How would you solve the boring "damage rotation" of the healers?

[ForsakenRoe]

I disagree.

You are welcome to, but I'd just like to point out that Irons would not be a dead card in solo play, as it would convert your magical damage attacks into physical damage for 5 hits, allowing the AST to benefit from the card's effect. This would normally not be useful when you're in a party (since you'd be putting it on the actual melee), but allows it to be useable even in solo. If anything, it's the Knives that are dead in solo, because I forgot to make them affect the AST in some way, the solution there is 'just Redraw if you get one' I guess, not ideal but I cba changing it now. I figure it'd be too hectic to have to manually draw a card with all the extra targeting going on, but 'Draw Minor Arcana' and 'Draw Major Arcana' can be buttons if it's not going to cause APM issues. But I do have to ask: if 'it doesn't address the 2 button gameplay', even with having to play a card every 15s on average to prevent yourself from overcapping on Minor Arcana cards (it would only stack to 2), what would address that 2 button gameplay? I'd have thought it'd be 'adding more buttons'

As for Minor, I just don't think it's very sensible, from a lore perspective, to have what we have at the minute. Or, to be honest, SB's version. We have a deck of sixty, of which we use eight. 6 are the 'Aces' of the deck, and two are from one of the 6 suits, the 8 and 9 respectively. But somehow, the 8 is 'does damage', the 9 of the same suit is 'heals in an AOE', and the Ace of the suit is 'increases damage by 3%, or 6% if it's a ranged'. Where's the link between them? So I'd rather see the suit all do one effect, with varying levels of strength based on the value of the card. 6 suits, 6 effects. It was okay when they had only the 'aces' in HW, but Lord/Lady of Crowns has opened the floodgates, and I don't see why we can't have Lord/Lady of Cups, or Swords, or whichever as well. Why Crowns specifically?

Astrodyne bad, maybe it can be salvaged, maybe not. It's quite a longshot idea to tie it's uptime into this reworked Minor Arcana, I admit. It'd be like AST-Huton or something, and I'm also not sure if that'd be well received. I think it'd be fun to have a fast GCD and something to maintain, but it might end up being a little too fast, considering all the card stuff the job would be doing, might cause issues doubleweaving and such

Unfortunately, GCD cards is something I can see SE pushing while doing nothing to boost APM back to what some of us enjoy. Since there's people complaining about the weaving during the opener and people are praising the card design of PvP AST (which are on the GCD), I can see SE coming to the (very wrong) conclusion that people would greatly enjoy a slow AST with cards all on the GCD.

I think it's a question of perception, and a lot of it comes down to how often we re-target between the enemy to GCD with a Malefic cast, and the ally to use the next card. I think I was aiming for SB style cadence, where it's much more spread out through the 2min loop, but it should (theoretically) end up being similar to the current overall APM. The issue will be, I think, that people will perceive the change incorrectly as a 'slowing down' of the job regardless of what gets changed. For example, let's take a run I did where I was pretty average (58%), I got a CPM of 37.9 in that run. My thinking is, even if a new AST, which puts more focus on using more actions throughout the whole 2min loop, were to have a CPM of, say, 40, or 43, the fact it's not got the massive doubleweave frenzy phase at the 2min mark will cause people to believe it's been 'slowed down', even though by the CPM values it's actually sped up. I agree that it'd be bad to remove AST's speed, as that's part of what makes it, it. But I do think that there's ways to make it feel 'speedy' even with GCD cards. Besides, if we consider APM instead of CPM, the extra cards used per minute would mean having to target more often, and that is not considered a cast, but it is considered an 'action' for the sake of APM

IDK AST's a tough one to design for. I dunno what exactly would be best for it. But I do know, SB AST cards, exactly as they were (Royal Road included) isn't it, unless we want to see insane damage swings again, such that the class is either locked out for being too unreliable, or locked in for having too much damage (and thereby kicking WHM into the gutter again). It's gotta be something 'inspired by SB, but learning lessons from SHB/EW'

Healers shouldn't need a damage rotation, there should be sufficient incoming damage that they should be constantly busy healing the group or individuals. 80% of our GCDs should be occupied with some form of healing, the rest can be buffs or some DPS, but we should be mostly busy with healing.

I'm going to come right out and say that I believe its encounter design problems. I am also going to come out and say that not everybody can or should be a healer, its a difficult job and it should be challenging, just like tanking.

Which level of content does this statement apply to?

[ASkellington]

But I do have to ask: if 'it doesn't address the 2 button gameplay', even with having to play a card every 15s on average to prevent yourself from overcapping on Minor Arcana cards (it would only stack to 2), what would address that 2 button gameplay? I'd have thought it'd be 'adding more buttons'

I don't much care about from a lore perspective if lore is going to make the game play more unfun. We have a deck of 60. I'd rather not have 60 cards or all the Minor Suits for gameplay reasons. To me its akin to BRD's Performance now being a combat feature. No thank you. Interesting for say a card game ASTs can play I don't see it being fun in practice.

Misread Irons but more to the point it doesn't address the 2-button gameplay because its a BUFF. We have self buffs placed on us in solo-play as is the current Major cards. Making a GCD self buff doesn't fix that its still just as boring - set and forget until it needs to be reapplied.

Let me explain:

Irons/Crowns/Staves: All buff an attack more than likely Malefic. I'm STILL spamming Malefic more than I'd like in solo play with only Combust, ES and Macro every 30/60/180s with only a GCD card buff I may or may not find cumbersome to break it up. It doesn't change how Malefic is applied (ie, debuff/cast time/delayed damage) just potency basically.

Knives is dead as you mentioned.

Cups and Rings are interesting, but if I'm going to have the auto version of PvP AST's double cast, I'd rather have PvP AST's double cast and the secondary effects it has there for Cups and Rings is... lets just say I like it for group play infinitely more than solo.

Rather than try and make Cards fit in solo just give AST another attack (a compile like ES for example that builds to a maximum of X potency after so many attacks made by either just the AST or both the AST and their party) that fits its theme and call it a day.

I don't expect AST to have the most robust solo play, but cards are not and I don't think ever will be a fix for it.

[Doragan]

Somewhat unrelated: should AST stances come back?

Yes please. I loved Noct. AST and I miss it dearly ever since they removed it. I really enjoyed using its kit when I wanted a change of pace from SCH. Dungeons with it were a blast and I liked the instant single shield spell.

[Zairava]

AST could have a button sorta like gemshine. On its own it’s inactive but it changes when you deal a card. Like if you deal balance or spear this new spell becomes a flat potency single target. If you deal ewer or spire this spell deals slightly less damage and debuffs the enemy. Anyone who attacks that enemy regen’s HP. Something like that.

Somewhat unrelated: should AST stances come back?

Absolutely, even with the pure/barrier split I see no reason why AST couldn't be the one who could do both.

[Aword3213]

Just confidently incorrect as always. Making healing more difficult would put strain on people who just spam medica 2 over and over. Giving them 2 extra dots or whatever wont. Normal modes dont have enrages, ex trial enrages are always the dps' fault. Meanwhile heal checks exist in all content. They are very easy in normal mode for a reason.

Sure, but the issue where high end contents could be completed by non healer comp still won’t be addressed.

Something needs to be done to healers other than moooooore damage buttons.

You can have the most engaging damage rotation in the world, but non healer comp still don’t want you. Healers are still not needed aside from that mandatory healer participation requirement enforced by duty finder.

[Doragan]

Sure, but the issue where high end contents could be completed by non healer comp still won’t be addressed.

I understand this is a healing issue, but in this case, wouldn't the issue comes from tank and DPS kits?

[Saraide]

AST could have a button sorta like gemshine. On its own it’s inactive but it changes when you deal a card. Like if you deal balance or spear this new spell becomes a flat potency single target. If you deal ewer or spire this spell deals slightly less damage and debuffs the enemy. Anyone who attacks that enemy regen’s HP. Something like that.

Somewhat unrelated: should AST stances come back?

Gemshine and an associated trio of phases could be something that works well on whm. The elements for it are already in place aswell. You have glare dia as baseline and then get a water, a stone and a wind phase on top. All of which could apply different buffs to different healing abilities aswell. Regen in wind phase could add a small vengeance effect to regen for example.

Sure, but the issue where high end contents could be completed by non healer comp still won’t be addressed.

Something needs to be done to healers other than moooooore damage buttons.

Not convinced that on its own is that big of an issue. It speaks to the healing power of jobs that arent healers and from cursory glances into those clears they are constantly pretty low on hp. The healerless TOP clear had 2 paladins and a warrior, so it's also not like you can just yeet the healers to replace them with more dps. In a pinch clemency is powerful. By all means that's a challenge run and I am willing to assume that the execution of such a run is even tighter than TOP normally is.

Has anyone done a healerless p10s clear btw?

[Sebazy]

Sure, but the issue where high end contents could be completed by non healer comp still won’t be addressed.

Something needs to be done to healers other than moooooore damage buttons.

You can have the most engaging damage rotation in the world, but non healer comp still don’t want you. Healers are still not needed aside from that mandatory healer participation requirement enforced by duty finder.

Clean energy doesn't solve world hunger, thus it's time to reopen the coal mines!

Seriously though, it's 2 different problems and as such, likely needs 2 different solutions to resolve both. (Personally I don't actually think no healer comps are that big a deal, IMHO a big part of why it blew up was that healers were already pretty salty at the time, it was just extra material to be annoyed over).

[Aravell]

I believe if the healer playerbase was satisfied and enjoyed their gameplay at the time, no healer clears would be seen more as "Oh, that's pretty cool" rather than another strike against the role.

Has anyone done a healerless p10s clear btw?

I don't think a healerless P10S is numerically possible unless they kill before Harrowing Hell. Harrowing Hell does more damage than any of the DPS/tanks can heal in that amount of time, maaaaybe if they run 4 tanks of WAR/PLD combination with 4 dps and tank LB3 it? They'd have to be pretty quick healing at the end for the Bonds damage though, the whole sequence lasts longer than tank LB3 duration.

[TheDustyOne]

I think Ty and Roe have made a fleshed out suggestion for AST, maybe Shurrikhan too? I can't recall. Personally, I don't think AST needs too many damage buttons, maybe 1 more DoT and a button to detonate current DoTs for full damage, I'd want them to focus more on making the card system viable to use for the entire duration of the fight rather than used for only 15s every 120s.

I have seen suggestions to put cards on the GCD as well, though I greatly disagree with that. AST becoming slow would be as jarring as WHM becoming an OGCD weaving beast. Although, knowing SE, GCD cards are exactly what's coming. They see people complain about weaving too much? GCD cards!

I know I made one a few months back, I put a proc off of Malefic to cast Fall Malefic, changed Combust to 15s, added Comet as a unique spell (that I pinched off of Roe ) that would mark a target for 19s, after the timer expired, an AoE comet landed on the target. I then had an ability that would detonate the DoT and land the comet immediately, same with the healing spells where regens would detonate into a heal bomb. AST sounds a lot more fun when it's playing around with its time elements, and it kinda irks me when people suggest it should be the one that shouldn't receive any extra DPS spells because of the buffs.

I was thinking of GCD cards as well because it seemed like the obvious answer to the weave problem, but opted against it since most AST mains I saw don't like the idea. I did however have an Auto-draw and put the cooldown on Play instead. Part of that was to cut down button count, my rework was about 33 buttons after role actions, the other part was to have other options to weave with, and just getting rid of Draw opened up a fair bit of weave space for those bomb oGCDs and Double Cast as my refund mechanic. I don't think GCD cards would be too bad if it was like Eukrasia; 1.5s Draw > 1s Play, so that it keeps a little bit of that speediness.