FFXIV Healer Strike and the 'How would you fix it?' line

[ForsakenRoe]

The Astrologian. Able to divine the fate of their allies, and slightly bend that fate to create a better future, the Astrologian is recognizeable by their trusty Deck of Sixty, a set of cards thought to have 'Traces of the Gods' within.

With this design, I intended to make more use of the Deck of Sixty, by allowing for the Minor Arcana skill to draw any of the 6 Suits. For the sake of the player, the value of the card is ignored in terms of gameplay, only the suit is relevant. The value is only there for 'flavour', to allow the player to feel like they're drawing from a full deck of 60 cards. For example, when drawing 'The 6 of Cups', the player would only need to care about having drawn 'The Cups', as all of the cards in the suit of 'The Cups' have the same effect. Each of the Minor Arcana suits provides a similar, but weaker, effect to their Major Arcana counterpart. For example, the Spire grants a 10% bonus to Magic Damage. The Crowns, as the suit the Spire leads, also grant Magic Damage, but in a much smaller way. The Minor Arcana have also been balanced against one another, such that no one card should be 'the best' compared to its peers.

This Job is, more than any other, recognized and known by it's 'RNG'. It is a core aspect of Fortune Telling and Tarot, drawing random cards and utilizing them in the divination of someone's fate. As such, in almost direct contradiction to SE's Dawntrail design, which seeks to remove the randomness from the cards and make them wholly predictable, this design instead keeps the RNG, while still mitigating the 'bad RNG' with certain aspects, such as potency tuning and the readdition of Redraw and Royal Road.

THE ARCANA GAUGE

To begin, the Arcana Gauge would be different (again). It would look something like this:



It looks confusing at first, but the AST Gauges have always looked like impossible to understand at first glance. The first part to note is that the Seal Gauge is gone, because Astrodyne and the Seal systems have been removed.

There are two slots for Arcana, and those two slots have a slot behind each of them. These are the Major (left) and Minor (right) Arcana Gauge. When a card is drawn, it is displayed in it's appropriate slot. To the sides of these slots are numbers, 27 and 12. These are the timers for the next Major Arcana and Minor Arcana to be drawn, respectively. If you have a card drawn, and the timer fully ticks again, you will draw that second card into the 'behind' slot, referred to as the 'Spread'. Once you have an actively drawn card AND a Spread card, that Arcana type (Major or Minor)'s recharge timer will stop counting (similar to the Lily timer on WHM). In this example picture, the player has a card in the Spread for both Major and Minor Arcana, and so the timer would pause and disappear. The timers in this example are for the sake of illustration. As such, it's best to use those cards proactively to avoid overcapping the timer.

To the side of the drawn Cards (between the Card and the Draw Timer) is an icon showing which Role the card is most suited to. Here, we can see the drawn Bole is best leveraged by playing it on a Tank (indicated by the shield icon). The drawn Minor Arcana, the 5 of Crowns, however, shows us that it is best used on a Caster (hence the lightning bolt icon). Healers would be represented by a green cross, Melee by a red sword, and Ranged by a bow, or perhaps an arrow like in our character info's Classes/Jobs section.

Now, the main 'confusing' part of the design: The Minor Arcana. Why has the example player drawn a 5 of Crowns? Why do they have a 2 of Rings in their Spread? The number is for flavour, or 'lore' reasons, the important aspect of the card is the suit it belongs to, in this case, the Crowns and the Rings. To explain the lore a bit, the AST uses a deck of cards, known as the Deck of Sixty. Within that deck are 6 suits, and each suit of cards is made up of the 'leading card' (The Major Arcana we know, such as Balance/Spear etc), and then the 9 Minor Arcana cards, numbered from 1 to 6, then the Knave, the Lord, and the Lady, representing 7, 8 and 9 respectively. You can see the suits, and what they represent (be it classes in society, elements, etc) in the table below:



So with this in mind, I always found it quite bizarre that we use Lord of Crowns and Lady of Crowns as our Minor Arcana. In fact, it makes very little sense to me why Lord would be damage, but the Lady of the same suit is a heal, and the 'leading card' (Spire) is the same flat damage buff as the other 'leading cards', and before that, restored TP (Dawntrail edit: It now applies a barrier?). There doesn't seem to be consistency within each suit of 'what effect that suit has', doubly so now that (in SHB/EW) each Major Arcana has the same core effect (6% damage on correct target, 3% on incorrect).

To that end, I sought to create a design for the cards that utilized the Arcana to their fullest. If we would have Minor Arcana as part of our kit, I would allow the player to use the full Deck of Sixty. Learning the card interactions would be made intuitive, via hints on the Gauge (eg a small icon next to each card, showing the 'best target' for it. We have this now with current cards (Blue border = Melee card, Purple border = Ranged card)). To keep the player from being overwhelmed by having 54 cards suddenly dropped on them upon reaching the level to learn Minor Arcana as an action, the 'face value' of the card is irrelevant to the gameplay, and only remains to add to the 'lore' and 'flavour' of the Job. However, should the displaying of these 'face values' prove to be confusing to players, removing them entirely and referring to the card only by its Suit (in this case, just displaying 'Crowns' and 'Rings' to the player) is completely fine by me too.

ASTROLOGIAN ACTIONS

Level 1: Malefic, 1.5s Cast, 2.5s Recast, Cost: 200 MP, Spell
Deals Unaspected damage with a potency of 150.

Level 2: Benefic, 1.5s Cast, 2.5s Recast, Cost: 500 MP, Spell
Restores target's HP.
Cure Potency: 450

Level 8: Lightspeed, 60s, Ability
Reduces Cast Time of Spells by 2.5s
Duration: 15s

Level 10: Helios, 1.5s Cast, 2.5s Recast, Cost: 800 MP, Spell
Restores own HP and the HP of all nearby party members.
Cure potency: 300
NOTE: Radius increased to 20y

Level 12: Ascend, 8s Cast, 2.5s Recast, Cost: 2400 MP, Spell
Resurrects target to a weakened state.

Level 15: Essential Dignity, 40s, Ability
Restores target's HP, increasing in potency depending on target's current HP.
Cure Potency: 400
Cure Potency (60% HP or less): 700
Cure Potency (30% HP or less): 900

Level 26: Benefic 2, 1.5s Cast, 2.5s Recast, Cost: 500 MP, Spell
Restores target's HP.
Cure Potency: 700
NOTE: Benefic 1 upgrades into Benefic 2 via a Trait, saving hotbar space.

Level 30: Aspected Benefic, Instant, 2.5s Recast, Cost: 400 MP, Spell
Restores target's HP, and grants an additional effect, based on the Sect you are using.
Cure Potency: 200
Diurnal Sect Bonus: Healing over time
Healing over time Effect Potency: 200
Duration: 15s
Nocturnal Sect Bonus: Grants Selenomancy, a Barrier effect.
Selenomancy potency: 400
Duration: 30s

JOB QUEST
Level 30: Play Major Arcana, Ability
Plays the currently held Major Arcana card.
NOTE: Please see 'Card system details' section for details on Major Arcana effects and how they work

Level 34: Aspected Helios, 1.5s Cast, 2.5s Recast, Cost: 800 MP, Spell
Restores own HP and the HP of all nearby party members.
Cure potency: 300
Additional Effect: Healing Over Time
HOT Potency: 100
HOT Duration: 12s
Diurnal Sect Bonus: Duration extended to 18s
NOTE: Helios upgrades into Aspected Helios. Heals for the same 700p as Endwalker (in Nocturnal, Diurnal gets 2 extra ticks),
but one tick is frontloaded to make the base potency equal to Helios' potency.

JOB QUEST
Level 35: Gravity, 1.5s Cast, 2.5s Recast, Cost: 400 MP, Spell
Deals Unaspected damage with a potency of 120 to target and all enemies near it.

JOB QUEST
Level 40: Redraw, 15s, Ability
Returns currently drawn Arcana to their respective decks, and draws anew.
You cannot redraw an arcanum of the same Royal Road pairing as the one being returned.
Maximum Charges: 2
NOTE: The pairs are the same as the Seal pairings we have in Endwalker. Balance/Bole, Arrow/Ewer, Spear/Spire.
The same pairings apply to the suits for the Minor Arcana, Staves/Rings, Knives/Cups, Irons/Crowns.

Level 42: Aspected Selena, 1.5s Cast, 2.5s Recast, Cost: 1000 MP, Spell
Restores HP to self and all nearby allies.
Additionally, applies Selenomancy, a barrier, to self and nearby allies.
Duration: 30s
Cure Potency: 300
Selenomancy Potency: 250
Duration: 30s
Nocturnal Sect Bonus: MP cost is halved
NOTE: A simple Barrier alternative to Aspected Helios. Weaker than the Sage or Scholar equivalent, this
is just to fill a gap so that AST has access to some kind of partywide shield, as I think all four healers
should have an AOE shield (it opens more encounter design-space, eg Barrier-Check mechanics like A11S Photon)

JOB QUEST
Level 45: Sleight Of Hand, 30s, Ability
Places the currently drawn Major and Minor Arcana into their respective Spreads.
Additionally, if a Major or Minor Arcana is already in their respective Spread, the Spread Arcana is brought back to the Hand, ready to Play.

JOB QUEST
Level 50: Synastry, 60s, Ability
Creates a bond with a party member. Each time you use a single-target action, the same action is applied to
the bonded ally, at 50% effectiveness.
Does not transfer the effect of played Arcana.
Duration: 10s
NOTE: This is reworked to include OGCD effects, and 'additional effects' such as the Regen/Barrier from
Aspected Benefic, the healing of Essential Dignity, the mitigation and heal of Exaltation, or even the debuff
removal of Esuna! It does NOT include cards!

JOB QUEST
Level 50: Play Minor Arcana, Instant, 2.5s Recast, Spell
Plays the currently drawn Minor Arcana card.
NOTE: Please see 'Card system details' section for details on Major Arcana effects and how they work.
Yes it is a GCD, it's explained in the details

JOB QUEST
Level 52: Diurnal Sect, 1s, Ability
Swaps the Arcana Gauge to its Diurnal form.
While in this state, several Actions have increased healing potency, or apply regenerative effects.
This action turns into Nocturnal Sect while in Diurnal Sect.
Cannot be executed in combat.

JOB QUEST
Level 52: Nocturnal Sect, 1s, Ability
Swaps the Arcana Gauge to its Nocturnal form.
While in this state, several Actions apply increased Barrier effects, or apply mitigative effects.
This action turns into Diurnal Sect while in Nocturnal Sect.
Cannot be executed in combat.

JOB QUEST
Level 54: Malefic 2, 1.5s Cast, 2.5s Recast, Cost: 200MP, Spell
Deals Unaspected damage with a potency of 170.

JOB QUEST
Level 56: Celestial Opposition, 60s, Ability
Restores HP to self and nearby allies. Grants additional effects, based on the active Sect.
Cure Potency: 200
Diurnal Sect Bonus: Regen
Regen Potency: 100
Duration: 15s
Nocturnal Sect Bonus: Allies take 10% less damage
Duration: 15s

NOTE: Celestial Opposition used to make sense being at level 60, as it was a 'time stop' of sorts, and the
quest NPC you fight in that quest uses a 'time stop' move. Now that Celestial Opposition is not that, narratively,
it can be freely moved elsewhere in the levelling progression.

JOB QUEST
Level 58: Collective Unconscious, 60s, Ability
Creates and channels a celestial ring around the caster.
Effect Durations on allies and self are refreshed continuously while they remain within.
Movement, facing another direction, or using another action, will cancel the channel.
Duration of each effect is based on the active Sect.
Maximum Channel Duration: 18s

Applies Wheel of Fortune to all allies within the ring.
Wheel of Fortune Effect: Restores HP over time
Wheel of Fortune Potency: 100
Additional effect: Applies Collective Unconscious to all allies within 30y, reducing damage taken by 10%.
Diurnal Wheel of Fortune Duration: 15s
Diurnal Collective Unconscious Duration: 5s
Nocturnal Wheel of Fortune Duration: 6s
Nocturnal Collective Unconscious Duration: 20s

NOTE: In Diurnal, this action functions as it currently does, wherein 'flicking' it for a moment will provide a total of
700p of healing over its duration, and 5s of mitigation. In Nocturnal, the effects are flipped, and 'flicking' it will provide
only 200p of healing, but a much longer 20s of mitigation, making this the 'Kerachole' or 'Sacred Soil' of the NoctAST.

JOB QUEST
Level 60: Divination, 120s, Ability
Increases the damage dealt by self and nearby allies by 6%.
Duration: 20s

JOB QUEST
Level 62: Earthly Star, 60s, Ability
Places an Earthly Star at the designated location. Upon a second activation of the skill, the star detonates,
dealing damage to all enemies within, and healing all allies within.
Duration: 20s
Damage Potency: 250
Additional Effect: Upon placing the Earthly Star, once per second, a stack of Dominance is gained, up to
a maximum of 10. Upon reaching 10 stacks, Dominance becomes Giant Dominance, and the Star visually expands.
Detonating the star consumes all stacks of Dominance, boosting the damage and healing done.
Bonus Damage Potency per stack: 5
Bonus Healing Potency per stack: 20
NOTE: this is to alleviate the 'punishment' of pressing Detonate at 8-9s, and losing out on the bonus potency
(especially the healing). You will still want to time it to detonate at 10 stacks for max damage.

Diurnal Base Healing Potency: 540p

Nocturnal Base Healing Potency: 200
Nocturnal Additional Effect: Applies 5% Damage Reduction to all allies within the Star's radius.
Upon gaining Giant Dominance, and the Star's expansion, the Damage Reduction is increased to 10%.


Level 64: Malefic 3, 1.5s Cast, 2.5s Recast, Cost: 200 MP, Spell
Deals Unaspected damage with a potency of 190.

JOB QUEST
Level 70: Royal Road, 1s, Ability
Sacrifices the drawn Minor Arcana card, to empower the next played Major Arcana card. See each Minor Arcana for which empowerment they provide.
'Empower' effect: Increases the potency of the Major Arcana effect by 50%
'Extend' effect: Increases the duration (or number of stacks) of the Major Arcana effect by 100%
'Echo' Effect: Repeats the 'Echo' Major Arcana's effect at 50% effectiveness, upon playing your next Major Arcana upon a different ally.

Level 72: Malefic 4, 1.5s Cast, 2.5s Recast, Cost: 200 MP, Spell
Deals Unaspected damage with a potency of 230.

Level 74: Celestial Intersection, 30s, Ability
Restores target's HP, and applies an additional effect, based on the current Sect.
Cure Potency: 200
Diurnal Bonus Effect: Applies a Barrier effect
Barrier Potency: 400
Barrier Duration: 30s
Nocturnal Bonus Effect: Applies a Healing over Time effect
Healing over Time Potency: 100p
Duration: 12s

Level 76: Horoscope, 60s, Ability
Applies Horoscope to self and all nearby allies.
Upon expiration or reactivation of this action, heals allies and grants Horoscope Reading.
Horoscope Potency: 200
Horoscope Duration: 30s
Horoscope Reading Effect (Diurnal): Restores HP over time
Regen Potency: 50
Duration: 30s
Horoscope Reading Effect (Nocturnal): Reduces damage taken by 5%
Duration: 30s

Level 80: Neutral Sect, 120s, Ability
Increases healing magic potency by 20%.
When casting Aspected Benefic, it will apply both the Heal over Time effect and the Selenomancy Barrier effect simultaneously.
When casting Aspected Helios, the Selenomancy Barrier effect of Aspected Selena is also applied.
When casting Aspected Selena, the Heal over Time effect of Aspected Helios is also applied.
Duration: 20s

Level 82: Fall Malefic, 1.5s Cast, 2.5s Recast, Cost: 200 MP, Spell
Deals Unaspected damage with a potency of 250.

Level 82: Gravity 2, 1.5s Cast, 2.5s Recast, Cost: 400 MP, Spell
Deals Unaspected damage with a potency of 130 to target and all enemies near it.

Level 86: Exaltation, 60s, Ability
Reduces damage taken by self or an ally by 10%.
Duration: 8s
Diurnal Bonus: Heals upon effect expiration, with a potency of 750p
Nocturnal Bonus: Damage Reduction increased to 20%, but applies no healing

Level 90: Macrocosmos, Instant, 180s Recast, Cost: 600 MP, Spell
Applies Macrocosmos to self and nearby allies. Deals damage with a potency of 250 to all nearby enemies.
Action changes to Microcosmos upon execution.
Macrocosmos Duration: 15s

Diurnal Macrocosmos Effect: For the duration of the effect, 50% of damage taken is compiled. Upon expiration or
execution of Microcosmos, HP is restored equal to the compiled damage, plus an additional heal of 200
potency.

Nocturnal Macrocosmos Effect: For the duration of the effect, 50% of damage intended to be taken is instead temporarily
delayed. Upon expiration or execution of Microcosmos, applies 'Microcosmos', dealing the compiled damage over 15s (split
into 5 'ticks' of 20% of the total compiled). This delayed damage can be blocked by Barriers, or reduced via damage reduction
effects active at the moment of Microcosmos' activation.

This action does not share a cooldown with other actions.
Recast of this action is not affected by gear attributes or status effects.


Level 92: Oracle, Ability
Calls upon the power of the Twelve, dealing elemental damage to target and all enemies nearby it, Twelve-fold.
The element of each strike corresponds to the deity who's power is channelled.
Potency: 70
Can only be executed while Divining.

NOTE: Many smaller hits means less damage swing due to Crits/DHits (since each strike would have a chance to Crit/DHit).
Each of the strikes is tied to a member of the Twelve, resulting in 2 hits of each of the 6 elements.
The VFX of the action could be made to change based on your Patron Deity, eg someone who picked Rhalgr might have a Purple-tinted Oracle animation, whereas someone aligned to Oschon could have a Green-tinted one

Level 96: Helios Conjunction, 1.5s Cast, 2.5s Recast, Cost: 800 MP, Spell
Restores own HP and the HP of all nearby party members.
Cure potency: 450
Additional Effect: Regen
Regen Potency: 175
Regen Duration: 12s
Diurnal Bonus Effect: Duration extended to 18s

Level 96: Selena Conjunction, 1.5s Cast, 2.5s Recast, Cost: 1000 MP, Spell
Restores HP to self and all nearby allies.
Additionally, applies Selenomancy, a barrier, to self and nearby allies.
Cure Potency: 300
Selenomancy Barrier Potency: 350
Duration: 30s
Nocturnal Bonus Effect: MP cost is halved

Level 100: Sun Sign, Ability
Reduces damage taken by self and nearby party members by 10%.
Additionally, restores HP over time.
Healing over Time Potency: 100p
Duration: 15s
Can only be executed while Suntouched.

CARD EFFECTS

Playing a Major Arcana is an Ability (OGCD). Playing Minor Arcana is considered an instant Spell (GCD). Redraw and Royal Road are Abilities (OGCD).

The Major Arcana Gauge draws a new Arcanum every 30s. If an Arcanum is held and the timer reaches 0 again, a second Arcanum (which cannot be the same as the held Arcanum) is drawn. This second Arcanum is placed in the Spread, and moves forward to the Draw slot once the currently held Arcanum is played or discarded. If the Draw and Spread slots are both filled, the timer is paused.

The same applies to the Minor Arcana Gauge, but the timer draws a new Minor Arcanum every 15s.

MAJOR ARCANA EFFECTS

Balance: 10% damage, 15s

Bole: 20% damage mitigation, 15s. Additionally, grants 3 stacks of Bole's Bulwark, causing the enemy that strikes the bearer of this buff to take 10% of that ally's Max HP as damage and consuming one stack.

Arrow: Grants 12 stacks of 'Arrow's Assault' (16 if the target is Ranged), increasing Autoattack rate by 400%. One stack is consumed for each Autoattack dealt under it's effect, and upon consuming all stacks, the Autoattack rate returns to normal.
Additionally, if the target of this card is the AST, grants 4 stacks of Arrow's Assault, speeding up the recast time of the AST to 1.0s for the next 4 GCD attacks, and making cast times of those spells instant.

Ewer: Grants 1000mp over 15s. Additionally, if the target is a Healer, grants 4 stacks of Ewer Overflowing, causing the next 4 casts of Glare/Broil/Malefic/Dosis dealt by said healer to strike a second time for 100% of the spell's potency. This second strike cannot be Critical, or a Direct Hit.

Spear: 10% Physical damage, 15s. Additionally, if the target of this card is the AST, all magic damage dealt by the AST is instead considered physical for the duration, allowing them to benefit from this card's effect

Spire: 10% Magic damage, 15s

Note: Additional effects have been added to the effects of the cards, to allow for the AST to make use of all of the cards in solo play. Using the card on the 'correct' target will always net more damage than playing it on the AST.

MINOR ARCANA EFFECTS

The Staves: Increases the next 5 attacks dealt by the target ally by 60p. When used with Royal Road, grants 'Empower' to the next Major Arcana played.

The Rings: Deals 100p in counterattack damage each time the target ally is struck, up to 3 times. When used with Royal Road, grants 'Empower' to the next Major Arcana played.

The Knives: Causes the next 5 Autoattacks to deal a second strike for 60p. When used with Royal Road, grants 'Extend' to the next Major Arcana played.

The Cups: Causes the target's next 3 Glare/Broil/Malefic/Dosis casts to cost half MP, and to strike a second time for 100p. Additional effects are not applied twice. When used with Royal Road, grants 'Extend' to the next Major Arcana played.

The Crowns: Increases the next 5 instances of Magic damage dealt by 60p. When used with Royal Road, grants 'Echo' to the next Major Arcana played.

The Irons: Increases the next 5 instances of Physical damage dealt by 60p. Additionally, if the target of this card is the AST, the next 5 instances of magic damage are instead considered physical, allowing them to benefit from this card's effect. When used with Royal Road, grants 'Echo' to the next Major Arcana played.

TRAITS

Level 1: Diurnal Attunement
Sets the Arcana Gauge to its Diurnal form.
While in Diurnal Sect, several actions have increased healing effectiveness, or apply additional Regenerative effects.
Upon switching to AST, Diurnal Sect is automatically activated.

Level 20: Maim and Mend
Increases base action damage and HP restoration by 10%

Level 26: Benefic Mastery
Upgrades Benefic to Benefic 2.

Level 30: Helios Mastery
Upgrades Helios to Aspected Helios.

Level 36: Enchanced Benefic
Grants a 20% chance that after casting Benefic 2 or Malefic 2, your next Benefic 2 will be a guaranteed Critical Heal.
Duration: 10s

Level 40: Maim and Mend 2
Increases base action damage and HP restoration by 30%

Level 52: Nocturnal Attunement
Grants the Arcana Gauge the ability to swap between Diurnal and Nocturnal forms, based on the active Sect.
While in Diurnal Sect, several actions have increased healing effectiveness, or apply additional Regenerative effects.
While in Nocturnal Sect, several actions have increased Barrier effectiveness, or apply additional Damage Reduction effects.
Upon switching to AST, Diurnal Sect is automatically activated. Nocturnal Sect can be accessed by using the action 'Nocturnal Sect'.
Switching between Sects is only possible outside of combat.

Level 54: Malefic Mastery
Upgrades Malefic to Malefic 2.

Level 64: Malefic Mastery 2
Upgrades Malefic 2 to Malefic 3.

Level 68: Fates Entwined
Allows the accumulation of charges for Synastry.
Maximum Charges: 2

Level 68: Faster than Light
Allows the accumulation of charges for Lightspeed.
Maximum Charges: 2

Level 72: Malefic Mastery 3
Upgrades Malefic 3 to Malefic 4.

Level 78: Enhanced Essential Dignity
Allows the accumulation of charges for Essential Dignity.
Maximum Charges: 2

Level 82: Malefic Mastery 4
Upgrades Malefic 4 to Fall Malefic.

Level 82: Gravity Mastery
Upgrades Gravity to Gravity 2.

Level 85: Light of the Stars
Increases the healing potency of Benefic II to 800, Aspected Benefic to 250, Aspected Benefic's Regen effect to 250,
Aspected Benefic's Selenomancy Barrier to 500, Aspected Helios to 450, Aspected Helios's Regen effect to 150,
and Aspected Selena's Selenomancy Barrier to 300.

Level 88: Enhanced Celestial Intersection
Allows for the accumulation of charges of Celestial Intersection.
Maximum Charges: 2

Level 92: Fates Foretold
Grants Divining upon executing Divination.
Duration: 30s

Level 94: Malefic Mastery 5
Increases the potency of Fall Malefic to 270, and Macrocosmos to 270.

Level 96: Conjunction
Upgrades Aspected Helios to Helios Conjunction, and Aspected Selena to Selena Conjunction.
Additionally, while under the effect of Neutral Sect, casting Helios Conjunction applies the barrier effect from Selena Conjunction,
and casting Selena Conjunction applies the Heal over Time effect of Helios Conjunction.

Level 98: Enhanced Essential Dignity 2
Allows a third charge of Essential Dignity.

Level 100: Suntouched Soul
Grants Suntouched upon executing Neutral Sect.
Duration: 30s

SIDE NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR

The main driving force behind this design, was that I wanted to make the card effects be unique again, like Stormblood/Heavensward, but the issue of 'people will just try to Redraw to get the best damage card' popped up. But I've long been an advocate of the statement 'AOE Balance was not strong because of Balance, it was strong because it was AOE'. If we had seen Stormblood's AOE Balance, and nerfed The Balance to curb its stranglehold on the meta, people would have just shifted to fishing for the next best card (in this case, the Spear). If, however, the effectiveness of the AOE was reduced (eg it transferred only 25% of the card effect instead of 50%), then there would be a much bigger shift in the 'meta gameplay', and Extend or Enhance might come to the forefront as being better options (depending on party composition). Regardless, I hold the stance that, to keep cards easier to balance, we keep them as single target buffs.

We can simply look at Stormblood and Shadowbringers cards, and see the pros and cons of each, to create a good solution.
Stormblood was good because the cards were unique, but bad because everyone 'fished' for the Balance because it was the highest damage.
Shadowbringers was good because the cards all gave damage, but bad because they had to lose their unique flavour to do so.
So, if we take the good sides of both of these, we get 'make all cards give damage, but give them unique effects'. So, why not make the damage itself be unique to each card?

That's the intention behind this design. By making each card deal its damage (which is tuned to be roughly inline with each other, so that no one card is 'the best'), we can not only bring variety, flavour, and 'reacting to what fate dealt us' back, we can also bring back the Stormblood gameplay element of 'playing cards on someone that is not a DPS'. As an example from EW, Bole was a Ranged card (for some reason), we played it on a Ranged DPS, and the same was true of the Spire and the Ewer. Three cards, and their effects were all effectively 'use this on a Caster for the most damage'. But with this rework, Bole would cause a counterattack each time the Bole'd player is struck, dealing damage back to the attacking enemy based on the card target's Max HP. As such, Tanks, with their naturally higher HP pool, would be a better target for it than a DPS. By making the effects thematic like this, all five roles (Tank, Healer, Melee, Ranged, Caster) get a card that is 'best for that role', with Balance remaining an all-round boost, a sort of 'wildcard' that can be used on anyone (ideally a DPS).

The return of Royal Road (at level 70, for players to have a chance to fully internalise the Minor/Major effects) allows for more of that 'Stormblood feel' to return to the Job. The three effects, Empower, Extend and Echo, all improve the power of the Major Arcana cards, but also come at the cost of sacrificing a 300p Minor Arcana (which you'd then replace with a 270p Malefic, for a total 'cost' of 30p). This presents a meaningful choice to the AST player, yet is a much lower 'price' than Stormblood's 'sacrifice a Major Arcana' design. Additionally, where Stormblood's iteration had 'Expand' as Royal Road effect, causing the next Major Arcana effect to be AOE at 50% efficiency, I did not include this effect. I believe that it was not Balance's effect (10% increased damage), but Expand's effect on the Balance (turning it into 5% damage for everyone in the party), that caused Stormblood AST to be so powerful, and to have such large damage variance because of RNG. As such, a more moderate 'the card repeats itself, the next time you play a card' would keep the card effects' power in check, and add additional optimization to the Job. For example, maybe the player would want to play an Echo Bole on a tank with the Major Arcana 30s before the Divination window, such that the next cards they play (likely on the DPS) would cause the Echo effect to trigger within the duration of Divination, adding a pseudo-'third Major Arcana' into the Divination window.

The Minor Arcana are intended to break up how often we press Malefic. Their effect can be summed up as being 'a baby version of the leading card of that suit'. For example, where the Spire is 10% increased Magic Damage, the Crowns suit that the Spire leads, also increases Magic Damage, albeit by a much smaller amount. The Minor Arcana are all tuned to deal 300p (compared to Fall Malefic's 270). Learning the Minor Arcana effects listed here sounds daunting at first, but, there's only 6 effects to learn, and they are the same effects as the Major Arcana (just smaller). With each card having a 'best target' for its effect, I believe that learning the effects and who they're best to place on would be intuitive. Additionally, just as the current Endwalker Arcana Gauge has 'hints' as to what to do with the currently drawn card (blue outline = melee, purple outline = ranged), a similar 'hint' could be used to guide the player as to which role the card is suited to (eg if a Bole/Rings card is drawn, a shield icon could be displayed next to it, indicating 'this card is best suited to use on a tank', etc)

There should also ideally be a way for us to return Esuna to Exalted Detriment's animation, and/or to return Lucid Dreaming to 'Luminiferous Aether'.

Edit: Re-added Nocturnal Sect. Given that this Sect would (theoretically) be used mainly alongside a WHM, a lot of the action effects are mitigative only in nature, and the AST, even in Nocturnal, has very little access to Barrier effects outside of applying them via GCD/Spell casts. Thus, the intended synergy between a WHM and AST would be that the WHM handles the Barrier application via Afflatus Bastion/Sanctuary (as they are damage neutral, being Lily spells), and the AST handles applying Damage Reduction effects to mirror the SCH/SGE's Soil, Kerachole, etc. Macrocosmos was also given a brand new effect, strong enough to justify its 3min CD (probably too strong, actually) and synergize well with the WHM's own 3min CD, Liturgy of the Bell. With these two actions, the AST/WHM can effectively turn ANY hard hitting mechanic into something they can effectively ignore (as the Lilybell would automatically heal the party and counteract the Microcosmos DOT effect), but this comes at the cost of committing two powerful 3min CDs to doing so.

Thank you for reading. If there are any typos, please mention them.

To Square Enix, should someone from SE see this post: I give full permission for parts or all of this design to be taken and used for 8.0 or beyond, I do not ask for any credit.