AST cards in raid

After hours upon hours of raiding as an Astrologian, tired of Royal Roading Ewers and Spires just to get them again on the next roll and a few friends asking how the class should work, i drew a kind of routine of what to do with my cards. However, it is (and I am) obviously far from perfect so i'd like to know this forum's opinion about it.

Base statements :
- 8 players raid groups only
- Base routine to think about even if sometimes other choices are better (obviously, everything can be situational)
- Trying to optimize DPS cards to spend as much of them as possible in AoE, while trying to avoid AoE Spears/Bole/Spires etc.
-Trying NOT to override Royal Road buffs if possible.

It basically looks like this :

http://i.imgur.com/HcYZfWd.png

bigger : http://i.imgur.com/HcYZfWd.png


Thoughts ? Would you play them differently, add or remove something, play a random Extended or Enhanced Spire or just get rid of the card ?

A for effort, at least
D- for the thought you put it in

Mainly because the depth of this "flow chart" is extremely shallow and the flow chart assumes every card but balance and arrow are completely useless by default for any situation and/or encounter. If one would follow this flow chart and not draw a single arrow or balance, they'll never play out a card. Not to mention there's a gigantic contradiction in there on the arrow/balance branch and ewer/spire branch.

Using a flow chart was just much simpler than using words to describe what i would do. I admit it might not be the best way to put it, but it (kinda) works. Thing is, if i never draw Balance or Arrow i don't feel that i have any significant impact in my raid, and always draw a few of them (long fights like A3 or A4 gives you a lot of draws after all).

About the contradiction, thanks, just saw that you'll never have an Expanded buff without a spread, my bad.

It's also too easy hit a dead end with that flowchart of yours: Bole/Ewer/Spire/Spear -> Shuffle -> Bole/Ewer/Spire/Spear -> Royal Road -> Next draw another Bole/Ewer/Spire/Spear -> No shuffle, already got Royal Road. Now what?

In the end, I'll point back at how shallow I think the flowchart is. Not only in value of use, but extremely misleading for whichever aspiring astrologian would take this seriously.

As I said, the base idea was not to make the ultimate flawless chart and post it in a guide or something. It was just to illustrate what i do and ask what people usually do in those situations. I'd rather talk about class mechanics instead of what i used to explain how i'm doing with my cards if you don't mind ;)

In your exemple... well it's covered. Ewer/Spire, click the card off, Bole Spear override royal road... most of the time i wouldn't burn my RR buff for a Bole or a Spear.

What I do is use every card until I get what I want. If you constantly royal road all your cards away looking for arrows and balances your wasting a lot of buffs. So instead you should use every card you get no matter if people need them or don't until you get the card you want to Aoe/Extend/Enchace. You spread that card and then you use all your cards until you get the card that will give you the buff you want. It's an easier way of making sure all cards are used so you won't end up giving no cards looking for a balance or arrow while the RNG is not I. Your favor.

Spear is very useful on Machinists and Ninjas (and perhaps Bards) during a fight, and can be very useful in melee if you get it on the pull. Just stating that it should be used on yourself for LA or shuffling it is not particularly good skills from a raid AST.

Bole says hello to tank busters, something a raid AST should be looking out for. Situational usage of cards is important for a raid AST.

With Arrow and Balance, why are you suggesting that if you cant aoe it, you should spread it as a priority instead of using it? On a single dps for burn phases its very very very good, and keeping it spread indefinitely until you get an aoe royal road is pretty much gimping your buffing performance throughout a raid.

Spire/ewer should be uses appropriatly. Ewer can be used on yourself, as many raid AST take the place of WHM and ar expcted to put out a lot of mana intensive solo healing. Spire can let a war go a bit more crazy in deliverence, can let melee dps do more aoe when needed etc in raids.

I dont agree with this flow chart. It's not the way astrologian should be used imho.
What I love about astrologian is that this job is incredibly situational. In some fights like a2s i use Spire to refresh tps of my melee and bole one of my tanks while I solo heal them both. And of course there are fights i draw only one of two balance, if i did what your flowchart says i would use just a few cards per fight. If you wait the card you want, sacrificing the others, it's like you're not supporting your party but you're playing a white mage that sometimes plays with cards.

Well, maybe it's just me but i don't really feel much of a difference on tank bursters with Bole.
Wether it's hypercompressed plasma, prey marks on gobwidows or on pretty much every part of A3, the only time i felt something was on Cascades, but everyone takes a lot of damage and get topped of in AoE so Bole still doesn't make much of a difference on one player.

My MCH and Ninjas told me that "Spear doesn't matter since even if we get our CDs back earlier, we'll wait for a burst phase to use them" and i don't feel like wasting my Spread on a Spear to keep it for burst phases (ofcourse if i get a Spear right before a burst phase, i'll play it, but this would be sheer luck)

My melees don't benefit from Spire since they can sustain themselves on most fights, aside from A2S where DRG and MNK swap their role as gobwalker driver when they run out of TPs and my WHM cohealer barely notices when he gets an Ewer even on A3S P4.

From that point of view, even if i do agree that AST is very situational and there's a FEW situations where other cards than Balance and Arrow are useful, i wouldn't say it's most of the time.

The idea behind keeping Balance/Arrow in your spread waiting for an opportunity to AoE comes from the many times i got Balance/Arrow, played it on a single target and drew Ewer/Spire right after, cursing myself for not waiting.
The way i do it kinda "wastes" 30s of Draw but at least keeps that DPS card safe until the next AoE, allowing me to play every other DPS card on single targets, even if it means i sometimes draw a Balance with another Balance in my Spread. That way, i'll still play useful cards, and when Spire/Ewer comes say hello, Balance is ready to be dropped with it.

Dunno, you're making me feel like i greatly underestimate Bole/Spire/Ewer, but in the same time the occasions to really make those shine are so, SO rare and my raid buddies never felt like they were needed or even would make their life that much easier.

In response to your mchs and ninjas.. they should NEVER hold on to cooldowns for "burst phases" unless its the hands in as3, and spear also affects mudra cooldown, allowing ninja to use another ninjutsu before the 20s mark, which is a dps increase no matter what angle you look at it.
If you dont have a RR youre saving and you draw a bole.. just throw it on the tank anyways. you can solo heal in that time so your co-healer can dps. you might not feel the effects, but theyre there. they help. no sense in burning too many cards, youre gimping yourself.

Ewer is immensly powerful, especially on summoners, or your co-healer. or yourself. More mana=more wiggle room, or for the summoner, if theyre good, they will realize you ewer'd them, and they will throw out extra ruin III. dps increase. if neither are applicable, RR fodder for Expanded.

Spire is considerably less useful, but if no DoW are hurting for tp, more expanded RR fodder. but as you said, your melee swap the gob, whereas if you threw a spire on your monk (who is much better aoe and single target damage than dragoon) they would be able to dps longer. dps increase.

all of your cards are dps increases one way or another, the more of them you burn on royal road, the more dps loss you incur. royal road and shuffle both should be used for strategic buffing, setting up for phases that require heavy dps, heavy healing, etc.
spreads go to arrow/balance first and foremost, or spear/ewer situationally. an expanded spear on pull is WAY underrated.

example: Youre on oppressor savage, .5 has yet to come out, you have an arrow on spread, no current royal road, and you draw a bole. shuffle is ready to be used, and a tankbuster is coming up soon.

your options now are extensive. you could toss the bole on the tank, and save the arrow for the next draw, hopeful for an ewer/spire.
you could shuffle the bole for a hopeful ewer/spire for some serious raidwide dps before .5 comes out.
you could royal road the bole and arrow a dps for a more reliable dps increase (because you wont always get expanded rr)

the strengths of AST is mainly in how many options it has, but making the wrong decisions is also a major weakness of AST. It has amazing potential, and you shouldnt downplay the potential of any of your cards. they are all very strong, albeit not always in the same ways.

I wil try to explain myself better. If you just wait for balance and arrow it's just better you go scholar so you can sustain party dps and give a small aoe and constant haste to the party.
My co healer is a scholar so my job is solo healing most of the time while the scholar does damage. Sometimes an Ewer on myself can save a mage's ballad or anyway it can posticipate it. In A2 savage we dont change magitek driver so my monk always suffers for tp and this is how i can help. If i get bole and use it on one of my tanks i can say to my co healer to keep on dpsing while i solo heal.
All of the cards can make a difference, a bole used on weak raised ppl, mana to mages and of course also arrow and balance. I agree with ppl Who say that if you use only 2 or 3 cards in a fight you are gimping youself.

I agree.

Appreciate the effort but there is more to it than that chart suggests.

E.g. AOE phase coming up, melees are going to need TP so if you end up giving them arrow in a tp harsh phase congrats you just burnt them out.

I love the concept but strongly disagree on some choice XD

But to be honest it depend of many thing like : which raid you're doing or your group (more magic user/more melee)

I use many many spire and arrow in royal road because the next card can be much more longer and it can be a great help.
I burn almost all the TP card into royal road XD

i feel like this flow chart is half way there.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kaisersoke

Spire is considerably less useful, but if no DoW are hurting for tp, more expanded RR fodder. but as you said, your melee swap the gob, whereas if you threw a spire on your monk (who is much better aoe and single target damage than dragoon) they would be able to dps longer. dps increase.

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Yeah no, you don't change a well rounded strat on the RNG factor of Spire cards, they're used to swap drivers at a fixed wave no matter how much spire i threw on them, which could be 5 or zero.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kaisersoke

example: Youre on oppressor savage, .5 has yet to come out, you have an arrow on spread, no current royal road, and you draw a bole. shuffle is ready to be used, and a tankbuster is coming up soon.

your options now are extensive. you could toss the bole on the tank, and save the arrow for the next draw, hopeful for an ewer/spire.
you could shuffle the bole for a hopeful ewer/spire for some serious raidwide dps before .5 comes out.
you could royal road the bole and arrow a dps for a more reliable dps increase (because you wont always get expanded rr)

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Love your exemple there. If a RR the bole and Arrow a DPS, there sure will be a DPS increase BUT in the event the next one is Spire/Ewer i'll feel screwed. Bole doesn't make enough of a difference as i said to use it (especially on that fight where the only hard hitting ability is Hypercompressed plasma, and everything else is healed with either Benefic 1 on tanks, AH/Helios on raid and Synastry on preys.)
In that exemple, using Bole yields almost no benefit, Shuffle is always a good option to get Ewer/Spire and RR is the second best one. Let's say i RR'd the Bole, next turn i'll have either :
-DPS card, throw the enhanced DPS on single target while keeping the arrow in your spread for AoE (and still remains true for every next draw)
-Spear/another bole, In that case yeah, might as well throw it on the right target (namely MCH/NIN or Tank) BUT will wield almost no benefit so RR or using it will almost be the same when you look at the big picture (a 10min long fight)
-Spire/Ewer give that opportunity to, yes, override the bole RR buff BUT allows to AoE the Arrow.

For a "waste" of 30s (Draw cooldown) in your exemple, by RRing the Bole I effectively went from one good option (single target enhanced arrow) to two good options (enhanced arrow OR AoE arrow) and a "meh, don't care much" one.

Now A1 and A2 are on farming phase for pretty much every raiding guild, A3 is still an issue but close to farm aswell, A4 is still an issue for most. (At least from what i've seen). Means that (edit : in my group) in A1 A2 people are so overgeared that TP/MP management is not an issue anymore, Bole is almost never noticeable, Spear is useful for the pull but will almost always be wasted midfight (CDs already on cooldown or DPS will hold onto those CDs for the next burn phase). On A3, hands don't hit hard enough for Bole to make a difference on a single tank, and most of the big damage (namely raidwide slap to the face and x6splash and Cascade on P4) will be healed in AoE until pretty much everyone is topped off (or will be with MII soon), a case where only the tank taking slightly less damage (and everyone else eating their own teeth) is effectively useless. Same for A4's Carnage zero, or that big ball of doom everyone has to take.

Ewer is the only one we can argue about, but let's face it : BLM, SCH and SMN couldn't care less, my very own WHM tells me that he doesn't feel any difference, the only good target being myself... and i dont see the point of using a potential AoE DPS increase to make up for my own mistakes in mana management. So yeah... looking at the big picture (pretty long fights) i just can't see a lot of moments where using the "lesser" cards is that much better than discarding them to enhance the good ones (that may never come, but come on... they'll come at least a few times unless incredibly bad luck)
(Keep in mind that i told in the OP that i know they're situational and SOMETIMES, when the stars align and you get the right card with the right buff at the right moment those lesser cards turn into good ones. But the chart was here to explain my vision of those things in MOST cases.)

Few numbers in exemple:
On a PLD, Living liquid hits (in single target) from 2.4k to 3.7k damage. My Benefic I heals for 3.5k (~5k crit). 10% dmg mitigation with Bole would turn those damage from 2100 to 3330. I can still heal that in one Benefic I. Every other ability that does MORE than those damages are in AoE and will be healed in AoE regardless of how much the tank has taken (which will probably be less than everyone else considering their own mitigation).
Even if i was less geared and Benefic I was healing for only... i dunno, 2.8k maybe (i think it was the value in law gear) it still wouldn't be good enough to spare me more than 2 or 3 heals on its full duration. Now, yeah, there are tank bursters. And Bole, if drew right before that tank burster (in the 15s before it actually) could and should be used. How often does that happen ?

I don't do it as much now since the AST buffs but i occasionally put Ewer cards in my spread if things get a little intense and i need a little help with my MP. i do hate getting a Ewer / Spire after Royal Roading them :(

Your "well rounded strat" may seem silly to other groups, for example, I do all the gobwalking in my group and nobody has tp problems thanks to our ast and goad. if your monk has tp at the time they usually swap, its a dps increase. You can deny what I say as much as you want, but its obvious youre very close minded and centered around arrow and balance. They're good cards, so its good to setup for them, but you cant rely on rng, and your chart seems to display tossing cards that arent those two cards, spamming royal road and shuffle, never using anything else.

You can say bole isnt noticeable all you want, but damage reduction is damage reduction on all damage taken, which means less time healing, more time dpsing, its not debatable, if you didnt want any input, you shouldnt have posted your chart here, asking for thoughts on how theyd be played differently.

Like I said, good summoners will know their limits with an ewer, ewer impacts SMN dps. Of course its not the best thing you can do, but you wont always be able to do the best. RNG. Throwing away your cards like you suggest is silly.

I get that strats vary a lot from groups to groups. But changing a strat on an RNG factor is almost always a bad idea. I can't reliably tell my MNK or DRG how many Spires i could land on them during a fight on A2, which lets them wondering if they'll be allright or in deep sh*t, making the planning of their attack a nightmare (at least from their input on this).
So yeah, on paper, it COULD result on a dps increase. Could.

Spire gets 200/210TP on 15s (raw without buffs). Making them regen from 300TP (natural regen) to 510 in those 15s.

I don't have a MNK so i can't say about their costs, but on a DRG, those 200TP are barely a TT/VT/FT combo. One. On a full fight of 10min, per card (per wasted AoE opportunity). Or one and a half Rings of Thorns/Doom Spike. DPS increase yes, ofcourse ! Significant one over that same combo/AoE boosted by 5/10/15% for 30/60/75 seconds (probably more % as buffs in this game are multiplicative with BfB) ? Or even significant one over bringing my SCH, having twice the personal DPS of an AST and Selene for a sure buff every 30s ? Not so much.
Ofcourse if they're desperately begging for TP and you happen to draw a Spire, throw it on them, i never said it shouldn't be done. But it's extremely situational in only one fight (A2) whereas in other ones they can fairly well sustain themselves.

As for the Bole, damage reduction is damage reduction, again, on paper. If it is not enough on the biggest fights the game has to offer now to spare me more than one or two heals, it is just not worth a 30s CD. But yeah, more time dpsing. Two heals spared, that's two more Malefic II. (On 10min, that would be for me for exemple a 5.54 additionnal DPS if i only spammed Malefic for the entire fight, if i could land two more Malefic than usual). DPs increase indeed, can't argue with that.

I want input. I want GOOD input. Realistic one on how to maximize the effect of the cards that are actually noticeable on a parser.
So far, the only one i got was your SMN one. I was completely discarding them as Aetherflow is super powerful but indeed, +-1500 additionnal mana could be nice for them sometimes, i admit i completely overlooked that and thanks.

Your group shouldn't be relying on your cards. They can't when RNG is involved.

Pretty sure Spire is 150 TP over 15 seconds if you don't Royal Road or extend it in any way. Could be converted into an extra AoE or keep you trucking just long enough until Invigorate is ready again, but otherwise you generally have enough breaks to not make TP an issue. Simply put, as long as you aren't hitting full TP or never bottoming out during a fight, Spire is useful.

Bole is honestly... superfluous. Auto-attacks can already be handled with just HoTs and Embrace spam. And for tank busters, tanks are likely already saving their cooldowns for those, further devaluing Bole, due to how mitigation stacks multiplicatively. Even just something like Shadow Wall would lower Bole's power down to 5.6% (20% from Grit and 30% from Shadow Wall totals 44% damage reduction, adding Bole on that makes for 49.6% damage reduction). I won't claim that I don't feel a difference when I use Bole on the tank on large trash packs in Expert Roulette, but let's be real, your co-healer won't start DPSing during Hydrothermal Missile+Royal Fount+Hypercompressed Plasma just because you popped Bole. And during boring auto-attack moments, one of your healers is likely DPSing already, Bole or not. So I'd personally say Bole won't change a thing in general, really. :p

If one wants to convert Ewer to DPS, it's probably better on a healer. Considering a basic Ewer restores 1325 MP, the extra 40 Potency you gain by replacing a Ruin I with a Ruin III (176 MP vs 1060 MP) pales in comparison to the 620 Potency of Aero III and Aero II (707+442 MP) or 890 Potency (618+353+353 MP) of a full set of Astrologian DoTs. Of course, that assumes that the healer converts usual idle/regeneration time into more GCD usage, instead of just sitting on the MP. There's also the issue of miss chances to take into account for some spells. And in the case of a Summoner, it would be fairer to compare the 7-8 auto-attacks (roughly 750 damage in total, testing with my Hive Grimoire) you'd gain inbetween Ruin II (353 MP vs Ruin I for 176) casts, rather than converting the extra MP into a Ruin III. One could also argue that increased Foe Requiem uptime could make Ewer valuable on a Bard for more caster and healer DPS.

Spear is... annoying. First, one needs to know that your target will actually have cooldowns to use in those 20 seconds that Spear lasts. Then you also need to consider if your target can actually use the cooldown in the time that a cooldown would otherwise not be available. Taking a 2 minute boss fight and a Ninja as an example. And for this mental exercise, let's ignore that realistically speaking, you won't be able to get out all cooldowns perfectly/simultaneously due to conflicting timers, and it's unlikely you'll be able to have permanent Spear uptime.

No Spear
6 Ninjutsu (20 second cooldown).
2 Trick Attack and 2 Internal Release (60 second cooldown for both of them).
2 Blood for Blood (80 second cooldown).
1 Kassatsu (120 second cooldown).
4 Jugulate (30 second cooldown).
2 Duality, Dream Within a Dream and Mug (90 second cooldown on all of them).

So, let's tally up the potency of all these actions.

6 Ninjutsu, 4 Raiton (360 each) and 2 Suiton (180 each) to enable Trick Attack=1'800 Potency
2 Trick Attack (400 each)=800 Potency
1 Kassatsu that we'll convert into a guaranteed Raiton crit=540 Potency
4 Jugulate (80 each)=320 Potency
2 Dream Within a Dream (300 each)=600 Potency
2 Mug (140 each)=280 Potency
2 Duality converted into double Aeolian Edge (effective 320 gain each)=640 Potency

In total, 4'980 potency from our cooldowns, ignoring the potential benefits of Internal Release and Blood for Blood.

With Spear
7 Ninjutsu (16 second cooldown).
3 Trick Attack and Internal Release (48 second cooldown for both of them).
2 Blood for Blood (64 second cooldown).
2 Kassatsu (96 second cooldown).
5 Jugulate (24 second cooldown).
2 Duality, Dream Within a Dream and Mug (72 second cooldown for all of them).

Again, let's tally up!

7 Ninjutsu, 4 Raiton and 3 Suiton to enable Trick Attacks=1'980 Potency
3 Trick Attack=1'200 Potency
2 Kassatsu into 2 guaranteed Raiton crits=1'080 Potency
5 Jugulate=400 Potency
2 Dream Within a Dream=600 Potency
2 Mug=280 Potency
2 Duality=640 Potency

A total of 6'180 Potency, giving a sizeable gain of 1'200 Potency over a Ninja without Spear, with an extra Internal Release thrown in for some more big crits!

Of course, realistically speaking, you likely won't gain that much. Some encounters will have you gain more from a Spear, some will get you less. Due to animations preventing cooldowns being popped simultaneously, you can also only get so many in into a Spear window. Some classes have few cooldowns, others have plenty to use. As a quick example of a general fight, due to opener shenanigans, I won't Trick Attack the Living Liquid until roughly 10 seconds into the fight. If I had a Spear, I would be able to use Trick Attack again at roughly 58 seconds... but Living Liquid goes invincible and switches to the hand at that point, taking ~7 seconds to become vulnerable and targettable again. So I could Trick Attack again as early as 65 seconds into the fight. I've now lost 7 of the 12 seconds that shortened my Trick Attack cooldown. Granted, I could Trick Attack right before the Living Liquid goes invincible, but at the same time we'd lose nearly the entire Trick Attack debuff for the rest of the raid, and if I fail to get it off before Living Liquid goes invincible, there's a very real chance I'll have lost damage by using Suiton (and it expiring) to enable it instead of another Fuuma Shuriken/Raiton. However, on a fight like Oppressors, I could Trick Attack immediately at 58 seconds, even though you potentially lose some raid damage because others might not have their cooldowns ready due to me receiving Spear over them (Dreadwyrm Trance+Tri Disaster being a perfect example of Trick Attack synergy, identical cooldowns on all of them).

Essentially, Spear has too many ifs going for it to be regularly appreciated and not be a nightmare to calculate.

Whew, that was a long post. If I'd have to summarize... I do believe that Balance and Arrow are the only generally applicable cards. Their benefits are immediate and don't rely on maintaining strategical awareness that would make Sun Tzu blush. However, I also think that your flowchart is far too simplistic, shallow and downplays the value of cards other than Balance and Arrow. They may not be as good, but they can still serve some kind of purpose, RNG and Draw cooldowns be damned. So,

Sensually Superior: Balance, Arrow
Occasionally Orgasming: Spire, Ewer
Turn to Tinder: Bole, Spear

Bole is as superfluous or useful as Eye for an Eye. It's not something anyone should be relying on, but it helps stabilizing things when it happens. The only thing separating it from E4E is it has an opportunity cost gated by RNG (and then again it's guaranteed mitigation vs. proc).

Big things are made of a lot of small things, and that should be an AST's motto when it comes to cards.

Eye for an Eye affects the damage the entire raid takes due to the effect actually reducing the damage the boss does.

I might not like the roundabout method Eye for an Eye uses for its activation, but Bole is, charitably speaking, pretty unimpressive in comparison.

Again, you're not (ever) relying on Eye for raidwide damage either, you just throw it, hope it's going to proc and mitigate incoming damage either way. And it flat out doesn't work if there's no physical damage on your tank at all. Again, big things etc. It's fine to not use it but every bit helps with harder content.

I'm not saying to use every and any Bole, simply suggesting small things may and will add up so considering them in the heat of things at least holds some value.

And I say this as someone who RRs and shuffles most Boles, Ewers, Spires and Spears because I like my Balances as much as the next guy.

That's fine. I personally think the OP is exaggerating with anything but Balance and Arrow being borderline useless, but I also think others are exaggerating the value of the other cards too. They're nice, just not as generally applicable as Balance and Arrow. :p

You could say we have Hyperbole going on in here! Am I right?

...I'll see myself out.

My Astrologian is just 51, but I use my cards mostly like this:

4-man dungeons:

Balance & Arrow : Spread

Spear & Ewer : Shuffle

Spire & Bole : Royal Road

My main goal is to get Spire / Bole for the Royal Road and then to use Arrow / Balance for a group-buff. I don't know if this is the way to go at 60 but I thought this would be the best way to use cards.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Raminax

Eye for an Eye affects the damage the entire raid takes due to the effect actually reducing the damage the boss does.

I might not like the roundabout method Eye for an Eye uses for its activation, but Bole is, charitably speaking, pretty unimpressive in comparison.

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Uh no. Bole is a guaranteed 10% damage reduction to the recipient every single time it's used. E4E is purely up to RNG, and the percentage of it proc'ing is only 20%. If it doesn't proc, it doesn't mitigate any damage.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NorthernLadMSP

Uh no. Bole is a guaranteed 10% damage reduction to the recipient every single time it's used. E4E is purely up to RNG, and the percentage of it proc'ing is only 20%. If it doesn't proc, it doesn't mitigate any damage.

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The chance is high enough and the duration long enough for Eye for an Eye to activate at least once, in my experience at least. If you cast Eye for an Eye when Ravana spends the next 20 seconds channeling some Liberation, you've really only got yourself to blame (And in that case Bole would also be useless 66% of its duration anyway). :p

If I'd have to choose, I'd always pick Eye for an Eye, maybe preferring Bole for encounters like T4/A2 because Eye for an Eye might take a while to affect everything.

Like i said, argue all you want and say that my input isnt "good" but many other people seem to disagree with you also. Obviously the more direct cards are stronger, thats not what this thread is about. Its about how ridiculously shallow your chart is and how little value you place on cards that are not those. Additionally, to the longer post, i guess AST is just not for you if you dont want soem sort of strategic planning to your cards, because any good AST worth their salt will tell you its not good to throw away cards constantly for the "better ones" and that its a bigger dps increase to just work with what you get.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kaisersoke

Additionally, to the longer post, i guess AST is just not for you if you dont want soem sort of strategic planning to your cards, because any good AST worth their salt will tell you its not good to throw away cards constantly for the "better ones" and that its a bigger dps increase to just work with what you get.

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I question how in the world you got that from my post, but hey! I could be nice and clarify my position instead of being snide.

Not appreciating all cards equally doesn't mean I always Royal Road/Shuffle anything besides Balance and Arrow. Despite hating on Bole and Spear for an entire paragraph each and a few more posts, I still admitted to feeling their effects in certain circumstances.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Raminax

I question how in the world you got that from my post, but hey! I could be nice and clarify my position instead of being snide.

Not appreciating all cards equally doesn't mean I always Royal Road/Shuffle anything besides Balance and Arrow. Despite hating on Bole and Spear for an entire paragraph each and a few more posts, I still admitted to feeling their effects in certain circumstances.

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He wasn't responding to you :P It's from a chain of replies starting from this post where the OP is "defending" his silly chart - Which seemingly represents his playstyle as Astrologian and which Kaisersoke (and me as well) deemed extremely shallow.

Well, I took long post as referring to my unnecessarily long post. :(