Your thoughts on Astrolgian so far?

tbh, they should get rid of those party buff and just make it baseline. or something like when you're in a light party you gain X or X% on your stats, and when you're in a full party, you gain 2*X or 2*X% on your stats.

As a tank I dispise Asts, their heals barely are enough and most cant even keep me above 75% even when I use my dmg reduction cooldowns. They heal for less than scholars (from what I have seen) but lack the heal fairy to help them. I'd easly pick whm or sch over an ast anyday.

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Originally Posted by Scyris

As a tank I dispise Asts.

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You must have just had bad luck. I speed run every run I do as a an AST no issues keeping the group up. Despise me if you want, but I will guarantee I'll keep your butt alive in a dungeon. Write my name down...if we ever cross paths I'll will gladly prove you wrong. Chances are we will never meet.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scyris

As a tank I dispise Asts, their heals barely are enough and most cant even keep me above 75% even when I use my dmg reduction cooldowns. They heal for less than scholars (from what I have seen) but lack the heal fairy to help them. I'd easly pick whm or sch over an ast anyday.

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Little over a week the job has been introduced to the game. Give time to the slower ones to learn the job. Keep in mind just as many sch/whm's have been failing in new content also. Im also guessing you are one of those drk's who tries to dps instead of tank.

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Originally Posted by Houston009

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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Not sure how he was a newbie when The Vault gives i142 gear.
I'm i136 and I was on my last leg, looking for LA constantly.
He was probably a 60 or something.
You need every single item probably from the Aery to suffer less.

People who say AST is fine are hilarious.
It's not over the top with problems but it does need tweaks.

The Newbie AST and the one for the Vault were two different healers, sorry for not specifying.

For the Vault:
I was playing with my static healer (who was leveling beside me, a.k.a not 60) and we went into the dungeon at lv 57 with whatever gear we had. We were very unlucky with Aery drops.

For the expert:
Newbie to the dungeon itself. The Ilvl requirement for expert dungeons is i145 gear, which can be bought.

A tweak to AST would be nice. However, the current content we are given is fine for AST.

I've noticed so far that AST seems to have a struggle with being solo healer. Maybe SE will buff the job at some point or it may fall to the wayside. I also find the cards confusing even though they have a small icon and color those some of them seem identical at first glance. I have yet to level it even though it was the one job I thought I might like.

I've only leveled AST to 41 so far, so you can take what I say with a grain of salt, but I feel like I have to spam Benefic and Benefic II way more then I had to spam Cure and Cure II with CNJ/WHM and Physick and Embrace with SCH while solo healing in dungeons at lower levels. I also feel like I have to use Essential Dignity way more then I had to use Benediction or Lustrate during those situations. It kind of feels like SE designed AST to be weaker then the other two and have to focus on healing, while WHM and SCH get to DPS

As for the card mechanic, it okay but could be better. I kind of wish that the ability to extend their effects to multiple party members wasn't part of Royal Road and that it just point-blank effected the whole party versus people nearby (the poor ARC/BRD/THM/BLM/ACN/SMN/MCH who like standing so far away can't get the effect).

I absolutely Love it to death.
Haven't had this much fun playing a healer class in forever and I already was having such a great time playing SCH.
Aspected Helios nominated for prettiest healing spell ever award.
Also the Buffing system is so much fun.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scyris

As a tank I dispise Asts, their heals barely are enough and most cant even keep me above 75% even when I use my dmg reduction cooldowns. They heal for less than scholars (from what I have seen) but lack the heal fairy to help them. I'd easly pick whm or sch over an ast anyday.

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I find its tanks who are too used to being carried by their healer that have issues with AST. Tanks that do their job by using cooldowns to mitigate damage are absolutely fine with AST. I find when i get a tank who can not press the buttons to reduce the damage they take are a huge issue, as are the ones who still think we can speed run all the new content undergeared and with party compositions that is far from optimal to kill mass pulls quickly. Flip side to every coin.

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Originally Posted by DarkmoonVael

I find its tanks who are too used to being carried by their healer that have issues with AST. Tanks that do their job by using cooldowns to mitigate damage are absolutely fine with AST. I find when i get a tank who can not press the buttons to reduce the damage they take are a huge issue, as are the ones who still think we can speed run all the new content undergeared and with party compositions that is far from optimal to kill mass pulls quickly. Flip side to every coin.

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This is 100% true. Any healer will struggle with a tank that does not rotate CDs.

I have got mine at 52. I love it, but at the same time I am disappointed with it, because anything what I can do can be done by other healing classes better. Cards just don't compensate it. It's missing healing cds and it's healing output is lowest of all healers. I remember I wiped 2 times on first boss in AV at level 47, my hots were just not healing enough, aoe heal was not an option so had to spam ST heals. On third try we killed it with everyone being at 30% hp and me at 200 mana. Little too close I would say. I do not recall having such trouble with WHM or SCH when I did AV with these classes at 47.

I think AST is a good job but it feels like something is lacking.
I'm not sure that there are good reasons to take an AST instead of a SCH or a WHM.
Why should I bring AST in a group when SCH has enough support (with Selene+the High DPS that SCH can do) but very higher healing abilities?
So as someone else said, in Alexander we will see.
The PROs and CONs of AST are, imho:

I think AST is a good job but it feels like something is lacking.
I'm not sure that there are good reasons to take an AST instead of a SCH or a WHM.
Why should I bring AST in a group when SCH has enough support (with Selene+the High DPS that SCH can do) but very higher healing abilities?
So as someone else said, in Alexander we will see.
The PROs and CONs of AST are, imho:

PROS
instant heals: instant adloquium|instant proc Benefic II
cards are funny and really powerful: if you have Balance/Arrow... it's simply power
I really like the "utilities" like Sinastry and Time Dilation: they are very useful in some situations

CONS
MP management is a bit unfair: why do WHM have Shrouds of Saints and Assize, SCH have Aetherflow+Energy Drain and AST have only Luminiferous Aether? Should we be forced to use the Ewer on ourselves?
There is a lack in AOE heals: SCH have Succor+Emergency Tactcis Succor+Indomitability. WHM have Medica+Medica2+Cure3. AST have only Helios and Aspected Helios.
Aspected Helios has a very long cast expecially if you're in nocturnal sect.
Essential Dignity should have a lower recast time. 40 seconds are too much, 30 would be better.
Collective Unconscious is ... simply wrong. Sacred Soil and Asylum are better. :/
Lightspeed could be considered a great ability but the truth is that you have to sacrifice healing potency: AST heals are weaker then SCH/WHM and become much weaker when you use Lightspeed. 25% is a bit too much. I think it should be -10% with a 10% MP refresh.


I main SCH and I'm very curious to see how AST will work in a raid group for Alexander.
Honestly, I don't see the reason to go AST instead of SCH. I fear I couldn't help in emergency situations.

Still 50, but struggling to heal atm, idk if its just because of me or I'm feeling the reduced potency we have especially since I always pair up with my bro (SCH) in 8 mans and I main WHM before.

Nevertheless a fun job to play, but hard to master.

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Originally Posted by lordparanoia

SCH have Aetherflow+Energy Drain and AST have only Luminiferous Aether?

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Again, the usual fallacy when talking about SCH.

Most of SCH good tools are mutually exclusive. If you consider Aetherflow + Energy Drain, you have to imagine a SCH without Indomitability, Lustrate and Sacred Soil.

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Originally Posted by ViscountofSeven

Still 50, but struggling to heal atm

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I feel the level 50 content is not really designed for ast (or that ast is not designed for the level 50 content). Honestly the new content 51+ is easily doable with ast, I have not really had a hard time healing the new content unless your party does not really co-operate with you i.e. when you have two ranged dps at the opposite ends of the room and your trying to aoe heal - the 15 yalm radius is definitely noticeable :p (There is less room for error when healing as ast - for you and for your party). This would benefit the other healers too.

I think we will always have two schools of thought - those saying ast is fine as is and those that feel a change is needed. imho, I think SE deliberately made the new classes a little underwhelming to begin with so they will be buffed later instead of nerfing.

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Originally Posted by Violet_Magenta

I think SE deliberately made the new classes a little underwhelming to begin with so they will be buffed later instead of nerfing.

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Yeah, i think the same about this. SE got a lot of people crying after the nin "nerf" because of that. So this time its better to release a underpowered healer (in buffs at least. In healer is not that bad atm), wait a few weeks and then enpower the job to get all the people happy :3

I really like it, had a go on my friends lvl 60 and yeah the healing is what it is no major boosts for the oh shit moments but I think it forces more controlled healing.

I also feel there is a mana problem, whether or not that is due to tanks not rotating CDs appropriately, WHM/SCH can handle these tanks I think an AST should be able to in their own way.

I noticed in fights like the last boss of the vault and ravana I was able to handle the AOE damage easier on my SCH than AST so can only imagine how much the WHM laughs at AST in those moments.

Maybe extending card durations would help make it seem more balanced.

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Originally Posted by Violet_Magenta

I feel the level 50 content is not really designed for ast (or that ast is not designed for the level 50 content). Honestly the new content 51+ is easily doable with ast [...]

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This is what I think as well. However, as I'm now a Lv 57 SCH (and Lv 60 AST) I can say pretty surely that there's nothing a Noct AST can do that a SCH can't do much better and selene's buff is probably enough to provide a comparable DPS boost to AST's cards, which are not a big deal anyway atm. So yeah, I can't believe this job is working as intended, they're probably observing us all and will buff AST soon enough, right now it simply isn't competitive compared to the other two healers. I'd even say that a fairyless SCH is better than a Noct AST which is ridiculous. Also, if the new content is designed taking into account the AST, it will be much easier to deal with with a SCH anyway.

continues...

AST looks ok until you try the new skills for the other healers. SCH's Deployment Tactics for example is potentially a damage mitigation an AST can never hope to achieve, even with an expanded bole. Indomitability is a more powerful insta medica (no MP cost and oGCD). WHM's Asylum is slightly less powerful than Diurnal Collective Unconscious (tho it lasts longer), but you can move and act meanwhile. Luminiferous Aether is a nerfed version of Shroud of Saints (much more useful to have your enmity halved) and WHM's Assize is basically a free medica every 90 seconds and even restores own's MP! On top of that the only CD we can use to somewhat change the way we heal is freaking Lightspeed which reduces healing potency and this just means more mana problems. This is just freaking ridiculous! I'm not going to enter Alexander Savage with AST if it is not buffed considerably.

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Originally Posted by Lastelli

stuff

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Yes, you can have all of those things, no problem. In exchange, can WHM and SCH have stances and cards? Thxbai

So I'm nearly 58 here so here's what I think the Pro's and Con's for me.
Long read so I'll hide. Will edit if I wanna add.

Pro: It's a new somewhat exciting new healer, with faster healing speeds.
- [For me] I love tarot/astrology/zodiac so this is the perfect job to me.
- The card system is interesting.
- The skills are pretty.

And here we are with the Con's outweighing with explanations:
Mana Problems: You have to have near PERFECT Mana Management. This is one reason I did not like WHM, their management made me snooze but I'm always on the go with AST because of low heals.
When things get spicy, you drain your MP to hell. Pray to God you get Ewer and ONLY use it on yourself, and use LA as much as you can.
Tip: Please use LA as much AS POSSIBLE. Just did the vault again, I left with 5k MP thanks to Ewer twice and LA twice iirc, and didn't have to Syn anyone. When you have a good group, life is easier.
Low Healing potency: This doesn't bother me so much, it's the fact that the low heals + high MP cost is annoying, they adds to MP management. Make sure no one dies, the raise is almost 1.8k for me atm.
Benefic II proc: Give us a 0 MP thing and we'll be golden.
Diurnal&Nocturnal: I still can't find when Nocturnal is better than Diurnal. Use that + the Aspected Bene and you got two regen's going....2 regens > crap shield.
LightSpeed: I have not a single idea why our healing is shot to 25%. Bad bad BAD implement. Reduce to 15% or 10% Please.
Fast healing + HIGH MP COST + SUPER LOW HEALS = Not so good. You have to use this when you're really in a tight spot imo...even then I don't want to.
Time Dilation: People say that the AST used it on herself in the Job Action. I think they showed it just for the sake of, we cannot use the ability on ourselves....but if we had it this will help us...I think it could make it a little OP though using LA/Ewer.
The Card System: The thing I loved the most as an AST, and is very happy when my cards come when I need them. It needs help.
This is the Staple of AST's yet it feels tagged on.
What needs to happen:
The Draw card needs to have at least a 25 cooldown. 30 is far too much.
The Spread card needs to allow out of combat uses. I screwed up many times trying to save a card before a boss in spread but used it literally last second as I could so I wouldn't waste it 100%.
Royal Road needs to be off CD...This doesn't make sense considering every other card is 30, 60, 90.
Shuffle needs to not allow the same card pulled, pulled again...Makes no sense whatsoever and it is a waste of peoples time. This is a big piss me off thing going for me.
Collective Unconscious...well...I don't have it but people say it has neat Regen, so that's pretty nice, probably useless as hell in Nocturnal. Wonder if it stacks with Regen barrier.
Celestial Opposition is there use for this? Just curious...a stun at level 60? This is our end all be all 60 skill? ...A non-damage stun...a PvP skill? Wow.
The Situationals & RNGesus - Way too many situational buttons and you're waitin' days to play with your cards. The RNG aspect of AST is neat but I feel like it's too strict.
It would help if they did something to Shuffle. You have to plan too much on fast combat

At the end, they need buffs. I dunno numbers much and crap and I understand that this is an intermediate job....
But there is a difference between a job you must learn to play very well, and a job that clearly is on a bit of a clutch.
This isn't me comparing Job's. It's clear as day they need tweaks.

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Originally Posted by Remilia_Nightfall

Yes, you can have all of those things, no problem. In exchange, can WHM and SCH have stances and cards? Thxbai

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Is this answer serious? Come on, im sure you are smarter like that

@remilia

Stances influence the secondary effect of certain skills that is applied by default for sch and whm (if you're playing diurnal aspected benefic has a lower potency than regen and it's less mana efficient, if your playing nocturnal adloquium is more powerful and its crit shield is great, while aspected benefic can be good because it's instant but has no crit bonus), plus you cannot switch stances during a fight of course, so once you choose one you have to compare ast with sch and whm. I'm curious to know by how much AST's cards increase the party's output, I'll be forcing my static into some tests later, but I don't really think it will make much difference (maybe a 2-3% increase overall that you can gain by DPSing with your scholar). You're a SCH, correct? I suggest you try the new ex primals (and later alexander savage) using both SCH and AST to evaluate its effectiveness.

I maintain what I said before now that I am 60.... SE wanted a machinegun healer with buffs but the tools need tweaking because their abilities fight against themselves.

Lightspeed- the potency reduction should be lowered to 10-15%, mp reduction added 10%, and REDUCE THE GCD WHEN ACTIVE. The instant cast mobility isn't huge and you are NOT spamming heals any faster than before since you are gcd locked but still have a potency loss. I know that 3 things on one cd might sound like a lot but as our only healing cd, it should really count.

Collective Unconscious- the entire class focused around mobility and pushing out spells all the time and now we have a spell that keeps us still and not casting. Completely counteractive. Either allow us to plop the bubble around us and move within it like Leylines, or make it a ground targetable aoe like the equivalent spell on the other two healers. Reduce potency if you must to keep balance.

Enhanced Benefic 2- make the proc take Bene2 OFF THE GCD. This is the same problem with lightspeed- the illusion of speed when actually you're still gcd locked. I am ok with not reducing the cost- we are not WHM.

Celestial Opposition- for a lvl 60 skill this is so underwhelming, with the hugest cd for such small effect (one of the most gorgeous spells ever tough). The 4 sec stun is awful if you screw up on a boss and make it immune to stuns so you can't interrupt something. All the notes we have prior to release make me think this was changed last minute- it was going to be and SHOULD be a unique debuff. 5 sec buff increase seems very small. Either increase the buff extension or lower the cd of this skill. 2 and a half minutes? Really? Perhaps make buff extension a % based on remaining duration...or not.

Gravity/Stella- Gravity should do heavy. Come on, it's gravity. It's a friggin lvl 52 spell. Needs SOMETHING more than damage. Make stella do paralysis or perhaps slow instead.

Disable- should not get used up by autoattacks T^T Just upsetting since some bosses still aa when channeling a large ability but if you land disable too close to the end of the cast it doesn't apply. And then gets wasted on an aa after the attack. I know that this is a powerful and situational spell but it should not be SO difficult to time properly.

Shuffle- either prevent the redrawing of the same card or lower the cd.

On the subject of MP- No, we are NOT the same mp management as lvl 50 whm because whm had freecure and overcure which went MILES towards good mp management as a whm, using those procs properly (we all know aetherflow is good). Then again we have our mp recovery tool lvl synced even to Sastasha-same with our emergency heal that other healers get at 50. I think this speaks something about the design of the class. You should be using these spells, and using them often. At my baseline lvl 50 comparison ast DID have lower mp costs on their spells compared to whm/sch to pair with the slightly lower potency. Everything about the class screams spammy healer to me. Should we be saving ewer for ourselves? Does this 'break' our support feel? When leveling I usually used spread on ewer to have an emergency mp tool for bosses. Without it I would have surely oom. That being said- who else should I have used it on if not myself? As for the suggestion that ewer/spire refresh and not reduce costs I swear that drk is the main reason why. DRK cannot get mp recovery from brd/mch but they CAN get cost reduction from ewer. Is that a good justification? probably not but I think it was the one SE used. Also spire is a pain to use since we still cannot see party TP bars which is just dumb. At 60 you can extend LA by 5 secs with CO every other LA...but perhaps not optimizing CO with other buffs that way. How much more mp is 5 secs anyway?

TL/DR- AST has great potential but some of their own abilities counteract their intended playstyle.

BTW hotfix tonight fixing the CO food bug and the Ascend macro bug! and perhaps the enh bene 2 proc

No mention of this 'spear' bug though....

I agree with everything you have said.

Really bugs me when people say lightspeed is so good, you can use it for an inst cast and click it off. NO a buff shouldnt require this extra nonsense to be viable.

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Originally Posted by Sanguisio

I agree with everything you have said.

Really bugs me when people say lightspeed is so good, you can use it for an inst cast and click it off. NO a buff shouldnt require this extra nonsense to be viable.

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I use to cast 4.5 sec ascends after SC is on cd and little else....Maybe Stoneskinning between packs. I used it more leveling actually. Times when the potency hit wasn't so noticeable. At max level though it's simply unacceptable.

Exactly, it really feels like a wasted skill slot, who knows in alexander it might shine. But as it stands meh ^^

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LycorisSelunis

BTW hotfix tonight fixing the CO food bug and the Ascend macro bug! and perhaps the enh bene 2 proc

No mention of this 'spear' bug though....

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But not fixing the spear bug? Whyyy

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Remilia_Nightfall

Again, the usual fallacy when talking about SCH.

Most of SCH good tools are mutually exclusive. If you consider Aetherflow + Energy Drain, you have to imagine a SCH without Indomitability, Lustrate and Sacred Soil.

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I meant that you can use energy drain to get some MP back. For example when you are dpsing and you have Aetherflow ready and you didn't use the 3 stacks.
You have 1 ability that will always give you back MP, and another one that you can choose to use to have some MP more and also to deal damage.
AST haven't much choices: as AST you only have LA to refresh your MP.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lordparanoia

I meant that you can use energy drain to get some MP back. For example when you are dpsing and you have Aetherflow ready and you didn't use the 3 stacks.
You have 1 ability that will always give you back MP, and another one that you can choose to use to have some MP more and also to deal damage.
AST haven't much choices: as AST you only have LA to refresh your MP.

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I get where remilia is coming from, LA is to refresh MP and reduce emnity that's it none of your jobs abilities rely on the resource it uses, as a SCH 5 skills/spells rely on that one resource. Im not saying its never possible for a SCH to ED if needed but the bulk of MP regain comes from aetherflow and that really is how SCH should be regarded.

whats so hard to understand, every time you dont neex mac healing or emergency healing, you can use stacks to regain mana.
1 phase or even half a phase of that and SCH has the mana reset without any bard song.

Btw it's not like the SCH needs to use ED for MP, it's mainly for DPS purposes and it CAN miss, espacially now with no accuracy on your gear. But with Aetherflow restoring 20% of max MP every 60 seconds and so many free healing skills on your SCH you hardly have MP issues. LA is once every 120 seconds and AST has few free healing spells (dignity and that's it) + Synastry which doesn't help much saving MP, though it depends on mechanics really. For something like earthshaker it could be great, but you still will be using a lot of MP. SCH never had MP issues in the first place and there's no reason why he will start having problems now with the additional party wide free heals. WHM had to maximize SoS' utility, fine, but he had cure 2 and 3 procs that helped a lot and now assize.AST has something really similar to shroud and must use cards on himself not to run out of MP, reducing his ability as a buffer, or alternatively force his WHM/SCH partner to heal more and act like a support job.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Krixus

But not fixing the spear bug? Whyyy

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What spear bug? You mean that it doesn't affect cooldowns that are already used? That's not a bug, that's how it works... It's only reducing the cooldowns of skills you haven't used yet. If the skill already goes on cooldown then it's going to take that full cooldown before spear was used.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by VitalSuit

What spear bug? You mean that it doesn't affect cooldowns that are already used? That's not a bug, that's how it works... It's only reducing the cooldowns of skills you haven't used yet. If the skill already goes on cooldown then it's going to take that full cooldown before spear was used.

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It is in "accepted bugs" so maybe it is a bug.

Anyway, MP refresh is just one small problem in the Astrologians gameplay.
the real problem is that AST is not (at the moment) comparable with SCH and WHM in healing potency:
-collective unconscious is a nerfed version of sacred soil/asylum
-lightspeed is a nerfed version of presence of mind (of course you're faster then a whm with pom but ... -25% is just too much)
-aspected benefic is a nerfed version of adloquium (in nocturnal sect)
-aspected helios is a nerfed version of medica2 (but similar to succor)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lordparanoia

the real problem is that AST is not (at the moment) comparable with SCH and WHM in healing potency

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Of course not. Do you expect to be able to heal as a WHM and shield like a SCH, while having cards on top of that?

What else? How about dpsing like a MNK?

The only thing that I admit might need some revamping indeed is the card system. Making anything else on par with WHM and SCH would not only make those jobs obsolete, but it would kill AST identity as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Remilia_Nightfall

Of course not. Do you expect to be able to heal as a WHM and shield like a SCH, while having cards on top of that?

What else? How about dpsing like a MNK?

The only thing that I admit might need some revamping indeed is the card system. Making anything else on par with WHM and SCH would not only make those jobs obsolete, but it would kill AST identity as well.

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If they make cards useful you're right. But please play the job and you'll see the flaws. I understand that AST cannot be as good as a SCH or WHM at their respective jobs, but the way it is now, ast is just too much weaker as a healer. Mana problems, low potency, no useful healing CD, nerfed versions of WHM/SCH skills and a card system that is totally rng and I suspect less effective than using selene's fey wind as far as dps is concerned (need data about this). This is why he used the word "comparable". AST should be comparable, just slightly weaker. However right now SCH and WHM are simply in a different league as healers. The gap it too big.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Remilia_Nightfall

Of course not. Do you expect to be able to heal as a WHM and shield like a SCH, while having cards on top of that?

What else? How about dpsing like a MNK?

The only thing that I admit might need some revamping indeed is the card system. Making anything else on par with WHM and SCH would not only make those jobs obsolete, but it would kill AST identity as well.

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Hyperboles aside, the cards are just a gimmick at this point and doesn't validate AST's lower healing numbers compared to WHM and SCH. WHM and SCH already make this job obsolete.