AST card and divination idea

[January1997]

Hi guys,I am new into this game started in Shadow Bringer, after lvled up White mage to lvl 80,I am switching to Astrologian because I like to be supportive ,but the current card system is none lore friendly that bugging me, every time Leveva taught me that each constellations have their own power blessing. Thus I researched and tried to balance each card and got these result, here we go!


1)The Bole
+10% healing potency, and 5% damage reduction for 15 second,6% damage up if the target party member is a healer.

2)The Balance
+10% damage reduction for 15 second,4% damage up if the target party member is a tank or melee DPS

3)The Spire
Reduce mp cost by 25% and cast times for spell for 1 second with a duration for 15 second,4% damage up if the target party member is a healer or ranged DPS

4)The Arrow
Increase critical hit by 8% and 8% skill speed for 15 second.2% damage up if the target party member is a melee or ranged DPS

5)The Ewer
Same as the old system The Ewer card that recover 25 potency mp for 15 second.6% damage up if the target party member is a healer or ranged DPS

6)The Spear
Increases direct hit rate by 15% with duration of 15 seconds.4% damage up if the target party member is tank or melee DPS.

The card won't stack each other on one target member, the newer card played will be replace the older card.

These idea might be stupid tho. But bringing the spell "Spread" back is quite good for keeping some utility cards in additional "Spread" card slot. Add the spell like "Card Swap" something to swap the card between "Spread" and the base card slot. Thus some utility card like the boles and the ewer can be safe keeping for later use or when in needed.

As for the divination, I made it related to lord of crown and lady of crown and separated them from the card system!
The base Divination AOE buff is 4% damage buff.
We will have a slot for either lord of crown(converted by the balance, the spear and the arrow) or lady of crown(converted by the boles, the spire and the ewer),the card only be converted in the base card slot not the "Spread" one.
After converted, the divination will have additional effect depends on which crown
1)lord of crown=additional 2% damage buff, deals AOE damage by potency of 200 and stun for 3 second.
2)lady of crown=additional 2% damage buff, AOE heals by potency of 300.
The cooldown might remained the same as 120 second.



And that's all! I am really really hoping that each card have their unique lore friendly bless like older card system, this is so sad I could never experience how old card system played.
Astrologian is a job to research constellation,draw and read each card powered by constellation to tell the fortune
depending on which card drawn, if the cards have the same fortune then why the Astrologian drawing and reading the card for? And why researching the stars? And what the job does? This current card system keep having me questioned.

Optional
The "Royal Road" spell make it back.
Making it increase the durations of the card effect by 6 seconds with a cooldown 40 seconds

Malefic IV reduce the potency of 250 to 240

[YusiKha]

Just saying - this isn't balanced at all.

Bole, Spire, Ewer, and Balance will not be desired and thus redrawn. Because they don't provide damage (in balance's case, very little damage).
Spear is worth a lot more than Arrow (Spear being worth 25%, and Arrow ~14-15%)
Divination will also only be used with Lord.

Because when the choice is between damage or mitigation, damage will always be preferred as damage is the only metric to killing bosses sooner.

[Eloah]

Haven't read this in its entirety but I do have to comment on one funny thing, Loyal Road, lol.

Sorry it's funny because in JapaneseRoyal Road and Loyal Road would be the exact same words, since R/L are the same in Japanese. Sorry I thought it was a bit funny.

[January1997]

Haven't read this in its entirety but I do have to comment on one funny thing, Loyal Road, lol.

Sorry it's funny because in JapaneseRoyal Road and Loyal Road would be the exact same words, since R/L are the same in Japanese. Sorry I thought it was a bit funny.

Sorry I edit it right away!

[January1997]

Just saying - this isn't balanced at all.

Bole, Spire, Ewer, and Balance will not be desired and thus redrawn. Because they don't provide damage (in balance's case, very little damage).
Spear is worth a lot more than Arrow (Spear being worth 25%, and Arrow ~14-15%)
Divination will also only be used with Lord.

Because when the choice is between damage or mitigation, damage will always be preferred as damage is the only metric to killing bosses sooner.

Alright I edited a bit , see how it goes ? but seriously 30s cool down for 25% direct hit is quite unbalance compare to other job and would be fishing target as well.

[Eloah]

Sorry I edit it right away!

Awe, you mean it was a typo. T.T

Now I feel like a douche. I honestly thought it was a new skill as a play on words.

[Jaelommiss]

Any system that uses a common resource for damage and utility will see every possible effort taken to convert utility into damage. Cards will be redrawn in hopes of damage. Aetherflow will be spent on Energy Drains. Assize will be used on CD rather than being held for healing.

Your proposed system has damage and utility effects. If it were implemented, I would do everything in my power to turn those utility effects into damage effects.

My analysis of each card as an AST main raider:
Bole — Worthless. When planning out healing before the fight I cannot rely on RNG healing boosts. Even if I do draw it during a healing check, I have already planned around not having it, and thus do not need it. Redraw 100% of the time.
Balance — Potentially useful during add phases that feature multiple adds. Otherwise, worthless. RNG mitigation suffers the same drawbacks as RNG healing boosts. Convert to Lord or Redraw unless fighting several enemies at once.
Spire — Useful for BLMs entering fire and maybe during prog if MP is a problem. Worthless outside of that. Redraw no BLM in party and stable on MP.
Arrow — Damage card. Universally useful, but might make some classes' rotations drift if they take advantage of the speed boost. Would need to discuss with party members before using it. I'll be fishing for this, but might convert to Lord if I don't get any Balances and Divination is almost ready.
Ewer — Likely better than Spire if low on MP. I could see its value if my cohealer or myself dies. Redraw unless struggling with MP.
Spear — Damage card. Universally useful. I'll be fishing for this.

Edit: Bole might be useful in situations where one healer has weakness and wouldn't provide enough healing to survive a healing check. Throwing Bole on the healer without weakness may be enough to avoid a wipe.

[MitsukiKimura]

This has been my suggestion for quite some time

Bole: When drawn the target player receives 10% reduced damage for 15 seconds
Balance: Target player receives 5% increase damage boost for 15 seconds
Spear: Target player receives 10% crit buff for 20 seconds
Arrow: Target player receives 10% increased weaponskill, cast time reduction 20 seconds
Spire: Player Receives Direct hit increase of 10% for 20 seconds
Ewer: MP Refresh potency of 30 for 10 seconds

Balance is nerfed and other cards provide buffs, reflect lore without being over the top

[January1997]

Any system that uses a common resource for damage and utility will see every possible effort taken to convert utility into damage. Cards will be redrawn in hopes of damage. Aetherflow will be spent on Energy Drains. Assize will be used on CD rather than being held for healing.

Your proposed system has damage and utility effects. If it were implemented, I would do everything in my power to turn those utility effects into damage effects.

My analysis of each card as an AST main raider:
Bole — Worthless. When planning out healing before the fight I cannot rely on RNG healing boosts. Even if I do draw it during a healing check, I have already planned around not having it, and thus do not need it. Redraw 100% of the time.
Balance — Potentially useful during add phases that feature multiple adds. Otherwise, worthless. RNG mitigation suffers the same drawbacks as RNG healing boosts. Convert to Lord or Redraw unless fighting several enemies at once.
Spire — Useful for BLMs entering fire and maybe during prog if MP is a problem. Worthless outside of that. Redraw no BLM in party and stable on MP.
Arrow — Damage card. Universally useful, but might make some classes' rotations drift if they take advantage of the speed boost. Would need to discuss with party members before using it. I'll be fishing for this, but might convert to Lord if I don't get any Balances and Divination is almost ready.
Ewer — Likely better than Spire if low on MP. I could see its value if my cohealer or myself dies. Redraw unless struggling with MP.
Spear — Damage card. Universally useful. I'll be fishing for this.

Edit: Bole might be useful in situations where one healer has weakness and wouldn't provide enough healing to survive a healing check. Throwing Bole on the healer without weakness may be enough to avoid a wipe.

You are right, because Astrologian sacrificed a lot of own personal DPS, so fishing for DPS is very important, we only have one base card slot, RNG based utility most likely will be ignored and redrawn for DPS. I am so dumb, now only realized it, and rethought and edited again(Major changed!). Thanks for the advise u guys. ^^

[HyoMinPark]

Personally, I think the cards should maintain their original buffs—rather than the proposed changes in the OP (Balance being increased healing potency is just weird when it has always been a damage card). There’s no need to flip-flop the buffs around like that. MitsukiKimura’s suggestion is one I can get behind—it keeps the arcana relatively the same with regards to what they used to do, addressed the power of Balance, and changed Spire from TP Refresh to something else. Not sure if I would keep the 15 second duration or up it back to 30, personally. Depends on if the cards can also be AOE’d/affected by old Royal Road effects. I would be fine with 15 seconds if we could AOE them all again. I’d rather have that than Divination and the Seals, because I don’t really like that mechanic; but maybe both could fit into a new system to appease those who don’t care for Div/Seals and for those who like it.

I’d rather have the return of AOE party buffs (and just the old Royal Road effects in general). Not a fan of the single-target melee/ranged pad cards. At that point, the cards would go to your highest melee DPS (e.g., SAM) and highest ranged DPS (e.g., BLM/SMN) without much variance because it would be a bigger gain to pad them over the DRG or NIN, or the MCH/BRD/DNC.

I also think there should be only one damage reduction card, and no healing potency increase card. Healing potency isn’t really something the healers need right now—all three are pretty over-powered in that department. Splitting held arcana into 1 offensive type card and 1 defensive type card would also allow for things like MitsukiKimura’s Bole (10% reduced damage) or their Ewer (MP Refresh) to no longer have to compete with offensive card types (Balance, Spear, Arrow). The mitigation will, obviously, always be RNG—but I like the idea of keeping a held Ewer for myself if I need the mana. Because AST really needs a secondary method of MP Refresh.

Lord and Lady should also be what they used to be: Lord is free oGCD damage ability to weave in between Malefic casts; and Lady is a min-Tetra heal to toss out as needed. AST could use another single-target oGCD heal, and Lady was nice to have back in SB if the tank needed it.