to add "more abilities" (or more features, anyway) to AST over time while countering that.

3) With the above changes done, more buffs (rather than less) would be the remaining thing. This either means very short CDs for at least some buffs, or even some buffs with no CDs. Ideally, the "rotation" should be "refresh DoT, cycle buffs on party members, refresh DoT", with Malific filler being rarely, if ever, used outside of soloing, and sparse Gravity in AOE 4 mans (where you have less people to buff). Even with 20 sec buffs on the two types of Major Arcana, that would still be 6 per minute (3 of each type). Minor Arcana could be reworked to be HoT (Lady) and MP Refresh (Lord) or something, giving you another thing to upkeep. I don't think no CD would be that great (especially on the damage increase cards), since then gameplay would just devolve into spamming those on every party member over and over, but short CDs for high buff uptime and buffs being a the "filler" of the rotation would be a lot more engaging than Malific spam, at any rate.

[4] would be something like I've suggested before of buffs used on the AST by themselves having increased effects to make the solo stuff a bit less painful. Possibly using the GCD buffs boosts the next Malific to make them damage neutral or something, I dunno.

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Anyway, again, I don't tend to mention what I think of AST, as I'm not sure it would work well or not alienate existing AST people, but it would probably be something on the lines of the above.

[ForsakenRoe]

So if I was to propose fixes to AST, I'd do so to target those issues.

I also don't play AST much anymore so I don't feel 100% confident on it, but the forbidden website believes I mained it in Aspho, likely thanks to P3S and the Macrocosmos Incident. Still, I think pretty similarly in what you see as the 'issues to solve'. Hence my idea in the thread I linked: redistribute the CPM spent on cards to be more evenly spread, and make more use of mini-buffs. Major Arcana would be the 1min 'moment of power' buff, since many classes do still burst at 1min, just not as hard as at 2min (Monk ROF, NIN Trick, RPR Gluttony, SAM refreshing it's DOT, SMN alternating demis, etc). On the flip side, making Minor Arcana use the full deck of sixty (well, 54 since the Majors are part of it) gives us a way to mix up the GCD loop, make it more interactive, and give a lot more focus to the idea of it being 'the buffing healer'. You'd have every 6th GCD on average be using a Minor card on an ally

I wanted to have the Major Arcana be, with current damage/gear values, each contribute around 30k of damage. I did this because I had looked at the current best run of P11S, and looked at the effect of one of the cards used on their SAM for one 2min window. It was 18.5k, multiplying that up so that it's 10% buff instead of 6% would make it roughly 30k. Hence things like 'Bole reflects 10% Max HP as damage, 3 times' would, with current numbers, be about 33k.

Minor Arcana, on the other hand, I'd hope to try and balance to be roughly 300p, as compared to Malefic's 250. Additionally, I wanted to have some level of RNG based on the card's value, but still keep it's impact on the overall damage low, with the majority of the effect being 'guaranteed' (you'll always get 300), and the RNG part being way smaller (being like 5-45p depending on card). I took inspiration from Darkmoon Decks and how their effects are scaled based on 'current top card of deck'. If I had more time/cared about the class more, I'd balance them better/come up with better effects, I feel like the Minor ones are maybe kinda bland in their application, but considering what we're working with at the moment I'd say it's an improvement even as it is

Many say 'separate the utility and the damage since people only ever want the damage, and forgo the utility', but that just leads to a very similar issue. You'll use the damage as part of the rotation, and the utility can't be relied on if it's RNG. If you have RNG between Mit, healing%+ and movespeed+, if you need the mit for a raidwide, you're gambling on getting the right draw at the right time still. So I'd rather just attach damage to the utility, rather than try to seperate them out. There would still be opportunities to use the cards in ways that are 'creative', for example, if Arrow increases AA speed, there's theoretically a way to get PLD an extra Sheltron. NIN could have had the same if they still got gauge from AA but they don't now. If a caster dies, throwing a Ewer would give them the MP, but not the damage effect. But them being OOM is a bigger DPS loss than the effect of the card, so making that a choice creates interesting decision making situations.

If it were completely down to me, I'd make one of the cards be 'you can use a major DPS ability, with no regard for CD or costs', like giving a monk a free TFC, a NIN a free Dream or a GNB a free Blasting Zone. But that'd be 500% unbalanceable

[Renathras]

Many say 'separate the utility and the damage since people only ever want the damage, and forgo the utility', but that just leads to a very similar issue.

I think the issue comes down to AST players LIKE their RNG. They like having various different effects. Part of the second of those means you'll have some niche, situational stuff; part of the first of those means you won't always have things when you need/want them, which is obviously a bit wonky when dealing with the situational stuff.

It's why I think the stock idea is so important, since it gives you some power over that. It allows RNG to exist, but gives you more control over RNG instead of you being totally at its mercy. And the reason for the separation is...well, I think you already understand that even while disagreeing, so I'll leave it at that. If you have damage attached, then the utility ALWAYS goes out the window. The playerbase has shown they will dump almost any utility in favor of damage, even ridiculously small damage. "A Sacred Soil here would help with the party better surviving this mechanic, even that player with the vuln stacks." Players: "Hehe, Energy Drain go burr!!!" This was what led to Balance Fishing in the first place.

And while you could just have all cards do the same damage + a secondary utility effect, you still run into the problem of "don't have the utility when you need it", and you'd still have people complaining that they're "bland" since they all have the same damage buff percent (e.g. if they were all +6% damage + some utility effect). And if the utility are a big enough deal, then you'd still get "Balance fishing", just for the desired utility add-on.

I think they have to be split, otherwise you WILL always have a "this one does 1% more damage", and it will always be the one people fish for and complain when they don't get, which brings us back to square one. You just have to have some RNG protection, which being able to stock a card can help with, as well as more free uses of Redraw. I think the answer is to combine making damage and utility buffs separate so they don't compete + give some kinds of RNG protection so that you maybe can't ALWAYS get the card you want ALL the time, but when the chips are down, you can more or less negate RNG and really do the AST "twisting fate" thing. Like say you have 2 charges of Redraw on a long CD and Redraw won't give you either of the last two cards of that type (offense or defense) played, you could use it to "force" any one of the desired cards once per 3 mins or whatever, but would have to be used a bit sparingly, so that most of the time you'd be finding uses for the other cards or stocking a card when you know you'll need it later.

The best part of PvP AST to me is their LB really feels like you're bending fate, and I feel like if RNG protection was done right, it could give this same feel of "AST is still RNG, but from time to time, you grab RNGesus by balls and say 'No, I want THIS card!'", which I think is as fundamental to the class fantasy as the general RNG element is.