Thread: Astro changes 5.1

Originally Posted by Brandedblade

You are contributing about 800-1k dps to the group with those cards and buffs when playing them properly. That's not a small amount. And considering the upcoming update to Minor Arcana, SE is clearly making efforts to streamline the system. If you want to be doing that much less damage then it's on you.

As for the "diverting time away from dps and healing." Did you forget about the cast times on Malefic, Gravity, and Benefic I? Aspected Benefic and Combust being instant? The Lightspeed cooldown giving you double weaving space on everything else.? Even the controller gives you the ability the hard target one thing then soft target your party members to heal/buff them.

I think your DPS figure is a bit inflated and assumes we're able to click every single thing as it pops, which we all know doesn't happen when you're dodging mechs and healing.

Even so, in order to use those personal DPS spells, I have to change targets yet again to target the mob, then re-target tank and/or anyone else who needs healing, all in addition to switching targets for each individual card buff. There is no other job in FFXIV which has to engage in so much target changing in order to "perform" properly. I don't mind this healer being super-busy compared to the others (it always has been) -- I just want it to matter more. I don't think that's an unreasonable viewpoint.

Originally Posted by Side-Eye

I think your DPS figure is a bit inflated and assumes we're able to click every single thing as it pops, which we all know doesn't happen when you're dodging mechs and healing.

If anything, he's underestimating. Cards + three seal Div were worth over 1.4k for my first E4S clear. It would have been even higher if I hadn't missed three cards over the fight and if there were less deaths.

Having good party members helped there, but it still would have been a above 1k with players who are 50th percentile in Ex.



It's a lot of work to do well, but some of us like that. With the current system I need to track where four other players are in their rotations to ensure I buff their burst windows. I also need to be aware of mechanics that may reduce specific individuals' uptime.

Even so, in order to use those personal DPS spells, I have to change targets yet again to target the mob, then re-target tank and/or anyone else who needs healing, all in addition to switching targets for each individual card buff. There is no other job in FFXIV which has to engage in so much target changing in order to "perform" properly. I don't mind this healer being super-busy compared to the others (it always has been) -- I just want it to matter more. I don't think that's an unreasonable viewpoint.

I agree that it's a lot of button pushing. On keyboard I get away with F5-8, Play, Target of Target and it feels busy. Including changing targets, I can exceed 70 CPM during Sleeve Draw. It's even more on controller.

I think it would help a lot if cards were 15-20% and Play were changed to GCD instead of oGCD. Overall rdps would be similar after considering the lost Malefic, but they would feel more significant and worth the effort it takes to change targets. The only problem is that below a certain level of performance it would be a dps loss to apply them to party members.

Originally Posted by Sylvain

Tbh that could actually be a very very good solution. But which one should be put there?

If you consider regular draw, putting on Draw would be the best as you'd have 2 weaving opportunity for either Redraw, but Sleeve Draw would still be a mess and have insane dps value (3cards + no gcd lock). It would also help controller a lot by giving them more time to go up n down their list (I'm one of them T_T)

Or it could be put on Play/MA, that would make Sleeve Draw much easier to deal with as you'd have weaving opportunities after each Play. However you wouldn't be able to Redraw right after pulling the card and controller wouldn't benefit much from it.

Both have their pro and cons, however I have the feeling that making Sleeve Draw less of a spamfest would be the best solution, (so putting Play on the gcd)

Increasing the dps value of cards would also help cards feel more impactful. Because, while they do have some impact, let's be honest, 6% is really small, especially if it doesn't fall on one's burst window. Taking you scree, 11.1k on that ewer, when you think about it that's really weak... barely a malefic.

However it could be hard to balance. Let say you boost it to 15% to compensate the loss of a Malefic, well now for sure, your number will vary from on AST to another depending on when the card is used. You'd also get some really nice numbers on opener...

But I would raelly be curious to try it out tbh

I crunched a lot of numbers for it while writing my previous post, but removed them for brevity.

Looking at my last E4S clear, an average Malefic is worth 16.6k. For a 15 second card to break even, it needs to cause a 1.1k dps boost. This is the magic number. If a GCD card produces less than that amount then it would be better to skip it in favour of Malefic.

10th percentile Innocence Ex dps ranges from 7.2-8.5k dps. At this level of performance a card would need to be at least 13.0-15.3% bonus damage to break even.
50th percentile is 10.1-11.5k. To break even buffing these players would require 9.6-11.0% to match a Malefic.
95th percentile is 12.4-14.4k. These players would need 7.7-8.9%.

I used Innocence Ex numbers because there's pretty high uptime during that fight and it's easy enough that a large range of player skills will be represented.

Who do you balance these buffs around? If you balance them around the 95th percentile players then using all of an AST's kit is suboptimal play if the rest of the party isn't at a high level of performance. If instead cards are balanced around buffing the weakest possible players then AST rdps inflates as the party improves. A 15% card that equals Malefic's 16.6k damage on weak players will deal 27.9k on the 95th percentile player.

If cards are balanced around being worth, say, 2x Malefic when placed on a 50th percentile player (19.2-22.0%) then they will always be worth spending a GCD for, but then you run into problems with AST's damage being vastly superior in strong parties. The larger the percent bonus, the greater the impact that having a strong party has on AST dps. If AST is equal to WHM and SCH in a 50th percentile party, then they will be better 100% of the time with a stronger party, and the performance gap will grow as the buff percentage increases. By the same token, AST will be vastly inferior in weaker parties. This is a certainty whenever a significant portion of performance depends on other players.


Edit: One possible alternative would be to keep cards at their current effectiveness (3/6%, 4/8%), put them on the GCD, and give the AST a dps buff when one is played to balance the lost Malefic. Increase next spell's potency by 100%. If that is too powerful (hello 900 potency Combust III, or 1200 potency in 5.1) then the buff could be reduced to 25% for the next four spells. This way the card would always pay for its Malefic cost while the percentage buff could stay small enough to not cause wild imbalance in peak high and low performing parties.

Originally Posted by Sylvain

Tbh that could actually be a very very good solution. But which one should be put there?

The problem is that assuming you maintain the same rDPS overall, you will have simply swapped the inability to perform as highly in an unskilled party (who therefore cannot grant you as much rDPS from their use of your cards and Divination) for the inability to use your rDPS skills at all in an unskilled party; the cards simply won't be worth the cost to Malefic casts.

So, which is more important -- (1) the option for greater rDPS consistency across varying party skills levels (by ignoring your cards and balancing cards around the opportunity costs presented at higher levels of play, necessary for the theoretical balance anyone will actually look at), or (2) getting to use your cards even when in an under-performing party?

I'd argue the latter. If cards are important to AST, we should always want to use cards.