An Idea to make AST’s Minor Arcana more Interesting

[Mimilu]

In another thread I suggested that Minor Arcana should be removed to help reduce button bloat and open more space for more useful/interesting skills because I feel it’s too random to be useful but also not random enough to be fun or charming and that got me thinking; How would I make Minor Arcana fun?

I assume they changed Minor Arcana into an AoE version of its original Stormblood variants because some players missed the random effects of Draw and how it fit with their tarot-theming. So my suggestion is “Why not give Minor Arcana six random effects?”.

In XIV lore, Astrologians have sixty cards, 6 Major Arcana (the cards used for Draw) and 54 Minor Arcana, each separated into 6 suits (Crowns, Cups, Rings, Knives, Staves, and Irons. Each are linked to an element), each with 9 cards (Ace-6, Knaves, Lords, and Ladies), yet Minor Arcana only deals with 2 cards from the same suit (Lord and Lady of Crown). What if Minor Arcana had 6 random effects based off the 6 Minor Arcana suits?

It could work like this:
You play Minor Arcana, it draws 1 of the 6 cards, and it then turns into its own play button (to save up space).

The effects could be something like
Crowns: Grants the user a Seal they don’t already have
Cups: Places a Regen on all partymembers within range.
Rings: Decreases damage all partymembers within range take.
Knives: Decreases the user’s cast time by 1.5 seconds.
Staves: Damages all enemies with in range
Irons: Increase the Critical Hit of all partymembers within range.

With these effects, I took inspiration from the old Major Arcana effects that these cards share elements with:
- Crowns is lightning and Spire, giving you a resource.
- Cups is water and Ewer, refreshing HP instead of MP (ASTs don’t really need another MP-regen at the moment but if it does later down the road, this could be changed to that)
- Rings is earth and Bole, reducing damage.
- Knives is wind and Arrow, increasing your speed by reducing your cast time.
-Staves is fire and Balance, doing damage instead of buffing it.
-Irons is ice and Spear, increasing critical hit rate.

With a change like this, I feel it will bring back the charm of the old Draw mechanic while the current Draw can still shine as being stronger in a more direct way and being more controllable and usable in all situations.