Please let Astrologians Pick the First Cards outside combat within Raiding Instances

[Exiled_Tonberry]

I'm sorry, but the last thing we need is to make cards more manageable. They're way too powerful to just draw whatever you want, inside or out.

[Edewen]

Prepull, if you have an ast, you are waiting for the balance or at very least the arrow. This is simple concept. This could be solved simply. Remove the cool-down on redraw outside of combat and outside of pvp. Simple solution for an issue that is nothing more than an annoyance to groups.

[Felis]

Prepull, if you have an ast, you are waiting for the balance or at very least the arrow. This is simple concept. This could be solved simply. Remove the cool-down on redraw outside of combat and outside of pvp inside of cities. Simple solution for an issue that is nothing more than an annoyance to groups.

fixed it a bit

[BubblyBoar]

Saying that this will only affect the 1% speedrunners) isn't a valid reason for letting this be a thing. Even though it will only matter to them, it'll trickle down to the rest of the game, just like the whole "delete monk" meme and the issues with WHM and PLD. And it'll end up with groups refusing to start a fight until AoE balance is set up, even for content that doesn't need it. It's a problem our community has and I rather not make the issue any worse.

[Osmond]

You asking an impossible request that already programmed in the game that will most likely never ever going to implement. It's a dumb idea to be put in place and it's better off to wait every 30secs to get the card you want to add in your spread...........................

[AmalonStar]

From what I skimmed over here basicly you're wanting to pull the cards when you want and how you want them. Being able to do that defeats the entire basis of the ast job, the cards are pulled at random as fate dictates didn't you pay attention to the job quest dialogue?

If you're trying to break speed records exit and then re-enter after a wipe

[Gokuhan]

The biggest problem:

If you can auto draw any card out of combat, then nearly every pull in a dungeon would have a spread Balance used on it. I understand why you are so frustrated but you are asking for too much.

[Altena]

You guys are really waiting around to make sure you open with a Balance?
If you're relying that heavily on cards, your strategy needs a pretty big overhaul.

I attribute this mentality to the buff they made to Balance that effectively broke AST, rather than the RNG element itself. Balance needs a nerf back to what it was before the massive AST buffs. They buffed the thing one tool that AST was strong at, rather than sticking to buffing its weaknesses. The Balance buff just made the other cards more useless and less desired. So now rather than Balance being a "lucky" thing to roll, it's become a "everything else is worthless" kind of case.

I mean if this is purely to skip Soar in Zurvan, then you're wasting your time just sitting around and waiting. Just pull and deal with the faceroll mechanic that Soar actually is. It will likely be faster than waiting around for a Balance if the twelve don't favour you.

No, AST doesn't need any more attention other than a nerf on Balance. Cards are RNG, and should remain that way.

Nerf balance so people stop relying on it for a pull - rather than giving AST the ability to "choose" their card before pull..

*Edit #18923617852*

Read back over the thread a little and I see this is coming from a speedrunner's perspective.. Starting with balance is important for this I can understand however I am going to number crunch for you...
You also have to consider that 99% of the game's population aren't Alex speedrunners. Jobs and content really just shouldn't be balanced for this specifically, if it has a risk of making other jobs more desirable for "normal" content.

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As for 15 mins per pull just to get a balance?
I mean if my math is correct..
Balance in 30 draws = 1-(5/6)^30
= 0.996... So 99.6% liklihood of getting a Balance in 30 Draws..

This isn't even counting redraws..
Balance in 30 redraws = 1-(4/5)^30
= 0.999.. Meaning there is a 99.9% liklihood of getting a Balance in 30 Redraws..

I mean even 5 mins... (10 draws/10 redraws)... For simplicity's sake I am just going to count Redraws into this equation - even though the probability of drawing a Balance is actually higher.
= 1-(5/6)^20
= 94% likelihood of rolling a Balance in 20 total rolls (Draws + redraws discounting the increased rate of Balance on redraws).

It kind of amazes me how you can sit there for 15 mins to get a balance.. Sure, RNG gods can stuff you over at times, that's the beauty of RNG, however the likelihood of actually not seeing a Balance in more than 5 mins is very small.

[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.

[Dualgunner]

More than Astrologian, as a ninja it would be incredibly nice if certain abilities like Mudras or Aetherflows acted differently when not in combat...because waiting a full 20 seconds pre pull is always fun when playing NIN. >.>

I like this idea, I just also think other classes would benefit from certain skills acting...more efficiently out of combat.