balance through Balance

[Draxis_Fallspear]

I'm not a career healer, but I have played enough Astrologian to have an opinion about the cards system.

It does seem like The Balance is just the best card you can draw at the moment. I'll leave whether the numbers on it need to be tweaked to others. However, I think one of the issues here is the power delta within the cards that can be drawn.

Ewer and spire are situational, but they do what they need to and if you draw and need them; you'll use them. These, I think, are fine.

Balance and Arrow are always good. Arrow is a bit riskier due to the resource cost that come with faster attack speed. But overall, it's still usually worth playing. Balance is always amazing. These are also in a pretty good place (and like I said before, I don't really want to speak to the power level of Balance).

Bole and The Spear are more problematic. Bole is a nice thing to have if the tank just did a massive pull and you just want some breathing room. It's not necessary, but it can be nive to have. The Spear is super situational and since you have no control when you'll pull it out or if your allies have anything that'll come back from cooldown it's practically useless.

I think if they nerfed Balance, they should also look at buffing the duration of Bole and The Spear. Bole lasting longer could make it viable as a DPS increase since your co-healer and yourself (and potentially the tank) could push DPS a little longer due to the increased breathing room. Similarly with The Spear, if it lasted longer; you'd have a better chance of abilities coming back off of cooldown. I'd say that doubling their duration would probably make a lot of sense if they decided to, let's say, halve the potency of Balance.

The problem with the cards system is that you'll always be seeing the same card applied over and over again as long as the power differential between the different draws is large.

[Kyeria]

I honestly think the cards just need some overhauls. So many of our cards are useless because the buffs they provide just aren't as desirable as raw damage ( and some are just plain garbage )

So many people continue to complain that Balance needs to be nerfed because it's overtuned and that our other cards would iron out from there, but I honestly don't think they would. I personally believe that Balance is overpowered by design and not it's current numbers/percentages.

The problematic issue with "Balance" is that raw damage boosts will always be desired over any of the buffs we have because DPS is king in FFXIV. Square could nerf "Balance" to 5% and people would still foam at the mouth for it. Especially since it's something no other healer can bring to the table.

Below are some changes I believe the cards need to balance them out.
In my opinion.

Balance: Needs to be reworked into a different buff.
Bole: Honestly, I don't have any complaints on this.
Arrow: Could maybe be a bit stronger, especially if Balance was removed.
Spear: Simply allowing this to also affect abilities on cooldown would fix this card.
Ewer: Honestly, either needs to be stronger or reworked into a different buff.
Spire: This just needs to be reworked into a different buff as well. While Ewer has super niche uses...I have NEVER had a tank or DPS need this buff or ask for it. It honestly feels like a card that was designed just for Royal Road fodder.

I also personally believe that Royal Road needs some adjustments as well, but I'm not entirely certain how to fix it. One of my major complaints with Royal Road now is that it's set up to make certain buffs it provides useless & specific cards nothing more than fodder. A few examples are;

Bole and Balance: 150% potency:
I almost never use the 150% Potency boost provided by Royal Roading Balance & Bole because the cards themselves 9/10 are more useful in any situation to use even without a Royal Road effect, than to waste them on the RR buff they provide. I also seem to remember someone doing testing and providing statistics that showed you got more benefit out of any given card by doubling its duration rather than boosting it by 150%. ( I could be wrong though as that was an old study and I can no longer find its source )

Ewer and Spire: 50% potency + AoE:
This bonus actually has the opposite problem of Bole & Balance. The buff Ewer & Spire provide from Royal Roading is so insanely powerful, that it's almost always more important to Royal Road them than to use the cards individually, even if the Buffs they provided were more useful.


Arrow and Spear: Doubled duration:
And finally, the buffs provided by Arrow & Spear are just kind of niche and largely useless outside of 4 man dungeons.
I know the Astrologian is the last Healer that needs massive attention, but I honestly feel like our cards are designed poorly in that they pigeon hole you into using only a few specific cards in any situation.