[AST]: A Healthier Card System

[ty_taurus]

EDIT: 05/16/2022

Since this thread got dug up, figured I'd edit the original post with my more recent take on my thoughts for a healthier AST. This was posted in the 6.2 AST Adjustments thread while back as well...

CONCEPT:
Something I've brought up a few times now is the idea of putting the cards on the GCD, and recently I spent a little time fleshing out that concept with an AST redesign. This is the gist of the card aspect of that concept:

Lodestars: Certain spells grant you 1 Lodestar of which you can have up to 6. Under the effects of Celestial Intersection, spells and weaponskills cause 1 Lodestar to be consumed to perform an additional attack that is of the same potency as your current version of Malefic. This will effectively make these actions DPS neutral or DPS gains depending. This is something gained at level 30 along with your cards.

Level 30
At level 30, you gain Astral Draw and Umbral Draw, both are GCD spells with 30 second recast timers, 2 charges, and restore 8% of your MP when used. Both now grant a Lodestar when used. They do not share a cooldown, meaning you'll draw and play an average of 2 cards per 30 seconds in theory.

Astral Draw will pull either The Balance, The Arrow, or The Spire.
Umbral Draw will pull either The Bole, The Spear, or The Ewer.

Play, Undraw, and Redraw are removed. The cards you draw replace their respective Draw actions, and you have to deal with what the cards give you. Additionally, card buffs are no longer instantly applied. Instead, when you give a card to someone, that card sits on them until you use a new action to detonate the effect. You can only have 1 astral card and 1 umbral card on any given person at a time.

The Balance, when activated grants a 10% Determination increase for 15 seconds.
The Arrow, when activated grants a 10% Direct Hit increase for 15 seconds.
The Spire, when activated grants a 5% critical damage increase for 15 seconds.

The Bole, when activated reduces damage taken by 10% for 15 seconds.
The Spear, when activated increases max HP by 10% for 15 seconds and heals for that amount.
The Ewer, when activated applies a 150 potency Regen for 15 seconds.

All cards also generate 1 Lodestar when played.

Celestial Opposition is now a GCD AoE heal of 300 potency at level 90. It also detonates all Umbral card effects on all party members you heal. It also generates 1 Lodestar, inflicts Stop on enemies for 4 seconds, and costs 1200 MP.
Celestial River is a new GCD AoE heal of 300 potency at level 90, and it detonates all Astral card effects on all party members you heal. It generates 1 Lodestar, reduces damage dealt by enemies by 5% for 10 seconds, and costs 1200 MP.

Celestial Intersection is a GCD action on a 15 second cooldown. It gives a target party member a 15 second buff that causes their spells and weaponskills to trigger Lodestars. It also generates 1 additional Lodestar for you and costs 400 MP. You can cast it on yourself. This must be used in order for Lodestars to be deployed.

Level 70:

Minor Arcana is learned. This becomes a GCD spell with a 600 MP cost that draws both the Lord and Lady of Crowns and generates 1 Lodestar. It has a 60 second cooldown.

Crown Play is removed. Instead, the lord and lady replace specific actions on the hotbar.

The Lord of Crowns replaces Combust on the hotbar and acts as a GCD AoE attack. When played, it deals 400 potency for the first enemy that decreases by 60% for remaining enemies. It also applies your Combust DoT to all enemies. The DoT has 100% potency on the first enemy and 60% less potency on remaining enemies. It generates 1 Lodestar. It costs 600 MP.
The Lady of Crowns replaces Helios on the hotbar and acts as an AoE heal. When played, it heals for 400 potency for yourself and all nearby party members while also randomly granting one of the umbral arcanum effects as well (i.e. 400 potency heal and 10% damage reduction or 400% heal and 10% max HP increase, etc.) It generates 1 Lodestar. It costs 600 MP.

That concludes the concept.

This system would do a number of things:
- It reduces the total amount of weaving required, making it more approachable and freeing up Lightspeed to be used situationally rather than for burst windows.
- It makes AST highly mobile which can also make it easier at face value.
- It allows for the existence of offensive and supportive cards, and allows you to set them up in advance to be used at once rather than hoping that supportive cards specifically will be useful when pulled.
- It creates a new playstyle of healer who is significantly less offensive as many of their GCD uses will go toward drawing and playing cards as well as activating them with a heal. This both breaks up the Malefic spam monotony while also creating something more palatable for healers unhappy with the volume of direct DPS healers are responsible for.
- It reduces a fair amount of button bloat that currently just feels like clunk.

[Pandatwin]

You have done a mighty fine job on this rework.

The current issue that I see with the card system in Endwalker is that it is 3 completely independent systems that do not interact with each other. Your proposed system not only brings back all the systems together to form a common goal (Divination), but also re-introduces unique card effects in a healthy way. I also like how you have maintained the aspect of randomness that would be expected in a card-like system, but have also found a way that doesn't completely screw you over if you're unlucky (unlike Astrodyne). It also keeps the button real estate low, which would be a major boon.

I especially like the interaction with Minor Arcana. These extra boosts that come from drawing a specific card at a specific time really do increase the interactivity with the cards and require planning in order to use to their fullest extent.

A few things that I would suggest:

For Solar Draw, the balance-fishing problem is going to arise again. Objectively, the Balance is strictly better because of how good Crit is this expansion and how Direct Hit is no longer quite as good. I would suggest something that a flat damage increase of like 3%. This way, the Crit buff would be better under raid buff windows, but the flat damage buff would be better outside of said windows. You're still required to make a decision, but both have optimal usage.

For Knave of Crowns I would make it a raid-wide damage reduction rather than a barrier. The AST doesn't lack for healing, but does lack for mitigation, especially when movement is required. I also feel like it would mesh slightly better with the flavor of your two lunar cards.

All in all, fantastic job. You've come up with a great solution that not only keeps the card system interesting, but brings back the versatility while maintaining the the overall damage support.

[RinaShinomiya]

Solar Draw is realistically just 1 card depending on what raid tier you're in right now. Maybe Skillspeed (DPS & Tank) & Spellspeed (DPS & Healer) would be a more interesting Stat to chose from.

Despite changing the cards back to each having a unique effect, the burden of knowledge on utilizing the card system is actually easier because you know going into a Solar Draw, Lunar Draw, or Celestial Draw that they're best suited for DPS, Tanks, and Healers respectively. It makes things easier to memorize, while also giving more experienced ASTs more creative ways to utilize their cards.

While that's true for the first two, the spear sounds like some potential for unwanted BLM and RDM interactions so maybe extend the effect description to specify it helps healers only.
I'd suggest changing the Spear to be a Spellspeed related buff for Healing spells only which primarily is used for HoT abilties. Popping a Spear that let's say buffs cast and recast time of healing magic by 20% makes Aspected Helios tick every 2.0s instead of 2.5s turning it from 1150 potency heal to 1300 potency heal. Meanwhile the Spire can be made Barrier Magic exclusive and given Neutral sect & Knave of Crowns would also fit AST's kit a little bit.

Speaking of which.
Knave of Crowns is honestly a little bit broken. 500 potency AoE barrier on a non barrier healer while the dedicated barrier healers at best can only reach 480 on SGE and 540 (with or without Crit) on SCH while also paying the GCD heal DPS tax. I'd reduce it to 320. That way its on par with Barrier healers worst while having the potential to go 384 potency when being used under The Spires effect.

Though I agree this system allows for more creativity. Overall i like the system.

[ty_taurus]

Solar Draw is realistically just 1 card depending on what raid tier you're in right now. Maybe Skillspeed (DPS & Tank) & Spellspeed (DPS & Healer) would be a more interesting Stat to chose from.



While that's true for the first two, the spear sounds like some potential for unwanted BLM and RDM interactions so maybe extend the effect description to specify it helps healers only.
I'd suggest changing the Spear to be a Spellspeed related buff for Healing spells only which primarily is used for HoT abilties. Popping a Spear that let's say buffs cast and recast time of healing magic by 20% makes Aspected Helios tick every 2.0s instead of 2.5s turning it from 1150 potency heal to 1300 potency heal. Meanwhile the Spire can be made Barrier Magic exclusive and given Neutral sect & Knave of Crowns would also fit AST's kit a little bit.

Speaking of which.
Knave of Crowns is honestly a little bit broken. 500 potency AoE barrier on a non barrier healer while the dedicated barrier healers at best can only reach 480 on SGE and 540 (with or without Crit) on SCH while also paying the GCD heal DPS tax. I'd reduce it to 320. That way its on par with Barrier healers worst while having the potential to go 368~384 potency when being used under The Spires effect.

Though I agree this system allows for more creativity. Overall i like the system.

Good points, however I wouldn't do Skillspeed/Spellspeed for Solar Draw because some jobs would hate you for giving them skillspeed. Like when I play dancer, I would get really annoyed if an AST gave me a skillspeed boost because it messes up my gameplay. It may even be better to keep it to the same boost but split its priority for melee or ranged like we have now.

As for Spear, I like the idea that you can bleed the effect over to a BLM to allow them to more quickly get off their casts, but note that it's meant to just be casting time and not recast time as well. The goal is giving a caster more mobility basically which could sometimes yield small DPS boosts, but wouldn't always be necessary or helpful. So there would be situations where one is better than the other, but never situations where one is always better than the other.

[Semirhage]

Though I don't play AST at anything beyond random dungeon skill level, this looks cool. Only bit of jank that immediately jumps out at me (maybe you thought of a solution already and I missed it) is the Redraw system. If there are two cards per seal, and Redraw doesn't have a cooldown, then functionally it seems you can choose exactly which card you want whenever you draw. At that point, Redraw only functions as a way to consolidate six buff buttons into four (three with one "swap" button) instead of the RNG mitigation it is currently. Doing thing that way would feel really weird to a new player, like why this weird system where I have six buffs I can pick directly but I need a swapper key to access them half the time instead of just making it six buttons.

Edit: Oh duh, I read it a second time and I think I get it. Redraw uses up a Draw charge.

[ty_taurus]

Though I don't play AST at anything beyond random dungeon skill level, this looks cool. Only bit of jank that immediately jumps out at me (maybe you thought of a solution already and I missed it) is the Redraw system. If there are two cards per seal, and Redraw doesn't have a cooldown, then functionally it seems you can choose exactly which card you want whenever you draw. At that point, Redraw only functions as a way to consolidate six buff buttons into four (three with one "swap" button) instead of the RNG mitigation it is currently. Doing thing that way would feel really weird to a new player, like why this weird system where I have six buffs I can pick directly but I need a swapper key to access them half the time instead of just making it six buttons.

Edit: Oh duh, I read it a second time and I think I get it. Redraw uses up a Draw charge.

That's also a fair point. The way I had it was the card you drew goes to the Play action (which I kept so that minor arcana would have a place to go automatically rather than having to draw them), and Redraw would replace the "Draw" action you chose until you played the card and you would just always have the freedom to select the card you want. This does completely abolish RNG from the system, and maybe that makes the concept feel "pointless" in a sense. Though with this system, I also feel like Redraw isn't entirely needed if we wanted to keep some element of RNG in place, because at the end of the day, you'd still have full control over which seals you gain and would be able to summon up a buff with a specific purpose in mind even if it's not the specific one you're looking for.

[AnotherPerson]

I'll be fine with this change, it sounds like an old idea that gives some RNG and removes some button bloat by consolidating effects from minor arcana - while still making the effects of the cards still the highlight of the gameplay. Divination will still be 120 seconds and consumes seals.

For out of combat shenangians though, I think it would be better if we get a skill that immediately can be used outside of combat to draw an additional card, and then the skill effect changes during combat. It would remove some weird interaction where you could have waited for 35 seconds for whatever reason out of combat (dungeon pulls) and not get a card in the next 5 seconds, thus ruining your alignment in the off chance you were not able to spend your Draw stacks in combat, resulting in overcapping while out of combat.

The only underlying issue to this would be the MP changes. We get 500 MP per draw on 30 seconds with the current system. With 40 seconds on draw and card auto drawn, we lose a bit of MP as a result if this doesn't get changed since we no longer gain 2000 MP every 120 seconds, but 1500 MP. Astrodyne also doesn't seem to fit in with these changes.

So now I propose in addition with the changes, let Solar Draw, Lunar Draw, and Celestial Draw now restore 600 MP instead of 500 MP and gives the AST 1 stack of [Harmony].
Then, repurpose the current skill - Astrodyne. Out of Combat, this skill is called Astral Draw. When the condition is met or when you are in combat, this skill changes to Astrodyne.

Astral Draw (40 sec cooldown) - Allows you to Solar Draw, Lunar Draw, or Celestial Draw once without cost. Grants 3 stacks of [Harmony]. Can only be used out of Combat. Skill changes to Astrodyne when in combat or when granted 3 stacks of [Harmony].

Astrodyne - Skill can only be used with 3 stacks of [Harmony]. Consumes 3 stacks of [Harmony] and grants the Astrologian 3 Harmony buffs
Duration: 15s
Harmony of Spirit Effect: Gradually restores own MP
Potency: 50
Harmony of Body Effect: Decreases spell casting time by 1.5 seconds
Harmony of Mind Effect: increases damage dealt and healing potency by 5%.

[ty_taurus]

I'll be fine with this change, it sounds like an old idea that gives some RNG and removes some button bloat by consolidating effects from minor arcana - while still making the effects of the cards still the highlight of the gameplay. Divination will still be 120 seconds and consumes seals.

For out of combat shenangians though, I think it would be better if we get a skill that immediately can be used outside of combat to draw an additional card, and then the skill effect changes during combat. It would remove some weird interaction where you could have waited for 35 seconds for whatever reason out of combat (dungeon pulls) and not get a card in the next 5 seconds, thus ruining your alignment in the off chance you were not able to spend your Draw stacks in combat, resulting in overcapping while out of combat.

The only underlying issue to this would be the MP changes. We get 500 MP per draw on 30 seconds with the current system. With 40 seconds on draw and card auto drawn, we lose a bit of MP as a result if this doesn't get changed since we no longer gain 2000 MP every 120 seconds, but 1500 MP. Astrodyne also doesn't seem to fit in with these changes.

So now I propose in addition with the changes, let Solar Draw, Lunar Draw, and Celestial Draw now restore 600 MP instead of 500 MP and gives the AST 1 stack of [Harmony].
Then, repurpose the current skill - Astrodyne. Out of Combat, this skill is called Astral Draw. When the condition is met or when you are in combat, this skill changes to Astrodyne.

Astral Draw (40 sec cooldown) - Allows you to Solar Draw, Lunar Draw, or Celestial Draw once without cost. Grants 3 stacks of [Harmony]. Can only be used out of Combat. Skill changes to Astrodyne when in combat or when granted 3 stacks of [Harmony].

Astrodyne - Skill can only be used with 3 stacks of [Harmony]. Consumes 3 stacks of [Harmony] and grants the Astrologian 3 Harmony buffs
Duration: 15s
Harmony of Spirit Effect: Gradually restores own MP
Potency: 50
Harmony of Body Effect: Decreases spell casting time by 1.5 seconds
Harmony of Mind Effect: increases damage dealt and healing potency by 5%.

Really interesting idea to have an ability that changes depending on whether or not you're in combat which could work. It's just the card system by itself, but I wanted to keep the button total as small as possible because while bloat may not be a big issue for everyone, reducing and consolidating hotbar space as much as is feasible allows breathing room for the job to grow and makes the job more accessible for newer players to the job.

I didn't bring up MP either mainly cause I was just focusing on the card system, but yet it would need a lil tweaking to keep AST's MP management in a good place (though to be honest, I wouldn't mind reworking MP on all jobs to make it less background noise and more an active resource like how BLM handles it. But that's another topic for another day).

[Selvokaz]

As a person who loved 3.0 s AST, I will tell you this will not happen.but the idea is cool, maybe something that could work in a solo entry FF game but given the nature of the game and how streamlined and simple they want each class to play, i doubt they'd implement it.

[elioaiko]

They could have just kept ShB card system if they really wanted to keep balance. This new version of AST feels so bad. The cards are so disconnected now. At least with ShB, you were using the cards for Divination, tying the cards to a meaningful system. Not perfect but definitely not what we have now.

The cards now are such an afterthought, Astrodyne is an interesting idea but ultimately doesn't matter because you're playing AST to support and buff your party, not yourself.

Minor Arcana revert is honestly trash. Because when I need a an AoE heal, it's Lords and vice vice versa and since you don't have Sleeve Draw, they may as well have deleted Minor Arcana.

Tbh they should really stop touching the cards because it has gotten worse and worse each iteration. SB was the best but broken and flawed. ShB was dull but balanced and still rewarded you for doing things right.

I'm scared that they're just gonna make the cards into emotes at this point.