Why people says AST is bad?

Ah tht video was a good watch but a whm/sch can easily do that in rav ex.
They used the extra dps to make phases shorter = less damage
The tank was on their game as they split the buster among party before returning to the tanking spot.
Its good to know tho that ast can solo heal in good parties.
My point was the solo heal capabilities but ppl provided vids so that answers that lol

Also u can't really "fail" a thread unless u talk about something that is completely different from op topic.

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Originally Posted by Ayrie

The shield just becomes a MP sink and 45 sec Aspected Helios + 30 sec Aspected Benefic regens is just huge on a tank.

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Yeah, try and keep not-succor up in a fight with consistent aoe. You'll oom so fast. It's 300mp more than helios and, including the shield, it heals for less. Meanwhile light aspected helios is a ridiculous 700+ potency heal that you never need to cast more than twice a minute. The hot portion even ignores the astrologian tax with the same (base) potency as medica II's hot.

I'm not sure how you really fix noct stance though, short of having it half luminous aethers cd and giving you a moon that follows you around healing people. Lower the cost of a.helios in noct and buff a.benefict and they're still just alternatives to moves we already have. Noct lets you heal differently, but diurnal actively helps you heal better.

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Originally Posted by Seryl199

Yes, WHM HoT's stack with AST HoT's no problem. It's a nice combo that eases up the need for spot heals.

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You serious?
Never EVER going Nocturnal again. EVER.
I've been gimping myself for days.

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Originally Posted by Crevox

All in all, the more you play Astrologian, and the more access to skills you get, the more you realize how weak the buffs really are.

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Pretty much exactly my issue with AST. Someone calculated it out and even drawing a Balance every single time only results in ~1.66% increase in overall DPS, which is less than a SCH using Selene (which good SCHs do, BTW).

I love the fuck out of the playstyle of AST, but the cards just need more oomph and some of the other abilities could use some tweaks.

It seems like they tried to make AST a "run n' gun" style healer, which is AWESOME and can totally work as a playstyle if done right, but I would tweak a few things in order to really make that work better...

I would tweak Lightspeed to reduce the GCD as well and I would change CU to allow the AST to move while channeling it. It's a great ability but it flies in the face of the style of a mobile healer.

Also, the current status of Spear is that it's bugged: it's supposed to reduce the remaining duration of ACTIVE cooldowns in addition to reducing the cooldowns of abilities used while under its effects, which will take it from being the worst card in the deck to the best.

In fact, Spear will be HUGELY impactful once that's fixed, and I think all of the cards need to have a similar level of usefulness and versatility.

Balance: 10% to damage AND healing (including tank self healing). Maybe also that you receive 5% of the damage you do back as healing.

Bole: 10% damage reduction and heals 10% HP over the duration.

Spire/Ewer: RESTORES MP/TP instead of just reducing the cost, since reducing the cost means nothing if you're running out of AoEs or get stunned, etc. If it restores resources, it's beneficial in either circumstance. Also, restore 15% HP over 20 seconds.

Arrow: Increase attack speed by 10% and increase movement speed by 20%. Hey, they're either gonna be using abolities or running from AoE, and this covers both bases (or they might be stunned, in which case Arrow won't help)

Spear: Nothing needs changing once the bug is fixed.

The cards just need to be more versatile, and in that versatility will be found the reason to bring ASTs along in place of the more reliable healing of SCH/WHM.

"*Time Dilation – Extends the duration of any beneficial effects you have cast on your target by 15 seconds. Aspected effects, Cards, and Synastry are all affected. 90 second recast, cannot be cast on self."

I just seen this from a guide. Use Time Dilation for Synastry is completely useless. You can't extend the duration on both synastry buff. IF your Synastry buff reach 0 second, it remove automatically the other synastry buff, no matter how seconds it remains.

Celestial Opposition is the only skill that can extend the duration of Synastry on both you and the target.

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Originally Posted by Krixus

AST are good because:
Heal almost on par with WHM/SCH
Buffs that no other healer has access to, can push through dps checks holding a strong card + buff
No mp issues because can shorten lumin. (refresh), and use ewer on yourself if needed.
AST/AST combo is even viable, because while you cannot stack buffs, you can have both astro's use a buffed single target card on their strongest dps.
Has a 40 second emergency heal that has higher potency than lustrate when used on a target with low hp, then follow with an instant aspected benefic.

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1. No, no no no. White Mage has Divine Seal, Scholar has a fairy and Indomitability to increase their potency. Astro has absolutely nothing.

2. "Buffs no other healer has access to." Well, this is wrong, because Scholar's can bring a haste buff, but besides that, Scholar brings plenty to the table that Astrologian doesn't. I'll take Selene's haste buff over an Astro struggling to find the right cards for one any day of the week.

3. So your goal to fixing the MP issues is to...waste the cards on yourself? I thought the whole point of Astro was that you were supposed to be buffing OTHER people? When you use the cards on yourself, you're wasting very valuable potential in damage increase buffs because you need to aid your gimped class with buffs meant for OTHERS. For ever Ewer you waste on yourself trying to get your MP up, an Arrow or Balance could be used elsewhere to improve damage. It all tumbles down so quickly that it isn't worth it.

4. AST/AST is not viable in the slightest, LOL. WHM does Diurnal better, SCH does Nocturnal better. There is literally no reason to bring two ASTs to the table EVER.

5. Woooow, awesome! Hey, you know who else gets an emergency button? Scholar AND White Mage. And guess which one is better, Scholar's emergency button they can use three times in one minute (six if we include dissipation) + White Mage's two emergency buttons (one heals everything instantly! and the other is amazingly strong) or ASTs crappy Essential Dignity that you actually have to wait UNTIL the tank is near dead to be used effectively?

Yeah, nah. AST falls short of the mark. You are not going to see any top tier raid team with an AST. Sorry.

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Also, the current status of Spear is that it's bugged: it's supposed to reduce the remaining duration of ACTIVE cooldowns in addition to reducing the cooldowns of abilities used while under its effects, which will take it from being the worst card in the deck to the best.

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This is false and it is not a bug, sadly.

Yes, I know it's in the "accepted bugs" portion of the forum, but that does not mean they confirm that it's a bug. All that means is that the community team, or whoever reads the bug report forum, has accepted it as a valid bug report and it will take it to the development team. Whether or not it's actually a bug will be confirmed there, but proper procedure was done on the forum for the bug to be "accepted" for investigation, so it was moved to the accepted bugs section.

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Originally Posted by Crevox

This is false and it is not a bug, sadly.

Yes, I know it's in the "accepted bugs" portion of the forum, but that does not mean they confirm that it's a bug. All that means is that the community team, or whoever reads the bug report forum, has accepted it as a valid bug report and it will take it to the development team. Whether or not it's actually a bug will be confirmed there, but proper procedure was done on the forum for the bug to be "accepted" for investigation, so it was moved to the accepted bugs section.

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Thank you. It's getting really annoying seeing this misinformation everywhere. All "accepted bugs" means is "I accept that you correctly filled out the form." I can almost guarantee this card is working as intended.

The only complaint I have ever heard from my Astrologian raiding partner is that he has no mitigation.

He didn't level whm for SS so I could see that being the "wall" he needs to climb over.

But maybe they should have their own without cross classing?

But that's just me trying to contribute to this thread. lol

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Edit:

He just complained recently that he hates SCH stance and if I wasn't a SCH he'd rage.

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Originally Posted by Mhikail

You serious?
Never EVER going Nocturnal again. EVER.
I've been gimping myself for days.

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This is the rule for stances:

If WHM go Diurnal or Nocturnal per fight basis.
If SCH go Diurnal.
If solo, Diurnal in most cases. Nocturnal is per fight basis.

Not this:

If WHM go Nocturnal.
If SCH go Diurnal.
If solo, Diurnal in most cases. Nocturnal is per fight basis.

If you do not require damage mitigation throughout the fight, even with a WHM, go dirunal. The attack speed buff gives a considerable increase to DPS for malefic II spam (really strong). It also offers vastly superior HPS compared to nocturnal sect.

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Originally Posted by Crevox

This is false and it is not a bug, sadly.

Yes, I know it's in the "accepted bugs" portion of the forum, but that does not mean they confirm that it's a bug. All that means is that the community team, or whoever reads the bug report forum, has accepted it as a valid bug report and it will take it to the development team. Whether or not it's actually a bug will be confirmed there, but proper procedure was done on the forum for the bug to be "accepted" for investigation, so it was moved to the accepted bugs section.

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Ugh, never mind then.

The Spear exists to be RRed, or if you happen to draw it seconds before your LA comes off of CD.

ast buffs just... suck. my ninja has better buffs than my ast, yet ninjas give up no damage for it while ast has to give up a lot of healing and cooldowns.

I'm confident that we'll see balancing in AST's favor as long as the JP community shares a similar consensus.

It's a fantastic concept, and the cards are truly fun as well as visually appealing, but something is off when your best case scenario RNG doesn't produce significant improvement.

As for strategic use of cards for specific phases, that is a more beneficial scenario, but RNG says that you have a high probability of failing to draw the cards (even after using Shuffle, RR, and Spread to try to set yourself up) that would provide real benefit.

When people claim that most of the buffs are almost always useful, I have to disagree. The only ones that are always of some use to actually cast are Balance and Arrow; the others range from situationally useful to almost-never-useful.

I feel like mosts cards are useful in extended fights, but you almost always still want those damage buffs because they're just vastly superior.

I mean, dropping a Spire on a TP user, especially an MT will help them tremendously.
But on the other hand, dropping Balance/Arrow on the entire party will also help because the fight is shorter and thus TP less of an issue.(though Arrow does make them burn TP, so is still inferior in the TP management situation)

So it's not a matter of "they're totally useless" but rather "they're totally inferior".
Which, don't get me wrong on this, is a serious issue itself.

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Originally Posted by Trespar

I feel like mosts cards are useful in extended fights, but you almost always still want those damage buffs because they're just vastly superior.

I mean, dropping a Spire on a TP user, especially an MT will help them tremendously.
But on the other hand, dropping Balance/Arrow on the entire party will also help because the fight is shorter and thus TP less of an issue.

So it's not a matter of "they're totally useless" but rather "they're totally inferior".

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To use Spire as an example, it's so inferior in most situations as to be nearly useless in the big picture. The following conditions must be met in order to gain appreciable benefit from this card:

- You need to have it drawn and ready to apply before the target(s) begin spending significant amounts of TP
- You need to have it drawn and ready to apply before your target(s) are already TP-starved; the benefit is less impactful if they are still slowed by waiting for TP ticks
- The situation needs to be one where the target(s) would otherwise actually be at risk of becoming TP-starved (TP-starvation is a thing in some raids, but in others there are enough "breaks" to reduce or eliminate the need for TP cost reduction or even TP restoration like Paeon)

So yes, it can be of use, but there are too many contingencies. The odds are not at all in the AST's favor at the moment :(

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Originally Posted by h0tNstilettos

This is the rule for stances:

If WHM go Diurnal or Nocturnal per fight basis.
If SCH go Diurnal.
If solo, Diurnal in most cases. Nocturnal is per fight basis.

Not this:

If WHM go Nocturnal.
If SCH go Diurnal.
If solo, Diurnal in most cases. Nocturnal is per fight basis.

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I use Diurnal for everything.
The shields is took damn weak when you have Regen Heli and Bene and shield Regen. It dies in a milisecond and the MP given for a shield is not worth it.
You already have to manage your MP to the tee. Also, they give us a weaker Sacred Soil that barely does diddly doo da. Hell, once in a blue moon you see SCH use SS.
It just tops so much more. Let me know if you find a real good use to Noct because I'm not seeing it.

I only hope they will do some adjustment on Astrologian
because having an ast in a party is so damn cool.
and Astral Stasis is the best limit break.
*_*

Arguing with people over why Lightspeed is bad...
"Oh I've used it on the tank so I can keep them healed through big pulls!" chances are if you used it to heal the tank through a big pull, most likely he didn't need it and you could've just spammed benefic 1 anwyays.
It's like these people in my FC are sworn against me and protect AST at every turn when I'm a level 59 AST and I can already tell where the issues with them lie. They're not even level 50 yet on their AST.

I hope they won't touch Astro at all.
Like that only a little of players can handle this.

Lightspeed is nice when you run around and spam helios/aspected.

Personally, one thing I think will fix AST for good is to lower card draw cooldown to 15 seconds. This means there's always a card in play.

Sometimes I suspect that SE spends a little too much time in the boardroom and not quite enough in actual healer gameplay outside the dev team.

Many of the AST features sound really cool on paper but are close to useless in practice (Lightspeed, Enhanced Benefic, most cards in most situations, and the entire Nocturnal Sect come to mind).

I adore this Job, but right now there is a lot of ineffectual fluff and huge liabilities to what could otherwise be useful skills (e.g. Lightspeed's potency loss and lack of GCD reduction, Enhanced Benefic's uselessly random instacast proc + no MP reduction...).

I feel like things will even out, and we will go back to WHM/SCH combo for raiding. AST for when the SCH can't make it.

AST are naturally faster casters, and the their buffs are to die for. The playerbase is already plagued with so much stupid, even dumber than WoW's healers.
You know how dumb?
We got players Stragetically (never) use any of the good stuff or (never) do anything to make it easier on themselves, even in the long run. They don't even know when to apply a regen on the tank! REGENERATION! ON! THE! TANK! BEFORE ASTROLOGIAN!!!!

And now they can't even do something as simple as draw a card that's off global cooldown, even worse, some act like putting them all on the tank is the hardest thing to do. I'm not saying they should but they are targeting them, how hard is it to just mash the button!?

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Originally Posted by RiisWolf

AST are naturally faster casters, and the their buffs are to die for. The playerbase is already plagued with so much stupid, even dumber than WoW's healers.
You know how dumb?
We got players Stragetically (never) use any of the good stuff or (never) do anything to make it easier on themselves, even in the long run. They don't even know when to apply a regen on the tank! REGENERATION! ON! THE! TANK! BEFORE ASTROLOGIAN!!!!

And now they can't even do something as simple as draw a card that's off global cooldown, even worse, some act like putting them all on the tank is the hardest thing to do. I'm not saying they should but they are targeting them, how hard is it to just mash the button!?

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Two of the main issues are...

1) We've never been hurting for a "faster-casting" healer.
2) Most of the cards are in fact not very useful except in very specific situations. E.g. Bole sounds great, right? Well, if you would have had no difficulty keeping the tank or party up without it, it was useless. This is why SCH's Sacred Soil is almost never used outside of progression, and that skill can be whipped out without any dependence on RNG

But i, and surely other players, don't want our job become as "simple" as white mage is.
We don't want every of the "out of gcd action" be usefull. We want that it's stay very complicated to manage to heal while buffing and dps too. We want this job stay more complicated than Scholar too.
And we absolutly don't want that the "average veteran player" can well-manage this job.
A lot of veteran can't manage to heal and dps properly with Scholar yet... they still have a lot to learn before criticize Astro

Astrologians shouldn't be commenting that AST is fine if you haven't played another healer, and you're not level 60. Yes, my AST is level 60.

The problems with the job show up more and more and more the higher level you get, and you can't compare its potency/ability to heal and perform to another healer unless you've actually PLAYED another healer. Astrologian struggles in comparison to the other two healers, who have a much easier time doing everything that they do (MP, healing the party, shielding, DPS, etc) Furthermore, a lot of people are poor judges on the potency of the buffs, which is why some people here on the forum are kind enough to do the math for you.

The buffs are not useful right now. The main gain is supposed to be an increase in party DPS, but AST's DPS is so poor compared to WHM and SCH that it's not. The buffs are so weak that Selene's haste buff is better. There's nothing about AST that is better than the other two healers.

Lastly, there's nothing about AST that makes it a "fast healer." Lightspeed (a long, bad cooldown that just makes you weaker) and an instant heal that is mainly used for its regen do not make us "a fast healer."

Faster cause their regen stance increases attack speed which is your casting speed. Any AST that doesn't know that, needs to seriously re-evaluate their stuff

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Originally Posted by Mclyde

But i, and surely other players, don't want our job become as "simple" as white mage is.
We don't want every of the "out of gcd action" be usefull. We want that it's stay very complicated to manage to heal while buffing and dps too. We want this job stay more complicated than Scholar too.
And we absolutly don't want that the "average veteran player" can well-manage this job.
A lot of veteran can't manage to heal and dps properly with Scholar yet... they still have a lot to learn before criticize Astro

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This isn't the issue. The issue is that you can do everything right as an AST, have every card come up Balance, and you will STILL contribute less to a fight than a SCH with their Selene out. We've actually mathed this out and even if the AST gets Balance EVERY...SINGLE...TIME, it's still only a ~1.6% overall DPS increase, which is less than a SCH with Selene which gives a reliable haste buff of 3% for 30 sec, every 60 sec.

I like the idea of a "run and gun" style healer that focuses more on instant casts and potent buffs, but the buffs are currently garbage and aren't worth being put on an RNG system.

You have a 17% chance to draw any one card, and only two of the six are really even useful. Ewer and Spire should never be needed because no one should be running out of resources during a fight. Bole is too random to call it a cooldown and all it does is offset the AST's crappier healing potency (since it has no cooldowns that increase its potency), and Spear is too situational to ever be useful because it basically necessitates that someone HOLD OFF on blowing a cooldown to wait until you draw a Spear, which just ain't gonna happen over the course of a fight.

Yeah, there's a lot of buttons you can press as an AST to min-max your situation to the best of your ability, but even doing that, you're STILL less potent than a WHM/SCH who can push half the buttons while still bringing more to the raid (including utility that AST lacks).

Basically, AST is a healer that pushes 2X the number of buttons for half the result, and that's why it needs buffs.

The buff are good enough. Some are usefull in dungeon, some in raid, some combo are quit helpfull in solo quest.
Do you use Cleric stance ? Do you optimize your use of Luminiferous Aether and Lightspeed in order to spam Gravity in a group of ennemies after you put your dot on them ? Keep a Spear card in order to use it when it's time to use these 2 abilities.

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Personally, one thing I think will fix AST for good is to lower card draw cooldown to 15 seconds.

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15 or 20 seconds wouldn't be op i think. 30 seconde is a bit too much when you don't draw the good cards.
And... it's too bad that it's not possible to double up different buff on th same target. I'd like to be able to in order to create a good burst on someone who just used his offensive abilities. Like Balance(royal road) + Arrow (one that i kept in my deck and the other that i just drew)

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Originally Posted by RiisWolf

Faster cause their regen stance increases attack speed which is your casting speed. Any AST that doesn't know that, needs to seriously re-evaluate their stuff

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A mediocre increase not worth the merit. It reduces our main heal's cast time by 0.10 sec, and our group heal by 0.13 sec. This in no way makes us a "fast healer", and serves only to attempt to slightly band-aid our already existing handicaps (weak healing) and hurt our already poor MP efficiency even further.

While yes, the increase is decent, it's not enough to put us into the category of "fast healer." That's all assuming you are actually using 1 of our 2 sects too (there's another one, even if it's weak right now). Other healers have speed increases of their own (Presence of Mind, Fey Wind) as well, along with stronger instant cast heals (Indomitability, Assize, Tetragrammaton, Benediction) so it's not like we're the only one, even if our bonus is passive.

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Do you optimize your use of Luminiferous Aether and Lightspeed in order to spam Gravity in a group of ennemies after you put your dot on them

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Using Lightspeed with Gravity is a DPS loss and an MP efficiency loss.

Holding aether until you have a spear card is an MP loss, and a DPS loss for your party because you're not using the other cards for them (or even that card).

Why are you doing this to yourself?

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Some are usefull in dungeon, some in raid, some combo are quit helpfull in solo quest.

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And yet all are weak.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-Needs-Changes

The only quantifiable gain you can get out of them is a party DPS increase, but again, AST's DPS as a healer is so poor that it's not worth it (the other healers will contribute more, and cost less MP doing it). That's also ignoring the fact that Selene is a better party DPS buffer than Astrologian is.

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Lightspeed is nice when you run around and spam helios/aspected.

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This will absolutely kill your MP pool at higher levels, while also making the heals much weaker. There's also no reason to do it when you can just stand still and cast it.

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Like that only a little of players can handle this.

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There's nothing to "handle." The job is straight up weaker than the other two healers with nothing in return.

You're also not 60 yet. Please refrain from commenting on the performance and difficulty of the job until 60. It gets much, much worse.

At the moment, playing AST, all you're doing is crippling yourself and your party. Either one of the other two healers would be far better, in both DPS and healing. Beside all the weaker heals, worse MP efficiency, and worse DPS, we are also lacking all the great cooldowns the other two jobs have at their disposal.

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Originally Posted by Richiealvian

Lightspeed is nice when you run around and spam helios/aspected.

Personally, one thing I think will fix AST for good is to lower card draw cooldown to 15 seconds. This means there's always a card in play.

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I'd like that but it will never happen.

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Originally Posted by RiisWolf

Faster cause their regen stance increases attack speed which is your casting speed. Any AST that doesn't know that, needs to seriously re-evaluate their stuff

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People know this; it just doesn't matter.

The only real benefit the additional attack speed provides is a marginal DPS increase from Malefic spam. Refer to the numerous discussions on how casting speed increases are generally worthless for healing purposes for more information as to why this is.

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Originally Posted by Mclyde

The buff are good enough.

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No, they're not.

They're not good enough to justify bringing an AST over anything else. As we've already said, SCH has a party wide buff which averages out to a constant 1.5% increase in DPS AND healing, and they have better emergency buttons, utility and DPS.

I'm sorry, but you're arguing against cold, hard math, here. That's a sure sign that it's a good time to rethink your stance.

And yes, I do all of those things you mentioned as an AST, and I do the equivalent as a SCH and the SCH contributes more DPS because SCH has 4 AoE DoTs (the three spread with Bane + the AoE on the ground) AND one single target from cross classing, plus a fairy that heals the tank for 300 potency cures every 3 seconds, giving me even more time to stand there and DPS, AND the fairy gives a 1.5% DPS and healing buff all the time to the entire party.

It doesn't matter how well you play AST: the best played AST in the world would still be a more effective healer playing as a SCH or WHM, just like how the best Bowser player in the world will still lose out to a good Shiek in Smash Bros Melee.

The technical limitations of the class >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> player skill, when it comes to determining how effective the class can be.

The buffs aren't worth it, and even if you pull balance EVERY time, SCH still beats us.

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Originally Posted by Crevox

A mediocre increase not worth the merit. It reduces our main heal's cast time by 0.10 sec, and our group heal by 0.13 sec. This in no way makes us a "fast healer", and serves only to attempt to slightly band-aid our already existing handicaps (weak healing) and hurt our already poor MP efficiency even further.

While yes, the increase is decent, it's not enough to put us into the category of "fast healer." That's all assuming you are actually using 1 of our 2 sects too (there's another one, even if it's weak right now). Other healers have speed increases of their own (Presence of Mind, Fey Wind) as well, along with stronger instant cast heals (Indomitability, Assize, Tetragrammaton, Benediction) so it's not like we're the only one, even if our bonus is passive.

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Do you have ANY idea how effective Fey wind is now?

AST's Diurnal Sect increases attack speed by 5% while active.
Fey Wind increases attack speed by 3% for 30 seconds and has 1 minute CD. And keep in mind, you said how ineffective 5% is, so why are you spouting NEED favoring spell that is so nerfed it's doing no one a huge favor?
Presence of mind from WHMs, sure increases speed by 20%, but your not using it again for 2.5 minutes! Sooner if for whatever reason they get buffed by the spear card. That CD is best for killing things faster or speeding up with much need healing normally for emergencies. THe CD is so long, why is this even being compared to the other two???
And WHM's are always the best when it comes to raw healing (and power), but they sure can't support like ASTs do, not even as much as a SCH, whom are not capable of providing any significant Damage increase, resource reduction, CD reduction.

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Fey Wind increases attack speed by 3% for 30 seconds and has 1 minute CD. And keep in mind, you said how ineffective 5% is, so why are you spouting NEED favoring spell that is so nerfed it's doing no one a huge favor?

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Fey Wind got buffed. It used to increase skill speed and spell speed, and they were on seperate timers. The only time those were better than the new Fey Wind is if you actually had enough spell/skill speed so the multiplier was worth it.

There was only one job in 2.0 that stacked speed (Black Mage) so it is overall a win for everyone. That's also assuming the Black Mage in your party actually did stack Spell Speed, which currently, due to the minimal gear choices that exist, they have no control over that.

I say how great Fey Wind is because it's a DPS increase for the entire party; more so than Astrologian cards give, due to the consistency and reliability of it.

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That CD is best for killing things faster or speeding up with much need healing. THe CD is so long, why is this even being compared to the other two???

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Because it exists for when you need it. It's far better than Lightspeed, because Lightspeed doesn't touch your GCD, and cripples your healing. Presence of Mind affects GCD (which ultimately increases healing throughput and DPS) while also having no penalty. Yet, for some reason, Lightspeed has the same recast timer........

Like Cynfael already explained, passive speed increases on healing (spell speed, Diurnal Sect) are not useful. They are mediocre throughput increases with decreases in MP efficiency. Presence of Mind is good because you can turn it on when you do need the throughput, and it's a huge amount.

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SCH, whom are not capable of providing any significant Damage increase, resource reduction, CD reduction.

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Fey Wind gives more DPS than all of Astrologian's cards throughout the entire fight. It takes an Astrologian far too long to set up the buffs to increase damage due to RNG, Draw cooldown, Royal Road, etc. Scholar also does much more DPS single target and AoE, while costing a portion of the MP, while being able to heal in Cleric Stance (fairy). Scholar can also get huge value out of cleric stance by just snapshotting dots, turning it off, and going back to healing.

Not even going to comment on resource reduction and CD reduction because I already explained in huge detail as to why those cards are poor.

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Originally Posted by RiisWolf

And WHM's are always the best when it comes to raw healing (and power), but they sure can't support like ASTs do, not even as much as a SCH, whom are not capable of providing any significant Damage increase, resource reduction, CD reduction.

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Do you actually play AST? If you do, have you also played any other healer?

Lv59 SCH and 56 AST, here, and I can safely say that the buffs just...aren't..worth...it. Nothing an AST brings to a party is worth bringing a healer with crappier cooldowns and emergency buttons, and that's even IF the AST could pull the right every single time (which it can't).

Again, the numbers are against you, here. Anyone who insists on saying that AST is fine in the face of the raw data that proves otherwise may as well just be trying to argue that the earth is flat...

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Originally Posted by Crevox

Fey Wind got buffed. It used to increase skill speed and spell speed, and they were on seperate timers. The only time those were better than the new Fey Wind is if you actually had enough spell/skill speed so the multiplier was worth it.

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Fey Wind used to be two parts that gives 30% skill speed or spell speed. Now it's both speeds at a tenth of what it used to do. It's a nerf.

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Originally Posted by RiisWolf

Fey Wind used to be two parts that gives 30% skill speed or spell speed. Now it's both speeds at a tenth of what it used to do. It's a nerf.

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It didn't affect attack speed before, it affected the skill/spell speed stat in your character window, which was far worse. Attack speed is a straight up 3% reduction off of cast time, auto attack delay, and recast time. It's also important to mention that it didn't even affect auto attack delay before, which is a huge portion of any physical attacker's DPS.

The combined nature of it also allows you to better control the DPS gain in tense DPS phases of fights. Rather than only half the party benefiting every 30 seconds, the whole party does, so you can pop it during something like Bismarck's back and the whole party can reap the DPS benefits.

Why do I bother explaining :|

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Originally Posted by Crevox

You're also not 60 yet. Please refrain from commenting on the performance and difficulty of the job until 60. It gets much, much worse.

At the moment, playing AST, all you're doing is crippling yourself and your party. Either one of the other two healers would be far better, in both DPS and healing. Beside all the weaker heals, worse MP efficiency, and worse DPS, we are also lacking all the great cooldowns the other two jobs have at their disposal.

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As much as I was so incredibly excited and pumped for Astrologian, unfortunately, I have to agree with this. It really doesn't bring anything to the table that is worth the weak heals and worst healer MP efficiency in the game.