AST Suggestion: Allow us to pick the card BEFORE fight?

[Veesionary]

Honestly I have both AST, WHM, and I even have SCH, just because I really really love healing. I hate how people are hating on AST ever since it came out. Yeah, whm is stronger in healing power, but AST has the power of the cards, I wish we could choose the cards and that not be a random thing, but there's not much you can do about it.

I've only leveled up my sch to 52, so I'm not sure how much I'm going to like it versus whm and AST. I really do wish AST had more kinds of moves though.

[Amiaze]

But you can already "pick" the card simply by waiting it on or doing it during downtime.

This may be a little off-topic, but while I agree with your statement to a degree, this isn't always possible. I'd wager a good number of tanks don't understand how AST works and won't really give you time to pull a card beforehand because they are too concerned with speeding through the dungeons. I've encountered a few.

Of course, this shouldn't have any bearing on how AST gets updated, but the lack of consideration from party members hits AST's performance far harder than it does, say, WHM.

[DkDerek]

Yeah, instead of creating an unique job they decided to create a hybrid, one of the most annoying type of job to balance.
Seriously, i wanna grab whoever had this brilliant idea at the SE team and give one big slap in the face.
-_-

This.

I also remember reading an interview with Yoshi P and he said he wanted to introduce "more" hybrids to the game, because he likes the idea.

The man needs to give his head a shake, or give the keys to someone else.

Go home Yoshi P, you're drunk.

[Taranok]

Balance issues, likely, and people trying to rig the system. Especially given that AST will be getting a rebalancing soon, this could be a very hard thing to do without making them more useful than WHM or SCH.

I think the most effective thing to do...

How can people rig the system more than they're already able to if we can pick the cards before a fight? What could we possibly gain as an advantage from this except saving time? By this logic, Stoneskin II is overpowered because it allows groups to rig the game in their favor. What does stoneskin II actually do? It merely saves time.

Also, your suggestion is already wrong. The thing crippling the class is the very thing you're skirting around by saying there's a balance problem: The class is constantly pretending to either be a WHM or a SCH. As long as that is true, the class will never be balanced.

The very first thing that must be done to fix the AST is to kill the stances and turn them into something else (for example, mutually exclusive cooldowns to help the AST out with its appalling lack of cooldowns). Everything else is of secondary concern to slaying the concept of the AST being a hybrid.

This.

I also remember reading an interview with Yoshi P and he said he wanted to introduce "more" hybrids to the game, because he likes the idea.

The man needs to give his head a shake, or give the keys to someone else.

Go home Yoshi P, you're drunk.

Please don't be true....Hybrids don't work. Hell, when WoW did it, all it did was it inevitably forced the "hybrid" class into a specific role. You remember those Paladin hybrids? Yeah, they were all healers. Druid hybrids? Also healers.

The "hybrid" system was solved in much the same way the SMN/SCH hybrid system was "solved." They gave each spec a unique skillset apart from the opposite set, and gave them a unique playstyle on top of it.

The Arcanist is a great example of how hybrids should be done, while the AST is a great example of how hybrids shouldn't be done.

[DkDerek]

Please don't be true....Hybrids don't work. Hell, when WoW did it, all it did was it inevitably forced the "hybrid" class into a specific role. You remember those Paladin hybrids? Yeah, they were all healers. Druid hybrids? Also healers.

The "hybrid" system was solved in much the same way the SMN/SCH hybrid system was "solved." They gave each spec a unique skillset apart from the opposite set, and gave them a unique playstyle on top of it.

The Arcanist is a great example of how hybrids should be done, while the AST is a great example of how hybrids shouldn't be done.

I meant to say "support" and not "hybrid"...

Hybrids are fine, support classes are not.

My bad.

[Tashim]

I dont think it would be terribly difficult to have draw or redraw have no cooldown outside combat.