AST cards in raid

[lordparanoia]

I wil try to explain myself better. If you just wait for balance and arrow it's just better you go scholar so you can sustain party dps and give a small aoe and constant haste to the party.
My co healer is a scholar so my job is solo healing most of the time while the scholar does damage. Sometimes an Ewer on myself can save a mage's ballad or anyway it can posticipate it. In A2 savage we dont change magitek driver so my monk always suffers for tp and this is how i can help. If i get bole and use it on one of my tanks i can say to my co healer to keep on dpsing while i solo heal.
All of the cards can make a difference, a bole used on weak raised ppl, mana to mages and of course also arrow and balance. I agree with ppl Who say that if you use only 2 or 3 cards in a fight you are gimping youself.

[Sanguisio]

I agree.

Appreciate the effort but there is more to it than that chart suggests.

E.g. AOE phase coming up, melees are going to need TP so if you end up giving them arrow in a tp harsh phase congrats you just burnt them out.

[Nekotee]

I love the concept but strongly disagree on some choice XD

But to be honest it depend of many thing like : which raid you're doing or your group (more magic user/more melee)

I use many many spire and arrow in royal road because the next card can be much more longer and it can be a great help.
I burn almost all the TP card into royal road XD

[Zaj_Quilos]

i feel like this flow chart is half way there.

[Elth]

Spire is considerably less useful, but if no DoW are hurting for tp, more expanded RR fodder. but as you said, your melee swap the gob, whereas if you threw a spire on your monk (who is much better aoe and single target damage than dragoon) they would be able to dps longer. dps increase.

Yeah no, you don't change a well rounded strat on the RNG factor of Spire cards, they're used to swap drivers at a fixed wave no matter how much spire i threw on them, which could be 5 or zero.

example: Youre on oppressor savage, .5 has yet to come out, you have an arrow on spread, no current royal road, and you draw a bole. shuffle is ready to be used, and a tankbuster is coming up soon.

your options now are extensive. you could toss the bole on the tank, and save the arrow for the next draw, hopeful for an ewer/spire.
you could shuffle the bole for a hopeful ewer/spire for some serious raidwide dps before .5 comes out.
you could royal road the bole and arrow a dps for a more reliable dps increase (because you wont always get expanded rr)

Love your exemple there. If a RR the bole and Arrow a DPS, there sure will be a DPS increase BUT in the event the next one is Spire/Ewer i'll feel screwed. Bole doesn't make enough of a difference as i said to use it (especially on that fight where the only hard hitting ability is Hypercompressed plasma, and everything else is healed with either Benefic 1 on tanks, AH/Helios on raid and Synastry on preys.)
In that exemple, using Bole yields almost no benefit, Shuffle is always a good option to get Ewer/Spire and RR is the second best one. Let's say i RR'd the Bole, next turn i'll have either :
-DPS card, throw the enhanced DPS on single target while keeping the arrow in your spread for AoE (and still remains true for every next draw)
-Spear/another bole, In that case yeah, might as well throw it on the right target (namely MCH/NIN or Tank) BUT will wield almost no benefit so RR or using it will almost be the same when you look at the big picture (a 10min long fight)
-Spire/Ewer give that opportunity to, yes, override the bole RR buff BUT allows to AoE the Arrow.

For a "waste" of 30s (Draw cooldown) in your exemple, by RRing the Bole I effectively went from one good option (single target enhanced arrow) to two good options (enhanced arrow OR AoE arrow) and a "meh, don't care much" one.

Now A1 and A2 are on farming phase for pretty much every raiding guild, A3 is still an issue but close to farm aswell, A4 is still an issue for most. (At least from what i've seen). Means that (edit : in my group) in A1 A2 people are so overgeared that TP/MP management is not an issue anymore, Bole is almost never noticeable, Spear is useful for the pull but will almost always be wasted midfight (CDs already on cooldown or DPS will hold onto those CDs for the next burn phase). On A3, hands don't hit hard enough for Bole to make a difference on a single tank, and most of the big damage (namely raidwide slap to the face and x6splash and Cascade on P4) will be healed in AoE until pretty much everyone is topped off (or will be with MII soon), a case where only the tank taking slightly less damage (and everyone else eating their own teeth) is effectively useless. Same for A4's Carnage zero, or that big ball of doom everyone has to take.

Ewer is the only one we can argue about, but let's face it : BLM, SCH and SMN couldn't care less, my very own WHM tells me that he doesn't feel any difference, the only good target being myself... and i dont see the point of using a potential AoE DPS increase to make up for my own mistakes in mana management. So yeah... looking at the big picture (pretty long fights) i just can't see a lot of moments where using the "lesser" cards is that much better than discarding them to enhance the good ones (that may never come, but come on... they'll come at least a few times unless incredibly bad luck)
(Keep in mind that i told in the OP that i know they're situational and SOMETIMES, when the stars align and you get the right card with the right buff at the right moment those lesser cards turn into good ones. But the chart was here to explain my vision of those things in MOST cases.)

Few numbers in exemple:
On a PLD, Living liquid hits (in single target) from 2.4k to 3.7k damage. My Benefic I heals for 3.5k (~5k crit). 10% dmg mitigation with Bole would turn those damage from 2100 to 3330. I can still heal that in one Benefic I. Every other ability that does MORE than those damages are in AoE and will be healed in AoE regardless of how much the tank has taken (which will probably be less than everyone else considering their own mitigation).
Even if i was less geared and Benefic I was healing for only... i dunno, 2.8k maybe (i think it was the value in law gear) it still wouldn't be good enough to spare me more than 2 or 3 heals on its full duration. Now, yeah, there are tank bursters. And Bole, if drew right before that tank burster (in the 15s before it actually) could and should be used. How often does that happen ?

[Zaj_Quilos]

I don't do it as much now since the AST buffs but i occasionally put Ewer cards in my spread if things get a little intense and i need a little help with my MP. i do hate getting a Ewer / Spire after Royal Roading them

[Kaisersoke]

Your "well rounded strat" may seem silly to other groups, for example, I do all the gobwalking in my group and nobody has tp problems thanks to our ast and goad. if your monk has tp at the time they usually swap, its a dps increase. You can deny what I say as much as you want, but its obvious youre very close minded and centered around arrow and balance. They're good cards, so its good to setup for them, but you cant rely on rng, and your chart seems to display tossing cards that arent those two cards, spamming royal road and shuffle, never using anything else.

You can say bole isnt noticeable all you want, but damage reduction is damage reduction on all damage taken, which means less time healing, more time dpsing, its not debatable, if you didnt want any input, you shouldnt have posted your chart here, asking for thoughts on how theyd be played differently.

Like I said, good summoners will know their limits with an ewer, ewer impacts SMN dps. Of course its not the best thing you can do, but you wont always be able to do the best. RNG. Throwing away your cards like you suggest is silly.

[Elth]

I get that strats vary a lot from groups to groups. But changing a strat on an RNG factor is almost always a bad idea. I can't reliably tell my MNK or DRG how many Spires i could land on them during a fight on A2, which lets them wondering if they'll be allright or in deep sh*t, making the planning of their attack a nightmare (at least from their input on this).
So yeah, on paper, it COULD result on a dps increase. Could.

Spire gets 200/210TP on 15s (raw without buffs). Making them regen from 300TP (natural regen) to 510 in those 15s.

I don't have a MNK so i can't say about their costs, but on a DRG, those 200TP are barely a TT/VT/FT combo. One. On a full fight of 10min, per card (per wasted AoE opportunity). Or one and a half Rings of Thorns/Doom Spike. DPS increase yes, ofcourse ! Significant one over that same combo/AoE boosted by 5/10/15% for 30/60/75 seconds (probably more % as buffs in this game are multiplicative with BfB) ? Or even significant one over bringing my SCH, having twice the personal DPS of an AST and Selene for a sure buff every 30s ? Not so much.
Ofcourse if they're desperately begging for TP and you happen to draw a Spire, throw it on them, i never said it shouldn't be done. But it's extremely situational in only one fight (A2) whereas in other ones they can fairly well sustain themselves.

As for the Bole, damage reduction is damage reduction, again, on paper. If it is not enough on the biggest fights the game has to offer now to spare me more than one or two heals, it is just not worth a 30s CD. But yeah, more time dpsing. Two heals spared, that's two more Malefic II. (On 10min, that would be for me for exemple a 5.54 additionnal DPS if i only spammed Malefic for the entire fight, if i could land two more Malefic than usual). DPs increase indeed, can't argue with that.

I want input. I want GOOD input. Realistic one on how to maximize the effect of the cards that are actually noticeable on a parser.
So far, the only one i got was your SMN one. I was completely discarding them as Aetherflow is super powerful but indeed, +-1500 additionnal mana could be nice for them sometimes, i admit i completely overlooked that and thanks.

[Zaj_Quilos]

Your group shouldn't be relying on your cards. They can't when RNG is involved.

[Raminax]

Pretty sure Spire is 150 TP over 15 seconds if you don't Royal Road or extend it in any way. Could be converted into an extra AoE or keep you trucking just long enough until Invigorate is ready again, but otherwise you generally have enough breaks to not make TP an issue. Simply put, as long as you aren't hitting full TP or never bottoming out during a fight, Spire is useful.

Bole is honestly... superfluous. Auto-attacks can already be handled with just HoTs and Embrace spam. And for tank busters, tanks are likely already saving their cooldowns for those, further devaluing Bole, due to how mitigation stacks multiplicatively. Even just something like Shadow Wall would lower Bole's power down to 5.6% (20% from Grit and 30% from Shadow Wall totals 44% damage reduction, adding Bole on that makes for 49.6% damage reduction). I won't claim that I don't feel a difference when I use Bole on the tank on large trash packs in Expert Roulette, but let's be real, your co-healer won't start DPSing during Hydrothermal Missile+Royal Fount+Hypercompressed Plasma just because you popped Bole. And during boring auto-attack moments, one of your healers is likely DPSing already, Bole or not. So I'd personally say Bole won't change a thing in general, really.

If one wants to convert Ewer to DPS, it's probably better on a healer. Considering a basic Ewer restores 1325 MP, the extra 40 Potency you gain by replacing a Ruin I with a Ruin III (176 MP vs 1060 MP) pales in comparison to the 620 Potency of Aero III and Aero II (707+442 MP) or 890 Potency (618+353+353 MP) of a full set of Astrologian DoTs. Of course, that assumes that the healer converts usual idle/regeneration time into more GCD usage, instead of just sitting on the MP. There's also the issue of miss chances to take into account for some spells. And in the case of a Summoner, it would be fairer to compare the 7-8 auto-attacks (roughly 750 damage in total, testing with my Hive Grimoire) you'd gain inbetween Ruin II (353 MP vs Ruin I for 176) casts, rather than converting the extra MP into a Ruin III. One could also argue that increased Foe Requiem uptime could make Ewer valuable on a Bard for more caster and healer DPS.

Spear is... annoying. First, one needs to know that your target will actually have cooldowns to use in those 20 seconds that Spear lasts. Then you also need to consider if your target can actually use the cooldown in the time that a cooldown would otherwise not be available. Taking a 2 minute boss fight and a Ninja as an example. And for this mental exercise, let's ignore that realistically speaking, you won't be able to get out all cooldowns perfectly/simultaneously due to conflicting timers, and it's unlikely you'll be able to have permanent Spear uptime.

No Spear
6 Ninjutsu (20 second cooldown).
2 Trick Attack and 2 Internal Release (60 second cooldown for both of them).
2 Blood for Blood (80 second cooldown).
1 Kassatsu (120 second cooldown).
4 Jugulate (30 second cooldown).
2 Duality, Dream Within a Dream and Mug (90 second cooldown on all of them).

So, let's tally up the potency of all these actions.

6 Ninjutsu, 4 Raiton (360 each) and 2 Suiton (180 each) to enable Trick Attack=1'800 Potency
2 Trick Attack (400 each)=800 Potency
1 Kassatsu that we'll convert into a guaranteed Raiton crit=540 Potency
4 Jugulate (80 each)=320 Potency
2 Dream Within a Dream (300 each)=600 Potency
2 Mug (140 each)=280 Potency
2 Duality converted into double Aeolian Edge (effective 320 gain each)=640 Potency

In total, 4'980 potency from our cooldowns, ignoring the potential benefits of Internal Release and Blood for Blood.

With Spear
7 Ninjutsu (16 second cooldown).
3 Trick Attack and Internal Release (48 second cooldown for both of them).
2 Blood for Blood (64 second cooldown).
2 Kassatsu (96 second cooldown).
5 Jugulate (24 second cooldown).
2 Duality, Dream Within a Dream and Mug (72 second cooldown for all of them).

Again, let's tally up!

7 Ninjutsu, 4 Raiton and 3 Suiton to enable Trick Attacks=1'980 Potency
3 Trick Attack=1'200 Potency
2 Kassatsu into 2 guaranteed Raiton crits=1'080 Potency
5 Jugulate=400 Potency
2 Dream Within a Dream=600 Potency
2 Mug=280 Potency
2 Duality=640 Potency

A total of 6'180 Potency, giving a sizeable gain of 1'200 Potency over a Ninja without Spear, with an extra Internal Release thrown in for some more big crits!

Of course, realistically speaking, you likely won't gain that much. Some encounters will have you gain more from a Spear, some will get you less. Due to animations preventing cooldowns being popped simultaneously, you can also only get so many in into a Spear window. Some classes have few cooldowns, others have plenty to use. As a quick example of a general fight, due to opener shenanigans, I won't Trick Attack the Living Liquid until roughly 10 seconds into the fight. If I had a Spear, I would be able to use Trick Attack again at roughly 58 seconds... but Living Liquid goes invincible and switches to the hand at that point, taking ~7 seconds to become vulnerable and targettable again. So I could Trick Attack again as early as 65 seconds into the fight. I've now lost 7 of the 12 seconds that shortened my Trick Attack cooldown. Granted, I could Trick Attack right before the Living Liquid goes invincible, but at the same time we'd lose nearly the entire Trick Attack debuff for the rest of the raid, and if I fail to get it off before Living Liquid goes invincible, there's a very real chance I'll have lost damage by using Suiton (and it expiring) to enable it instead of another Fuuma Shuriken/Raiton. However, on a fight like Oppressors, I could Trick Attack immediately at 58 seconds, even though you potentially lose some raid damage because others might not have their cooldowns ready due to me receiving Spear over them (Dreadwyrm Trance+Tri Disaster being a perfect example of Trick Attack synergy, identical cooldowns on all of them).

Essentially, Spear has too many ifs going for it to be regularly appreciated and not be a nightmare to calculate.

Whew, that was a long post. If I'd have to summarize... I do believe that Balance and Arrow are the only generally applicable cards. Their benefits are immediate and don't rely on maintaining strategical awareness that would make Sun Tzu blush. However, I also think that your flowchart is far too simplistic, shallow and downplays the value of cards other than Balance and Arrow. They may not be as good, but they can still serve some kind of purpose, RNG and Draw cooldowns be damned. So,

Sensually Superior: Balance, Arrow
Occasionally Orgasming: Spire, Ewer
Turn to Tinder: Bole, Spear