Astrologian Discussion Thread: (Insert Yu-Gi-Oh! joke here)

[Thiefami]

I'm liking Astro so far, but it is in desperate need of some TLC. Astrologian at 60 feels like the other two healers, but at 50. Sort of like they are missing traits or a few abilities, or both.

The job is fun and it can perform fine in your standard dungeon fare. There are ways around some of the perceived limitations I see highlighted by others, but a simple fact is the other two healers can do the job effortlessly and better in a lot of instances. Couple that fact with fairly weak buffs, long cooldowns, and punishing restrictions /penalties on skills and abilities, it puts into question just how viable an alternative is AST in true end game.

If SE were to reexamine this job, here would be my suggestions

Shuffle:
-Remove Cooldown timer
-Place on GCD
-Prevent Shuffle from refreshing card's countdown.
The buffs are random as it is, to the point that when you shuffle you more times than not pull the same exact card. Once the card is drawn you have a few seconds to determine the action, so that would prevent shuffling the card indefinitely and maintaining the rng.

Draw:
-Lower Cooldown to 20seconds
The contribution to an 8 man party is pretty laughable, especially when you're comparing consistency to other support abilities given to other jobs; Battle Litany, Fey Wind, Chakra, Bard and MCH buffs.., I'd love to hear the logic behind this decision. Not to beat a dead horse, but again the buffs are random, weak, and fairly short. The time you spend pairing your desired card with the effect you want, so much time has elapsed. I get it, and I admire the thought of planning ahead but it simply pales in comparison and under performs.

Spread:
-Allow out of combat use.
-Increase amount of cards that can be 'Held' to 3.
-Change countdown to begin once a card has been "Spread" and not read.
-When selecting a held card, it puts it back into action instead of 'using' the card, meaning you can setup combos using your deck by 'using' the card or burning it for Royal Road.
The main gimmick of this job is the card system. It's limited, the buffs again are random and they are weak. How it could potentially work is, you can store up to 3 cards in the order Spreaded them. So your first card Spread would be the one first in queue to be used. Maybe even increase Spread's recast to 90seconds to weigh out the changes.

Cards:
-Give The Balance 10% Increase to both Healing and Damage.
-Give The Ewer and Spire 10% Increase to Refresh and Regain received, respectively
-Give The Bole 10% Increase to Healing Received in addition to the 10% Damage Reduction.
[AST still lacks in the emergency cure department, unlike it's WHM and SCH counterparts. It should make it up through it's buffs. This doesn't solve the matter, but it helps to make up in utility.]



Celestial Opposition:
-Remove the Stun Effect replace it with Slow.
-Increase all beneficial statuses cast by the AST by 10 seconds.
Underwhelming 150s cd lv 60 ability.

Collective Unconscious:
-Lower Duration to 10sec
In addition to HP regen/Damage reduced
-Add a 30 potency Refresh to all that enters
-Add a 30 potency Regain to all that enters
-Sustains all Astrologian card buffs while inside bubble.
Give me a reason to channel and scarecrow for 10 seconds doing nothing.

Nocturnal:
-Allow Aspected Helios shield to stack with Scholar.
-Do not allow Aspected Benefic to stack with Sch, but do allow crits to double shield. If a penalty or restriction is needed, you could always cut duration in half (15 seconds) on crit.

Traits:
*Disable Trait:
-Remove Disable Trait, keep it at -5%.[Give AST ACN crossclass instead of THM. This effectively gives Astrologian access to both Virus and Eye for an Eye like it's counterparts.]
-Replace the Disable trait with 'Double Draw'. A 10% chance to proc another Draw after the Draw ability has been used.
*Enhanced Benefic
-Keep Benefic II instacast, but make it only cost the cast of a Benefic I.
*Enhanced Luminiferous Aether
-Remove, make base Aether Refresh 80potency. Instead, give it a chance to reset Essential Dignity's CD on use.
Who sits below lv 48 for long to where 80 potency is going to make any difference? Essential Dignity CD is fine, but AST is still missing an "oh sh*t button"


Cross Class:
-Remove Thaumaturge add Arcanist
The only reason THM is a cross class for AST is Quickcast. A bit ridiculous tbh. Remove it and just alter Lightspeed to turn all spells into instacast while keeping it's 25% potency reduction. This effectively removes the need to have THM in AST's kit.

I feel these changes would effectively bring them to level 60 as well as put them on a level playing field with their counterparts, also allowing AST to compliment either healer nicely.

[Elcura]

I get the feeling reading a lot of posts that people are overreacting to AST or just not playing it right. The above is pretty much why players don't balance jobs lol.

I mean cards are DPS increase with no risk, it's not like you have to cleric stance to get the best out of them (which you can do anyway).

[Damane]

i do agree ast needs some tweeks but some if your suggestions go a bit overboard and would introduce double AST healers as a combo in 8 man raids

[Burningthought]

I get the feeling reading a lot of posts that people are overreacting to AST or just not playing it right. The above is pretty much why players don't balance jobs lol.

I mean cards are DPS increase with no risk, it's not like you have to cleric stance to get the best out of them (which you can do anyway).

Yeah the more gear I get the less complaints I have about the job. My cures are getting a little stronger, tanks are getting hit for less and my MP issues are going away as I get into the habit of using Ewer on myself and making sure I pop LA at the right times. I still think AST needs some tweaks and it needs to be a soft touch because the issues aren't that severe, we just can't make up for other players mistakes as much as WHM/SCH.

Spread needs to be available out of battle regardless of any other tweaks. There's already a way around the limitation and at the very least it lets up preload a combination RR/Cards for the beginning of our fights. For everything else i'm just going to stop speculating and see what the devs end up doing. No matter what I end up thinking up they always go a different route with changes either way.

[bercus]

Did SE mention anything about AST during JP Expo 2015?

Playing it more and more I start thinking also that minor/small adjustments are nessesary (even with maxed out gear)
- Can´t really DPS at 50 like WHM
- only one MP Refresh ability
- More heals needed > MP gets eaten faster
- Cards are currently just a possible Bonus, if you got lucky on draw
- Cant move while having bubble up
- Lightspeed not THAT great compared to Pres.o.Mind (too situational compared to PoM).
- Stun AoE should be increased to 7s
- Card Buffs could be Extended by 5sec

With a WHM I pretty much have endless MP These days too, since you can recover via two ways (Assize got added) and can increase healings with by a lot.
AST+SCH combo wasn´t that great on Bismarck, WHM+SCH would perform better imo.
Imo: WHM+SCH > WHM+AST > SCH+AST on current Primals.

[Thiefami]

I get the feeling reading a lot of posts that people are overreacting to AST or just not playing it right. The above is pretty much why players don't balance jobs lol.

I mean cards are DPS increase with no risk, it's not like you have to cleric stance to get the best out of them (which you can do anyway).

Cards are also the reason for the limitations that do not make up for a lot of short comings. As I've stated there are work arounds but in the end you are maintaining and still not as good as a WHM or SCH. In the end the other two simply do it better.

Do you have AST at 60? I'd say try it for yourself. It's fun and the current content available will pose no real issue with clearing. But then again nothing is that difficult and the gear requirements are not strict. It's certainly not unplayable but I do not think its raid ready in its current state.

i do agree ast needs some tweeks but some if your suggestions go a bit overboard and would introduce double AST healers as a combo in 8 man raids

Double AST should be viable. You are effectively locked out of a sect during combat. So two ASTs should be a good pairing.

[Damane]

"small" adjustments i like to see to make ast more competitiv:
- removal of currpot penalty on light speed + addition of a potent bonus on aspected spells (enhanced regen in durnial enhanced shield on nocturnal)
- cc acting like soil so free placeable where you want and free acting but reduction of duration to 10 sec
- refresh ability slightly enhanced
- royal roading s card reseting draw upon use
- draw cooldown startinf upon drawing a card and not placing it
- slight cure pot increasr during nocturnal
- shuffle usabel outside combat
- ability to swap sect stances during combat

Thats it

[Snoctopus]

I've still been running into issues at ilvl 159 with a 170 weapon. Most of my item slots right now are the lvl 60 dungeon drops. Not sure if it's a problem with me, or if it's the tanks I'm playing with.

For example, in the fractal continuum, it's kinda hit or miss if I can keep a tank alive if they pull the first room up to that chainsaw face monster. Same if they do the larger pull with the two birds that spam AoE after the first boss. The outgoing party damage just feels too high to heal through - if other party members take a hit, and I try to use Helios to cure up the group, the tank will absolutely die because as soon as I don't cast benefic II on GCD, they go down. Sometimes even if I'm spamming Benefic II with both regens up, they'll go down. If Synasty worked with Helios, I feel like AoE damage wouldn't be as much of a problem, but Synasty doesn't work with Helios, so it is.

I'm actually liking the stun from the level 58 skill, and would prefer it over a slow. For those larger dungeon pulls, that AoE stun seems to be my best chance to run in, stun the mobs, and get A. Helios reapplied.

Cards I'm still lukewarm on. I'm really starting to feel like they should hit AoE all the time, or at the very least remove the 50% penalty from arrow.

Hopefully I'll get a chance to use the class during 8-man content soon. I've almost finished my 180 gear on Monk so I can finally start upgrading AST.

[Thiefami]

"small" adjustments i like to see to make ast more competitiv:
- removal of currpot penalty on light speed + addition of a potent bonus on aspected spells (enhanced regen in durnial enhanced shield on nocturnal)
- cc acting like soil so free placeable where you want and free acting but reduction of duration to 10 sec
- refresh ability slightly enhanced
- royal roading s card reseting draw upon use
- draw cooldown startinf upon drawing a card and not placing it
- slight cure pot increasr during nocturnal
- shuffle usabel outside combat
- ability to swap sect stances during combat

Thats it

So basically you agree with everything I said with the exception on removing thm as a cross class? Your suggestion gives AST access to noct and diurnal. That's not a small change. And draw reset on RR, which is every 15s trumps a flat 20s cd change from 30s.

[Falisa]

I honestly get no joy from playing this class, don't find it fun or interesting at all having to deal with the card RNG. Probably never going to really touch this class once I get other jobs to 60. Kind of regret rushing AST as my first 60 since I don't have a ton of time to dedicate to leveling other classes so I'm stuck on this for now!

[cute]

I am only of level 37 but I do not like the ability card. It is not good if all ability are recast.

[Aiurily]

the job works fine, and you can probably raid fine on it, but i see no reason to take AST+SCH/WHM over the traditional WHM+SCH combo, and that's the real problem.

[Elcura]

Definitely disagree with making stance switching a thing, especially if Noct buffs stack with Diurnal. Even if one overwrites the other it's still massively powerful to have party with regen and strong single target damage reduction, or vice versa. Would be nuts in a good way overall for AST, but I think bad for the overall game.

Yeah the more gear I get the less complaints I have about the job. My cures are getting a little stronger, tanks are getting hit for less and my MP issues are going away as I get into the habit of using Ewer on myself and making sure I pop LA at the right times. I still think AST needs some tweaks and it needs to be a soft touch because the issues aren't that severe, we just can't make up for other players mistakes as much as WHM/SCH.

Spread needs to be available out of battle regardless of any other tweaks. There's already a way around the limitation and at the very least it lets up preload a combination RR/Cards for the beginning of our fights. For everything else i'm just going to stop speculating and see what the devs end up doing. No matter what I end up thinking up they always go a different route with changes either way.

Yeah definitely, the feeling of being weak is greatly lessened at 60 with decent gear. Pretty much the only time I had trouble healing was being undergeared during the Vault, and even that was fine.

For sure Spread needs to be usable outside of combat just as QoL.

Did SE mention anything about AST during JP Expo 2015?

Playing it more and more I start thinking also that minor/small adjustments are nessesary (even with maxed out gear)
- Can´t really DPS at 50 like WHM
- only one MP Refresh ability
- More heals needed > MP gets eaten faster
- Cards are currently just a possible Bonus, if you got lucky on draw
- Cant move while having bubble up
- Lightspeed not THAT great compared to Pres.o.Mind (too situational compared to PoM).
- Stun AoE should be increased to 7s
- Card Buffs could be Extended by 5sec

With a WHM I pretty much have endless MP These days too, since you can recover via two ways (Assize got added) and can increase healings with by a lot.
AST+SCH combo wasn´t that great on Bismarck, WHM+SCH would perform better imo.
Imo: WHM+SCH > WHM+AST > SCH+AST on current Primals.

AST dps is super easy and comparable with other healers, except you aren't seeing the effects of cards on your DPS so it's easy to say AST DPS is ass. AST DPS is easy to use and fast, Combust1/2 are super easy to use and hugely effective if kept up. Malefic 2 is powerful but a MP guzzler. WHM cheats with Assize but generally I think AST DPS isn't far behind.

Presence of Mind and Lightspeed are different buffs as well, Lightspeed is a straight 2.5s cast reduction which allows you to cast stuff you normally wouldn't be able to on the go. It isn't that comparable to PoM which mostly still has you standing still (tho it's been a while might be remembering PoM wrong).

Better stun on Celestial Opposition would be nice, but cards (except Spire) I feel work great. Spear could use a little adjustment to affect abilities already on CD and some of the shuffle/RR changes in regards to dupe cards (srsly why even shuffle if you get the same card lolol). I feel those two alone would push AST over the edge in a huge way. A lot of shit suggested is crazy and/or OP.

Cards are also the reason for the limitations that do not make up for a lot of short comings. As I've stated there are work arounds but in the end you are maintaining and still not as good as a WHM or SCH. In the end the other two simply do it better.

Do you have AST at 60? I'd say try it for yourself. It's fun and the current content available will pose no real issue with clearing. But then again nothing is that difficult and the gear requirements are not strict. It's certainly not unplayable but I do not think its raid ready in its current state.

My AST has been 60 for a while and I enjoy it. I agree it needs tweaks but it's hard to say specifically (aside from the easy card stuff) what needs to change. A lot of card changes aside from what I've mentioned should be changed for QoL, not a direct enhancement. I dunno if AST doesn't work with SCH and WHM, pretty much the real problem I see with AST is that if your healing partner is ass or just not picking up their slack it becomes way more difficult to operate. I felt like that somewhat on SCH when huge party damage, but on AST I feel like MP is the problem when the other healer sucks, not the abilities I can use. I also notice that any party that takes a lot of damage will drain MP from a healer. It's not so much specifically AST that has that problem since I can easily go from 2k mp to 8-10k within 16ish seconds and depending on readiness do it again or have mp reduction on deck.

AST is pretty strong I think, just hard to maintain for a long time. WHM and SCH could definitely go without MP regen, but I feel doing that with AST is taking a huge risk but I say that being overly cautious. I think come Alexander normal we'll have a very strong understanding on ASTs strengths and weaknesses if it doesn't get buffed around that time.

[Kaisha]

AST dps is super easy and comparable with other healers, except you aren't seeing the effects of cards on your DPS so it's easy to say AST DPS is ass. AST DPS is easy to use and fast, Combust1/2 are super easy to use and hugely effective if kept up. Malefic 2 is powerful but a MP guzzler. WHM cheats with Assize but generally I think AST DPS isn't far behind.

I think at 50 it's more that SCH has (buffed)Bane, and WHM has Holy. What does AST get? Three god damn dots and a single-target 150pot skill that's weaker than Stone 2.

[Elcura]

I think at 50 it's more that SCH has (buffed)Bane, and WHM has Holy. What does AST get? Three god damn dots and a single-target 150pot skill that's weaker than Stone 2.

Pretty sure it costs less MP for slightly less damage. Pretty much AST in a nutshell. Benefic is a little weaker but like 20% cheaper, so easier to sustain. Malefic is that way too if you get a chance to spam it you could do it without putting yourself out. So you get basically half the dots SCH gets with a stone 2 that's a little weaker. I mean people look at the absolute strongest and disregard the other stuff ignoring that AST has the best of both worlds. If accuracy is a problem they have surefire DPS with cards and dots, and if it isn't they get stronger options with Malefic. WHM DPS is strong but unreliable, SCH is reliable but awkward. Unlike AST healing, their DPS doesn't need to give something up.

Basically the only thing that annoys me about AST DPS is not getting Gravity until 52 and then doing 50 dungeons. Gravity bombing is the best.

[Silenka]

There is a misconception here. SCH and WHM are reactionary healers. AKA stuff blows your party up, then healer uses his abilities to cure the damage.
AST is a preventative/pre-planning healer, following the idea of "foreseeing the future". AKA when stuff tries to blow your party up, the AST should already have a bunch of preventative measures in place (cards, regens, lightspeed stoneskins, time dilated buffs, whatever). Of course, WHM and SCH both have a couple preventative abilities too, but the jobs aren't build around that idea like AST is.

Stuff costs less to maintain on AST because that's the point, you need to know the fight and maintain your buffs effectively. For brand-new unseen content I would feel much safer bringing SCH or WHM who can burst heal surprise damage. AST's strength is clearly in fights that everyone is already comfortable with - paired with a SCH or WHM, AST will absolutely help blow through those fights more quickly. As a standalone healer AST may struggle a bit with certain things, and that might be where they need a bit of tweaking.

[bercus]

AST dps is super easy and comparable with other healers, except you aren't seeing the effects of cards on your DPS so it's easy to say AST DPS is ass. AST DPS is easy to use and fast, Combust1/2 are super easy to use and hugely effective if kept up. Malefic 2 is powerful but a MP guzzler. WHM cheats with Assize but generally I think AST DPS isn't far behind.

At 50 (as I mentioned) AST is way behind WHM, since he does not have any AOE to be part of speedruns (especially Roulettes (MS, High, Trial [depends on which])
Those 10%-20% Card buffs (that rely on luck) don´t make a difference here. So at Level 50, AST is definatly behind. As for 60 I prefer WHM too, since Holy is with the Stun effect giving more Safety.

"Basically the only thing that annoys me about AST DPS is not getting Gravity until 52 and then doing 50 dungeons. Gravity bombing is the best."

I enjoy doing DPS as a healer [knowing when I can], so as AST I am limited right now. I doubt they will Change anything about that, but it would have been nice to get Gravity at 50 .

[Elcura]

I mean if you're going to speedrun AST is behind WHM, like SCH was before Bane changed. Yet that didn't exactly slow people down. At 50 AST DPS relies on card effects for speedruns, saying they don't make a difference is ignoring that you could potentially boost speed or damage by 5-15% for 15-45s. It makes a difference, it's just hugely unreliable. But in these situations even Spire helps so I would hesitate to say AST offers little DPS wise at 50 and more that it's hard to see.

At 60 AST is definitely safer for AoE bombing, considering Gravity is ranged it puts you in 100% less danger than Holy does, and once Stun resistance builds it's all the same. AST could do something comparable with Celestial Opposition, and depending on cards active could add 5s of whatever buff is active (which again, could be aoe 5% or single target 30-60s buff at 10-15%).

[Niiro]

The biggest issue I can see is simply this:

SCH in Clerics has a fairy healing, WHM in Clerics is AoE stunning to prevent damage.

AST in Clerics....yea they've got the one AoE stun but it's on a long-ass recast timer, it's just 1 free Holy stun.

Also while they've got some good DoTs they have no way to make them AoE, and Gravity doesn't really seem worthwhile, if it's a small group of mobs you're probably better off just putting Combust II on them, if it's a large group the damage is going to be severely diluted and you're not gonna be able to be in Cleric's for very long anyway because of the increased healing demands.

[Elcura]

The biggest issue I can see is simply this:

SCH in Clerics has a fairy healing, WHM in Clerics is AoE stunning to prevent damage.

AST has cards.

I mean, for a job based on cards people seem to disregard them an awful lot. Like Bole doesn't exist to help prevent damage. Hell, 2 regens and a Bole makes AST more capable of nuking than a SCH relying on a fairy ever will. And while WHM has stun for like...what 7s in total while AST has 4s and 5s buff/regen increase I THINK that evens out, especially if your buff is the 150% kind.

I'm not seeing the problem other than sometimes getting the card you want sucks, but that's kind of the job. The Gravity vs Combust stuff is meh, if you aren't using Gravity because you like the way it looks/sounds then what the hell?