AST changes, where we're still weak, and why I'm not upset with Yoshi-P...

[RichardButte]

I just can't take seriously anyone saying Spear is a bad card...

It is THE most situational card in the AST's deck, bar none.

NIN gets a huge benefit from it, not mentionning tanks and their Hallowed Ground with a little coordination.

Even with no ninja and no coordination, the other cards still manage to be very useful. Also, you'd have to be spreading spear to ensure that it gets used at the right time.

Again, this is what makes spear so situational.

But most of all, it's the best card we can cast on US ! LA CU CO LS all benefit greatly from it, allowing for a very decent MP conservation/regeneration, Synastry aswell is enhanced by a spear, even moreso now that it boosts our healing potency.

And what most people usually forget about, it allows to draw MORE cards, reducing the cooldown on Draw and Shuffle.

With THAT much oGCD benefiting from it, it doesn't seem so situational anymore, to me.

But what situation will arise where you'll be popping LA CU CO and LS without wasting some of them?

See, this is the difference between "on paper" and "in practice".

On paper, sure, it'd be great if we had a spear to reduce all of those cooldowns, but that'll almost NEVER happen in actual encounters.

You can control the randomness a bit by spreading spear, but then you're reducing the chance of being able to:

-Give the party 5% damage increase for 30 seconds
-Give one DPS a 10% damage increase for 1 minute
-Give a tank a 10% damage reduction for 1 minute
-Give the party a 5% speed increase for 30 seconds
-Give an ailing healer/DPS/Tank 30% of their TP or MP back over 30 seconds
etc.

Again, you CAN hang onto a Spear in your spread, but you're basically playing ultra-conservatively at that point, eternally waiting for "the right moment" to pop your emergency cooldowns.

And that in itself isn't a BAD thing, but every draw you have a Spear spread is one more potential arrow or balance you won't be able to hang onto to push the next phase faster.