AST changes

[Marxam]

You know there was a reason the cards lost their original effects of things like haste, MP recovery, defense mitigation etc, as it made AST pretty much meta. Like if one healer can offer a ton of buffs, why would you take anything else?
I kind of expected the Harmony of Spirit/Mind/Body to be useable on a party member rather than the AST taking it for themselves, feels a little wasted otherwise.

You just answered your own question. They basically brought back a nerfed RR but only for AST exclusively. We all know how insane balance spread with earthly star was, or enhanced/extended balance time dilation earthly star. The devs are dead set on this hyper balance and illusion of choice job design. They are going to dig themselves into a hole and stagnate, hence the reworks to DRG and AST.

Imo SB AST was fine. Just remove the damage and have it affect utility, i.e. increase defense, sks/sps or even MP regen. Bringing MA back but making it worse is not how you design a job. MA worked in SB because it was used to mulligan a card if you didn't want to mess up your RR or spread. In EW its just a one min ogcd with another button required to use it. Makes me question the design team because that can easily be fixed.

Example:

Minor Arcana
-1 sec recast
-Effect changes to Lady or Lord of Crowns based on the current card drawn
-Balance, Arrow Spear = Lord of Crowns
-Bole, Ewer, Spire = Lady of Crowns

Using the example above, when you Draw a card, Minor Arcana procs and it changes to either Lady/Lord depending on the drawn card (as shown in the example). You can then either play the card as normal, redraw or use MA if you don't desire the seal the card provides. No need for a separate button like Crown Play since the action Minor Arcana, changes to the effect tied to the drawn card. If they can do it for Macrocosmos, Earthly Star, and Horoscope, why can't they do it for Minor Arcana?

It simply procs when a card is drawn and you can use MA to mulligan. This means you have a way of getting rid of cards (meaning no need for undraw), you can control the RNG (removing a card that will mess up your seals) and its easier to use and has synergy with AST's tool kit (cards and available every time you Draw). You can still keep the 3 seal system and you don't even need to change how redraw works (though imo they should) since you have another way to mitigate the RNG. smh

[Katoar]

Figured it would be a good idea to give an illustration of how I intend AST to play with these changes:

Prepull:
Stargazer
Contemplation - The Arrow or The Spear (when going for Supernova in the opener)
Contemplation - The Ewer or The Spire (when going for Stasis of Time in the opener)
Contemplation - The Balance or The Bole (when going for Balance spread in the opener)

I think the job should be balanced around having Stasis of Time in the opener for raids as the best option, followed by The Arrow & The Spear spread through Supernova and lastly Balance spread through Shared Consciousness.

In any case, the following rotation against a dummy target goes for Supernova in the opener, followed by Stasis of Time and Shared Consciousness.

Prepull:
Stargazer
Contemplation - The Arrow (or The Spear)

When Global Cooldown is at 2,5s:

Malefic - 2.5

Gaze - 2.5
Draws The Arrow

Stargazer - 5s

Sealed Fate - The Arrow
Destiny embraced - The Spear
Fate Denied - The Ewer or The Balance or The Bole
Contemplation - The Spire

10 seconds

Malefic - 2,5

Reflection - 2,5
Arrow is drawn

Stella - 2,5
Arrow is played, The Spear is drawn and played.

Time Dilation

The Arrow - 45 seconds buff
The Spear - constant buff

Malefic - 2,5


20 Seconds


Supernova - 2,5s (recast)

Shares The Spear and Arrow(40s) with the whole party

Three cards remain

Star's Recreation - 2.5

Six cards remain

Malefic - 2,5s

Gaze - 2,5s
Draws The Spire

30 seconds

Stargaze - 5s

Sealed Fate - The Spire
Destiny Embraced - The Ewer
Fate Denied - The Spear, The Arrow, The Balance
Contemplation - The Bole


Malefic - 2,5

Reflection - 2,5
Draws The Ewer

40 seconds

Stella - 2,5
Plays The Spire, draws The Ewer and plays it
The Spire- 15s buff
The Ewer - constant buff, overwrites The Spear

Stasis of Time - 5s

Stars' Recreation - 2,5s

50 seconds

Malefic - 2,5s

Gaze - 2,5s
Draws The Bole

Stargaze - 5s

50 seconds

Sealed Fate - The Bole
Destiny Embraced - The Balance
Fate Denied - The Arrow, The Spear, The Spire, The Ewer

Rewind - 4s
Contemplation - The Arrow


Malefic - 2,5

Reflection - 2,5
Draws The Bole

59s

Stella - 2,5
Plays the Bole, draws and plays The Balance
The Bole - 15s buff (if Time Dilation is not)
The Balance - constant

Shared Consciousness - Ability

Stars Recreation - 2,5

64s

And from here on out everything loops. If instead of going for The Arrow + The Spear Spread, the player wants to go for Stasis of Time they will have to use Contemplation on either The Ewer and/or The Spire during Rewind if they want to get the maximum potential out of Stasis of Time.

Note that this is purely for illustration purposes, to communicate how I envision the job to play out with the changes proposed.

Healing on GCD can be done almost at any point between combos and channels.

I would like the implementation of Raise on oGCD.