AST cards ramble

[Aravell]

edit: the idea is not balanceable, most likely. I was gonna try to find a way to make Spear be 'the target melee/ranged can use a specific CD, with no regard to it's cooldown or cost'. So eg, Monk gets a free use of Riddle of Wind, DRG gets a free Wyrmwind Thrust, BRD gets a free Barrage, etc. But the potencies and gear differences and all that would make it insanely busted for certain classes, I think. Like how do I balance 'gear stacked SAM with Dance Partner gets a free Shoha' versus 'struggling DNC with no gear gets a free Fan Dance 4', it's cool in theory but the maths is a nightmare, especially when considering that not only do the chosen skills have to be balanced against each other, but also against the other cards effects

If you want a support card that functions differently for every job, why not have it interact with the job gauges? For example:

PLD: Grants 50 oath gauge
WAR: Grants 50 beast gauge
DRK: Grants 50 blood gauge
GNB: Grants a cartridge
WHM: Grants a lily
SCH: Grants an aetherflow stack
AST: Redraws and buffs the next card
SGE: Grants an addersting
MNK: Grants 5 chakras
DRG: Grants 1 firstmind's focus
NIN: Grants 50 ninki
SAM: Grants 1 meditate stack
RPR: Grants 50 soul gauge
BRD: Grants 1 free use of Empyreal Arrow
MCH: Grants 50 battery gauge
DNC: Grants 50 esprit gauge
BLM: Grants 1 polyglot
SMN: Grants 1 free use of Energy Drain
RDM: Grants 50 black and white mana

I didn't run the math on any of these, they're just examples for each job, could be imbalanced for most of them. (Also I don't know how they plan to fit all this into the tooltip)

[SieyaM]

If you want a support card that functions differently for every job, why not have it interact with the job gauges? For example:

PLD: Grants 50 oath gauge
WAR: Grants 50 beast gauge
DRK: Grants 50 blood gauge
GNB: Grants a cartridge
WHM: Grants a lily
SCH: Grants an aetherflow stack
AST: Redraws and buffs the next card
SGE: Grants an addersting
MNK: Grants 5 chakras
DRG: Grants 1 firstmind's focus
NIN: Grants 50 ninki
SAM: Grants 1 meditate stack
RPR: Grants 50 soul gauge
BRD: Grants 1 free use of Empyreal Arrow
MCH: Grants 50 battery gauge
DNC: Grants 50 esprit gauge
BLM: Grants 1 polyglot
SMN: Grants 1 free use of Energy Drain
RDM: Grants 50 black and white mana

I didn't run the math on any of these, they're just examples for each job, could be imbalanced for most of them. (Also I don't know how they plan to fit all this into the tooltip)

I feel like this idea would really throw a wrench into some rotations and buff alignments for jobs. They could end up overcapping on gauge if they want to wait until the next buff window or they have buffs that are going to misalign with their burst if they initiate it now. We also cannot see other jobs gauges, so if you would give this card to a BLM who already for whatever reason had 2 polyglots it would be essentially useless, or if you give it to a RDM who is already at or slightly over 50/50 mana and is just hanging on for a bit to align with buff windows.

[ForsakenRoe]

I feel like this idea would really throw a wrench into some rotations and buff alignments for jobs. They could end up overcapping on gauge

Yeh it's a cool idea in theory but it's very hard to make it work in practice without several layers of jank to fight through, which is why the rather more boring option of 'just make it 'balance for physical damage' is there as a backup design to fall back on