AST: What it means to be a "hybrid"...

[RichardButte]

From my own activity with both SCH and AST, my AST beats out my SCH in HPS unless I am utilizing Eos. If I choose to utilize Selene, I lose a major chunk of my HPS in exchange for party DPS buffs. Stop acting like SCH doesn't have a trade off.

The healing throughput for SCH isn't the issue. It's the fact that SCH has reliable and versatile emergency buttons while AST doesn't.

When the shit hits the fan, the AST has no answer while the SCH has several (I have a 60 SCH as well).

The tradeoff has to be equal, or to put it numerically (even though it's difficult to measure), if the AST's poor emergency options leave the party with a 10% higher chance of wiping, then the AST's contribution has to end the encounter 10% faster to compensate, otherwise the AST is just an inferior healer.

And again, risk vs. reward dictates that the risk of an AST NOT being able to end the encounter more quickly due to RNG means that there has to also be a chance of the AST being able to end the encounter MUCH more quickly.

If SE were to remove the RNG element and allow ASTs to pick the card they wanted every time or cycle through all 6 in a set order, sure, the class would need minor buffs at most.

But with a 17% chance of getting the card you want, that card had better REALLY do some work when you actually manage to draw it...

The better solution, in my opinion, is to make all the cards worthwhile. Two of them are useful in nearly all situations, and this should be the case for all six of them.

I would honestly prefer this as well, as Ewer (which we use on ourselves most of the time anyway) and Spire are just awful, Bole only helps to make up for our weaker emergency options and Spear is stupidly situational.

But I doubt SE would be willing to go through and revamp all of the cards, hence why I suggest simple tweaks instead.