7.0 AST rework - it WON'T be this, but what if...

[Renathras]

Ahem...okay, putting this up front: You guys are going to hate this idea.
[Just watch, now everyone will like this idea just to spite me somehow... <_< ]

AHEM:

What if for 7.0 for AST, they did this:

Readed Sects/stances.

Diurnal Sect: Same as SB dAST.
Nocturnal Sect: Same as SB nAST.
Neutral Sect: MOSTLY same as EW AST.

Why?

Because people loved dAST and nAST, even when they weren't entirely viable, and SB (if I'm understanding correctly) was the era people most liked it.

So why NeAST? (Maybe we should call this Dawn Sect or...Dusk Sect...damnit, what's a daytime name that doesn't start with a D or N?!

Ooooh. Google Says: Crepuscular! That...sounds like a terrible name, but let's go with it for now; cAST.)

For people that enjoy the more slimmed down current AST. Note I say MOSTLY the same. Some changes would probably include things like dumping Astrodyne and the Seal system entirely, and possibly something like making Cards GCDs (with some mechanic to refund foregone Malific damage to make them damage neutral) to help with AST's ridiculous burst APM. cAST would basically be current AST with the rough spots smoothed out.

.

This way, they could make a "simple" reworked AST (which, let's face it, we all suspect they're about to do anyway), but also keep/restore the more original AST forms that people enjoyed about the class before the ShB culling.

And the best part is, there wouldn't need to be any crazy new mechanics or Job or anything. All the data and assets for this exist in the game. Only thing they'd need to add is the buff icon and animation for Crepuscular Sect (people would SO misspell this all the time...), the GCD Card thing (if they even did that), and...I guess put Astrodyne's effect into something (probably Minor Arcana's draw ability).

.

Bad idea?

Yeah...bad idea.

Even I'm not too sure about this one.

So spite away, good fellows!

[Sebazy]

My spicy take, with a bit of a nip and tuck, AST has the potential to be by far the most compelling healer currently in the game. It's had close to all the right ingredients at various points in time, SE just need to combine the best bits, take a few risks and add in a splash of yolo to see how things pan out.

IMO:

Combine the current healing kit with HW's time extention and specifically patch 3.2's card system with two key exceptions.

Haste gets changed to crit, TP gets changed to HP

If oGCD Draw is on cooldown, It switches to a very short cooldown GCD instead, lets go with 8 seconds so that you can spend as much as 1 out of 3 GCDs pulling cards. Cards pulled with GCD Draw are massively weakened, cannot be Spread/Enhanced/Extended by Royal Road but can still be used to a generate a Royal Road buff. Instead I'm thinking that allowing GCD cards to stack to say 3 cards on a person. EG regular Balance from oGCD draw would be 10%, GCD Balance would be 1% but you could stack 3 of them for an additional 3%. Or you could mix and match, say 1 crit, 2 balance or really whatever you pull.

As back in HW, Time Dilation etc would be able to extend all of this as well as HoTs, Shields and so forth.

IMHO this strikes a neat balance of being fairly easy to implement as Draw is the only 'new' ability here and not too horrible to tune as you've got plenty of ways to quickly adjust how powerful the cards are. And most importantly, it solve the current 2 minute RSI AST faces whilst also giving a bonafide option for healers that really don't want to be a green DPS but do want to contribute meaningfully to the group.

[ASkellington]

I would rather:

Neutral Sect removed.

Nocturnal Returned. Make AST a stance dancing healer where you switch between shields/regens in combat, like it should have been and adjust the kit accordingly (ie Noct. CU no longer has a regen effect, Diurnal CU no longer has a mitigation effect).

For cards separate them by stance. Idc which three on which one. You can either double Noct on mitigations with Bole/Ewer/Spire and Diurnal having the offensive buffs or give Diurnal access to the defensive buffs and give Noct the offensive ones.

Rework Spire into a new effect. Maybe Arrow too.

Divination you can debatably keep as RR Balance.

Or.

Keep AST as Diurnal only still but focus heavy on the regen/delayed healer aspect. Increase its burst healing options for MP (reduce WHM's and increase its regen MP cost).

Can still bring back cards or keep the bland flavorless slop and make the seals interesting:

All cards sit at 6% damage, Divination is unchanged. Seals would grant a party buff (triggered by a now USEFUL Astrodyne) depending on the number/combination of seals (think MH's Hunting Horn)

• 2+ Solar Seals = Haste
• 2+ Lunar Seals = Refresh
• 2+ Celestial Seals = Mitigation

[ForsakenRoe]

If oGCD Draw is on cooldown, It switches to a very short cooldown GCD instead, lets go with 8 seconds so that you can spend as much as 1 out of 3 GCDs pulling cards. Cards pulled with GCD Draw are massively weakened, cannot be Spread/Enhanced/Extended by Royal Road but can still be used to a generate a Royal Road buff. Instead I'm thinking that allowing GCD cards to stack to say 3 cards on a person. EG regular Balance from oGCD draw would be 10%, GCD Balance would be 1% but you could stack 3 of them for an additional 3%. Or you could mix and match, say 1 crit, 2 balance or really whatever you pull.

I'd suggest making Minor Arcana into this with tweaks. I've suggested it before, but bringing back the old effects would help this. Basically, the 'Lord, Lady and Knave' are, I think, the 8, 9 and 10 of our real world cards, with the named cards we have now being the Aces (aces are high in Eorzea, I guess). But there's still the other cards that make the deck of sixty. So we could just have the numbered cards be the same effect, but lower effect, with the effect scaling based on the value of the card. Perhaps with some baseline value so the variance is lower. For example, the Balance is presumably flat 10% damage still. But if we have, say 2-7, Knave, Lady, Lord of Swords (in terms of power), we could make those be that effect, but scaling based on value of the card. EG, a 2 of Swords is 1%. Each value above that is +0.5%, so a 3 is 1.5%, a Knave Lady and Lord are 4, 4.5, and 5% respectively. The 'Aces', Balance Arrow etc, retain their 'powerful' status as being both the strongest of their kind (Balance is 10%, Lord of Swords is 9%), and the 'Ace' would be RoyalRoad-able (assuming RR is a move brought back for this). In fact, by changing RR to be 'burns the Minor Arcana to empower the next Major Arcana', the problem of 'having to waste good RR effect on not-good card' is alleviated, because Minor Arcanas would be every like, 15s or something

Sleeve Draw can be reworked to be 'Draw a random Lord from the Minor Arcana deck. If you already have a Minor Arcanum drawn, swaps it out for a Lord of that suit'. Essentially a way to slightly stack the deck in your favor a little more for your burst window (the nature of the effect is still up to fate though)