5.3 A response to the AST "balance" changes

[Crushnight]

The great snip

Ok your very agitated with the change, I can relate because it was how I was with 5.0 changes, but you need to calm down a little, Sleeve Draw is not essential for an traditional pull timer opener, you will get divination out at the same time as usual because groups will work towards it, the extra cards only become essential for the opener when you get immediate pulls which do not tend to happen from extreme difficulty and up unless just going for mechanics which is where such a thing as getting Divination out on time starts to matter most.

The stuff lost is substantial, no arguments here on that, but there were other worse issues that 5.05-5.2 Sleeve Draw caused that enough people were complaining about that this change was made, it is a tolerable change to me because not getting Divination out on time because someone early pulled is far far less an issue than what I was having to deal with before.

Like to point to SB Ast on your last point, was busier than Whm, had more to manage, and was played way more. It is not just about simplicity, if a job plays like patooky to people they won't play it no matter how simple or how complex it is.

There will always be issues with Ast because they changed it so drastically in 5.0, They took away old problems rather than try to fix them but added new problems instead, they brought all this on themselves because they changed something a lot of people loved. Someone will have to bite the bullet, Sleeve Draw has been reworked twice since launch, and I think the least awful bullet we have had is not being able to get Divination out on time if someone early pulls. It is not a great bullet by any stretch but better than the worse one we have had until now.

So by all means complain but I will try to be just as vocal at keeping this version because I don't want that old bullet back(and just because the old bullet didn't affect you doesn't mean it wasn't still fired).

[ItMe]

I'm happy I'll no longer be running my MP so thin.
I hated having to use Lightspeed for MP management.

[Saefinn]

Easy fix IMO on the card front.

Reduce the recast of Sleeve Draw to 1/3 of what it is now. You get the same number of cards but space them out a little more for controller players and still get a weave of cards.

[Doozer]

I really don't see what people are saying about AST being annoying because you have to change targets to give people cards... can't you just set up a macro for each party member on the list? I have a whole hotbar with Play in 8 slots, one for each party member. They're set to use the skill on #2 in the party list, #3, #4, etc. so I can use Draw and then just click one of those and it gives the card to that person. I never have to switch targets.

Obviously it doesn't work so well with a controller, but at least with M&K it's really not an issue.

[Sebazy]

Remember how SCH got a bunch of clunky 'mechanics' added to it's core kit to prevent it from wanting a long countdown for it's optimal opener?

This is just embarrassing at this point.

I really don't see what people are saying about AST being annoying because you have to change targets to give people cards... can't you just set up a macro for each party member on the list?

Remember that macros don't queue properly. You risk stalling your GCD quite significantly. Back in ARR I used to macro embrace to ruin and cure, that cost me as much as a full GCD per minute.

[Doozer]

Remember that macros don't queue properly. You risk stalling your GCD quite significantly. Back in ARR I used to macro embrace to ruin and cure, that cost me as much as a full GCD per minute.

It's literally just one skill. I haven't ever had any issues with playing a card and continuing what I'm doing. It doesn't have a 'wait' or anything in it, it just gives a card to a party member based on which one I click. I have one macro for one tank, one for the other, one for the other healer, etc. etc.

I can't check right now because of maintenance obviously, but I believe it's just

/ac "Play" <1>

or something to that effect. There's no delay in it.

[Sebazy]

<snip>

The wait isn't the issue in this case, it's that macros will always trigger later than a directly hot keyed ability.

In your case, single weaving this will probably be fine. Double weaving may have you locked for a number of extra frames though. I'm not sure how tight the timing is for weaving off the nuke as I'll openly admit I've not been bothering with AST since 5.0.

[Doozer]

The wait isn't the issue in this case, it's that macros will always trigger later than a directly hot keyed ability.

In your case, single weaving this will probably be fine. Double weaving may have you locked for a number of extra frames though. I'm not sure how tight the timing is for weaving off the nuke as I'll openly admit I've not been bothering with AST since 5.0.

I have never had timing issues or skills triggering later than normal.

[NozomiHoshiaki]

It's literally just one skill. I haven't ever had any issues with playing a card and continuing what I'm doing. It doesn't have a 'wait' or anything in it, it just gives a card to a party member based on which one I click. I have one macro for one tank, one for the other, one for the other healer, etc. etc.

I can't check right now because of maintenance obviously, but I believe it's just

/ac "Play" <1>

or something to that effect. There's no delay in it.

Every oGCD (off global cooldown) skill/ability has a buffer window of roughly 0.5 seconds, macros have no buffer window which means you are most likely clipping into that window you have to do oGCDs while keeping your GCD rolling, each oGCD has a window where no actions can occur, as far as I know, your GCD has a time after the GCD finishes where an oGCD is delayed, I think by roughly 0.7s, each oGCD after that also has 0.7s cooldown so you can get 2 weaves of oGCDs before keeping your GCD rolling, leaving room for 2 weaves after any instant cast GCD.

Using macros for weaving Play or Minor Arcana would most likely make you clip because of not being able to buffer the next oGCD, resulting in non-optimal gameplay. That isn't even to mention that using macros for Play and Minor Arcana is essentially impossible on Controller because of the limited amount of hotbar space you have.

[Doozer]

Every oGCD (off global cooldown) skill/ability has a buffer window of roughly 0.5 seconds, macros have no buffer window which means you are most likely clipping into that window you have to do oGCDs while keeping your GCD rolling, each oGCD has a window where no actions can occur, as far as I know, your GCD has a time after the GCD finishes where an oGCD is delayed, I think by roughly 0.7s, each oGCD after that also has 0.7s cooldown so you can get 2 weaves of oGCDs before keeping your GCD rolling, leaving room for 2 weaves after any instant cast GCD.

Using macros for weaving Play or Minor Arcana would most likely make you clip because of not being able to buffer the next oGCD, resulting in non-optimal gameplay. That isn't even to mention that using macros for Play and Minor Arcana is essentially impossible on Controller because of the limited amount of hotbar space you have.

You're barking up the wrong tree if you think I care about 0.7 second optimization or whatever. I don't do Savage/Ultimate because I find it too repetitive and boring. So I don't think I really need to optimize things down to fractions of seconds. There is more to the game than Savage and Ultimate, you know that right? Either way, I don't have issues with skills 'clipping' or anything. I don't just mash buttons like a baby.

And, I like that you ignored my first post saying how I was aware of it not being useful for controller users. Read everything I say on the subject before responding to me, please. You're just wasting your time.