A Treatise on Affinity Buffs to bring Affinities more Value in an Animae Dominant Support-Game.
Light and Dark, +2 DG.
Thunder, +2 Crit.
Ice, +1.5 Evade.
Water gets +0.5 Hit/Evade.
Heaven gets+ 0.5 Evade.
Earth gets 0.5 Hit.
Heaven and Earth may also receive a modification to +2.5 Crit/DG instead of 5 DG. (Due to talk of enemies not having high enough Crit for so much DG to matter in most cases)
On it's own, not much, but the .5s fit with other Affinities. While not boosting them too far with what they already have.
Light and Dark are counterpoints, so granting them a bit of DG does boost them to be near Fire, Wind, and Anima.
Thunder, like the spells tend to have a bit of crit. Thunder is a bit more focused on DR/Evade/DG though, so maybe 2.5 crit? 2 seems balanced enough though to make it a valid pick.
Ice is Defensive with 1.0 DR, so adding 1.5 Evade seems logical enough to boost it a smidgen. Also works with other evade supports.
Water is a jack of all, so .5 Hit/Evade is decent with it's .5 Dmg/DR. Kinda boosts it to be the anima of Jack-of-all-Trades, cable of supporting with anyone.
Heaven/Earth get .5 in either evade/hit, respectively. This means they can better support with other affinities while maintaining their specialties. *One might also consider messing with their DG to 2.5 Crit/2.5 DG.*
In this manner, supports tend to give a positive bonus no matter what the combination. So Anima is no longer as valuable all round due to the other affinities having received minor buffs which combine well with each other.
Heaven and Earth for example are complimentary granting 6 Hit/Evade and 5 Crit/Dodge.
Dark and Light each grant minor DG along with their normal bonuses. This makes them more valuble to pick.
Ice gets more defensive with the added Evade, which pairs well with Wind and Dark.
Thunder's is simpler, just adding a bit of crit to it's DR/Evade/DG. It works with Light for balence, and Water, which now can grant +3 Evade rather than the 2.5 Evade it would grant before. And +1 Hit too on the second support.(Kinda a weak pairing.) It can also choose to pair with Ice, which is a very good defensive pairing now thanks to Ice's 1.5 Evade and granting DR.(Which describes the main focus, making combinations better as a whole rather than focu entirely on Crit-supporting.) Whcih brings up Wind as a valid option, with the crit buff to Thunder and the Eva already present.
Water now has +0.5 DMG/DR/Hit/Evade, and +5 DG. 0.5 Hit/Dodge is extremely minor, but makes Water the best for overall pairigs. The only one it doesn't entirely get along with is Anima's straight DMG/Crit, only granting straightforward bonuses at B and S rank.. (That is where the beauty of it comes in, since stats can end up with .5 Hit/Evade left over, which would normally be rounded down.) For the others, Water works with Fire/Wind/Light/Dark/Thunder/Heaven/Earth. A rather large buff, but also a very small one. Jack of all, master of none.
Heaven gets +0.5 Eva, Earth gets +0.5 Hit. (Likewise, 2.5 Crit/Dodge being their new numbers, with agreement) For the ones mentioned, it mostly translates to a buff on an Affinity that may not be of use. Such high Hit/Evade is useful, sure, but compared to the others which recieved a buff, receiving a buff meant to work with other Affinities is a no brainer. They fit with those that have a +.5 in that stat, respectively.
For the Crit/DG modification that would need discussion. It would make them the most overall effective Affinities for support, supplanting Anima in some ways due to being good for either connecting or evading hits. Balanced, useful Affinities. Not that this would be a bad thing thematically. Earth Seals and Heaven Seals come to mind.
However, compared to other buffed Affinities and existing Affinities, they all have advantages now in their own ways. And all work in Supports.
Notes
This is mostly in thought that Anime(Anima) is dominating the Support Game. So, rather than just making a patch job of granting +2.5 Crit/Evade to all(even the purer defensive affinites), I thought of how to buff them to make the others have better Value in the Support Game. Fire, Wind, and Anima were fine, especially Anima. Giving Buffs to the others now means that Anima is not the Be-all/End-all choice.
Supporting Characters now have options other than just picking Anima(or other Crit boosters) to help out damage dealers deal damage. Defensive Characters have better options. And Offensive Characters have more options. Rather than all Affinities becoming alike, all Affinities grew closer to each other, better able to work with each other. More Unique Supports can occur as a result.
Looking at them, Light and Dark seem a mishmash, but now more so with the DG. So they are definitely Unique picks. More a result of a note that enemies don't tend to have high crit rates, so for the average PC, Dark and Light are useful options rather than full DG if you don't want to deal with stray crits. Heaven and Earth would also do that if they get modified to 2.5 Crit/DG, though with a different focus with Light/Dark still having Crit. Thunder meanwhile has added 2 Crit to it's 5 DG.
Think that's about all my rambling, are they decently thought out buffs? A lot more random in the middle than the Half +5 Crit / Half +5 DG, but that isn't a bad thing with Anima around in the current Support Meta. A good deal better to defensive and support builds than 2.5 Crit/DG on all affinities though. Far too sameish while not adding options other than Anima and occasionally Ice..
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