About Shuffle,Spread,Royal Road and Draw.

[Muahbec]

Shuffle's main use is to switch the card you currently have because it is not viable at the moment, that is the only use for the skill, everyone knows that.
Being able to give you the same card kills the whole utility of the skill, or do you use shuffle to get the same card you have? No right?
I would agree for shuffle to give the same card >>IF<< it had a lower cooldown.
People are mentioning the job lore, well i'm sorry, but the lore isn't helping me buff raids, basicaly i don't care to what the lore says if it makes the job unreliable and incredibly hard to manage.
ALSO, again, what makes AST unique between healers is the ability to buff people, but sadly we cannot do that as effectively as we could thanks to the annoying unnecessary long cooldowns and this ridiculous random aspect and if SE is not doing something about the random stuff thanks to the lore, then i will be happy to be the first one to change the lore if that helps in my favorite job's gameplay.
WHM's focus is raw healing power and regens, and so they have a lot of powerful raw heals and regens
SCH's focus is damage mitigation and man, they have a LOT of mitigation tools.
AST's focus is party buff and they have...random cards... that maybe, just maybe will be useful at the moment....and some unnecessary long cooldowns that sometimes will not help at all. (shuffle) OH but they have copies of SCH and WHM skills so cards are fine.... really? Seriously. NO!

[GarnetTribal]

Gameplay > Lore.

Gameplay is why everyone keeps coming back. You're playing a game. Lore should always be tweaked to fit an overall better gameplay design - nothing ridiculous, like suddenly they get access to fairies, but I mean a healthy game design. Shuffle could be better.

[416to305]

Finally 2 people that understand what I was trying to say! I'd rather not even have Shuffle and trade it in for another AoE damage spell at 45 like Holy. When leveling AST doing low level roulette, high level and trials, it was brutal not having Gravity yet and being able to do any AoE damage. I can guarantee there were 10x more times I tried to use Gravity while level synced than there are times I've even used Shuffle and had it be beneficial.

[Roxas_Andrade]

Are you indicating you actually want an unlimited amount of shuffles and spread? Because that's basically what you're saying: Draw -> Don't like -> Put it back (shuffle) -> Don't like -> Put it back (shuffle)

Actually it would make sense if Shuffle was locked on the GCD. You'd have to consider if shuffling the card is more important then healing someone. That would make the skill usable and would fix the problem with RNG that everyone complains about.

But with this effect, this new shuffle shouldn't reset the card time. You have 15sec to shuffle while your card is drawn until you find something useful for or else you'll loose your card. And also the possibility of draw the same card should still be there.

[Muahbec]

Gameplay > Lore.

Gameplay is why everyone keeps coming back. You're playing a game. Lore should always be tweaked to fit an overall better gameplay design - nothing ridiculous, like suddenly they get access to fairies, but I mean a healthy game design. Shuffle could be better.

THIS.
As i said, i don't care to what the lore says if that makes my favorite job unreliable and my long CDs almost useless.
I want to be able to do what the job was meant to do, buff raids. But the job can't do that well enough thanks to the randomness of the system that makes the job unreliable (you can't use buffs at the right moments or when needed because, well, they are all random.)
Example: Ravana EX burn phase- i want to buff my party's damage output- HEY i'm an AST!, i can buff them - *Draw* Spire, well... NO WAIT, i still have another chance *Shuffle* Spire........ burn phase ends.
So basicaly, if my job (supposed to be a buffer) can't buff people correctly or when needed.....what's its purpose anyway?
Because as we all know, without cards AST is a WHM copy and a SCH wannabe.

Reducing Shuffle and Spread CDs would not kill the randomness but it would give us an opportunity to at least manage our buffs better.

And please people, i don't want "fine" cards, i want my favorite job's unique aspect to shine just like WHM heals shine and SCH shields shine.

[Muahbec]

Actually it would make sense if Shuffle was locked on the GCD. You'd have to consider if shuffling the card is more important then healing someone. That would make the skill usable and would fix the problem with RNG that everyone complains about.

But with this effect, this new shuffle shouldn't reset the card time. You have 15sec to shuffle while your card is drawn until you find something useful for or else you'll loose your card. And also the possibility of draw the same card should still be there.

That's an interesting idea.
Since we are also healers, we cannot lose 100% of our time shuffling, AND that would also make the job more reliable since we would have more control over our buffs.
(And i agree, if Shuffle was locked on the GCD the chance of drawing the same card should stay.)

[Ashelia_Ferron]

How about this: you can shuffle as much as you want, BUT shuffling doesn't reset the timer when you drew the first time.

This puts a limit on shuffles but prevents abuse and brings the risk of shuffling too much and losing the draw. They could shorten the card timers if needed.

Just a thought.

[Eloah]

Then spear should be changed to affect ongoing CDs as well, we can't guess when someone is about to use their CDs >_>

Not sure if someone mentioned this or not, I haven't read through the entire thread yet. But the spear should already be retroactive. I noticed someone mentioned this and when I was playing Astro I watched my own cooldowns carefully. I had spear in my spread and used a drawn card. I watched the cooldown countdown, then I used spear, and the cooldown spead up considerably, so I think that the effects do account for already active cooldowns as well, they just might gain the effect and then lose it once its gone, maybe not keep it the entire duration; though I can't say for sure.

[Muahbec]

Not sure if someone mentioned this or not, I haven't read through the entire thread yet. But the spear should already be retroactive. I noticed someone mentioned this and when I was playing Astro I watched my own cooldowns carefully. I had spear in my spread and used a drawn card. I watched the cooldown countdown, then I used spear, and the cooldown spead up considerably, so I think that the effects do account for already active cooldowns as well, they just might gain the effect and then lose it once its gone, maybe not keep it the entire duration; though I can't say for sure.

Really?
I'm going to test that right now. I'll edit with the result.

*edit*
Maybe its just me but...i saw no difference :/

[Eloah]

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I agree with both of these ideas, it would make shuffle more lore and play friendly.