Quote Originally Posted by Side-Eye View Post
Not every moment of every fight needs to be mapped out -- I'd argue that the game loses some of the fun with content which is 100% predictable -- and not every ability needs a predetermined use. Much of the fun of AST (at least for most of us who played it often) was those variances that kept every fight, every encounter, from being a duplicate of the last.
This is one of the core conflicts involving this game's concepts. Getting skilled in this game involves two things:

1) the ability to learn and memorize monsters' patterns
2) the ability to exploit those patterns.

If you accept these things, then mapping out encounters is an inevitability as you climb the skill ladder and take on harder encounters, since exploiting pattern weaknesses may require a fight long plan.

The problem is that certain players, classical healers especially, like uncertainty, so conflicts about how to handle cards are expected.

I doubt they will make cards like old bole the more skillful play over damage cards, except in edge cases where you are dealing with the unpredictability of bad players.