Quote Originally Posted by ty_taurus View Post
I do care about optimization, but I want that optimization to actually have an ounce of value, not just to pat myself on the back. That's why I equate Addersting to Stormblood Lilies, because even when you optimize Toxikon usage, you get basically nothing out of it. The difference in your own personal damage is less than 1%. That isn't worth respecting the mechanic to me.
I think that's more to do with the dev team's bizarre obsession with perfect balance than any job mechanics. They've been trying to stamp out the benefits of optimisation since Shadowbringers so they can bring the ceiling closer to the floor.

While I agree that having nothing but damage cards lacks any immediate noticeable impact from your own decisions, I don't really agree that RNG died in Shadowbringers. AST back then still required some amount of thinking and knowledge to maximise damage because all jobs have their own personal burst timers and only fully aligned on 0, 6 and 12 minutes, your plans would be changing depending on whether you draw a melee or ranged card.

I do agree that AST RNG kind of died in Endwalker though. The change to make every job burst on 2 minutes means that you no longer have to know the personal timing of every DPS job, you just need to split them into 3 categories: Early burst (SMN), Steady damage/variable burst (BLM/BRD) and Mid-late burst (SAM), that's why I regard AST as only middling complexity now. But I still vastly prefer AST compared to the other healers in Endwalker because AST at least requires some braincells.

In the end, I do want to see utility returning, but I don't think what we have now is entirely bad if we could get some improvement on it.