Quote Originally Posted by Valmaxian View Post
once you have access to RR and eventually Spread, its best to not hand out plain card buffs - make sure you improve them.
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I end up RRing about 95% of my Ewers and Spires.
It's understandable that people might think it's a good idea to buff cards. And if you're out of combat, and have the luxury of being picky with your Draws at that second, it absolutely is. But once you're in the midst of battle, your cards have a greater impact if you apply usable cards when you draw them, rather than roading them.

In light parties, if you have no immediate use for a Ewer(typically yourself or a BRD) or Spire(AoE DD), it's better to shuffle and hope for a better card, rather than Royal Road it.

I'll have to search the history a bit for the math on Ewering a BRD. But in regards to single card effectiveness vs buffed card effectiveness, and Expanded buffs in a light party, I've presented maths in this post and in this post.

The first post also suggests that Expanded Balance in a full party is a good idea, but only if you can do it without discarding (right-click or /statusoff) any cards.