Another Astro Rework Thread: Predictable RNG

[SiriusBreeze]

Yet another topic about how to 'fix' Astro from a disgruntled ex-Astro player. There have been dozens of this already but dammit here is another one if only for one singular purpose: to keep the conversation of dissatisfied Astros going until the dev team is forced to contend with it.

The core of this 'rework' is to normalize rng and buffs to try and get the best of both world and will probably please no one. To that end we:
-We're going to revert the effects on most card abilities back to Stormblood era, changes listed below.
Royal road is back, minor arcana is random again, and you can store a card.

-We're going to keep the melee buff card and ranged buff card as dps boosts however for 2 of the cards.
-We're going to keep horoscope as an ability but change the activation criteria.
-We're going to make the cards you draw 'predictable'

So how do we fulfill all that? Well, when you draw an play an arcana, you cannot get that arcana again until you've drawn all the other ones. So within a 3 minute interval, you can only draw the 6 different arcana's with no repeats. I call it the phase mechanic.

Phase Mechanic
A phase is the time in which the Astro draws all 6 arcanams. In a given phase, each can only be drawn once. You can keep track of the arcanas you have used with a new ui showing the arcanas you have used, a card stack. Upon performing most actions with a card (play, royal roaD, minor arcana) then the card's arcana is added to a stack.
Storing a card does not add it to the stack until played, but it will not show up again until you start a new phase. Once you have drawn all 6 cards you cannot draw more until you use the 'discard' or horoscope action. You can only discard or use horoscope once you have all 6 arcanas (unless out of combat). Your overall goal within in phase is to work with the order you draw the 6 arcanas.

Cards
*Major Arcanas
Balance: Increased Healing received
Bole: Reduced damage taken
Arrow: Plus x% damage on ranged, x%/2 on melee
Spear: Plus x% damage on melee, x%/2 on ranged
Ewer: Spells cost 10% less mp
Spire: Cast time reduced by 1 second (does not effect gcd)

*Royal Road
Balance/Bole: Increased Effect
Arrow/Spear: Increased Duration
Ewer/Spire: Expanded ranged, dulled effect

[SiriusBreeze]

*Minor Arcana
Lord: oGCD damage, adds 10 seconds to combust if active
Lady: oGCD heal, increased any card effects by 5 seconds

New Ability
Magic Hour: An oGCD that can only be used out of combat. Learned at level 50. Fills all missing arcanas in your stack so you can start a raid with Horoscope.
Will remove any active royal roads, stored cards, and minor arcanas. It's a clean slate.

Celestial Opposition: Revert it's effect, stun and increases any Astro support effects by some 10 seconds (does not work with Horoscope for balance's sake?)

Sleeve Draw: Reworked, redraw the last arcana added to the stack. Does not affect your stack. 90 second cooldown.
On a personal note, I like the theme of this move as you using Geomancy to cheat fate a little bit in your favor. Seems like cool flavoring.

-Upon reaching level 50 you learn Horoscope and can use it whenever you have all 6 arcanas in your stack (so you need to play any stored cards).
-Cards are still on a 30 second cooldown, meaning horoscope is essentially a 3-minute cooldown
-Since you know that within a 3 minute interval you will have drawn each arcana, you can plan accordingly.
This will probbaly lead to a bunch of spread sheets and charts to maximize your card effects no matter the order, I welcome this personally.
-Lady is basically the old time dilation now, Celestial Intersection is kind of the new Lady anyway
-Lord having extended combust is just to go along with the themeing of time extension alongside Lady

'Balance-fishing' as it was before is now about getting the arrow and spear out in a way that works for your party. If you have 3 ranged dps and 1 melee in your comp, it will be better to power up the spear with another arcana instead of expand it. For people that are all about pushing dps, it's up to you to adjust and play with spear and arrow card based on the order you draw cards and your team comp.

For progging, you can focus more on heal boosting and defense boosting cards. I really like the idea of super powering a balance card and then using aspected benefic for a super shield or regen (now combine this with Neutral sect).

Using Discard/Horoscope will not eliminate any royal road effects or minor arcanas you have active, so you can bring that into your next phase. Using enhanced Spires on magic dps jobs might lead to some DPS gains for Red Mage and Black Mage?

So there you have it, by making the cards predictable as you draw from your deck you can normalize your buff rotation slightly. In theory, you're truly encouraged to play with all your cards because you know that the cards you care about will come back in 6 draws or less. The stack as a visual indicator helps keep track of what you've used. The devs will never read this, there are probably tons of problems and holes, I don't care. I just want to throw my hat in the ring and keep the astro conversation going. Maybe one day I'll like Astro again. Now go ahead and rip this apart.