Astro in savage

[Akyio]

It worries me that the devs will fall under the pressure of a vocal minority instead of waiting and collecting data on how many people play astrologian actively.

you are like the only one here on forums that defends AST. I even remember you before we got the first patch on lightspeed/spread/ewer changes a week ago, you were saying even then that AST was fine.
Besides nobody actually plays AST. Seriously. On my server yesterday i saw a PF: "1 healer for A4 farm(NO AST)"

[DreamWeaver]

Think Vlady loves having an opinion that is opposite from everybody else:

Before HW was released, he was singing how WHMs are doomed and will be replaced by ASTs etc etc while the rest of us are trying our best to convince him WHMs are in a good place.
Ironically now that HW is released, while most of you are saying how ASTs require buffs etc etc, he's saying its all sunshine and rainbows over at ASTville.

Just something to consider if anyone of you wanna continue to have a discussion with him.

[Cupcakesu]

I feel like giving AST access to both Sects on the fly would give us a sort of "Emergency Mode". That seems to be what Nocturnal was aimed at anyway, with the +5% Healing Potency and instant-shields. Diurnal could act as AST's bread and butter, and when things start to hit the fan just shift into Nocturnal for a bit until the emergency is over. Nocturnal isn't as MP-efficient as Diurnal but it does have more front-loaded healing when you need to keep people standing.

This wouldn't resolve much in AST-SCH combinations but it does help with 4-man content and AST-WHM parties. It could work in AST-AST combinations as well if they allow AST Regens to stack. It's a lazy work-around to AST's lack of emergency healing and CDs, but it might help keep AST afloat until SE decides what it is they want to do.

[DarkmoonVael]

Think Vlady loves having an opinion that is opposite from everybody else:

Before HW was released, he was singing how WHMs are doomed and will be replaced by ASTs etc etc while the rest of us are trying our best to convince him WHMs are in a good place.
Ironically now that HW is released, while most of you are saying how ASTs require buffs etc etc, he's saying its all sunshine and rainbows over at ASTville.

Just something to consider if anyone of you wanna continue to have a discussion with him.

And to add to this, always the use of egregious exeggeration represented as facts when it it always little other than an (ill-informed) opinion, that when questioned, is never ever ever ever backed up by facts.

It worries me that the devs will fall under the pressure of a vocal minority instead of waiting and collecting data on how many people play astrologian actively.

AST is not in a good place at the moment, it is in a far worse place than WAR was in 2.0 before that class had to have a complete overhaul. It can not compete against WHM or SCH for a raid slot at the moment as a healer. There are lots of arguments going on that the potencies are slightly lower, therefore the healing throughput is about the same. However, consider into this equation that a SCH has healing buffs, a fairy and major mitigation and healing utility throughput with aetherflow abilities. Likewise the WHM has healing boosting cooldowns and 4 oGCD healing abilities. AST is not in a good place as a healer right now, and claiming that its a vocal minority that wants changes is an absolute joke. Looking at the forums dismisses this stand point in an instant. Vocal minority =/= the majority of people. In this majority of people wanting changes, i see some of the most skilled healers in the game. I have not seen one skilled, progression raid healer on the forums or in game ever say that AST is in a good place right now and doesnt need changed.

[Richiealvian]

I am a WHM on A3S, my heal-partner is a SCH. Let me show you how we did A2S:

I pretty much solo-healed everything until 4 dolls came up. Our scholar used Selene during the whole fight for party DPS.
Your mana completely drained after 7:10, and again at 10:30, your SCH and BRD were basically carrying you. As comparison, I would be at 70%+ mana with Shroud on CD at 7:10ish. And I would be solo-healing at 10:30 (once there were only 2 widows left)with 30%+ mana left so SCH could help burn down the widows faster.


I did 100+ dps the whole encounter if I remember it correct, my SCH partner did 450ish? and assume Selene boost party DPS by 1%, then she did 8k X 1% = 80+ dps. Our bard only sang Ballad once for 10sec (both healers were at 90%+ mana that time, he was doing Ballad only because we were holding back on DPS and he had nothing else to do) Foe throughout the fight.

I'm not the best out there, I'm sure there is just a lot that can be done to maximize my impact on that fight. My MP management, for one, can be improved still. I can also DPS more during the times my MP was entirely full.

I mean, if you're comparing the two it's just that they're not the same type of job. I'm of the opinion that I would appreciate a buff, but I don't think it's bad to the point of needing a buff.
Our SCH did 580 dps that run. I drew twice worth of AOE balance and spire enough to warrant tp not being an issue.

[Reiryuu]

I've been leveling AST and I do enjoy it, but I definitely feel like it is far less powerful than my WHM and even scholar (which I don't play very much because I just don't like it too much.)

I feel there are a couple problems with AST mainly:

30-50 you get SO many abilities that deal with the card system that you miss out on some key quality of life stuff that's nice to do when you don't need to heal... I mean... seriously I don't get an upgrade to my level 1 Malefic spell until 54?! Have you tried soloing Leves on AST before 54? It sucks... My AST is only 53, so I can only pray it gets better.

Gravity has the same mana cost, downsides due to enemy numbers as Holy, but it has 100 less potency and heavy instead of the much more useful stun for WHM.

ALL of the AST's main abilities are on long cooldowns so they can't really be used that often giving AST more "cooldowns" than WHM or SCH and not as many ready-to-use abilities for group play. And most of the time you have to use 3 to four of these abilities to get the desired result to actually make a difference and by then, most fights are over and you feel like you haven't done anything.

Consider it:
Draw (30 secs)
Didn't get what I wanted? Shuffle (60 secs)
Still not good, but useful for Royal Road? Burn a cooldown (but I still have to wait for Draw to come back up before I can actually do anything)
Finally got what I want... but the fight is over... Spread, I'll use it on the boss...

All of this for a potential 15sec buff one one person, 15 second buff on the whole party at half effectiveness, or 30sec buff one one person. It seems like such a waste compared to what the other jobs get instead...
WHM gets Divine Seal, Regen, HOLY(!) and Medica II
SCH gets Adloquieum, Leeches (finally), Sacred Soil and Succor.

How do I propose changes? For one, I feel Malefic II should be a much lower level skill.

For two... Noctournal Sect just feels so underwhelming... it really needs some love.

The card system really needs some more loving. Even allowing an extra draw once you burn royal road could be a huge help. Burn royal road, get an extra card while draw is still on cooldown at least so you have the potential to do something with the system besides wait on the cooldowns.

It feels like AST has been "balanced" in the sense that you always get the card you want on draw and the best card is up on the whole party at the same time even though that's not really possible.

And, if I can ask an honest question: What is the point of even having Diurnal and Noctournal sect when they only affect 3 abilities? There seems like so much potential for the sects to affect other spells and even the cards that's wasted.

[Vlady]

White got stronger single target heals and I move on. Stange isnt it. Come on balmung and gladly show you these mysterious astro healers in savage you seem to cannot find. But I'm actually fine with backing what I say. The astro is capable of healing all content in the game. Why should the Astrologian have heals on par with white mages or the dps of a scholar?

[kiraan]

And, if I can ask an honest question: What is the point of even having Diurnal and Noctournal sect when they only affect 3 abilities? There seems like so much potential for the sects to affect other spells and even the cards that's wasted.

That was a huge letdown when i played astro for the first time and i realized that so few of our abilities are actually affected by sect

[Aurum]

White got stronger single target heals and I move on. Stange isnt it. Come on balmung and gladly show you these mysterious astro healers in savage you seem to cannot find. But I'm actually fine with backing what I say. The astro is capable of healing all content in the game. Why should the Astrologian have heals on par with white mages or the dps of a scholar?

Why should we? I mean, look at what we do have. Buffs that occasionally line up with what's actually going on in a fight are good enough to replace healing and dps, right?

[Assirra]

White got stronger single target heals and I move on. Stange isnt it. Come on balmung and gladly show you these mysterious astro healers in savage you seem to cannot find. But I'm actually fine with backing what I say. The astro is capable of healing all content in the game. Why should the Astrologian have heals on par with white mages or the dps of a scholar?

Do you actually know the meaning of balance?
Because currently compared to the other 2 healers astrologians are everything but.
Yes it is doable but it easier with another healer and the people that actually do the content are getting asked to switch.

Also, please ask these mysterious astro healers to post on here and proof us wrong because so far, you are the only one in this whole forum that claims astro is completely fine.