Quote Originally Posted by Rahaya View Post
Is an Eye for an Eye that doesn't need to be procced by physical hits weak?
E4E lasts 30 seconds on the target, can be procced multiple times by physical attacks, with the debuff lasting 20 seconds, and most importantly, the debuff can be applied to any number of targets hitting the tank instead of just one.

5% raid damage for 15s seconds or 15% single target is weak?
It's 5/10% for 15 seconds, and yeah, considering the random nature of the buffs, assume you'll only get it 1 in 6 draws, so divide the buff by 6 and you have the actual, statistical average of how much more DPS an AST will give a single target with every draw.

Individually, the buffs even without Royal Roading are more than fine, especially since they are available every half a minute. The real 'issue' is RNG. Everyone brings up the bad RNG like Spires in a row for card effect buffs, and conveniently forget that SE has to balance around really good RNG as well. AST already has Spread which guarantees at least 1 'useful' card every minute.
The buffs range from negligible to almost entirely worthless, and all but two are HUGELY situational, and that's half of the reason the buffs are so terrible.

And the problem is not that the good RNG is balanced around bad RNG. The problem is that the AST is balanced around having weaker healing options (mainly in the coverage and emergency departments) in exchange for the cards, but the cards just ain't worth it.

The CHANCE of boosting the party's DPS by 5% for 15 seconds isn't worth losing out on the emergency healing, better utility, and better MP management of the other healers. It just ISN'T.

If the AST could reliably buff the party with 5% DPS once per minute, sure, then you might be looking at the class being worth bringing, but the odds sit WAY against that happening.