Thoughts from a 60 AST & 60 WHM

If only we could buff Time dilation on ourselves, could solve the mp issue...

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Originally Posted by Rajeme

If only we could buff Time dilation on ourselves, could solve the mp issue...

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Again, using Ewer and (being able to use) Time Dilation on yourself reduces the amount of utility you offer to a group; these are skills meant to be used for group utility, not self sustainability, and using them as such further reduces the reasoning for bringing AST to a group in the first place.

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Originally Posted by PinnyAerani

Question then from a non-high level AST...Doesn't AST have a shroud of saints clone? And if I'm not mistaken, doesn't it have a higher renew potency than shroud of saints? How are ASTs having mana issues between that and ewer then? The name of the game is adaptability, not rock-solid rigidity, so "oh ewer is only good for eating for royal road" doesn't cut it: If you have MP issues, and you know you have MP issues, save it?

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They do have a similar skill but it's just not enough sometimes. Our heals are not as mana efficient as WHM who has better potency per mana point, and they also save more mana with passive traits like Freecure. Plus since they have higher potency heals and better emergency cooldowns, they're not spamming as many heals to as we have to in order to keep people up. AST just uses up a lot more mana is all it comes down to. I've had a WHM since ARR came out and learned early on how to manage my mana, so it's not really a learn to play issue and a lot of AST's are in the same boat as me. The class is fun, but it needs a lot of tweaking.

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Originally Posted by Leiloni

They do have a similar skill but it's just not enough sometimes. .

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Yes, this exactly. Our benefic 2 proc is not a free cure and it's more mana efficient to ignore it. Lower potency spells=more mana yet we just weren't given enough to offset mana spent. We have luminous aetherflow and time dilation to extend our hots. It isn't enough, especially in nocturnal stance where shields need to be reapplied to make up for the loss of potency of keeping a hot up. We have to use our cards to sustain ourselves nullifying any potential benefits the job can bring to a raid. There is just no reason to bring this class in over a WHM or SCH with all the tools the other two bring with them.

Ast needs a buff, or even an overhaul to be viable for a serious raiding environment.

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Originally Posted by PinnyAerani

Question then from a non-high level AST...Doesn't AST have a shroud of saints clone? And if I'm not mistaken, doesn't it have a higher renew potency than shroud of saints? How are ASTs having mana issues between that and ewer then? The name of the game is adaptability, not rock-solid rigidity, so "oh ewer is only good for eating for royal road" doesn't cut it: If you have MP issues, and you know you have MP issues, save it?

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Shroud of Saints and, the near clone for AST, Luminiferous Aether both have 80 refresh potency and 15 seconds of duration. The problem is that, in all i180 gear, Aspected Helios requires just over 10% of your mana. And white mage has far better tools to regain mana, like Assize. The main problem with the mana issues comes in because AST has lower heal potency and so to get to the same heals as SCH or WHM, they have to heal much more often, thus draining mana very fast.

Ewer is good, but only when you have to raise or when you are about to do AoE healing. It's not a great idea to save the card because, god forbid, you draw a balance card and do not have Extended Royal Road (aoe version), you waste the balance card completely.

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Originally Posted by GideonHighmourn

Again, using Ewer and (being able to use) Time Dilation on yourself reduces the amount of utility you offer to a group; these are skills meant to be used for group utility, not self sustainability, and using them as such further reduces the reasoning for bringing AST to a group in the first place.

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I agree with both of you. It would solve the issue, but it would not be the correct way to go about doing it.

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Originally Posted by Khyan

I play AST lvl 60 especially on nocturnal stance since I have a whm on my static. I don't have time to give you my feedback yet. I up my scholar to 60 (still 58 actually) because, personnally, I think without all the emergency heals from my scholar it will be too difficult (or even impossible) during savage raids for my static.

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This is the point.
Some people just don't understand the importance of emergency heals during progression. When people make mistake, or even when the co-healer can't provide a sufficient amount of healing (for many reasons), AST will begin to have problems.
Of course, AST is perfect for dungeons and duty roulette, but I think that a SCH or WHM will just shine more then AST in Alexander (savage).

This might be an unpopular opinion but I think AST's heals should remain as they are, nor should they get a buff to emergency situations. To me, AST is much more of a support class than BRD or MCH and I think they should focus on that. Keep AST's healing as risky thing to take - make them worth the gamble in what they can bring that the others can't. We have 2 dedicated healers - if we're going to judge or balance AST in relation to them then it will NEVER be as viable due to the Sect stuff. Why have Aspected Helios when you can have Medica II? Why have Nocturnal Shield if you can have Adloquium? They are at the end of the day a healing class, and their healing is passable in most situations, but they need to be thought of as the high risk high reward support healer, not the crappy in-between version of the other 2.

So the cards need to be stronger. Make it so that Selene's speed boosts don't make AST seem like a waste of time especially. If you want absolute safety in healing take the other 2, but I say give AST the niche of noticeable support at the expense of a healing safety net if things go wrong. The _only_ change I would make to AST's healing would be to make Nocturnal sect more viable somehow (more potency? Even if the shields rival SCH it's not like they're spammable and SCH has a wealth of other things to the point it will not be outclassed) - and perhaps an additional healing effect to Celestial Opposition - similar to how Assize works. Oh and make Lightspeed reduce GCD by a fair chunk at the expense of duration - run with the Time Mage theme.

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Originally Posted by Aeliott

This might be an unpopular opinion but I think AST's heals should remain as they are, nor should they get a buff to emergency situations. To me, AST is much more of a support class than BRD or MCH and I think they should focus on that. Keep AST's healing as risky thing to take - make them worth the gamble in what they can bring that the others can't. We have 2 dedicated healers - if we're going to judge or balance AST in relation to them then it will NEVER be as viable due to the Sect stuff.

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maybe we should get a out of card buff for Spell speed to compete with Selene. Spell Speed stat is too much important to be a RNG card and the big buff from SCH. I am ok with thehealing too, i asumed that AST are a 2nd position healers, but we need a big buff in our cards-spells as a reward.

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Originally Posted by Aeliott

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I felt very much the same as you until I hit 60 and attempted actual raid content. I was completely devoted to the class. The idea behind the class is good but it wasn't balanced well. It's misleading because it does play a lot like a 50 whm with some very cool buffs that work great in 4 man content. It's when you take into consideration the buffs the other two jobs got at 51-60 that astrologian falls short. In a raid environment you'll find yourself using the cards to sustain yourself more than buffing the group. The raid buffs are too inconsistent to make ast a reliable choice to bring for progression and the self sustaining buffs ruin the fun of the class since they defeat the purpose of having an astrologian at all.

I'm pretty sure the MP difference between AST and WHM comes down to three things:

1. Lack of Freecure procs, and less MP-free heals in general. This is going kind of under the radar. WHM gets a sizeable amount of free single-target healing over the course of a long fight. Pre-50 this isn't as big a deal, since Essential Dignity's also a free single-target burst heal, but post 50 Essential Dignity has to compete with Tetragrammaton, Benediction, Assize and Asylum (all additional, MP-free sources of healing).

2. No way to boost the efficiency of their heals. They are, at base, cheaper/weaker, but the lack of Divine Seal/Fey Illumination hurts quite a bit. Their "panic mode" is basically spamming Benefic II, and that's hellaciously expensive.

3. Only having LA. Assize is an additional 10% of WHM MP back every 90 seconds, and AST doesn't have anything like that.

At least, the above things are what I'm seeing from watching 60 WHMs/ASTs heal stuff.