Yoshi-P: "If you want more engaging content, go play Ultimate"

[rawker]

short answer: traits

if the issue ASTs face is that its solo exp will be a problem, then this trait will increase AST's personal buffs when applied to self when solo.

Any AST out there want a crit rate buff? I'm more than willing to trade Chain Stratagem for a more fleshedout personal dps to compensate.

[ty_taurus]

I think what discourages me the most is how miserable everyone seems to interpret AST changes based entirely and exclusively on whether or not some people think it needs specifically a DOT spell as opposed to literally anything else. Because that is what was being mentioned, that not all healers need DOTs specifically. No where, in no post, on any planet did anyone say "drop the DOT and add nothing."

Whether that's a compiled attack spell like what Aravell suggested, more support to the card system like Roe suggested (which given how open-ended that description is could be literally millions of different possibilities), or DPS that you generate but other players can also trigger, meaning either you or your teammates can be the catalyst for such abilities, as well like what I suggested. But apparently all of those are examples of things that ruin AST and make it an unplayable disaster in solo. So I guess let's just keep a 30 second DOT on all healers. It's too much shock to the constitution of some people.

[ASkellington]

Whether that's a compiled attack spell like what Aravell suggested, more support to the card system like Roe suggested (which given how open-ended that description is could be literally millions of different possibilities), or DPS that you generate but other players can also trigger, meaning either you or your teammates can be the catalyst for such abilities, as well like what I suggested. But apparently all of those are examples of things that ruin AST and make it an unplayable disaster in solo. So I guess let's just keep a 30 second DOT on all healers. It's too much shock to the constitution of some people.

Has nothing specifically to do with whether or not its an unplayable disaster and everything to do with how you worded it.

Several people myself included have mentioned that both of your posts make it so that Combust is removed. Now I have personal issues with that because regardless of whether or not all the healers keep a 30s or less DoT I'd rather they remain with the duration shortened to various degrees but that's neither here nor there.

The problem isn't that Combust is to be removed. The problem is with how your post is worded.

AST: Also none. Put more emphasis on damage redirected through other players.

That speaks to me not as "dps you can generate but other players can trigger" but as buffs. You didn't even mention that ASTs could trigger it themselves. I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with that. I don't think it'd be fun or interesting personally, but it plays into AST's theme of being a buffer while still giving another attack or two which is what I want.

I don't care if AST gets to be the one healer that doesn't have a DoT. I care that AST also gets a replacement for said DoT plus another attack that isn't replaced by Cards and nothing else.

[Oizen]

I finally played ultimate and i dont think the healers were all that more engaged

[ZiraZ]

I finally played ultimate and i dont think the healers were all that more engaged

The title needs an asterisk, it's also gotta be a current expansion ultimate or its also healer sleepy time

[ty_taurus]

I don't care if AST gets to be the one healer that doesn't have a DoT. I care that AST also gets a replacement for said DoT plus another attack that isn't replaced by Cards and nothing else.

Just keep the damn DOT. No need to replace it if we just leave it like it is.

[ForsakenRoe]

The title needs an asterisk, it's also gotta be a current expansion ultimate or its also healer sleepy time

Nah, even in current ultimates, once you're done progging a phase it's sleepy time for any previous phase (eg once you're at p5 prog in TOP, p1-3 are sleepytime)

more support to the card system like Roe suggested (which given how open-ended that description is could be literally millions of different possibilities)

Since the lack of detail provided on my part seems to have caused confusion, I'll relink the 'every change I'd make to AST' post:

The changes I'd make revolve mainly around reworks to card effects, not adding more damage buttons. I would also consolidate a couple of vestigal GCD heals via upgrade traits.

Benefic1 upgrades to Benefic2, as with the other healers. This means that Benefic2 would proc the 'guaranteed crit on next Benefic2' trait, helping in those panic-spamming situations. MP cost of Benefic2 is reduced to 500mp.
Helios upgrades to Aspected Helios, as the potency of A.Helios now becomes equal to regular Helios after just one tick. As such, A.Helios can be adjusted to be 400p, plus 12s of 150p, and still be equal total potency to current (1000p)

Major Arcana: now autodraws one every 30s. If you have a Major Arcana drawn and the timer hits 0, you 'Spread' the second one, holding it in reserve. At this point, the timer will pause, like capping WHM Lilies.

Minor Arcana: now autodraws a Minor Arcana every 15s. If you have a Minor Arcana drawn and the timer hits 0, you 'Spread' the second one, holding it in reserve. At this point, the timer will pause, like capping WHM Lilies.

Sleeve Draw returns: A 2 charge, 60s charge time OGCD action. When you use it, your currently drawn Minor Arcana becomes a Lady of it's suit. More on Card Ranks in the Minor Arcana section.
Sleeve Draw's purpose is to be a 'bad luck prevention' system, which you can use to force the Minor Arcana you hold (preferably the ones in the burst window) to be the highest potency, so the burst window always feels satisfying to execute.

Draw, Play and Minor Arcana, are replaced with 'Play Major Arcana', 'Play Minor Arcana' and 'Sleeve Draw'. Playing Major Arcana is still OGCD, but Playing Minor Arcana are now GCD (to break up the Malefic spam). This means you can go Minor, Major, Minor Major (interspersed with Sleeve Draws as needed) in your burst window, should you be good enough to calculate ahead of the window who you need to target with each card at each step. If you need time to calculate your next move, however, you would be able to simply cast Malefic to buy yourself another 2.5s to consider the state of your cards.

A potential 'perfect' burst window (ie: you don't need to Redraw at all, and know exactly what you're going to do at each step) could look something like this (Bolded = GCD, unbolded = OGCD):
Malefic > Divination > Sleeve Draw > Minor Arcana > Major Arcana > Sleeve Draw > Minor Arcana > Major Arcana > Detonate Earthly Star

A less 'perfect' window could look something more like...
Malefic > Divination > Sleeve Draw > Minor Arcana > Major Arcana > Redraw > Malefic > Sleeve Draw > Minor Arcana > Redraw > Detonate Earthly Star> Malefic > Major Arcana

Now for Card effects:

Balance: 10% damage, 15s

Bole: 20% damage mitigation, 15s. Additionally, grants 3 stacks of Bole's Bulwark, causing the enemy that strikes the bearer of this buff to take 10% of that ally's Max HP as damage and consuming one stack.

Arrow: Grants 10 stacks of 'Arrow's Assault' (12 if the target is PhysRanged), increasing Autoattack rate by 400%. One stack is consumed for each Autoattack dealt under it's effect, and upon consuming all stacks, the Autoattack rate returns to normal.
Additionally, if the target of this card is the AST, grants 5 stacks of Arrow's Assault, speeding up the recast time of the AST to 1.5s for the next 5 GCD attacks, and making cast times of those spells instant.

Ewer: Grants 1000mp over 15s. Additionally, if the target is a Healer, grants 3 stacks of Ewer Overflowing, causing the next 3 attacks dealt by said healer to strike a second time for 100% of the spell's potency. Additional effects are not applied. This second strike cannot crit or DHit

Spear: 10% Physical damage, 15s. Additionally, if the target of this card is the AST, all magic damage dealt by the AST is instead considered physical for the duration, allowing them to benefit from this card's effect

Spire: 10% Magic damage, 15s

A Note on Minor Arcana: Knaves, Lords, Ladies are 7, 8 and 9 respectively. Due to not having a duration, these effects will last on the target until they are overwritten by another card, or KO removes them.

X of Staves: Increases the next 5 attacks dealt by the target ally by 60p. Additionally, increases the damage of the first attack dealt by target ally after this effect is applied, by 5 potency multiplied by the face value of the arcana.

X of Rings: Deals 100p in counterattack damage each time the target ally is struck, up to 3 times. Additionally, deals an additional 5 potency, multiplied by the face value of the arcana, for the first counterattack only.

X of Knives: Causes the next 6 Autoattacks to deal a second strike for 50p. Additionally, a bonus potency equal to the arcana face value is applied to each of these bonus strikes.
(if the concept of 'potency value not divisible by 5' is too much for the engine, make it 'first autoattack has bonus damage of '5 x face value'')

X of Cups: Causes the next 3 healer damage spells to cost half MP, and to strike a second time for 100p. Additional effects are not applied twice. Additionally, the first of these spells deals bonus damage equal to 5 potency, multiplied by the face value of the arcana

X of Crowns: Increases the next 5 instances of Magic damage dealt by 60p. Additionally, a bonus potency equal to the arcana face value is applied to each of these bonus strikes.
(if the concept of 'potency value not divisible by 5' is too much for the engine, make it 'first instance of magic damage has bonus damage of '5 x face value'')

X of Irons: Increases the next 5 instances of Physical damage dealt by 60p. Additionally, a bonus potency equal to the arcana face value is applied to each of these bonus strikes. Additionally, if the target of this card is the AST, the next 5 instances of magic damage are instead considered physical, allowing them to benefit from this card's effect
(if the concept of 'potency value not divisible by 5' is too much for the engine, make it 'first instance of physical damage has bonus damage of '5 x face value'')

The card effects (in terms of their damage output) have all been balanced against one another. In current Anabesios BIS, the Majors were tuned around all contributing roughly 30000 points of damage with their effect (numbers taken from several Samurai). Minor Arcana are balanced around dealing 300p, plus an additional 10-45p, based on RNG of the card and its Face Value. The one notable exception to this, which would be 'way stronger than anything else', would be Ewer and its effect of duplicating Healer spells, due to the difference between the strongest hit for SCH (Broil, 295) and SGE (Phlegma, 660). Or, if you prefer, WHM's Misery (1320). A system could be created wherein certain stronger skills consume more stacks than others to remedy this should it be such a pressing issue (eg it grants 5 stacks, Misery costs all 5 stacks, Glare and its equivalents cost 1, Phlegma costs 2, something like that), or it could just say 'only the filler spell of each healer triggers the effect', but I do think it'd be fun in Alliance raids etc to have WHMs able to potentially double-strike with Misery

Lastly, Minor Arcana would presumably also contribute Seals like their Major counterparts. As such, AST gameplay could revolve more around maintaining Astrodyne as a Huton style self-speed-buff, rather than the current odd 'slight buff for damage windows but it actually is a 90s effect in a 2min meta so it doesn't really fit very well'. Potencies of the Astrodyne effects would be changed to suit this, of course. I just haven't done the maths for that. Alternatively, we could just remove Astrodyne because it kinda sucks.

That is why I'd delete Combust. To make room for something like this, where our gameplay is more heavily centered around the Cards, both Minor and Major. We have lore stating that ASTs use the Deck of Sixty in their divination, but in gameplay we currently use only 8 of those cards. Further, the effect of the cards 'The Spire (the 'Ace' of the Crowns suit, as it were)', 'the Lord of Crowns' and 'the Lady of Crowns' are 'Damage % up, but moreso on a Ranged player', 'flat damage burst to nearby enemies' and 'AOE heal equal to a Helios cast'. There's no consistency between the cards despite their being in the same suit, and I would try to fix that with the above. By reworking the cards like this, we'd have each card have a distinct role it's 'best' on, allowing us as AST players to give cards to Healers and Tanks, instead of just feeding everything to the DPS (especially to the melee). I believe it'd be a much more fun system to play with, if every member of the party was included as a potential target for an effect, instead of just 2 or 3. It looks complicated, but there's only 6 'effects' total, 5 tailored to each of the roles and one 'wildcard' with the Balance/Staves, where it can be placed on anyone. The job gauge would also presumably also have hints as to which role the card belongs on, just like how it currently 'hints' you towards whether a card is melee or ranged via the coloured outline and symbol to the sides of the card drawn

I understand why Combust is part of the current kit. Personally, however, I believe it has run its course, it's vestigal, and I'd only agree with it's being kept on the class if SE were to have something that interplays with it. The Wildfire-esque idea is one such idea, but that would still likely end up being as 'set it and forget it' as the current form. If there were Time Magic references in the kit still, that allowed us to extend it's duration, or instantly fastforward it to the end of it's duration for instant burst, etc, then I'd agree that 'yeh it's got some interplay so it's cool', but AST does not have any of that supporting toolkit, so the fate of Combust seems to be to remain a plain-jane 'press this, then press it again when it falls off' DOT, just like currently. And I think the job can do better than be saddled with something like that. If we can get a properly deep, cohesive and satisfying-to-execute gameplay based on the Cards, the defining feature of the Job (so much so that when WOW recently pitched a gameplay style for Holy Priest that involved giving out buffs, people immediately called it 'AST copy'), I do not see why we should keep around such a non-synergistic ability, for the sake of 'oh and while you're doing all the cool card things, remember to refresh your DOT', rather than getting rid of it to make room for a properly fleshed out kit that plays into the job identity proper

[Aravell]

Nah, even in current ultimates, once you're done progging a phase it's sleepy time for any previous phase (eg once you're at p5 prog in TOP, p1-3 are sleepytime)

This is true.

During my first clear of DSR, we've progged p1 to p5 so many times that I was just playing games on my phone while mashing Broil and only focused up for p6 and p7.

In contrast, I reprogged on MNK recently and actually paid attention for the whole fight because I had to think about my rotation. Funny that.

[ForsakenRoe]

During my first clear of DSR, we've progged p1 to p5 so many times that I was just playing games on my phone while mashing Broil and only focused up for p6 and p7.

Can't make the 1:1 comparison, but I was pretty mentally checked out in P1/2 of my TEA prog back in SHB once we were at Wormhole etc. Can't imagine how 'mentally checked out' I'd be in P1/2 of TOP, but it's not my problem cos I'm the Ranged. Coincidentally, being Ranged and having an actual rotation, and a Job Gauge that does more than just tell me 'how many charges of Solace/Rapture do I have available to me', means I can do more technical decisions like 'Do I blow Automaton Queen now, or do we have the damage without, allowing me to 'smuggle' that damage forward into the next phase?' Or on the rare occasion where I'm a DNC, being able to decide on delaying Tech Step/Devilment and purposely desync it from other party members, to better cover the DPS checks of each phase, knowing that the downtimes between the Trios in P5 naturally causes the CDs to realign for P6. Funny, that.

[Raikai]

I've never done Ultimates - not my cup of tea because of commitment and because I never really wanted any of the rewards, but... Isn't the YP quote a bit fallacious?

Are Ultimates really more engaging than Savage raids, or just more time consuming?