Quote Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe View Post
I think the main contributor of that 'busy' feeling is not actually the OGCDs themselves, but having to constantly swap targets to place cards, then retarget the boss to throw another Malefic. On controller that is probably kinda ass to do, so I wouldn't be surprised if they made the cards be an AOE around you (like PVP), turn their effects down, and let them stack (so they're 1% damage buff, in an AOE, and one person can have 3 seperate cards applied at once). RDPS of having less % on a card, but having 3 at once (multiplicative buff stacking) AND having them applied to 8 people instead of 3 probably works out either the same, or even higher than now, so potency tweaks to Malefic might be warranted too. At least, that seems like the simplest solution to program in, so it'd be the one I'll assume they go for.
Making it AoE at a 1% you essentially have a higher rDPS contribution per card if they're stackable. They probably won't make it that easy since currently the raid contribution per card is 3% on the wrong job type and 6% on the correct job type. You'd essentially be buffing AST in this way too by adding another 2% contribution across 8 people vs. current cards. You'd either have to reduce AST's general damage for that or buff the other jobs considerably to match output so as not to alienate WHM. As for APM, I think they've developed themselves into a corner alongside current systems. People use Macros to play cards most of the time now from what I've seen, and it's disgusting. Trying to change something like that is difficult unless you overhaul AST's card system completely and change how it actually plays, alienating the AST player to relearn their job from the ground up; something I don't think people would want to deal with until 7.0 comes around.

It's not simple breaking out of the norm when you develop yourself into a hole by compiling systems onto one another.