Quote Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas View Post
I never was an AST under the old system (pre SHb) so perhaps I completely misunderstand how this would work

However, I have a few misgivings - One point is that a "strong aoe attack" is of limited benefit - granted good if you have multiple mobs but otherwise? Second point - to summarize- dot management (personally not a fan) - now this is RNG as well, spread of those dots (limited use again).

Personally I would prefer that dot management and spread (bane) - if brought back- was brought back to SCH, AST could have its own skills. With SCH,RNG doesn't factor into dot management or the AOE use of dots, I miss having them under SCH.
i think everyone wants the old DoT management of SCH instead of what we have right now, but for AST there could be a couple of ways to lower the RNG factor. Redraw going to the next set of cards that you don't have a stamp for, having a trait that lets you redraw twice each draw, sleeve draw coming back and using it makes you pull out a card of a stamp you haven't gotten yet...
i could argue that WHM has only an AoE attack for their lily gauge, but that's ignoring that I've also wanted to add other things to use the blood lily on and expand the gauge to house more than just lilies as a sort of odd stance system. (imagine Glare, Dia, and if they don't bring back AoE DoT's, Holy turning into Quake, Tornado and Flood.) so i can see where you're getting from with an AoE only skill for using reverse stamps on being odd against a single target. maybe do something like what we have right now with Divination and Astrodyne, and two buttons to use your reverse stamps on, one for AoE, and a semi-stronger one for single target?

also, the old card system was fine, but it was also a lot of fishing for balance and spreading it. if it wasn't balance for outright damage it was spear for upping crit rate. which is why i think that the stamps being a part of the system still would at least, if not outright remove the fishing, lower it to only specific points in fights so you're still going for stamps to buff everyone/yourself and deal damage.