Astrologian: what is your understanding about it?

[Zaytex]

The best state of the cards is not having them all the same. If that's the case delete 5 of them because there's no point in drawing all but one. Divination currently exists as the AOE Balance buff everyone wanted and it can stay for more consistency in AST's kit.

Now I don't disagree that utility cards are going to be niche due to what is in AST's kit but it isn't as if they're going to be dead (I can always substitute Lady over Celestial Opposition if I have it) and it isn't as if we can't make RNG mitigation options instead. One idea I had back when we had Nocturnal for instance was splitting the deck into 3 with damage being drawn under one sect and utility under the other while AST stance danced for instance.

And again, if you're going to talk about "damage cards" being the only thing we are allowed to get, I still stand by no % up buffs. That is what Divination was for. Give me things like Haste, or shorter cast times (Lightspeed for the party?), reflective damage, double cast. Give me things to interact with party's kit instead of just a blatant buff they can pretty much place on themselves. <---That's pretty much what I want out of diverse cards.

The stance dancing wouldn't even happen since AST's would just stay in the damage stance and ignore the utility-based one, since yet again we have an abundance of mitigation and healing tools right now.

I don't think you're understanding the point either. Just because a card buff can be ''reflective damage'' or ''double cast'', or ''shorter cast times'' doesn't mean those things aren't DPS buffs in a sense, it's just in an indirect version of a DPS increase by %. Whatever card gives the player the most amount of damage increased or dealt will always be selected the most, and everything else ignored. Unless you make every card never interact with damage dealt in this game, then you will always run into the problem of one card dominating and all others being ignored. Now let's say you make every card never interact with damage - so let's say, damage reduced, healing increased, movement increased, or whatever. Then all of those utilities become very niche and unusable in most fights.

No matter how you slice it, a card system where every card is unique and different to each other, whether damage-based or not will result in either all of the cards being niche and useless, or one card dominating and every other card being niche or useless.

Every card being balance was the best way to go.