AST cards rework idea (share your own, too!)

[Blueyes]

Rework Goals

• Restore lore and card variety
• Increase consistency and reliability
• Provide options for every card

Rework Outline

Arrow - Increases attack speed by X%
Balance - Increases direct hit rate by X%
Spear - Increases critical hit rate by X%
Bole - Reduces damage taken by X%
Ewer - Increases HP recovery via healing actions by X%
Spire - Converts portion of damage dealt into HP

Lady of Crowns - Restores target party member's HP. Cure Potency: X*

Arrow, Balance, Spear -> Lady of Crowns

Lord of Crowns - Deals unaspected damage with a potency of X*

Bole, Ewer, Spire -> Lord of Crowns

Divination - Expands the effect of the next card to nearby party members. Reduces potency to 50%

* To go with the theme of cards that have an active duration, these effects could be changed to healing-over-time (HoT) and damage-over-time (DoT) respectively.


Rework Breakdown

This is mostly a return of the previous card system with a few alternations. Arrow, Spear, and Bole have retained their previous effects while Balance, Ewer, and Spire have been changed. I'll break down why these cards have been changed.

• Balance was widely regarded as the "best" card which left the rest seemingly "useless" by comparison. Adjusting this card from a raw increase in damage to a boost in direct hit rate tones down its supposed superiority.
• Ewer previously provided MP regeneration, and while such a card certainly had its value, SE has since removed all methods of providing MP recovery to party members. Although MP management isn't perfect right now, I don't think the return of the original Ewer is the answer. For these reasons, its effect has been replaced.
• Spire is no longer necessary with the removal of TP. As such, its effect has been revamped. This is one of three cards that have been allocated for tanks which helped to determine the type of buff that would be applied.

Cards have been designed in such a way that half of them are intended to be given to DPS while the remaining three cards are meant for tanks. Arrow, Balance, and Spear increase damage output while Bole, Ewer, and Spire provide healing and mitigation.

Minor Arcana will provide either the Lady of Crowns or the Lord of Crowns with 100% consistency based on the type of card that is converted. Arrow, Balance, and Spear are converted into the Lady while Bole, Ewer, and Spire are converted into the Lord. What that means is, no matter what card you draw, you always have the choice of using that card as either a source of damage or as a source of healing/mitigation.

Divination has been reworked along with the removal of Seals. Divination functions as buff to the caster that enhances the next card played by greatly expanding its radius at the cost of potency. To ensure that it is still possible to stack the effect of Divination on top of individual card buffs, Divination causes a different buff to apply (Expanded Balance instead of The Balance, for example) with a slightly altered status icon to distinguish it from individual cards.

[Rivxkobe]

...

I like this idea. It's honestly the only one that looks like you even thought about balance while also making it about as mechanically intensive as it is now. You know, instead of just making the cards blatantly overpowered or making it a mess of a bunch of new buttons to press and pay attention too.

I don't think SE is ever going to change the card system during 5.x though.

[Mandeville]

Love your idea, Blue. Would pick my AST back up immediately for it.

[Brandedblade]

While I'm one of the few weirdos in the forums who likes the current card system. I'll go ahead and share the idea for the cards I played around with.

Draw is now Divided into two different Draws.

Astral Draw: Draw an Astrally aligned Arcanum from the Divining deck. Press the button again to grant the targeted ally a Fortune. Only one Fortune can be active on an ally at a time.

Balance: 10% Direct Hit
Arrow: 10% Skill/Spell Speed
Spire: 10% Crit

(Spire replaces Spear solely because lightning is an Astral element in lore.)

Fortunes last for 30 seconds, and other then being classified as a "Fortune" are functionally similar to the old cards.

Umbral Draw: Draw an Umbrally aligned Arcanum from the Divining deck. Press the button again to inflict a Misfortune on a target enemy. Only one Misfortune can be active on an enemy at a time.

Bole: -1% damage dealt
Ewer: -2% magic vulnerability
Spear: -2 physical vulnerability

Each Misfortune lasts for 45 seconds. The one Misfortune per target clause was to prevent AST/AST from being to powerful in this theoretical scenario.

Royal Road and Spread would only interact with Astral Draw, Redraw would be based off the last of the two draws used, and Minor Arcana would be based on the last draw used.

Astral Draw: Lady of Crowns: 500 potency heal
Umbral Draw: Lord of Crowns: 200 potency nuke +refresh the current duration of the currently applied Misfortune.

The idea is basically youd try to pull the appropriate Misfortune for the fight (such as Spear for physical heavy comps) then use any subsequent Umbral Draws to deal damage + maintain the Misfortune with Minor Arcana. Other ASTs can also maintain the currently applied Misfortune with their own Lord of Crowns, but they will overwrite the current Misfortune if they attempt to apply another.

Finally I came up with one more skill, meant to interact with Umbral Draws.

Twist of Fate: 120 sec CD. Inflict the target with Twist of Fate for 15 seconds

Twist of Fate: Enhance the effect of the currently applied Misfortune to 10%.

Additional effect: While Twist of fate is active, all enemies within 10 yalms of the target will receive the original Misfortune effect. This effect will end when the enemy leaves the radius or Twist of Fate ends.

When Twist of Fate ends, the target is inflicted with "Uncertain Future" preventing the reapplication of Twist of Fate for 90 seconds.

The reason why the umbral draws have such weak effects is because they're meant to be pernament in their uptime if the AST pays attention. Twist of Fate is intended to be their big cooldown to temporarily enhance the effect to more powerful levels. Essentially turning the effect into a Physical or Magical Trick attack, or to a Disable. I also gave it the Virus treatment to prevent multiple ASTs from chaining the cooldown for higher uptime.

[Ceasaria]

Will all the data and thinking gathered, I have come up with a new rework which should please both AST sides.
It will restore the AST identity, give fun and reward the players for their actions.


2nd cards system issues to fix

1) Cards have no variety
Fix : Old cards effect will be back (potency changed) with Spire reworked.
Lady and Lord old effects will be back and will have a bonus based on the number of seals possessed.

2) Individual cards played are not rewarding
Fix : All cards (except Minor) played is now AoE effect. For that, there need to be a balance between solo dps, cards and Divination. Since cards is what matter, Divination has been reworked and doesn't give a raid buff anymore.

3) Too many actions to do (hard for controller players) especially for targeting teamates
Fix : With every card being AoE, it will be much easier now to manage the cards.

4) The whole melee/range thing for cards is not fun and interesting
Fix : This thing will be gone because of the return of the old cards effect.

5) Fishing for seals (instead of balance) is not innovative nor interesting
Fix : Cards are the essence of AST, not the seals. Seals are still present but are more considered like bonus which will help to controle the RNG and are consumed for a better Lord or Lady effect.


1st cards system issues to fix

1) Overall, some cards are too much played when others not (gap too large between most and least used card).
Fix : The 3 offensive cards Balance, Spear and Arrow should be equal. Bole, Ewer and Spire will still be useful for many players especially in progress (and because it give choice between damage raid buff and defensive/heal raid buff). Even if it's not mandatory to rotate between cards for seals, it still a nice bonus to have (check the new actions effect).

2) Not enough RNG control.
Fix : Horoscope and Divination have been reworked for this. Seals serve this function too.


3rd Cards System

- Each of the 6 cards have their effect as AoE (still 15 sec duration).
- Each card effect can stack with the other (because of Sleeve Draw) and will be refreshed if the same is applied.
- Each seal can be possessed only once (seal tied to his own emplacement on the UI).

Balance : 3% damage, Solar seal
Bole : 5% damage reduction, Solar seal
Spear : 4% critical chance, Lunar seal
Spire : 10% healing action, Lunar seal
Arrow : 5% attack speed, Celestial seal
Ewer : 30 potency recovery mana, Celestial seal

Redraw : Now affect Lady and Lord which will turn into the other.

Lady et Lord : Consume seals to enhanced the potency.
Lady : 400, 500 (1 seal), 650 (2 seals), 850 (3 seals) healing potency
Lord : 250, 400 (1 seal), 600 (2 seals), 850 (3seals) damage potency

Divination : Draw a card tied to a seal you don't possess (120 sec CD).

Horoscope : Put 3 different cards in a special zone (added to UI) for 90 sec (90 sec CD).
Can execute (only one) Draw of the Heavens after activation if you possess at least one seal :
- 1 seal : Draw the 1st card
- 2 seals : Draw the 2nd card
- 3 seals : Draw the 3rd card


Others abilities adjustements and back

Time Dilatation : Add 10 sec on every buff given to you and to your team by you.

Collective Unconscious :
- Diurnal : 120 HoT potency for 15 sec. 10% damage reduction.
- Nocturnal : 120 SoT (Shield over Time) potency for 15 sec, can be cumulated up to 5 layers. 10% damage reduction.

Celestial Opposition : Stun back.
Diurnal --> Shield ; Nocturnal --> HoT

Neutral Sect
- 20% healing bonus removed
- Celestial Intersection and Celestial Opposition are now affected.

Benefic Aspect
- Nocturnal : mana cost decreased from 1000 to 500.


Enhanced buff duration has been restored with Time Dilatation (ancient CO effect).

Mana issue is fixed with Ewer and with the decreased cost of Benefic Aspect for Nocturnal.

There is a good duality now between Diurnal and Nocturnal.
The "Celestial" moves give access to the particularity of the other stance, while Collective Unconscious is the big tool in their respective domain.

And now with the Neutra Sect change, we can have a real healing and shielding power if we cumulate everything every 2 min !


I believe this AST would be so much fun and I hope you appreciate it