Question regarding patch 5.3 Sleeve Draw

[Jaelommiss]

In 5.0-5.2 Sleeve Draw would draw a random card. After playing that card, you'd automatically draw another card. After playing that second card, you'd automatically draw a third. There was a 15 secs time limit on the automatic draws. None of the seals were guaranteed. Three sequential cards absolutely justified the three minute CD.

Players, in particular console players, found that the rapid targeting of allies to play cards on was too much of a hassle and complained about it. In response, in 5.3 SE reduced Sleeve Draw to a single card with a seal that you do not currently have. This reduces the number of cards that need to be played in rapid succession. This also means that AST cannot get enough seals for Divination at the start of a fight unless the party waits at least 30 secs before pulling to let Draw come off CD. It also reduces AST's rdps contribution by reducing it from 18 cards every six minutes (nine Minor Arcana) to 14 cards every six minutes (five Minor Arcana).

There's a strong case to be made that this change does nothing to address the root of the problem. At its core, the problem with cards is that party members need to be manually targeted to play them and that the UI is not designed in a way that makes this easy for controllers. M+KB can directly and immediately target specific party members using either the cursor or the F1-8 keys while the controller needs to navigate down party members one at a time in order to reach a specific player. The change to Sleeve Draw reduces how often controller players run into this issue but does not fix it.

There are only two solutions to the controller problem: 1) recognize that the controller is an inferior interface in this regard and drop support, or 2) change cards so that targeting individual players is no longer necessary. The first isn't going to happen for a long list of reasons. The second could be implemented in many ways, but SE doesn't care enough about healers to take the necessary time to understand the problem and find ways to fix it.

The most commonly proposed solution is to revert to the SB card system where many cards either don't get played or are augmented to buff the entire party without needing to target players individually. Another solution would be to introduce "smart cards" that are applied to the nearest relevant target if an ally is not targeted. This would grant precise control to those willing to play with the party list while still letting less skilled players apply cards without needing to fight their UI. A third possible solution would be to put Play on the GCD so that players have more time to target their allies. This would require a dramatic increase in card potency to compensate for the lost Malefic. There is no reason that several of these changes could not be combined.