I'm bored when I heal because I need more complex DPS rotations

[ty_taurus]

I may have not been very clear in my explanation but I meant for the cards to give a damage buff or give a different effect by being interpreted. It would be one or the other. This way every card could be reliably thrown on the person doing the most damage with no thought for whether they are melee or range. I like it being simple like that. The interpretation would be for flavor and have some niche situations where maybe increased defense prevents a death or MP Regen allows for a few extra revives. The systems wouldn't be competing but rather allow for more optimization. You always have extra damage available and some fun RNG utility as well.

Wouldn't that still mean that every card used that provides a utility buff instead of a damage buff becomes a detriment and thus interpreted cards will be avoided like the plague by most players? So long as damage is an option, the utility will be treated as an inferior choice in nearly every scenario in which you could use the utility instead. AST does not need additional mitigation, and if the AST actually does, the game isn't really transparent enough to make that clear. I don't think most anyone would end up using it because it would become viewed as a clutch that AST is better off not relying on. The MP regen as well is something that would almost exclusively be avoided, though I could see it having more value during prog where you know you're not hitting enrage yet and are just trying to get more experience. But by in large, MP management has been done away with, for better or worse.

I don't meant to be an antagonist to the idea of having offense OR utility, and I did thoroughly enjoy old AST and having those moments where using old Bole or old Ewer felt good to take advantage of. And I see that you're trying to take away the random factor that made those cards unreliable, but this game and this community cannot and will not accept sacrificing DPS potential for utility in 95% of scenarios ever. That's just what this game is, whether we like it or not.

I mentioned an alternative a little earlier in this thread about removing Draw and just directly playing Lord, Lady, or Knave while axing the other cards, where the Knave offered that Bole mitigation while still sharing a cooldown with the damage buffs of Lord and Lady. Because in that concept, you required the Celestial Seal granted from Knave in order to use Divination for a party buff, it meant you needed to take a short-term damage loss for a long-term damage gain in the form of your buff window tool. This is how you could introduce utility together in one system--you'd have any card window in that 2 minutes to use your mitigation, and would otherwise spend your cards on Lord and Lady. Now, that's not the solution I really want to see to be honest, and I don't imagine it's what most would want either.

In the past I had a slightly different alternative that embraced a bit more randomness, but essentially functioned the same, which was dividing Draw into three actions that share a cooldown: Solar Draw, Lunar Draw, and Celestial Draw.

Solar Draw resulted in a 5% damage buff OR a 10% crit buff. Both cards generated a Solar Sign
Lunar Draw resulted in a 10% mitigation buff OR a 10% max HP buff. Both cards generated a Lunar Sign
Celestial Draw resulted in Increased regen potency OR your next flat heal or barrier heal is a guaranteed crit. Both cards generated a Celestial Sign.

All 3 signs are required for Divination in this example as well, which means the tank and healer cards are a "necessary evil" if you will in order for a greater reward, but you have control over when you get what type of effect, not unlike your suggestion. And this system does retain the existing 6 cards in a way that's overall more consistent despite still having a random aspect. Even though there's a burden of knowledge element like with the original cards, you know that Solar is for DPS, Lunar is for tanks, and Celestial is for healers. Even if the results on Solar make it slightly inconstant, the variance isn't significant.

What I'm getting at is, you can't make DPS or utility a choice, because utility always loses in this game, love that or hate it. I can totally understand wanting to reject that philosophy, but it's better to create something that respects it rather than tries to fight it. Fight it is what SE continues to do with healer mechanics, like how Toxikon II is a blatant DPS loss and a terrible resource, or how it took, like, 2 and a half years for Afflatus Misery to be DPS neutral.

It's entirely possible that there is a "perfect solution" out there where the choice between damage and utility can feel great, but it is immensely difficult to find that solution and have this community by in large accept it. Meanwhile, trying to create something that respects that relationship is astronomically easier, and those solutions can still be creating, fun, and engaging if done correctly. I think it's much better to try and push in that direction for those reasons.

[NobleWinter]

Wouldn't that still mean that every card used that provides a utility buff instead of a damage buff becomes a detriment and thus interpreted cards will be avoided like the plague by most players? So long as damage is an option, the utility will be treated as an inferior choice in nearly every scenario in which you could use the utility instead. AST does not need additional mitigation, and if the AST actually does, the game isn't really transparent enough to make that clear. I don't think most anyone would end up using it because it would become viewed as a clutch that AST is better off not relying on. The MP regen as well is something that would almost exclusively be avoided, though I could see it having more value during prog where you know you're not hitting enrage yet and are just trying to get more experience. But by in large, MP management has been done away with, for better or worse.

I don't meant to be an antagonist to the idea of having offense OR utility, and I did thoroughly enjoy old AST and having those moments where using old Bole or old Ewer felt good to take advantage of. And I see that you're trying to take away the random factor that made those cards unreliable, but this game and this community cannot and will not accept sacrificing DPS potential for utility in 95% of scenarios ever.

It's safe to say that we are both trying our best to conceive ideas that respect that nature of the game at it's core. Where we disagree is merely the approach.

For me personally I like having the option of utility. That's what drew me to Scholar in ARR. When Selene had her own toolkit I could choose the fairy I wanted based on the content I was running. The community quickly realized that Eos was optimal but having the choice to use Selene made me happy nonetheless. I haven't seen a single person who thought removing Selene as a separate set of actions was a good idea. So the concept of having a choice between optimal damage and situational utility has already been proven to be well received. Currently Scholar has a GCD shield in Adloquium that is very rarely DPS positive. You have to shield enough to avoid needing multiple healing GCD's in the future or avoid an otherwise unavoidable death. Having Adloquium on my hotbar still feels great just like Selene because the option to use it is always there when I need it.

It's that feeling that led to my idea of increased damage or utility for cards. You said yourself that damage is better in 95% of cases so I made a card system that gives you that damage at any percentage. The utiltity is less important but available because having the option feels good. What doesn't feel good to me is being forced to use utiltity I don't need. That is why I don't play Sage because I find myself healing for the MP gain when no one needs health and it feels dumb. Your Astro concept where I am forced to use random utility the party may not need is also unappealing even if the end result is more damage for the party. It's just a personal preference but both our ideas respect the fact that damage is always better and having some utility at our disposal is a nice addition to that. My concept just leaves the choice between damage and utility completely up to the player.

[ty_taurus]

Here’s the thing, making utility come at the cost of DPS will never fly with this community at this point. Sure, it is ultimately a choice, but it’s not a choice that offers some kind of meaningful decision-making, because no matter how you spin it, the DPS buff will always be better in every conceivable way unless the utility effects are obscenely powerful—I’m talking a Benediction card, an invuln, an instant OGCD raise, a weakness debuff removal… that is what you’d need to make the opportunity not be collectively received as a bad after thought by most players. A 10% mitigation buff would be a joke.

At its worst, it runs the risk of teaching new players bad habits—that utility is something worth choosing over damage—but more importantly, inspiring some players to harass new AST players for using utility buffs instead of DPS buffs. No it wouldn’t be a rampant issue, but my point is there’s nothing healthy that would realistically come from a system like that. And again, it’s all because of how unnecessary that utility is. There is no situation where an extra 10% mitigation buff or a sprinkling of an MP regen is going to save the day, so if it’s not going to do anything the rest of your kit can’t accomplish 10x more efficiently, why should it even exist?

The truth is, there is not a perfect way to integrate offense and utility together in this game. As you mentioned, once you attach a DPS cooldown to utility, you are now on a time limit to use it at the best possible moment. Normally, I’d say that a single mitigation buff and healing buff could easily be spent in any given 2 minute window, but we also have content like Smileton, so that’s not always true. But, regardless of personal preference, which honestly sounds like the healthier choice in the game?

Unnecessary utility that seems helpful in paper, but can only use by sacrificing offensive momentum, thus universally invalidating any benefits gained? Or unnecessary utility that you can fully reap the benefits of without having an opportunity cost and thus actually offers its face-value effects?

My suggestion differs from the SGE comparison you brought up because it’s significantly easier to use 1 defensive cooldown in a 2 minute window than it is to need to heal at least one person in a 20 second window. But as I said, Smileton exists, and other content like it. So there will end up being situations where utility would get unnecessarily burned.

[ty_taurus]

My most recent AST concept from a few months ago that I’m a bigger fan of does a better job of resolving that issue. Without getting too knee deep in the semantics, half your cards are offense and the other half are defense. These are separate draws with independent GCD cooldowns. If you draw The Bole, for example, and have a mitigation buff to work with, playing it on someone does nothing immediately. Instead, it just sets The Bole on that person.

Celestial Opposition is changed to trigger any of your 3 defensive cards on anyone within range of you upon use. Celestial Fate does the same for your offensive cards. Essentially, cards become about setting up your future buffs.

The offense and defense cards are disconnected, all cards are DPS neutral on the GCD, Malefic spam is evicted from the premises, and AST players are free to maintain their offensive buffs without having to lose something more valuable or being forced to use them when they aren’t needed.

On my phone so I couldn’t edit this last part into my other post.