Your thoughts on Astrolgian so far?

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Originally Posted by VitalSuit

Aspected Helios and Aspected Benefic do stack with each other and yes their heals do stack. My Aspected Benefic heals around 300 per tick and with helios it goes up to 400-500.

The shields on the other hand don't stack because, well they're shields. I dunno who thought this was a good idea either but my guess is it's the same thing with Regen and Medica 2 and then Adloquium and Succor. Regen and Medica 2 stack but Adlo and Succor do not.

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The issue with the shields is that you can overwrite a crit adlo shield with a crappy aspected benefic shield.

For some reason they decided not to run the check if the shield is stronger or not, at the least. I understand why they don't let shields stack, but come on. The aforementioned should not happen, as if noct wasn't mediocre enough as it is.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

One issue i'm noticing is some tanks still have the speed run mind set. We went from running dungeons vastly over geared to barely decent gear with the new dungeon. Even @ 60 the devs said the law gear is the ARR equivalent of Darklight (i70) stuff. I just did Dusk Vigil back to back with a PLD who went from one mob pack to the next and had no issue keep him healed. The next round I had a WAR who was a tissue tiger that kept pulling multiple sets and I was just barely squeaking by with OOM after every set.

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Ive seen this EXACT situation endlessly since i started AST in early access. It's so unfair on new players. Dark Knights are the most guilty of doing this in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by VitalSuit

Aspected Helios and Aspected Benefic do stack with each other and yes their heals do stack. My Aspected Benefic heals around 300 per tick and with helios it goes up to 400-500.

The shields on the other hand don't stack because, well they're shields. I dunno who thought this was a good idea either but my guess is it's the same thing with Regen and Medica 2 and then Adloquium and Succor. Regen and Medica 2 stack but Adlo and Succor do not.

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Thank you, that clears things up immensely for me. I can't find any reason to use Nocturnal now...

After playing with some DRKs (thanks to the regen bug, that kinda forces me to go Nocturnal Sect >_>;), I'm getting the feel like the removal of the stance changing during battles was a last-minute change. The whole class was based on those 2 stances in mind, as in switch to nocturnal --> shield up --> switch back etc. Healing in Nocturnal sect doesn't really fit well with the AST skillset either since pre-shielding kinda forces you to use more heals with basically only the mp-regeneration of a 2.x WHM >_>;

Also in 8-man parties, I noticed that my buffs appear really insignificant - I feel like I should be able to draw a lot more to be remotely useful like the other 2 healers.

In 8 man groups u must use royal road to take the expanded buff. Or maybe an enhanced bole just for the tank

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Originally Posted by Shikiseki

After playing with some DRKs (thanks to the regen bug, that kinda forces me to go Nocturnal Sect >_>;)

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Regen bug? Is it only on drk? I dont know what this means cause my regens work like they should.

Reading through the thread makes me believe a lot of people are posting before they've even hit 60. The issues begin once you're there (Actually more around The Vault sort of level area but mostly 60). Please if you're posting saying the class is fine you really need to actually try the EX primals or expert dungeons without being ridiculously overgeared for them because once you've done that the weaknesses of the class are so evidently clear. If you are on equal gear levels as the content it is extremely hard to keep tanks up whilst conserving mana unlike with the other two classes.

After healing with my astro for a while now.. cleared ravana ex for 10 times to get a weapon last night I can say that at least for me it does not get any better. When theres aoe healing intensive parts of the fight along with tanks getting hammered I feel like I am gasping for air, locked into forever long global cooldowns, and the only time i am not stressed is when I see Essential Dignity ready to use or Benefic II proc...When I use aoe heals i feel like they do nothing compared to white mage, and I just can't keep my party up alone. If other healer dies, it's a wipe if it's not like a break in the fight where boss isnt hammering on people. The card buffs....there has been fights where i managed to draw Balance and aoe buff party for all boss dps stances, and there has been fights where I didn't pull any useful cards all fight long. We killed the boss in both situations, without swords on butterfly phase, I felt like it didnt make a difference, maybe 1% or 2% faster/slower.

Part of me wants to be stubborn and stick to the class, the other part thinks why struggle go with scholar..so I also got my sch to 54 in the mean time... My instance runs look like either tank can pull all the mobs available and i can heal him with ease, or if we go pack by pack i dont even have to cast a heal. It's a joke compared to running those instances with astro. Can't wait to get it to 60 and compare on ravana fight.
EDIT: i just wanted to add, that in my whole time healing (since start of the game), I have never ever been so stressed doing it...not in savage, not on t13 progress...nowhere.

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Originally Posted by Lilita

stuff

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I am sorry, but you cannot expect AST to healbomb as much as WHM or shield/DPS as properly as a SCH. Pray that it never happens, or AST will be the only healer job around.

what should we expect an ast to do then. cause right now they don't really do anything

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Originally Posted by Krixus

Regen bug? Is it only on drk? I dont know what this means cause my regens work like they should.

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It appears that regen effects (tested with Regen, Whispering Dawn and Aspected Diurnal Benefic) drain DRK mp a lot faster than it should when he has Darkside on.

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Originally Posted by jars

what should we expect an ast to do then. cause right now they don't really do anything

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I am afraid it is not up to me to establish that.

What's obvious is that many Astrologians believe that they should be able to switch between WHM and SCH on a whim. This is a notion that no one with common sense would even consider remotely possible, and for good reason.
AST pays its verstatility and random buffs with a lack of specialization in raw healing / shields. It is the only way to ensure that WHM and SCH are still viable.

While some spells might need some reworking (Celestial Opposition for one), this is a problem that also plagues other healers (Dissipation for SCH, another level 60 skill, is pretty much retarded as well).

Also, your statement of "they really don't do anything" is rather inaccurate. Without my AST partner I would not be able to heal Ravana EX.

sure you would, the DF would stick another healer in your group and it would be fine because they're probably not an ast

saying you can't buff ast because whm/sch would not be viable when ast itself is not viable is quite hypocritical

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Originally Posted by jars

sure you would, the DF would stick another healer in your group and it would be fine because they're probably not an ast

saying you can't buff ast because whm/sch would not be viable when ast itself is not viable is quite hypocritical

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I am not following you.

I stated that I don't believe AST to be useless as you say, because without an AST I would not be able to heal Ravana EX alone. This means that AST is not useless, otherwise I would not be able to heal it even with an AST.

This also makes it viable by definition.

i'm fine with the lower healing throughput..i'd even be fine with the lack of emergency skills and subpar mana regen but something needs to be done with the cards. they really do not contribute anything worthwhile with the long cd and rng.

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Originally Posted by jumanjilover89

i'm fine with the lower healing throughput..i'd even be fine with the lack of emergency skills and subpar mana regen but something needs to be done with the cards. they really do not contribute anything worthwhile with the long cd and rng.

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I can get behind that. Revamping the cards is something that would still maintain its identity, so I hope that if SE decides to revisit AST, it will be in this sense.

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Originally Posted by Remilia_Nightfall

I am sorry, but you cannot expect AST to healbomb as much as WHM or shield/DPS as properly as a SCH. Pray that it never happens, or AST will be the only healer job around.

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Okay so you are saying both other healers are better than ast? Why even play it then? What is it that it brings to the table compared to SCH WHM composition? I wasn't expecting bombing heals like you said, but I expected that with my gear, I can heal known fight without so much stress and fear that people will die.

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I can get behind that. Revamping the cards is something that would still maintain its identity, so I hope that if SE decides to revisit AST, it will be in this sense.

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I completely agree. I feel like ast is fun to play, btw i love how our lb3 looks, but the feeling of being kinda useless in fights is getting to me.

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Originally Posted by Lilita

Okay so you are saying both other healers are better than ast?

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I never said that in absolute terms.

It depends what you mean by "better". Every healer has its own area of specialization. In the case of AST, it is better than SCH at healbombing and better than WHM at shielding (and possibly DPSing due to its two not-accuracy-bound DoTs). It also brings, albeit potentially, very useful buffs that can make or break an encounter if used at the right time. It is true that the buffs are random, but if they weren't, I am sure you understand that they would make encounters much, much easier more consistently - which is not what SE wants, most likely.

Buffing cards is also something that needs to be fine-tuned. You can't justify buffing them too much just because they are "RNG based" - for obvious reasons.

In the end I believe it is too early to decide whether AST is subpar or not. Alexander Savage will be the testing ground, not Ravana EX. As I see things now, AST is viable - but of course I might change my mind in the future.

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Originally Posted by Lilita

Okay so you are saying both other healers are better than ast? Why even play it then? What is it that it brings to the table compared to SCH WHM composition? I wasn't expecting bombing heals like you said, but I expected that with my gear, I can heal known fight without so much stress and fear that people will die.

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Welcome to being the bard of healers

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Originally Posted by Blitzball

Reading through the thread makes me believe a lot of people are posting before they've even hit 60. The issues begin once you're there (Actually more around The Vault sort of level area but mostly 60). Please if you're posting saying the class is fine you really need to actually try the EX primals or expert dungeons without being ridiculously overgeared for them because once you've done that the weaknesses of the class are so evidently clear. If you are on equal gear levels as the content it is extremely hard to keep tanks up whilst conserving mana unlike with the other two classes.

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The AST i was running with to level my MNK had 0 issues with healing the vault. Could do big pulls and bosses easily whilst still having mana left over.

Newbie AST i ran with today in my expert in i145 did the pulls just fine aswell.

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Originally Posted by Remilia_Nightfall

I never said that in absolute terms.

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I dont see how astro is better at healbombing that sch - 6 stacks of aetherflow and i can use lustrate or group lustrate... idk .. and in 1 second clutch moment hitting Lightspeed and "healbomb" isnt really viable. Essential dignity is only one spell on 40 sec cd, that i can use for clutch, since Aspected Benefic puts me on global cooldown. So in my opinion, whm has higher potency, sch is better at shielding (sacred soil, eos, and no collective unconscious is not comparable) and giving out controlled buffs. Astro is better at... if there was just one thing he was better at than those healers, so you could argue taking astro instead of whm or sch. And everyone is saying, oh its a support healer...uhm ok when i go progress do i want 2 solid healers, or one solid one and one support? oO ofc first version will get me further faster, allowing my group to make more mistakes.

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Originally Posted by Lilita

I dont see how astro is better at healbombing that sch - 6 stacks of aetherflow and i can use lustrate or group lustrate... idk .. and in 1 second clutch moment hitting Lightspeed and "healbomb" isnt really viable. Essential dignity is only one spell on 40 sec cd, that i can use for clutch, since Aspected Benefic puts me on global cooldown. So in my opinion, whm has higher potency, sch is better at shielding (sacred soil, eos, and no collective unconscious is not comparable) and giving out controlled buffs. Astro is better at... if there was just one thing he was better at than those healers, so you could argue taking astro instead of whm or sch. And everyone is saying, oh its a support healer...uhm ok when i go progress do i want 2 solid healers, or one solid one and one support? oO ofc first version will get me further faster, allowing my group to make more mistakes.

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To be honest I am getting quite tired by people who cannot argue objectively.

You mention SCH having 6 stacks of Aetherflow that can be used for Lustrate or Group Lustrate (? - I guess you mean Indomitability, which heals less than Lustrate and is on 60sec CD so it is in no way spammable). FYI, 6 stacks of Aetherflow only happen at the start of the battle. You will NEVER have 6 stacks to use for healing during an encounter, because any remotely decent SCH will not sit on an unused Aetherflow CD - better to pop CS and go Energy Drain, if you have no other uses for those charges.
You also mention SCH having Sacred Soil (which still costs Aetherflow, so that's one less Lustrate or Indomitability).
You also mention Eos AND "controlled buffs" by which I guess you mean Selene's "amazing" 3% haste - but you forget to mention that it's either Eos OR Selene, or the fact that they still have rather long CDs.

Also, I would like to remind you that neither Lustrate or Indomitability are buffed by Fey Illumination OR Dissipation, as of now.

So please, don't act like SCH is the God of healing, because it is not.

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Originally Posted by Remilia_Nightfall

To be honest I am getting quite tired by people who cannot argue objectively.

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I am only saying and comparing to sch, since thats the decision i have to make... will i heal on astro or sch (other healer in our raid group is whm). I am only trying to understand your point, and really try to learn to do better with astro, waiting for someone to discover something I wasnt able to and say "heres a nice trick, it helps you heal better"... so it wont be so stressful and at the end of the fight i will feel like i contributed. As I said, it's fun to play, but I feel weak and i don't like it. I checked lodestone and saw you have your astro at level 30...

Something recent I found out that is bugging me- two diurnal ast cannot stack their hots. A whm/diurnal can stack, 2 whm can stack, but 2 diurnal cannot :/ Seems arbitrary.

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Originally Posted by Lilita

I checked lodestone and saw you have your astro at level 30...

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Indeed I do. Fortunately I live (and heal raids) with my girlfriend who is AST, so I know all of its skills and how it works. I would not presume to speak about it if I had no clue.
As said, my opinion might change in the future once Alexander Savage happens - as of now it seems viable to me. Harder to play as? Possibly - but easier does not mean more powerful.

I am sure there are still things to learn about AST, and ways to optimize its skills will be discovered. If not, SE will revisit it - there is no reason why they should not.

In short, if you like AST, stick with it. That's my suggestion.

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Originally Posted by Remilia_Nightfall

To be honest I am getting quite tired by people who cannot argue objectively.

You mention SCH having 6 stacks of Aetherflow that can be used for Lustrate or Group Lustrate (? - I guess you mean Indomitability, which heals less than Lustrate and is on 60sec CD so it is in no way spammable). FYI, 6 stacks of Aetherflow only happen at the start of the battle. You will NEVER have 6 stacks to use for healing during an encounter, because any remotely decent SCH will not sit on an unused Aetherflow CD - better to pop CS and go Energy Drain, if you have no other uses for those charges.
You also mention SCH having Sacred Soil (which still costs Aetherflow, so that's one less Lustrate or Indomitability).
You also mention Eos AND "controlled buffs" by which I guess you mean Selene's "amazing" 3% haste - but you forget to mention that it's either Eos OR Selene, or the
fact that they still have rather long CDs.

Also, I would like to remind you that neither Lustrate or Indomitability are buffed by Fey Illumination OR Dissipation, as of now.

So please, don't act like SCH is the God of healing, because it is not.

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TY!! Sch's keep going on like they full time selene on every single fight, are able to have the attack speed on at all times, 6 lustrates on demand while also using sacred soil for every big hit simultaniously! And dps like a king on top of the rest. You are just grouping all of sch's skills and acting like they are available on the drop of a dime. I watched a sch wipe three times healing the last boss on the vault and thought of all the lovely people hating on astro's. Like ive said before astro and sch are higher skill cap jobs. I havnt needed extra emergency cures, cause I dont let it become an emergency. Players need to practice their job thoroughly before posting here about what needs to be changed.

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Originally Posted by LycorisSelunis

Something recent I found out that is bugging me- two diurnal ast cannot stack their hots. A whm/diurnal can stack, 2 whm can stack, but 2 diurnal cannot :/ Seems arbitrary.

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Also their Nocturnal Shields overwrite SCH's shields even when they are weaker.

AST is currently plagued by a few bugs. They will get fixed. Not sure if this HoT stacking is a bug or a feature, tho.

It could be that diurnal astro and sch work better together than Nocturnal astro and whm... I could actually see that work. If you time your buffs together nicely, offensive or defensive sounds kinda amazing. I was sch main before, maybe thats why i think its so much easier cause i am so used to it. I will certainly not give up on it, but since im leveling healers up first anyway, sch will be next one, just in case.

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Originally Posted by Krixus

. I havnt needed extra emergency cures, cause I dont let it become an emergency. .

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You cannot POSSIBLY claim this forever. You cannot control other people screwing up-they might make an emergency regardless of what you are doing to prevent it.

That being said I do agree-sch may have a lot of tricks but they can't use them all the time.

you mock selene for the 3% bufff , but your own buff AE is 5% and you need a few minutes on average to draw the 2 cards.

I dont know why ppl go at theorycrafting and stuff the fact is SCH was always borderline broken as a class, only lacked reliable aoe heals which now they got in form of emergency tactics and indomitability, 30 sec cooldown is more than enough too due to the frequency at which aoe dmg happens in most encounters (t13 is prob still the most aoe heavy fight to date). AST as a class is "okish" but if the other healer fucks up you are boned you can just sit and watch how things go to hell, balancing ast will also be nearly impossible due to its hybrid nature , by buffing its heals will indirectly nerf WHM and vice versa with shields. I dont think SE will ever give ast any more potency than it already has.
Only thing they can do with AST is make Cards less random and rework lightspeed.

^ your wrong sir I'm sorry. Rebalancing this class doesn't mean nerfing the others. -_-' it's just making a balance.

I feel that they should boost card effects to make Astrologian more competitive, however even at present I enjoy an Astrologian with myself as they are more aggressive than either WHM or SCH.


However we should be quite careful because at present an Astrologian can make a blackmage become a deity with their cards.

Or 20% "the imabalanced", that is a ridiculously powerful combo and then extend the effect and all of a sudden you have a DPS chunking crap.

AST takes quite a bit of finesse to play. It's a hybrid class, which means it is not ever going to be better than it's predecessor classes which everyone keeps comparing it to.

That aside, AST is a lot of fun as a class. It's challenging to the better player, with a high skill cap, but might be incredibly difficult to the average player. You will lose your mana very quickly if you are not careful, or if your tank is not rolling CDs. Your healing potency is lackluster in comparison to the other healing classes, which is what makes AST challenging. The utilization of dignity is a must. Whilst weaving actual support cards for your party (balance, arrow, bole if necessary).

I did Ravana Extreme farm with double AST. I was in Noct and he was in Diurnal (our healing was about the same). It was challenging. Our MCH had to roll mana turret often, and it forced people to not make mistakes because the recovery ability from AST is weak.

Ok so what you're basically saying Kyln is that Ast is below the other two and require YOU and EVERYONE ELSE to do good in order to survive.

Yup, that's perfect balance right there.

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Originally Posted by Shamirah

Ok so what you're basically saying Kyln is that Ast is below the other two and require YOU and EVERYONE ELSE to do good in order to survive.

Yup, that's perfect balance right there.

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It is balanced, albeit some skills -are- broken or need a buff. It's a hybrid healing class with a high skill cap. Especially to play noct sect properly. Mana management is on a whole new level with this class. I don't expect people to just pick this class up and be exceptional. It's going to take time.

there isnt anything hybrid, AST is either shield or regen, you have to decide before the fight.
you could also just change from WHM to SCH before a fight.


so there is no special power with deciding between shield sor regen before a fight.



If it were DURING a fight, that would be different

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Originally Posted by Remilia_Nightfall

Stuff.

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Lol "Many AST believe they should be able to switch between WHM and SCH?" Really? No we don't. Any AST has figured out by now that Nocturnal Sect is much weaker than the other sect. Why would we want to switch to that Sect, especially when the fotm healer is SCH, who overrides the shields in that sect? You're right on one account though, we do pay for that versatility, as crappy as it is. Look at our kit. The proc of benefic 1 is practically useless, and we have no relevant cooldowns (Lol lightspeed). Pretty steep price to have such mediocre abilities like being able to switch stances before combat, between one that is okay and one that is completely useless when theres a SCH around. Without your AST partner you wouldn't be able to heal Ravana EX? Yeah well im willing to bet with any of the other healers, you would do it better. What we want is something useful we can bring to raids, whether its cooldowns some kind of specailized healing or some ABILITY that isn't a watered down version of the other two healers, because these RNG cards are not worth it.

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Originally Posted by Nague

there isnt anything hybrid, AST is either shield or regen, you have to decide before the fight.
you could also just change from WHM to SCH before a fight.


so there is no special power with deciding between shield sor regen before a fight.



If it were DURING a fight, that would be different

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Yes, the class is considered a hybrid. Which is why you can change between regen or shields. Again, pointing this out that: neither of these Sects are as good as the other healing counterparts and thus should not be associated comparatively.

No, you cannot change Sects on the fly, however, you may change your healing style while the other healers cannot. You can also go into Noct Sect, put up shields on your party, then switch to Dirunal for the pull to save stoneskins. It's all about how you push this class to the next level.