What Do We Want to See? - AST

[ty_taurus]

I've been working on a little personal project of mine that involves a more dynamic approach to how jobs could be, and I've been working on both Astrologian and Summoner as a start. I have a little peak at what I'm thinking of for the card effects, but this isn't my final thoughts yet and I'm still working on other parts of the kit, but I'm curious what others might think of a direction like this. To start, let me explain a couple of new attributes to this Astro revamp:

New Ripple of Fate Mechanic:

ACTIONS:
Written in the Stars: Place a Ripple of Fate on a target enemy. At set intervals (every server tick), if Ripple of Fate stacks have reached 6 or higher, consumes 6 stacks to automatically trigger Cosmic Dissonance on the target enemy. If the target is KO’d, Ripple of Fate will bounce to the nearest enemy that you’re engaged in combat with.

Cosmic Dissonance: Deals damage to the target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 320 for the first enemy and 50% less for all remaining enemies. <Cannot be set to the hotbar>
Note: For reference, Fall Malefic's potency is set to 160 in this concept.

DETAILS:
Written in the Stars is effectively a "reverse dance parter" where you mark an enemy to be the receiver of Cosmic Dissonance. More actions will allow you to add stacks of Ripple of Fate to the target, which automatically triggers the burst of damage.

New Arcanum Cards

ACTIONS:
Draw: Draw a random arcanum from your diving deck. Only one arcanum can be drawn at a time. This action has a cooldown of 20 seconds.

Play: Trigger the effect of your drawn arcanum. <This action may be merged with Draw using the new hotbar settings in Dawntrail, Available while an arcanum is drawn>

The Balance: Once per action, when the recipient of this effect deals damage to one or more enemies, increase the stack of Balance by 1. When the recipient reaches 3 stacks of Balance, all stacks are consumed and Ripple of Fate increases by 1.

The Bole: Once per action, when the recipient of this effect takes damage, increase the stack of Bole by 1. When the recipient reaches 3 stacks of Bole, all stacks are consumed and Ripple of Fate increases by 2.

The Arrow: Once per action, when scoring a direct hit, Ripple of Fate increases by 1.

The Spear: Once per action, when scoring a critical hit, Ripple of Fate increases by 2.

The Ewer: Once per action, when the recipient of this effect restores HP to a party member or self with 80% HP or less, Ripple of Fate increases by 3.

The Spire: Once per action, when the recipient has 80% HP or less and has their HP restored, Ripple of Fate increases by 3.

DETAILS: All arcanum effects last for 15 seconds. In addition to these effects, I am also working on actions that will gain additional utility effects based on the cards you have recently played. For example, I am picturing Celestial Opposition being a cooldown that stuns nearby enemies and applies mitigative/restorative effects based on if you played Bole, Ewer, and/or Spire. In other words, while the cards all focus on contributing to damage when directly played, they are also capable of enabling utility effects that can saved and used at a later time.

As I said, I'm still working on the full kit, but I'm doing everything I can to think of solutions that can appeal to as many people as possible.

[ASkellington]

I'm just gonna bring this thread back up.

And now that we have tooltips I'mma adjust my post patch changes -

Cards:

Arrow, Spire, Ewer and Bole should all have their effects changed. Mitigation/Healing cards are a waste and should be changed into other kinds of buffs. Every single last one of them are abilities AST has in their kit and none of them useful because of it.

Preposed changes:

• The Ewer goes back to HW/SB era and becomes a refresh for MP on the target. Niche of a use as it is, MP Refresh has more uses than a bloody regen that we have already on the GCD. I can give it to DRK, PLD or BLM who still use mana, a CO-Healer who can't manage their own mana, my co-healer/caster who was recently raised, or myself the AST due to how gimped for mana we're like to be.
  
• The Spire as Ewer's counterpart can either make all spells that cost mana free for the duration (akin to Free Cure) or give a Lightspeed/Swiftcast effect by making all spells' casting duration shortened or instant (recast timer remains the same).
  
• I want to keep The Bole's theme of protection, but again mitigation is a waste. Instead I'd like to see it be a damage reflection card, where in all damage taken by the player under the card effect is given back to the enemy for the duration (perhaps up to 50%).
  
• The Arrow is the one card I can't think of a suitable effect for. Perhaps make it a compile to where at the end of the duration all damage taken by the target is thrown back at the attacker up to 50% of the damage.

>Reduce the recast timer of Astral/Umbral Draw to 30s. 60s is too long and this is one of the easier fixes.
>Update Synastry to work with Exaltation, Celestial Intersection, Essential Dignity, and Aspected Benefic, to where the bonded party member gets the same effect as these abilities as if it is casted upon them as well at 40% the strength.
>Allow Oracle to be casted outside of Divination on a 20s recast timer.

[Ari_Calithiel]

I don't want them all to be damage. I don't want them all to be utility. I want for the damage cards to not be a flat increase and actually something that makes me pick which role it goes to and for the utility to have some impact and not be a useless heal or shield we don't need. A tall order to ask I'm sure but I'm asking anyway.

I didn't play Astro in earlier expansions. The expansion I started in was ShB. However, from what I understand, when cards all had different buffs, Astros would still fish for the Balance card. Just think about it for a second. Players do the math to ensure they have the exact amount of stats so that their abilities are timed exactly as they should during a 2 minute time frame until the next burst phase. If cards were to go back to giving skill speed/spell speed, this could really mess up people's rotations and be a cause of strife for higher end players. For the casual raider, it won't matter. But for the dragoon to have their abilities drifted out of sync, be prepared for some rage. And if not speed then what could be a meaningful dps increase? I suppose crit? But why would someone want a buff that gives them a bit more crit when they could have guranteed increase in their base damage? I just think going back to giving out damaging cards that aren't just flat damage is a bad call.

As for utility cards, I personally hate the idea. I have enough heals and mit on astro, I don't want it in my cards. All players have movement speed through sprint (and others in their personal kit such as dashes, charges, leaps, etc) and casters all have lucid dreaming for mana. There is no utility card I can see that would be useful enjoy that it would be enjoyable to play in my cards. Everyone enjoys hitting things harder. I personally like seeing numbers go up. And you have to remember you have a co-healer with their own utility to bring to the team. If our team needs movement speed, my scholar co-healer has it covered. Mit? Covered too. Utility is not necessary anywhere in our cards. Honestly, it should stay as a dps increase.

Additionally for the mana thing, there are consumables in the form of ethers. Even on WHM doing savage content in EW (and WHM had some of the WORST mana economy), if I died it was easily remedied with a super ether and my lucid. If anyone is struggling with their mana in this game, they either don't understand how to manage mana, are spamming like they are the only healer in a raid (for healers at least), or are not utilizing the options available to them.

[Ari_Calithiel]

My wishful thought is for Nocturnal Sect to come back

Personally I see this as a bit of a selfish request, which is fine, but it will likely never happen. Astro's should be limited to a certain type of healing. And Astro's being the healer that excels are planning out healing for future damage is where they shine and it should be emphasized. There is zero reason to go back to the frustration that came from clueless astro's going nocturnal spec and causing problems for their co-healer scholar because the astro wants to be a shield healer and in turn would negate the scholar's ability to shield (they didn't stack then). Nocturnal as it is is great. The shields actually stack and provided meaningful assitance to our co-shield healer.

I agree that it is fun to choose how your heals act, but giving astros back a watered down version of scholar isn't the answer.


You make a lot of points that are interesting and points I agree with. But the two above, well I have already said my piece. We are in agreement that the changes to astro now are not okay.

Edit: had to post in 2 replies because rules are dumb

[Cleretic]

If our remit on 'what do we want to see' is solely focused on AST itself, I think EW healer is the basis that should be built around; it's the one time we should be keeping AST as-is. The cards work well for their purpose, the influence of RNG is as mitigated as it can get while still being there, and removing it while still keeping AST's fundamental identity requires a retooling that's likely to do more harm than good. It has problems, but so does every other job, it's all about picking the cons you're okay with having. I don't play Ninja, but that's not a failing of Ninja, it's just not to my tastes. Really, the failings of AST in my mind aren't AST's fault at all, it's that they're a healer in a game that doesn't really know what to do with healers.

If I were to answer 'what do I want to see' as an AST player, none of my wishes are about AST. Instead, I just want tank self-sustain to be kneecapped. The angle of 'if there's an imbalance in a role, buff everyone to be on the same level as the top' has gone on so long for tanks, mostly in response to Warrior's sheer unkillability, that it's no longer a problem you can fix with any change to one job; you need to nerf everyone.

[Shikiseki]

Honestly AST had great potential with the 2 sects but they just went the easy route and scrapped it for their ridiculous pure/barrier split...

Imagine being able to swap diurnal/nocturnal mid battle with something like Celestial Opposition for example on a 60s cd which would also change your new draw aspect cards would be quite fun to plan ahead and change things up a bit

Although I think I'd still preferred some old card buttons to come back like the card spread or time dilation

[Ari_Calithiel]

Honestly AST had great potential with the 2 sects but they just went the easy route and scrapped it for their ridiculous pure/barrier split...

There is literally zero reason for having astro's have a barrier spec. It was a watered down version of a scholar. The maximum amount of shielding you could do would be about 10% of maximum hp and this would not stack with another shield healer. A scholar though? Their spreadlo combo can easily shield 60+% of max hp of their team. If a shield healer is needed for a raid team, why would you ever pick a watered down shield from astro versus a scholar? And if a team truly wants to have a WHM/AST combo, go for it. You don't need the option of shields to make it work. Plus, the frustration of the other healers not having the option to change how their heals work would be immensely unfair. Nocturnal as it is is as it should stay. It complements other shield healers without taking over their identity. As I have said, astro's identity lies in the randomness of its cards to indicate fate and the preplanning of its heals. This is where Squenix should have leaned into.

[PercibelTheren]

Personally I see this as a bit of a selfish request, which is fine, but it will likely never happen. Astro's should be limited to a certain type of healing. And Astro's being the healer that excels are planning out healing for future damage is where they shine and it should be emphasized. There is zero reason to go back to the frustration that came from clueless astro's going nocturnal spec and causing problems for their co-healer scholar because the astro wants to be a shield healer and in turn would negate the scholar's ability to shield (they didn't stack then). Nocturnal as it is is great. The shields actually stack and provided meaningful assitance to our co-shield healer.

I agree that it is fun to choose how your heals act, but giving astros back a watered down version of scholar isn't the answer.


You make a lot of points that are interesting and points I agree with. But the two above, well I have already said my piece. We are in agreement that the changes to astro now are not okay.

Edit: had to post in 2 replies because rules are dumb

I disagree because I think the whole shield/regen healer split is incredibly dumb as premise. That and it's also a lie. If you look at SCH and SGE, they have so much free pure healing and regens that they are just straight up better than the designated "pure" healers. Unless they somehow make fights require an insane amount of healing throughput, I guess. What I'm seeing is parties just running two shield healers and not even bothering with AST/WHM regularly.

That and the whole split will look really silly if/when they decide to add a fifth healer into the mix.

[Ari_Calithiel]

I disagree because I think the whole shield/regen healer split is incredibly dumb as premise. That and it's also a lie. If you look at SCH and SGE, they have so much free pure healing and regens that they are just straight up better than the designated "pure" healers. Unless they somehow make fights require an insane amount of healing throughput, I guess. What I'm seeing is parties just running two shield healers and not even bothering with AST/WHM regularly.

That and the whole split will look really silly if/when they decide to add a fifth healer into the mix.

Your point does not make a lot of sense to me. The pure regen healers also have shielding capabilities (WHM in DT). And if all the shield healers could do was shield, they would struggle in basic dungeons to keep up. As far as healing throughput, if my co-healer played sage and never touched their shields, I would dance circles around them with the amount of healing I could do on either WHM or AST. And the reason parties run 2 shield healers is due to the mitigation, not the fact that either has better healing output than AST or WHM. SGE and SCH both have mit on 30sec CD that stacks plus 120sec mit that both classes have. AST and WHM struggle in mitigation, especially WHM as their only mitigation is 120sec CD (AST at 60sec). The logic with running SGE/SCH together is why heal more if you can just lower the damage being taken? It has absolutely nothing to do with shields.

AST does not need to have the option to shield. It needs more of what it does best, delayed, preplanned big heals. They are not WHMs in that they should spam heals, they are planners. And that is where the focus should be. I really do not understand people's hang up on Nocturnal sect other than for just the "well this is neat" little bit of fluff.

And your bit about SCH having tons of free healing, runs fall apart if the only healer alive in Savage progression is a SCH or a SGE and there is no way to rez their co-healer in time. My SCH co-healer could not keep up with healing on P8S when I died to dumb (me on WHM at the time) during the phase with tons of raid wide aoe going out. SCH and SGE do not have the burst heals the way AST and WHM do. Scholars and Sages rely on things not spinning out of control in order to shine. Scholars will likely have an easier time come DT with Seraphism (likely Sages too with theirs).

I think it is fine that there is a separate identity between healers. I would love to see other sections of healer types. Maybe one that heals off debuffs or one that is purely regen healing like the druid from wow. There is no reason all healers should do the same as each other. Having a few abilities that dip into the other side is fine, but there is no reason to homogenize the healers more which is what nocturnal spec would be doing.

Edit: I would really love a pure dps healer that only heals from smashing the boss. Don't know how that would work, but it would be fun.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

[...]That and the whole split will look really silly if/when they decide to add a fifth healer into the mix.

Not to mention that when Noct AST still existed in ShB, people were fine anyway when SCH for whatever reason paired with Noct AST. All they did was... the same as today: designate one of them to just not use their AoE shield to avoid overwriting. Spreadlo was only the exception. That was literally the only part of their kit that conflicts with one another - GCD shielding. Was it optimal? Not really... but it was certainly viable.

Depriving Noct AST aka a playstyle to conceive SGE - brand new copy pasta job - only to see same prob persist was one of a total joke of a decision they've made in their track record, and I'm afraid that would just continue to pile up in the future.