
Originally Posted by
Thoro39
I think some people are genuinely not reading the OP's intention correctly and should mayhaps take some reading classes again. OP is not talking about regular groups, he's talking about speedkilling groups. You might say it's a minority, but an AST-change like that will mean a lot to them and change absolutely nothing for everyone else as they just pull anyway, so all in all, a plus gain.
OP is asking for the ability to choose your card OUT OF Combat (ONLY IN RAIDS), and as such, a change like that will do nothing in terms of healer balance MIDfights, it just eliminates downtime, waiting on Balance and a lot of hassle for groups that want to pull with the AOE Balance. It's the same deal with Stoneskin 2 being exclusive to WHM. It being WHM exclusive is not an advantage for WHM, it being made available for all healer classes would not change ANYTHING about healer balance and the only thing the WHM-exclusivity does is being an annoyance and waste of time for AST+SCH groups that have to manually stoneskin eight times pre-pull. There is no valid reason for Stoneskin II to be WHM exclusive, yet it is anyway.
Why do we need to rely on having an AOE Balance prepull? Exactly because we are speedkilling and playing the game for the purpose of getting a good killtime. Doing a pull without an aoe balance+singletarget balance prepull during a speedkill run is an act of futility since 3.4 Balance buffs. It's a necessity for speedkilling groups nowadays, but the wait for the rng gods is sometimes just atrocious.
Having waited 35 minutes without actually playing once in our A9S Speedkills, just for getting our first Balance prepull, I'd greatly appreciate it, and what would the harm be of allowing that? It makes speedkill groups not waste half an hour waiting for a balance, and for everyone else, it changes not much else anyway. Having done competitive speedkilling in Midas Savage and Alex savage, I really preferred speedkilling in Midas Savage, this whole deal about waiting for balance pre-pull in order to even dream about getting competitive times that skyrocketed in Alex Savage thanks to the balance buff should just die away.
Eitherway, a change like that would be really appreciated in Stormsblood OR a straight out hardnerf to Balance in general in order to put it in line with other cards. I'd rather have fun playing the game competitively instead of waiting half an hour not playing the game until we got the balance.
I get that not everyone is speedkilling, but you shouldnt exclude other kind of playstyles as this game supports a widerange of player differences. Just because you don't wait for balance, it doesnt mean that everyone does the same as you. And if you dont care about Balance prepull, what would a change like the OP suggested change for you specifically? Nothing, you dont care about getting prepull balance anyway, while others who do wait for balance prepull for speedkilling purposes will benefit from it.
And what about WHM Balance? Anyone who started to play AST over WHM solely for the Balance Buff in 3.4 is most likely always waiting for prepull balance eitherway, otherwise there's no sense & reason to their change of class. And as such, they will benefit from getting a QOL too. Anyone who mains WHM, the Balance change would change nothing for you. AST Performance in comparison to WHM would stay the same, they just have to wait less between pulls.