Astrologian Needs Changes

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Originally Posted by SeraphicRadiance

It'd still be a functional cooldown at least, as opposed to one that can actively contribute to deaths and wipes.

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Oh yes, of course, I fully support the change; it needs it. However, I don't believe it would greatly affect our performance, especially enough for someone to go from "ew AST" to "wow invite that AST he's the best."

Completely agree with the OP and glad to see someone else echoing what I had said earlier...

Unless SE plans to nerf resource regen in raids, Ewer and Spire are going to be useless by definition because they're cards that should actually never be needed. I guess you could say that Ewer can be used to offset AST's mana issues, but it would be better if the class didn't have those mana issues to start with and Ewer wasn't a waste of a card.

Folks need to remember that the inherent randomness of these buffs means that they need to be VERY good to compensate. A 17% chance of drawing a card means that, when you get the right one, it NEEDS to be amazing.

Frankly, they could probably double the potency and duration on all AST buffs and that might actually put the class where it needs to be...

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Originally Posted by Crevox

It's not. AST gives the PIE buff instead of the MND buff to the party.

If you went with AST and SCH, you wouldn't have a MND buff, and you'd just be crippling the both of you even more than just being an AST.

On another note, now that I'm 58, things are starting to show even more. It wasn't so bad up to this point, but now I'm starting to struggle to keep a party alive. My healing throughput is extremely lacking. For example, on the last boss of Vault while on SCH, I had absolutely no issues, but now I just can't push out the heals enough sometimes, especially if people take hits they aren't supposed to. I'm also optimally geared, being item level 142/143 at level 58. My lack of healing power is extremely noticeable compared to my SCH.

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lol the mind buff.
healing has NEVER been the highest gate for kills.
your doing it wrong

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Originally Posted by Crevox

Oh yes, of course, I fully support the change; it needs it. However, I don't believe it would greatly affect our performance, especially enough for someone to go from "ew AST" to "wow invite that AST he's the best."

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Not a tremendous amount, but it would be a noticeable one. It'd at least start to give AST a more defined role, that being reliable heals and quick, easy to use DPS tools while being able to easily switch back to healing.

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healing has NEVER been the highest gate for kills.

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MND is also healer DPS, which will likely account for more than whatever small amount of DPS you will gain from having an AST anyways.

(which, by the way, there is no gain, due to the fact that AST's DPS is smaller than WHM and SCH, even with the cards added on)

These weren't estimate's they were based on real data from parses in Ravana Extreme.

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Originally Posted by Avin00

Only reporting back what the SCH was telling me and believe me he wasn't happy about it. However the 500 may be a bit of an exaggeration as he tends to be that type, but he wouldn't replace himself unless he thought that he was under performing in comparison to the AST

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How does exactly a 17% chance to add a single target 10% damage buff and another 17% chance to add a single target 10% attack speed buff that last 15 seconds every 30 seconds add more party damage than a 100% chance to add a party 3% attack speed buff for the next 30 seconds every 60 seconds? Not even accounting the fact SCH has a fairy and can handle DPSing under cleric far better than AST. Your friend either lies, relies on biased data or is not a very smart theorycrafter.

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Originally Posted by Avin00

These weren't estimate's they were based on real data from parses in Ravana Extreme.

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Maybe the DPS were like "Shit, we better work harder to kill this thing before the AST goes OOM..."?

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Originally Posted by Avin00

These weren't estimate's they were based on real data from parses in Ravana Extreme.

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You just defined an estimation "based on real data."

Your friend is not reporting correctly. Assuming similar performance with each attempt, it is mathematically impossible for the raid to experience a 500 DPS increase simply because of the presence of AST rather than SCH.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

You just defined an estimation "based on real data."

Your friend is not reporting correctly. Assuming similar performance with each attempt, it is mathematically impossible for the raid to experience a 500 DPS increase simply because of the presence of AST rather than SCH.

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This.

Unless one of your DPS is sporting 10k DPS; Balance is a 10% boost, with at most a 50% up time (discounting time Dilation, but still wouldn't make it near 100%) given it's drawn 100% of the time (which it's not). Even using Empowered Royal Road for 15% instead of 10%, you'd be halving your up time on Draws. Even with using Expanded Royal Road, you'd still lose out on a Draw.

Otherwise, it's statistically impossible for AST to add 500 DPS to a raid group through buffs.

Nice try though.

It's possible your friend meant his AST added (nearly) 500 DPS including buffs and his own DPS, which is possible. However, that would likely meant he spent 90% of his time in Cleric Stance, didn't heal, and drew Balance nearly every time; SCH could easily do the same, while still contributing Embrace ever 2.5s and Selene's haste buff with far less effort and RNG involved. Another DPS could also easily provide more, if that's the case where another healer was essentially solo healing the encounter.

All of the cards should have a use, if spire and bole and ewer are so situational and you can spend so much time without any benefit and having so long before you can make use of the good cards, they need to be buffed so that they're all worth using. Make me want to buff people with bole, make me want to spread it because hey, not only does it reduce damage it lasts for a minute, make spire give TP and increase physical damage dealt hell card buffs override each other WHY can't I? Why do all cards last the same amount of time when they could easily last longer? Should draw have a lower cd? should shuffle? spread? Wouldn't it be fun and interesting if you were playing with those cards a whole lot more? I would be GLAD to take a hit to CO/TD and anything that increases the cards amount, if they just made using them all useful.

One big problem I have is RR and how much your luck matters drawing after. Sometimes you click every card buff off, or you just click that expanded off because you've wasted so many cards and you get bolebolespearbole.

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Originally Posted by GideonHighmourn

It's possible your friend meant his AST added (nearly) 500 DPS including buffs and his own DPS, which is possible. However, that would likely meant he spent 90% of his time in Cleric Stance, didn't heal, and drew Balance nearly every time; SCH could easily do the same, while still contributing Embrace ever 2.5s and Selene's haste buff with far less effort and RNG involved. Another DPS could also easily provide more, if that's the case where another healer was essentially solo healing the encounter.

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That's one of the best parts of SCH: if everything is going according to plan, you can just slip into CS and go to town for a bit. Even if people suddenly get hit, you can drop CS in a heartbeat and Tinkerbell will be there to start healing right away, even without your intervention.

Also, there's nothing better than being saved from a wipe because you got silenced and then your Selene dispels it immediately...

Seriously, ASTs need to bring SOOOOOOO much more to the table to rival the healing power and utility of the other healers...

And that's the other problem I keep seeing: AST isn't a class in a vacuum. It has two other healing classes to compete with, and you'd best believe that all raid content is going to be balanced around the most potent healers that can be brought to each encounter.

We can look at fighting games as a parallel, here: it doesn't matter how amazing a character's moves look on paper. What matters is how well each of their matchups with the other characters in the game go, and right now, AST is definitely trailing the other two classes.

After all, if raid content was balanced around the idea that you could dual-AST heal it, groups bringing WHM/SCH would have it cleared in less than a week.

Edits Coming Soon Big Post

bump for relevance before live letter

Yeah I also vote for some adjustments. Otherwise the salt gonna be big come alex savage lol.

I wish they had never made a hybrid healer, I predicted these types of complaints the second they announced their intentions with astrologian. It's constantly "why am I not equal to/better at everything that Whm and Scholar are capable of?"

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Originally Posted by ckc22

I wish they had never made a hybrid healer, I predicted these types of complaints the second they announced their intentions with astrologian. It's constantly "why am I not equal to/better at everything that Whm and Scholar are capable of?"

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Well, not saying AST needs to be better than other healers. But for the sake of balance, the total value of the hybrid should be equal to others. That includes healing ability and support ability. And the inability to switch sects midfight kinda destroyed the hybrid value though.

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Originally Posted by Rajeme

Well, not saying AST needs to be better than other healers. But for the sake of balance, the total value of the hybrid should be equal to others. That includes healing ability and support ability. And the inability to switch sects midfight kinda destroyed the hybrid value though.

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Reminds me of the hybrid tax fiasco from WoW: why inherently weaken a hybrid class' DPS when they're intentionally designed to be bad at doing anything else when specialized for damage?

Similar concept here; heal potency doesn't need to be lower when you're committed to your healing style when the fight begins, especially given AST is already lacking in other tools/freedoms, this is salt in the wounds.

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Originally Posted by ckc22

I wish they had never made a hybrid healer, I predicted these types of complaints the second they announced their intentions with astrologian. It's constantly "why am I not equal to/better at everything that Whm and Scholar are capable of?"

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Yeah, a unique style healer for the third healer class would have been preferable :). Or one that doesnt feel like it went through some major last minute nerfs prior to release.

Hm...I'm watching translation for the live letter. It seems changes will be made to AST's card system. The basic healing system will not be changed. Having mixed feeling about this.

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Originally Posted by Rajeme

Hm...I'm watching translation for the live letter. It seems changes will be made to AST's card system. The basic healing system will not be changed. Having mixed feeling about this.

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Happy for card changes - wish they addressed Nocturnal stance.

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Originally Posted by Rajeme

Hm...I'm watching translation for the live letter. It seems changes will be made to AST's card system. The basic healing system will not be changed. Having mixed feeling about this.

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That's all I wanted was card improvements. No problems with thier healing output.

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Originally Posted by Krixus

That's all I wanted was card improvements. No problems with thier healing output.

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Agree with you.
But I would have loved some adjustment on Lightspeed and Collective, and Celestial Opposition too. ç_ç

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Originally Posted by Rewind

Happy for card changes - wish they addressed Nocturnal stance.

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I'm all happy with the changes. It seems their direction is to make cards more dominant to offset the difference in healing output and other disadvantages compare to other healers.

If they do it right, yeah I'm a happy panda.

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Originally Posted by Rajeme

Well, not saying AST needs to be better than other healers. But for the sake of balance, the total value of the hybrid should be equal to others. That includes healing ability and support ability. And the inability to switch sects midfight kinda destroyed the hybrid value though.

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It wasn't directed at anyone in particular - but the gist of all of these threads is "why is my _____ not as good as whm/sch."

And your post is just more evidence "why can't I be as good as a whm and a sch at the same time?"

I'm sure there are real issues, but the "solutions" I see around here are just requests to be blatantly overpowered. Your versatility is part of that "true value."

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Originally Posted by ckc22

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Except, it's not that versatile, no?

And no, I didn't say "why can't I be as good as both whm and sch at the same time", pretty much not the same time. I specially mentioned the total value of a hybrid should be equal to other healers, otherwise it's unbalance. Total value doesn't only have healing potency...

And obviously, lots of the solutions here are not to be taken very seriously. Solutions from players are often biased and lack of realistic statistic, including you and mine. But of course, there are some good ideas here and there. So it's better not to generalize them.

You asked to be able to switch stance in battle. To which I say sure. As soon as whm has shields and sch gets regens. Instead of wanting a unique healer/niche you just want to outmode the other two.

Again: hybrid classes want to be better than both of the things they're hybrids of while ignoring that being a hybrid grants them versatility.

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Originally Posted by ckc22

You asked to be able to switch stance in battle. To which I say sure. As soon as whm has shields and sch gets regens. Instead of wanting a unique healer/niche you just want to outmode the other two.

Again: hybrid classes want to be better than both of the things they're hybrids of while ignoring that being a hybrid grants them versatility.

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You seem to get the order reverse. Yes. Hybrid grants versatility. Except, currently, it's half-baked. You cannot switch stances in battles, that means you're pretty much limited to 1 of the 2 branches. That's why I said it's not that versatile. Being able to switch stances makes you more versatile, right?

Also, having both regens and shields doesn't necessarily make them outmode/more powerful than both whm and sch at all.

And for unique healer, AST have cards. I didn't even touch this aspect. The main reason AST is unique is because they have card system, not only because they have both regen and shield.

I always thought from the beginning that AST was meant to switch between Nocturnal and Dirunal Sect for versatility, which they gain in exchange for having lower potency healing. It would give the class some much needed flavor, increase skill cap, and provide a reason to actually use Nocturnal Sect. I do think it would improve their 4-man healing game, but might still need some MP adjustments. However, being able to switch stances doesn't really do them any favors in an 8-man situation, in any combination of healers; it would still be annoying to have AST/SCH with AST in Nocturnal. Hopefully, the card changes increase their utility power in 8-man situations, kind of balancing the scales a bit.

Agree with the OP.

Suggestions
- Make it so Shuffle doesn't draw the same card, this would help a lot more.
- Maybe make a skill that switches to cards to their opposite, switching Bole to Balance, Ewer to Spire, Spear to Arrow, and vice-verse.

They said they will do MP adjustement for ALL THE JOBS after Savage because they know that there are some problems for some jobs.

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Originally Posted by lordparanoia

Agree with you.
But I would have loved some adjustment on Lightspeed and Collective, and Celestial Opposition too. ç_ç

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Q20. Are there any plans to make any type of adjustments for astrologians?

A20. We’re thinking of making adjustments where astrologians will be able to use Spread while not in combat, or shortening the recast time for Shuffle. We have received feedback on how Lightspeed is hard to use, and so we’re planning to make adjustments so you can clearly feel the strength of this. As for Collective Unconscious and Celestial Opposition, instead of adjusting the stats similar to other healer actions, we’ll make astrologian-like adjustments where they switch between stances. We’ll make these adjustments without waiting for Alexander (Savage).

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Originally Posted by ckc22

You asked to be able to switch stance in battle. To which I say sure. As soon as whm has shields and sch gets regens. Instead of wanting a unique healer/niche you just want to outmode the other two.

Again: hybrid classes want to be better than both of the things they're hybrids of while ignoring that being a hybrid grants them versatility.

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Just want to point out that Eos/Selene is the best regen in game...

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Originally Posted by Azorius

Just want to point out that Eos/Selene is the best regen in game...

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Only its not a regen.

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Originally Posted by Krixus

Only its not a regen.

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Not exactly but Summon (on SCH) is an ability you "set & forget" that provides continuous healing which makes it functionally identical to a regen. The fact that it is indefinite (except in rare cases where you let her die), smart-healing and party wide makes it the best.

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Originally Posted by Krixus

Only its not a regen.

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Oh and let's not forget, zero personal enmity...

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Originally Posted by Rajeme

You seem to get the order reverse. Yes. Hybrid grants versatility. Except, currently, it's half-baked. You cannot switch stances in battles, that means you're pretty much limited to 1 of the 2 branches. That's why I said it's not that versatile. Being able to switch stances makes you more versatile, right?

Also, having both regens and shields doesn't necessarily make them outmode/more powerful than both whm and sch at all.

And for unique healer, AST have cards. I didn't even touch this aspect. The main reason AST is unique is because they have card system, not only because they have both regen and shield.

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Which is exactly why they should focus on making their cards more useful/unique rather than just handing over scholar/white mage abilities to them.

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Originally Posted by Azorius

Just want to point out that Eos/Selene is the best regen in game...

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Except we're balanced around it based on our other potencies and they've nerfed our fairies - try again next time.

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Originally Posted by ckc22

You asked to be able to switch stance in battle. To which I say sure. As soon as whm has shields and sch gets regens. Instead of wanting a unique healer/niche you just want to outmode the other two.

Again: hybrid classes want to be better than both of the things they're hybrids of while ignoring that being a hybrid grants them versatility.

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It's hard to call it a hybrid class when you only get to use either the shields or regen in a battle. If they could use both shields and heal in a battle, they'd be fantastic. But imagine if SCH and SMN were one class with Cleric Stance and half the job skills, and if you went into Cleric Stance you could only switch out-of-combat. They'd be trash, because they are "versatile" but only get to use half of their versatility even though it's nerfed.

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Originally Posted by ckc22

Except we're balanced around it based on our other potencies and they've nerfed our fairies - try again next time.

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AST's "SCH" stance is missing the fairy and its skills + the ability to buff throughput + the mana management + the utility of Supervirus/E4E/Energy Drain/Bane, with the assumption that your Benefic II being equal to Cure II will cover it....which it doesn't because it just makes the fact that the subpar mana management is there even worse. Shields also can't crit.

I don't think, given their current potency, AST would be OP if given the ability to switch between Dirunal and Nocturnal Sect. It would increase the skill ceiling, give them added versatility and viability. I don't think it would effect them much in 8-man content, especially when paired with a SCH.