Please let Astrologians Pick the First Cards outside combat within Raiding Instances

[ShaneDawn]

I cannot see how the OP's suggestion is unbalanced. All it does is reduce the amount of waiting between pulls. Class/job balance matters only in combat, so I would say that this is no more "abusable" than the cooldown reset on wipe we got in 3.4. In fact I think they should go further with regards to out-of-combat waiting around:

> All players should respawn with full MP and TP on wipe.
> SMNs and SCHs should respawn with the maximum number of Aetherflow stacks available to them at their current level. MCHs should respawn with 5 ammo.
> Redraw's cooldown reduced to 1 second outside of combat (this would be easier to do than adding a card selection system).
> Stoneskin II's cast time and MP cost removed and the skill made available to other classes that can cross-class Stoneskin.

I'm sure there may be other things that can be done as well. The point is - none of these changes would affect how a job performs in combat (and therefore the job's desirability) at all. It's just pure quality-of-life, the same as the standing there waiting for cooldowns that we mercifully no longer have to do.

This is also a splendid suggestion. And you also nailed the point here:in a closed environment (non-pugs) AST already has the tools to enable a very strong pull with a guaranteed Balance Spread (+ Single Balance). It is just a lengthy, cumbersome process that amounts to nothing else than wasting everyone's time. Enabling for a faster draw of meaningful cards in a raiding instance would not make anything stronger per se, only reduce the amount of time wasted sitting on our hands. Any question about certain AST cards being too powerful is a matter of class-balance that should be discussed separately.

No. This is part of the skill and theme of being an Astrologian; being able to deal with what fortune gives you. Being able to sit on an AoE Balance the second you enter instanced content actively detriments both WHM & SCH, as well as taking away some of the skill and enjoyment from playing AST.

In a similar vein, this is equivalent to demanding Outlaw Rogues' Roll the Bones buffs to be what you want in Legion. The RNG aspect is what makes the class feel dynamic, why would you want to take that away?

There is no difference in either skill or decision-making in rolling for the same cards for a minute or fifteen minutes, if you're going to go for that specific combination of cards no matter what. In actual combat it's a whole another story, but I'm only suggesting changes to the down-time period between pulls, where you already have the liberty of going for whichever cards you could ever want. And to specify this even further, the suggestion is only limited to raiding instances and maybe Extreme Trials. I am not suggesting any changes to the Astrologian gameplay in actual combat, nor am I out to destroy your aesthetic feeling of the class.

Theme? That could be used up as an argument I guess. But should we respect theme to a degree, where it's effectively crippling gameplay from a (competitive) raiding perspective?

If you feel like any of the proposed changes would either make AST too strong or break the aesthetic feeling of the class, you're free to suggest better alternatives. Even nerfs or changes the cards itself can be discussed. I just don't see the current system as exactly healthy, if the "optimal" gameplay requires you to actually... not play at all for roughly third of your raid time?

[Osmond]

You asking an impossible request that already programmed in the game that will most likely never ever going to implement. It's a dumb idea to be put in place and it's better off to wait every 30secs to get the card you want to add in your spread...........................

[AmalonStar]

From what I skimmed over here basicly you're wanting to pull the cards when you want and how you want them. Being able to do that defeats the entire basis of the ast job, the cards are pulled at random as fate dictates didn't you pay attention to the job quest dialogue?

If you're trying to break speed records exit and then re-enter after a wipe

[Naunet]

Having an AST pull whatever is not really an option in any half-serious raiding environment.

It's not nearly as required as you're making it out to be. I'm fairly sure a more-than-half-serious raiding environment is perfectly fine without having an AoE Balance right at the start. I can guarantee you would be making more progress and faster if you stopped "twiddling your thumbs needlessly, waiting for that dream pull."

[ShaneDawn]

It's not nearly as required as you're making it out to be. I'm fairly sure a more-than-half-serious raiding environment is perfectly fine without having an AoE Balance right at the start. I can guarantee you would be making more progress and faster if you stopped "twiddling your thumbs needlessly, waiting for that dream pull."

What progression when you already have had the current fights under farm status for months? As I've stated before, progression and simple weekly kills are an entirely different beast, where cards don't really play a big role. I am talking from the view point of going for optimized, fast and repeated runs of the same content, the attempts of which are artifically slowed down by having to wait for said cards. A cumbersome process, that was supposed to get better with cooldown resets but really didn't, since AST stepped into the meta.

But alas, maybe I'll take your advice and just go with those Enhanced Spears instead.

I will probably stop replying, as half the comments here either misunderstand the issue or don't bother reading the opening post in its entirety.

Thanks for all the comments everyone. Some decent thoughts and insight, even among all the utter confusion caused by this thread.

[Gokuhan]

The biggest problem:

If you can auto draw any card out of combat, then nearly every pull in a dungeon would have a spread Balance used on it. I understand why you are so frustrated but you are asking for too much.

[Youkulm]

What progression when you already have had the current fights under farm status for months?

No one is misunderstanding you. They don't agree with you. Big difference.

I asked this in a previous post, i don't know if you missed it or you're ignoring it...

Why do you need it "between pulls" when you have it on farm, hmm? You don't. Prepare between turns, before raid, and during breaks. Not hard. Other Speed run groups seem to have no issues. Stop wasting your time on dream-pulls as a group and just do it. If you stopped waiting for the perfect card setup and just pulled you'd probably have been done in the time you waited for that balance. Don't ask for changes because your AST didn't want to set up buffs before going into A9S this week.

[Naunet]

What progression when you already have had the current fights under farm status for months? As I've stated before, progression and simple weekly kills are an entirely different beast, where cards don't really play a big role. I am talking from the view point of going for optimized, fast and repeated runs of the same content, the attempts of which are artifically slowed down by having to wait for said cards.

I'm not sure how you're optimizing your time by waiting upwards of 15 minutes before a pull for a card, when you could have pulled and been done with it in that time.

[ShaneDawn]

No one is misunderstanding you. They don't agree with you. Big difference.

I asked this in a previous post, i don't know if you missed it or you're ignoring it...

I did not reply to your post, because I think you have a misconception about speedkilling in general and the reply would turn out lengthy. But since you're so keen on getting a dialogue, then here we go.

Why do you need it "between pulls" when you have it on farm, hmm? You don't. Prepare between turns, before raid, and during breaks. Not hard. Other Speed run groups seem to have no issues. Stop wasting your time on dream-pulls as a group and just do it. If you stopped waiting for the perfect card setup and just pulled you'd probably have been done in the time you waited for that balance. Don't ask for changes because your AST didn't want to set up buffs before going into A9S this week.

First of all, you seem to be living under the assumption that speedkills are one-shots. Spoiler: usually they're not. It is a delicate process, where you keep hitting your head on the same fight over and over again. Having something on farm status does not translate into clean, perfect runs every time. Not even close. Generally speed kill attempts are reset for a lot of varying reasons: not skipping a certain mechanic, someone having bad luck with crits, fumbling anything up that loses much-needed DPS at a necessary chokepoint or even dies. All of these are reason enough to reset the whole encounter, which would lead us into another merry-go-round with AST playing around with his cards. Even fundamentally thinking about it, you will absolutely need to be prepared to reset the fight numerous times in a speedkilling environment. Even the slightest anomaly can render beating your best time impossible or incredibly hard, at which point it is best to reset the combat as is.

Second of all: you cannot even prepare everything beforehand between runs. In addition to the standard Balance and Spread, you will also have to roll for a second Balance within your Warrior's Infuriate window. Even in the best-case-scenario, you cannot prepare everything beforehand. The Astrologian needs to roll three specific cards, one of which cannot even be rolled before you enter the instance.

Third of all: there has been discussion about this in Reddit for example. And even then, I would believe that design like this is an inconvenience even for the best of the teams. Obviously it is not inconvenient enough to make people quit over it, but an inconvenience still. But then again, we're talking about a subset of players within a subset; obviously, even if similar concern was shown here, it wouldn't have as large a following as some other generally acknowledged issues (see: butt sliders).

And yes, I do think a lot of people are misunderstanding the very point I am making. Obviously it is easy to get "just any kills" of the fights you already have under farm status, but thinking that you can consistently get perfect runs or even beat your best records is naive thinking. It is a process that is preceeded by a lot of resets, wipes and consecutive clears in an attempt to kill the fights just a few seconds faster than you did before. Obviously you will be spending a significant amount of time waiting for your Astro to pull his cards again. You basically have to get the very best of the best circumstances to beat your old, heavily optimized records. Unless you're in the Angered main team, maybe.

I feel like your view on speed killing as a whole seems to be a bit twisted. It is not all sunshine, even for the best of teams. But then again, I'm probably just a baddie with no credibility behind my words, right? Maybe I am in the wrong here in the end, suggesting silly things.

Raiding for progression. Raiding for weeklies. Raiding to beat your speed records. Big difference.

I'm not sure how you're optimizing your time by waiting upwards of 15 minutes before a pull for a card, when you could have pulled and been done with it in that time.

You don't go for just any kills from a speed killing perspective. You want to beat your fastest kill time, if even by a few seconds. And that means using all the modifiers you can get.



I will not be posting any more though, since I feel like this will just spiral entirely out of hand. The posts seem to also get a bit repetitive, to the point where I would need to correct misunderstandings already addressed in earlier posts and/or the opening post. As a post-state attempt, I would add that speed killing things is not as simple as just going in and then going out.. We are not the very highest-end team out there, but to be honest I doubt it's as simple as mentioned for any team going for speed kills really. It is a long road of wipes, resets and obviously waiting for those Astrologian Draws. My intention was to discuss the redundancy of having to wait for those Draws, but obviously it is not a concern shared by the majority of the readers here.

I will still think of the mechanic as cumbersome, but I'll just concede to the fact that my opinion is an unpopular one here. I hope this kind of thing is still taken into consideration on Stormblood design.

[Altena]

You guys are really waiting around to make sure you open with a Balance?
If you're relying that heavily on cards, your strategy needs a pretty big overhaul.

I attribute this mentality to the buff they made to Balance that effectively broke AST, rather than the RNG element itself. Balance needs a nerf back to what it was before the massive AST buffs. They buffed the thing one tool that AST was strong at, rather than sticking to buffing its weaknesses. The Balance buff just made the other cards more useless and less desired. So now rather than Balance being a "lucky" thing to roll, it's become a "everything else is worthless" kind of case.

I mean if this is purely to skip Soar in Zurvan, then you're wasting your time just sitting around and waiting. Just pull and deal with the faceroll mechanic that Soar actually is. It will likely be faster than waiting around for a Balance if the twelve don't favour you.

No, AST doesn't need any more attention other than a nerf on Balance. Cards are RNG, and should remain that way.

Nerf balance so people stop relying on it for a pull - rather than giving AST the ability to "choose" their card before pull..

*Edit #18923617852*

Read back over the thread a little and I see this is coming from a speedrunner's perspective.. Starting with balance is important for this I can understand however I am going to number crunch for you...
You also have to consider that 99% of the game's population aren't Alex speedrunners. Jobs and content really just shouldn't be balanced for this specifically, if it has a risk of making other jobs more desirable for "normal" content.

----

As for 15 mins per pull just to get a balance?
I mean if my math is correct..
Balance in 30 draws = 1-(5/6)^30
= 0.996... So 99.6% liklihood of getting a Balance in 30 Draws..

This isn't even counting redraws..
Balance in 30 redraws = 1-(4/5)^30
= 0.999.. Meaning there is a 99.9% liklihood of getting a Balance in 30 Redraws..

I mean even 5 mins... (10 draws/10 redraws)... For simplicity's sake I am just going to count Redraws into this equation - even though the probability of drawing a Balance is actually higher.
= 1-(5/6)^20
= 94% likelihood of rolling a Balance in 20 total rolls (Draws + redraws discounting the increased rate of Balance on redraws).

It kind of amazes me how you can sit there for 15 mins to get a balance.. Sure, RNG gods can stuff you over at times, that's the beauty of RNG, however the likelihood of actually not seeing a Balance in more than 5 mins is very small.