I have to rant about AST cards

[ForsakenRoe]

It's worth pointing out that even if they don't challenge the 'DPS > all' paradigm, you can make each card do damage but feel different and want different decision-making.

For example, if we stipulate that each card has to be able to do 1000 potency to a primary target, one card might have a damage aura that hits adjacent targets over a 15s duration, another might add 250-potency multi-hits to the next four auto-attacks, while a third card might cause the next 10 enemy auto-attacks against its bearer to receive 100 potency in thorns damage.

These all deal damage, but want to go on different targets in different situations. It's pretty easy to come up with six of them. The UI can pop the numbers up on the buff target's screen too, so that they get the awe factor of seeing their buffer bless them with more number. They're also all more useful when soloing than the current 3/6% buff cards are when applied to Astro's appalling personal damage.

Sounds familiar /s

But on a serious note, yes exactly. In the above, I had looked at one of the top speedkills at the time, and seen that the SAM in the group pulled 18k damage (not DPS, not potency, 18k 'points of damage removed from the boss' HP bar'), attributed to the card itself (ie, it wasn't because card + div + embolden + litany + dragon sight). So, with '18k because of 6%' being the value, it can be refactored to 'each 1% from the card is giving him 3000 extra points of damage'. So then I worked around having the cards be 10% (like ye olde days), and used 30000 damage as the metric by which to balance them.

All of which is to say, if all the cards contribute the same amount of damage, but in unique ways, then we can have unique card effects as the 'bonus' on top. For example, you say 'reflect damage' as one of the sources. So do I! In fact, we can stick it on Bole, the card that used to go to tanks for being damage mitigation, and balance it's damage output such that it's equal with the other cards despite being on a tank. Then, 'as a bonus', we can have the Mit effect return, so it feels good for the AST to use it on the tank. Some people will view it as 'I put it on the tank for the damage, the mit is just a bonus' and some will view it as 'the mit was the main goal, the damage is just a bonus'. Either way, the player is incentivized to consider how the card functions, and play it on the role that it's most relevant to.

Good call on the UI showing the source of the bonus damage. Let me MSPaint out a theoretical solution (which could be disabled/customized via options, if implemented):

As we can see in the above picture, there are 4 'streams' of floating text (I turned off the purple 'DOT ticks and all party members' one because it's unreadable). We could have an option, then, which allows the player to have AST's cards be considered a separate number. The question is, where would it be best to place said text? I believe it best to put in the 'healing received' stream of text, along with 'Brutal Shell 3900', as a different color, customizeable in options (or turned off). Additionally, we don't need to have the text telling us the name of the effect, we could instead just have the buff icon to the side of the number. So it'd be more like...:



Fonts are enlarged for visual clarity in the example, they're smaller/not bolded in game. Customization options for the UI element added (the purple text here) would be color of the text, whether to show the icons or not (if not, just a regular number appears. Like an autoattack, with no damage typing symbol next to it), or to disable the values from appearing entirely. For ASTs, when the damage due to their cards is triggered, the effect would appear in their floating text at the same time as the card target's, in the same place, but respecting the AST's UI options (meaning, if the GNB has their 'buff numbers' turned off, and the AST has them on, the GNB won't see them, but the AST will).

Alternatively, the 'purple text' could go in the 'damage dealt' text stream, along with the Brutal Shell crit we're dealing to the enemy in this example. Might get a bit cluttered up there during burst windows, though, and obscure gameplay/hide boss model (so you can't see a model-based telegraph like 'it raised it's left hand for a slam' for example). Especially, for example, as a Monk, who would have GCDs, Autoattacks, extra Autoattacks from Riddle of Wind, and even more Autoattacks from a reworked Arrow

The AST's card effect is split from the rest of the buffs (div, litany, step) on purpose, because it's more like an attack than a standard buff. Perhaps options could be deep enough so that you could eg 'show only AST card effects, but not all other buffs'