Thread: ASTRO 5.0

So, I realize I'm going to stir the pot a little bit, but imo this is what they should do for AST in 5.0. It's technically a nerf, but let's be real here: AST is in huge demand because of cards like Balance, and its other abilities do not hurt it in any way. That said, this is what I figure they could do:

Arrow
Haste +10% to self or party member.

NOTES: This is a cosmetic change. One of the major things they should do is consolidate certain effects into keywords. We already have the opposite of Haste in the form of "Slow +5%" as seen on Shadow Flare. The tooltip for Arrow's buff could spell it out ("Haste +10%"\n"Haste reduces weaponskill recast time...")

Spire
Grants a Refresh effect to the target.
Potency: 50
Duration: 15s

Ewer
Grants a Regen effect to the target.
Potency: 60
Duration: 15s

NOTE: Why Regen? The main reason has to do with Nocturnal Sect AST vs. SCH in general. Giving AST a mini-Regen will help out a bit in those circumstances where you need to get someone back up on their feet but need to devote healing elsewhere (and/or don't have Synastry available). In other words, it's to compensate for the fact that shield AST doesn't have a means of getting people back up but can't divert their GCDs to that person. Let's be honest: using Collective Unconscious for a regen effect on one or two people is ... debatable outside of the MTs, and you would generally save it for a party buster as it is.

Balance
Increases target's chance to score a direct hit by 15%.

NOTE: I'm not going to go into huge amounts of detail why Balance needs to be nerfed into a different effect. I think the reasons for that are fairly obvious, particularly from the perspective of progression raids.

Minor Arcana
Knave of Crowns becomes available.
Knave of Crowns increases the target's damage by 5-10% at random. (They get a random number of +1% damage-increasing stacks.)
Duration: 20s

NOTE: But I don't think +% damage should go away completely from the AST toolkit. Instead, it needs to be limited as to how it goes out, so that you're not deliberately fishing for Balances every single Draw usage.

Royal Road
Enhanced: Increases potency by 200%, up from 150%.

NOTES: The biggest change here is in making Enhanced more desirable, particularly after the adjustment to Balance to remove it from being all but mandatory in end game content. That's not to say it's terrible to get as it stands now, but generally speaking most ASTs are going to be fishing for Expanded Balance simply because +5% group DPS is a massive increase compared to one person having +15% damage as it stands now.

Arrow
Haste +10% to self or party member.
(...)

If that happend it buff Dots. And at least I like the Idea. With this change the Arrow gets more dps up and rewared a faster playstyle.

Spire Ewer
Grants a Refresh effect to the target.
Potency: 50
Duration: 15s

Why change the skill ID? The card is one on one in the game. I think for reasons of decadence Ewer is not changed in spire.

Ewer
Grants a Regen effect to the target.
Potency: 60
Duration: 15s

This card makes me a headache. Because this card would also have the Diu AST and then he can have up to 4 HoTs at once. That's questionable and I think every WHM in this game would not accept that change.

I agree with you that Noc AST need help. BUT this card does not help in this way. Except there will be a construction card, which has a different effect in Diu than in Noc. And SE did not like that when looking at the changes to CU (from patch 3.07). I rather think the spire increases the DH.

Balance
Increases target's chance to score a direct hit by 15%.

(...)

Minor Arcana
Knave of Crowns becomes available.
Knave of Crowns increases the target's damage by 5-10% at random. (They get a random number of +1% damage-increasing stacks.)
Duration: 20s

If that happend that a lot of the AST only use Minor Arcana. The balance is a point here witch have to stay in the normal card system and not in the Minor Arcana.

Royal Road
Enhanced: Increases potency by 200%, up from 150%.

I have to say this change also makes me headache. Because it guides the AST more into the temptation to throw away a bole or an balance. This is better solved in the current card system. Because throwing balance or Bole into the group is not feeling wrong in the current moment.

I would chance the bole for a better in interact with WHM/SCH:

Bole
Reduces damage taken by a party member or self by 10% (down from 20%) and increases healing magic potency of self and nearby party members by 10% (up from 0%).
Duration: 30s

This change would update this card in a way for a identity healing class CD. Its true that this card buffs Noc AST (in his Burst), Diu AST (Hots,Burst), BUT it buffs all healer ingame aswell instand of your idea to give an AST an extra HoT.

Here is my Idea/wish to chance the AST for 5.0:

Originally Posted by Heilstos

And here we are again with the problem of the Nocturnal astrologer, which has already been addressed by many players to patch 4.2. But nothing changed (till today).
The Nocturnal AST has the problem that two strong CDs in its stance do not work as they do in Diunal :



Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition are so strong in Diurnal, but it do not work with Noc. and the SCH has with luck a crit shild that played by mechanics.

I hope they adress the problem with Nocturnalfield and Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition. It does not bring anything to extend a shild to 50 sec. that breaks with 2 Autohits. Oo
And the Answer for that Problem is not to rise the multiplier. From 170% -> 250% [Noc. field (Aspected Benefic)] 120% -> 150% [Noc.field from Aspected Helios] (was the chances for Stormbloodstart).

Why do not extend Time Dilation or Celestial Opposition the Power from Noc. fields?

But like how looks the Idea for that?

I looked at the Redmage Talent "Embolden". A strong gain that wears off after a while. That represent the Idea from Time Dilation,"a process in which diverting a celestial body's otherwise straight flow of aether creates the illusion of slowed time, increasing the duration of beneficial magicks." (Jannequinard Quest "Feather in the Cap")

My idea is to transfer the principle of "Embolden" to nocturnal field.

We have 2. cases (single shilds and AoE) thats important.

Case I) Single shild from Aspected Benefic

The Noc. field have a duration from 30 secends. If we split the the 30 secends in 5 (principle of "Embolden") same long parts (thats 6 secs^^) and give it strong gain (like "Embolden") that is an multiplier.
So we have a protective shield, which subsides after a certain period of time.



And for AoE:

Case II) AoE Shild from Aspected Helios

Is the same case like One, but you can only use Celestial Opposition to reinforce the shild from Aspected Helios.

For AoE shilds we have only 3 steps and hold 10 secs.



It is important to me to say that Noc. field from Aspected Benefic can only reinforce by Time Dilation and Noc. field from Aspected Helios can only reinforce with Celestial Opposition. Otherwise would have no Idea witch multiplier we have there.That's why I built this restriction^^

I know it's just a simple concept. You probably have suggestions for improvement.

From: Scholar vs Astrologian Mitigation (07th March 2018) Link

*)Own remark: The post office is meanwhile so old that the used pictures unfortunately no longer exist and I made new one =).


And for the "lack of sustained heal" SE has an answer. If ONLY the Noc. Ast would get another version of:



Here the sense of strong healing was pronounced. Even if the healing of 40% -> 25% would be a good balance (Just a numbers gimmick and that is the task of the Dev team ^^) and would not argue with the WHM, by the way of playing GCDs to minimize healings.

It feels good to heal so in the pvp and why the Noc give it too. Thus, the AST can improve the healing of "Benefic" as well as "Benefic II" only for the burst Noc AST. If its important you can chance the skill name/Skill ID for Noc. Than we have it way of some WAR skills.

Its ture that this is not a passive regen like the Eos/Selene made it, but new Synastry gives the AST the power to let the Tank drop and help to toping with minimize the used GCD healing aswell

Originally Posted by dvoraen

Arrow
Haste +10% to self or party member.

[I]NOTES: This is a cosmetic change. One of the major things they should do is consolidate certain effects into keywords.]

I like this a lot, actually. We're just need to determine whether Haste will include ability cooling rate or solely global cooldown, casting, and auto-attack speed.

My two cents:

• MP/TP now ticks for 20% less, but per player GCD. Refresh effects like Goad, Tactician, and Refresh, where retained amid TP/MP consolidation, now simply increase the strength of these player-based ticks by 50% over their durations, rather than using a tick of their own.
• DoTs now tick per player GCD. Individual tick damage is no longer increased by Skill Speed and Spell Speed.
• Attack Speed now simply called Haste.
• New mechanic added. Alacrity -- Increases the rate by which abilities refresh their timers. (This is not snap-shotted as per a recast speed reduction, but is instead continuous, as per an Attack Speed increase.)
• Skill Speed and Spell Speed consolidated into a single stat, Speed, which now affects auto-attack speed rather than damage and increases Alacrity towards certain abilities which would otherwise bottleneck rotation, such as Defiance/Deliverance, Hagakure, Life Surge, Corps-a-corps, and Displacement, while increasing the damage or healing of all other directly damaging/healing abilities.
  
  
• Buffs and debuffs replaced by another application of themselves will now "turn over" a portion of the previous duration. (This portion, called its Turn, is equal to the average of the former and its square root, times the ratio of former over replacing (de)buff strength.

  For instance, if one replaces Demolish on a target when it has 4 seconds left with another Demolish of equal strength, then the second Demolish will be 21 seconds long, up from its normal 18.
  If, however, the first Demolish was replaced at 4 seconds left by a Demolish of 20% greater strength (say, under RoF), then the former would offer only 80% of the normal 3 second bonus to it, or, 2.4 seconds.
  And if the first Demolish was made under a, say, a 33% greater strength (RoF + IR at a particular critical bonus value), then it if clipped at 4 seconds by a normal application it would offer 133% of the normal 3 second bonus to the following buff, or, 4 seconds.
  All this works the same way in replacing, say, a Regen under Largesse with one not under Largesse, vice versa, both under Largesse, or neither under Largesse.

• Buffs and debuffs incapable of varying strength follow the simple Turn.

  This includes such buffs as Twin Snakes, Heavy Thrust, Hot Shot, Dragon Kick, and Straight Shot. 12 seconds becomes +8, 10 +6.5, 8 +5.4, 6 +4.2, 4 +2, 2 +1.5, 1 +1, etc.

• Cards will always absorb the lesser effect into the stronger.

  Consider the following examples under current potencies.
  A (50%) mass-Balance is applied, and then a (100%) normal Balance is applied in the same moment to one of the former's recipients. The 100% would absorb the duration of the 50% at its Turn of 18 seconds multiplied by the difference in strength for a total of 9 seconds Turn.
  A (100%) normal balance is applied and then a (50%) mass balance the moment after. The 100% would again absorb the duration of the 50% for an addition 9 seconds' duration.

• Effects which increase the durations of shields also restore an equal portion of their missing absorption.

  Nocturnal Field has a base duration of 30 seconds. Time Dilation increases duration by 15 seconds and Celestial Opposition by 5 seconds. Time Dilation will now additionally restore up to 50% of missing shield HP and Celestial Opposition up to one-sixth of missing shield HP.

• There is no longer a limit on the number of cards buffs to be active on a particular player, only on each separate card effect type. A player may be simultaneously affected by Balance, Bole, Arrow, Spear, Ewer, and Spire, but cannot be simultaneously affected by two buffs of Balance or any other same card.

  This increases double-AST value a bit, but without making things too easy for them, either.

• Royal Road: Balance/Bole (Enhance) now increase potency to 200%, up from 150%.

  It is no longer penalized relative to Royal Road: Arrow/Spear. Instead, as multiple card effects can now be active at the same time, Royal Road:Arrow/Spear is ideal for setting up for later burst, and Balance/Bole for acting upon it.

• Royal Road: Ewer/Spire effect structure revised. Over 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8 players affected it now deals 150/100/83/75/67/60/55/50%.

  This allows it to be of better use in light parties, where it would otherwise now almost always be a loss compared to RR:Enhance or RR:Extend due to unequal benefit of the card across different party members (even if 200% total effect over 4 people, some of those will waste the effect where a single-target card could be given to just the most helped member).

• Spread no longer applies the spread card directly. Instead, once activated (which does not yet trigger the animation or, therefore, animation lock) it supersedes Draw, allowing Spread to be used with a second press or consumed by Royal Road or Minor Arcana.

  This greatly increases card freedom and Spread utility, especially allowing for increased burst in the form of emergency use of Minor Arcana.

• Spear now increases Critical Hit and Direct Hit by 10% each.
• Arrow now increases Haste and Acceleration by 10% each.
• Bole now increases Damage Resistance and increases Healing taken by 10% each.
• Balance now increases Damage and Healing Dealt by 10% each.
• Ewer now gradually restores MP/TP. (Buffed)
• Spire now decreases MP/TP costs. (Significant; "Go ham"; breakpoints set to the perfect benefit of BLMs and the sadistic joy of WHMs.)
  
  
• Nocturnal and Diurnal Sects adjusted. Neither grants bonus magic potency; where retained, this has been absorbed into the base spell potencies instead.
• Upon equipping Astrologian, Diurnal Sect is activated automatically. No hotkey slot for this is revealed by default until also acquiring Nocturnal Sect, at which point you may activate Nocturnal Sect to turn the key into Diurnal Sect. Dragging and dropping Diurnal Sect over this key while Diurnal is already active will make Nocturnal the default Sect. Adding both actions to your hotbars will decouple the shared slot.