So I was thinking about some changes to AST skills, just brainstorming and such and I came up with a bunch of ideas, some better than others and obviously not something I would expect to see all together, or at all for that matter. I just thought it would be fun to share. Let me know what you guys think.
Card Changes:
Draw: 15 sec CD, increase card effect duration to 20 sec by default
Spread -> “Stack the Deck”: 30 sec CD, Still used to hold a card indefinitely as before, if used alone, card effect duration is increased in the same way as “Extended Royal Road”, Held card will be used as default for Royal Road and Shuffle (see changes to skills below)
Royal Road: Remove previous effects 60 sec CD, Ttarget receives Card buff based on Archetype with same effect as “Empowered Royal Road” (Tank – Bole, Healer – Ewer, DPS – Balance), If there is a card held with “Stack the Deck” that card will be used instead but at Card default duration (20 sec)
Shuffle: 90 sec CD, Rerolling card effect removed and now all party members in 20 yalm radius of AST receive a random card effect same as the effect of “Expanded Royal Road”, if a card is being held by “Stack the Deck” that card will be spread to all party members at the default duration (20 sec)
Currently the card effects feel a bit lackluster in my opinion, these changes would make them more impactful, a bit more fun and being able to pop a default Bole on the tank could help with mitigation.
Nocturnal Sect Change:
Add a stacking damage reduction up to 5 stacks of 3% each stack (max 15%) for 10 sec on both Aspect Benefic and Aspected Helios, duration resets upon each application.
While im not 100% if this seems a little overpowered or not yet, I like the basic idea of adding damage reduction to Nocturnal sect and giving the stance something that benefits from Time Dilation (and Celestial Opposition if the effect were to stay the same) This would offer the stance more oomph, if you will that builds up without needing to adjust potencies.
Skill Changes:
Synastry: Add as a trait, or as part of the skill, whenever your Synastry bond target is healed there is a 20%-ish chance that the CD of Disable will be reset.
Synastry is a skill that I find I don’t use, unless under very specific circumstances, this would make a nice addition to make more use of it, and add some additional utility/mitigation. I was also thinking that changing Synastry to a Toggled skill could be very interesting as well but adding a 30 sec CD to avoid the ability to change targets too quickly and making it a micromanaging nightmare
Collective Unconscious: Keep the effects the same, but have them both be active at the same time regardless of sect, add MP refresh Potency of 50. Spreads the current Card effect from the AST to all players inside the radius with the same potency and remaining duration.
It’s a beautiful skill, but I find it has no place other than situations where everyone is gathered together for a big hit, these additions would make it useful outside of raids and make it feel worth the inability to move or take any actions during its application.
Celestial Opposition: Remove previous effects. Allows switching to opposing stance while in combat. In addition places effects on the party in radius based on the new stance. Diurnal Sect – all players gain Aspect Benefic Regen and Aspect Helios regen. Noctural Sect – all players gain full 5 stacks of Nocturnal Sect and shields of the same potency as Aspect Benefic.
Im still on the fence about this idea for Celestial Opposition, but I think AST needs some other heal other than the ones we have and I want something that has to do with the stances, My thought of this is to change to the opposing stance and basically have burst heal as if you were in the stance the whole time. However this may still not work with a SCH-AST or AST-AST healer setups as the shields would not stack.
I know this was a lot, but I was enjoying the ideas I was coming up with and wanted to get them down.
I hope you enjoyed!