Thoughts from a 60 AST & 60 WHM

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Originally Posted by Sciwolf

how is dissipation amazing?

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If you want to split hairs, then 4 out of 5 of the new SCH abilities are actually effective and worth using more frequently than "almost never." Dissipation is mostly crap, yes.

That's still pretty good considering that a significant chunk of the AST's toolkit (not the least of which being the Nocturnal Sect...) is depressingly weak and/or ridiculously situational.

So basically simple tweaks would be to do the following:
1. Make Luminous Aether to last 30 seconds with 90 refresh potency and 90 seconds cooldown. That will solves MP issue.
2. Lower the MP cost of Helios and Aspected Helios by 20%
3. Make Essential Dignity cooldown to 30 seconds, this will help with emergency heal at moment notice.
4. Make Collective Unconscious to last 25 seconds, for AOE group heal while waiting for other abilities cooldown to get back up.
5. Add ability similar to Divine Seal to boost healing by 20% for 20 seconds with a 60 second CD, to help with healing potency.
6. Fix Lightspeed, to reduce magic potency by 25% instead, but you can spam heal with mana consumption discounted by 30% and make it last 20 seconds. Again for emergency situation and saving mana.
7. Tweak so that if you Royal Road Ewer, it will double the duration, reduce mana by 25%, reduce damage taken by 5% to the receiver, and grant 5% healing potency boost.
8. Tweak Enhanced Benefic so that it will also reduce mana consumption by 20% if you are able to proc, and raise it up to 20% chance. It is not free cure, but it will cost a lot more less and proc more often.
9. Tweak Nocturnal Sect so that you gain 10% more healing potency instead.
10. Change Synastry duration to 30 seconds, and add benefit of recover 10% of your total MP.
11. Change Combust potency to 70, and Combust 2 potency to 90.
12. Change Malefic and Stella potency to 200, Change Malefic 2 potency to 300.
13. Extend benefit effect to 10 seconds in Celestial Opposition.
14. Increase Disable damage reduction to 15% to match Virus + Super Virus.
15. They should let Astro to cross class with Arcanist, and give the job its version of swiftcast without having to grab from Thaumarge. Right now this is the only healer with no access to Virus and An Eye for an eye ability.

These tweak will reduce mana consumption with some caveats, give AST a decent emergency heal, and make your Ewer as strategic "additional mp saving options" if needed. With those changes, AST can now deal decent damage, has the same amount MP recover ability as WHM, and a few cure potency boost ability they can weave in.

Found something in a Forum i think this feedback have to be shared and FYI THIS IS NOT MY FEEDBACK
There will be more post because of 1000 signs only

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/125...-here%29/page5

Shuffle:
-Remove Cooldown timer
-Place on GCD
-Prevent Shuffle from refreshing card's countdown.
The buffs are random as it is, to the point that when you shuffle you more times than not pull the same exact card. Once the card is drawn you have a few seconds to determine the action, so that would prevent shuffling the card indefinitely and maintaining the rng.

Spread:
-Allow out of combat use.
-Increase amount of cards that can be 'Held' to 3.
-Change countdown to begin once a card has been "Spread" and not read.
-When selecting a held card, it puts it back into action instead of 'using' the card, meaning you can setup combos using your deck by 'using' the card or burning it for Royal Road.
The main gimmick of this job is the card system. It's limited, the buffs again are random and they are weak. How it could potentially work is, you can store up to 3 cards in the order Spreaded them. So your first card Spread would be the one first in queue to be used. Maybe even increase Spread's recast to 90seconds to weigh out the changes.

Cards:
-Give The Balance 10% Increase to both Healing and Damage.
-Give The Ewer and Spire 10% Increase to Refresh and Regain received, respectively
-Give The Bole 10% Increase to Healing Received in addition to the 10% Damage Reduction.
[AST still lacks in the emergency cure department, unlike it's WHM and SCH counterparts. It should make it up through it's buffs. This doesn't solve the matter, but it helps to make up in utility.]



Celestial Opposition:
-Remove the Stun Effect replace it with Slow.
-Increase all beneficial statuses cast by the AST by 10 seconds.
Underwhelming 150s cd lv 60 ability.

Collective Unconscious:
-Lower Duration to 10sec
In addition to HP regen/Damage reduced
-Add a 30 potency Refresh to all that enters
-Add a 30 potency Regain to all that enters
-Sustains all Astrologian card buffs while inside bubble.
Give me a reason to channel and scarecrow for 10 seconds doing nothing.

Nocturnal:
-Allow Aspected Helios shield to stack with Scholar.
-Do not allow Aspected Benefic to stack with Sch, but do allow crits to double shield. If a penalty or restriction is needed, you could always cut duration in half (15 seconds) on crit.

Traits:
*Disable Trait:
-Remove Disable Trait, keep it at -5%.[Give AST ACN crossclass instead of THM. This effectively gives Astrologian access to both Virus and Eye for an Eye like it's counterparts.]
-Replace the Disable trait with 'Double Draw'. A 10% chance to proc another Draw after the Draw ability has been used.
*Enhanced Benefic
-Keep Benefic II instacast, but make it only cost the cast of a Benefic I.
*Enhanced Luminiferous Aether
-Remove, make base Aether Refresh 80potency. Instead, give it a chance to reset Essential Dignity's CD on use.
Who sits below lv 48 for long to where 80 potency is going to make any difference? Essential Dignity CD is fine, but AST is still missing an "oh sh*t button"

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Originally Posted by Luvbunny

6. Fix Lightspeed, to reduce magic potency by 25% instead

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I don't know for you English players but in the French traduction it's already 25% reduction potency. Just to be sure I tested it because numbers can't be wrong : went from an average 4K heal with Benefic 2 to an average 3K heal with the same spell and had the same % results with others spells.

I agree that AST needs changes but please, can we stop misinforming pll around with wrong things ? Last night I saw a "Shroud of Saints is 180s CD" and some others things that were just not correct.

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Originally Posted by luminaer

Collective Unconscious:
-Lower Duration to 10sec
In addition to HP regen/Damage reduced
-Add a 30 potency Refresh to all that enters
-Add a 30 potency Regain to all that enters
-Sustains all Astrologian card buffs while inside bubble.
Give me a reason to channel and scarecrow for 10 seconds doing nothing.[/I]

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Scarecrowing just shouldn't exist at all in a game with raid mechanics to avoid. This is not like BLMs, they get to choose where they perch.

CU should just last 3 seconds for 90% dmg reduction (maybe excluding boss ults), or just get a total revamp.

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Originally Posted by Kelya

I don't know for you English players but in the French traduction it's already 25% reduction potency. Just to be sure I tested it because numbers can't be wrong : went from an average 4K heal with Benefic 2 to an average 3K heal with the same spell and had the same % results with others spells.

I agree that AST needs changes but please, can we stop misinforming pll around with wrong things ? Last night I saw a "Shroud of Saints is 180s CD" and some others things that were just not correct.

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Those are people that are only reading incomplete Wiki skill pages and not actually reading the class skills in game. Our English translations are the same as yours lol.

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Originally Posted by Sciwolf

how is dissipation amazing?

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I wasn't really thinking of Dissipation when I made my comment. I was referring to the other four, and I think the first four SCH are amazing and are all useful. Dissipation, no, it's really not great.

Just an idea, but an interesting change to Lightspeed could be that instead of lowering potency, it decreases both cast time and the GCD (minimum 1 second GCD or 0.5 seconds?), but silences or "aether blocks" you from being able to cast any spells (Essential Dignity is omitted from this) for five seconds. So it's similar to Berserk; however, it can be cleansed by another healer OR be removed when you activate Luminous Aether.

Therefore the drawback from the current Lightspeed is removed, but a new drawback no healing for 5 seconds (or 3?) and faster stacking enmity!

I'm currently lvling my low lvl whm and yeh, I never have mp issues, dont have to waste gcds for card gimmicks, just staight, pure healing, the way it should be. Ast honestly kinda sucks because of the terrible mp regen..I feel bad when I say that because I know some of you like the class, maybe it will get changes.

Whm allows other healers to off dps and just lightens the load on others greatly, without a whm I guarantee your group will struggle in almost any scenario, they are just that good.

From playing all the new jobs, lots of hours on each, they all feel sub par compared to the base classes (war/pld way better than drk, brd better than mch, etc)

These are just my observations, others may believe different, but I know what I see.

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Originally Posted by Parawill

Just an idea, but an interesting change to Lightspeed could be that instead of lowering potency, it decreases both cast time and the GCD (minimum 1 second GCD or 0.5 seconds?), but silences or "aether blocks" you from being able to cast any spells (Essential Dignity is omitted from this) for five seconds. So it's similar to Berserk; however, it can be cleansed by another healer OR be removed when you activate Luminous Aether.

Therefore the drawback from the current Lightspeed is removed, but a new drawback no healing for 5 seconds (or 3?) and faster stacking enmity!

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I like this idea, it would certainly solve the lack of burst healing.

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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.

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This is reasonable only if the instance or raid can be solo healed. Unlike DD/DPS, there are only two tanks and two healers. You cannot assign one to be a utility class if the boss mechanics require both to do their main classes well. For example, if a boss mechanic requires tank swapping - having the DRK be a 'utility' tank is nonsensical. Likewise for healers.

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Originally Posted by Royin

I like this idea, it would certainly solve the lack of burst healing.

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To me, the main problem with AST is not with burst healing but with healing spells that have poorer potency than WHM or SCH. This indirectly affects mana-efficiency. The cards are interesting but they add very minor benefit to the whole static given its unpredictable nature and minor magnitude/duration of the buffs. So it all boils down to healing potency/mana of the AST.

Another problem I noticed with AST is level 50 content. They have no way to help mitigate incoming damage on the tank and party.

WHM
-Holy; AoE stun, can be used about 3 times before mobs are stun resistant.
-Medica II and Regen; if needed they can double HoT a tank during a big pull. In i130 BiS + Zeta that's at least 500 HP/pt.

SCH
-Fairy heals while you DPS, kind of like Regen/Cure I spam
-Sacred Soil mitigates incoming damage
-Shadow Flare slows mobs, this reduces the amount of damage they are doing to the tank
-Aldo, you crit this and it doubles, meaning you can focus on something else for a few seconds.

AST
-Possible chance of Drawing a Bole card.
-Double HoT like WHM, only weaker.

It's pretty noticeable. :\ It doesn't help that you don't get your AoE mitigation (one being similar to Holy and the other being like a Sacred Soil/Asylum that you can't move for) until level 58 and 60 when you're already done the leveling process. Meaning, up until the Vault and Neverreap/FC, you're basically Bene II spamming and praying for a tank who pops CDs.

Just to follow up on my original post... Cleared floor 4 of Alex yesterday with an AST partner. It wasn't too bad, actually; I only really ran into MP issues when I had >1 res going out, and the AST was clever enough to let HoTs (both my own and his) heal as much as possible.

...That said, on every floor, I'm kind of imagining all those mechanics will do a lot more damage in savage. It's going to be rough.

(And on a random tangent, got 2 pieces of alex gear and some tokens to save up for the more expensive pieces ：D)

AST really isn’t as inferior or as bad as everyone is making it out to be. Shuffle could be more reliable, sects changeable during battle, and the unfortunate boredom during synced content where I cant use Gravity or Time Dilation which I like to use with the Bole + regen on the tank so I can DPS longer.

Synastry is great to use appropriately in a long fight where you know you need to heal 2 targets at the same time. Essential Dignity has a short CD and can heal crazy amounts when people are low on hp. If you know someone is or will take a lot of damage and time everything right, youc an both buff them with a card and use Time Dilation with regen(s). Celestial Opposition can extend ALL your effect timers including regens, which can also help you save mana if you let them keep ticking. Collective Unconcious is also good, use during boss downtime to top off the party, pop that- effectively healing the party and giving you time to regenerate mana without using any more.

Even Lightspeed isn’t useless, it’s amazing during movement heavy fights in making it extremely easy. Like someone else said either in this thread or another, you will gain more HoTs during a movement heavy section of a fight using it than a healer who can’t heal at all or less during all that movement.

Basically, by knowing what’s coming, being preemptive, and being ready for any situation by paying full attention, AST plays just like I would play any other healers. Those are the methods I use, and I just think people don’t know how to use the class properly. I don’t know if I’ve just been with crappy healers in 8 man content, however there have been many instances where I was the one carrying and fully capable of doing so, without fear that things would go south.

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Originally Posted by Vill_Castiglioni

AST really isn’t as inferior or as bad as everyone is making it out to be.

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My biggest issue under 'viability' is that, healing the same thing, it just seems to run out of MP so much faster. I'm not exactly a new healer and do everything I can to maximize efficiency.

Kinda what I meant in my OP: Buffs may well be worth that drawback. It's something raid groups have to decide for themselves.

My other criticisms don't really matter as far as gameplay/raiding goes, I just personally don't like the bolted on feel of the card system. I'd still raid on it if I didn't think I would be making things harder on my team (and still might experiment with it a few times).

But I do think some people are being a bit overreactive, kinda like with BRDs/MCHs. Someone posted a parse on reddit of the MCH doing over 900 DPS in Ravana EX, for example...

This is my opinion from my experience leveling all the healers to 50s.

AST feels a little lack luster compared to SCH and WHM.

WHM offers alot more usuable cooldowns, AOE healing and burst healing. They also provide really good AOE DPS with Aero 3, Holy and Assize (although this has a high CD), they can also cross class for Eye for an Eye.

SCH has a fairy that helps alot, and they have amazing burst healing and mitigation. Their one weakness I felt was AOE healing but even this was fixed with Indomitability and they probably provide the best single target DPS out of all the Healers.

AST on the other hand just feels meh. They have the basic heals and AOE heals + their card abilities but they don't feel as reliable as WHM or SCH. When I leveled with AST I had alot of MP management issues that I didn't notice while I level WHM or SCH. Their card abilities aren't too bad, but they lose too much versatility for a unreliable gimmick. The only cooldown they have just let them heal in movement heavy fight, but with that nerf to your magic potency, I'm not even sure if it is worth using. Hopefully it will change once I hit 60.


And the worst is when people try to speed run with them, they dont have enough oh $h!t buttons, they just have Essential Dignity on a 40 sec cooldown. WHM can pop Divine Seal, Benediction, Presense of Mind, Eye for an Eye and they get so many free Cure II procs that mana is not an issue. SCH can pop Sacred Soil, Lustrate Spam, Rouse, and Eye for an Eye and your fairy helps alot, and your aetherflow more or less gives you unlimited mana. When I'm on AST on the other hand I'm just spamming Benefic II just to keep tank alive and use Essential Dignity whenever its up while barely keeping tank about 25% health, might be better once I get Time Dilation and Collective Unconscious, but then again this might be due to the fact that all the Tanks I ran into on AST were DRKs and most of them were undergeared / refused to use Grit or both...



What they should do is make it so that the cards are not random, but actual abilities, but make the potency of the cards random. This of course will change some of the other current abilities, draw of course will be removed.

Royal Road - Same effect but you will activate Royal Road then another one of your other cards to gain the special Effect, instead of using it with Draw.

Spread - Allows you to use a second card effect for the next activity card ability. (IE you use Balance on a DPS, then activate Spread and use Spire on the same DPS)

Shuffle - Lets you "reroll" the potency of the card you drew.

Part 1:

I've leveled my WHM first and then my AST to 60 and I healed through all possible content with both of them (including Ravana EX and Alexander T1-4).
The only real noticable difference between both of them is the healing potency. My WHM can carry everything easily while on AST i really had trouble sometimes (mostly in dungeons...i could hardly keep the tank alive with AST, that was horrible)

The card system is nearly fine as it is now, but the effects need to be buffed a bit (maybe 10% -> 20%, 20% -> 40%) and if you remove/reduce the cd on shuffle it gets more reliable, because you can shuffle (more) till you got your desired card.
(The ewer card gets the scholar in my raid btw, b/c she always runs out of mana o_o, even if I'm on WHM)

(1000 Characters)

Part 2:


Btw it seems I'm the only AST around who never ever had any mana problems at all.
So for me, mana management/recovery can stay as it is now, but there really has to be done something about emergency moments when you really have to heal a lot.

I'm also a bit curious what the devs thought about Collective Unconcious and Celestial Opposition.
The first one is just dumb. Noone in a Raid has time to just stand around doing nothing. I'm fine with standing around, but please let us do actions/spells during that time...
And yeah...CO sounds to me like "oh we forgot a CC, lets put a stun one the 60 skill".

All in all I like AST, except for the healing potency...it's just too low imo and I don't think I can heal Alexander Savage with it.

Where is AST weak?
-In Diurnal Sect, base healing potency is low if you don't count regens, which can make it hard to stabilize a tank from low HP or keep a tank stabilized under heavy damage (extremely noticeable in dungeons if tank is using STR accessories)
-Have to rely on RNG to reduce damage on tanks (Bole vs. E4E or Virus vs. Disable).
-Disable is lame because it can get wasted on an auto-attack.
-In Nocturnal Sect, the shield on Aspected Spells is so weak as to be nearly useless. Not only is it weaker than Adloquium (262.5 = 525 Total vs. 300 = 600 Total) at base, it also lacks the ability to crit for double shield. The result is you spend 2x the mana of a Benefic for a weak shield that will drop after one hit of almost anything. At least it's instant.
-RNG is RNG and therefore you sometimes get screwed on cards (Spire -> RR -> Draw Spire -> Shuffle -> Draw Spire....).
-Celestial Opposition is underwhelming for a level 60 skill with a 150s recast time. Yay, you get 5 more seconds of a buff every 2 and a half minutes....the stun is only 4 seconds.
-Nocturnal Collective Unconscious is very underwhelming as well. I suppose you COULD stack it with an AoE Bole and/or Sacred Soil, but then you'd be in Nocturnal Stance with a SCH and your shields don't stack so you're screwed anyways.
-The SoS copy that is actually worse than SoS is very bad for MP management because WHM have abilities that increase their mana efficiency on top of getting another MP Management tool. AST has to rely on RNG to get Ewers to maintain MP.

Where is AST good?
-Benefic -> ED -> Enhanced Benefic II is a great way to get your tank out of low HP: it's something like 1400 Potency in healing depending on the ED scaling. Save your Enhanced Benefic II procs!
-It's never boring as an AST because there's only 30 seconds of downtime between deciding what to do with cards\
-Nothing feels as good as AoE on Arrow/Balance during a burn phase.
-Spreading a card that you feel you may need later or want to use a RR on feels very good when you get to pull it out of your pocket and go "A-HA! KNEW IT!" though I usually have to spread an Ewer so I can use it on myself when I need to start spamming Benefic II.
-Synastry helps with keeping the tank topped up and saving on MP when another party member takes damage you have to heal.
-Essential Dignity being on a low cooldown is very helpful and makes it quite good for when you slack a bit on healing
-Accuracy-less DoTs, heeey!
-It's fun and versatile

What could be changed?
-Celestial Opposition needs something more. Maybe more stun duration and lower CD.
-Base cure potencies should be about as good as WHM before factoring in Noct/Di bonuses because we lack the ability to buff our output like the other healers do. Something like 390/640 potency on Benefic/Benefic II.
-Aspected Benefic Shields should be able to double in crit considering they still are about 40 potency weaker than SCH and we lack Lustrate, E4E, Virus, Fairy healing, Fairy buffs, etc.
-All buffs should last 20s by default.
-AoEing a Card should reduce potency by 30%, not 50%.
-Bole/Balance should double potency instead of +50%
-Nocturnal Collective Unconscious should apply a stacking 200 potency shield every 3 seconds.
-Please reduce cooldown of Luminiferaligatorbootylicious Aether to 90s

After playing WHM/SCH since launch in 2.0 I’ve begun to test out AST in a semi-raid environment. One thing to make clear is that Alexander is super easy with a static (From the perspective of an experienced raider). I remember spending hours, if not days, on ADS turn 2 because of instant wipe mechanics, heavy damage and general mistakes. Alexander is a walk in the park, maybe not as easy as the 2.0 scenario dungeons but not far off the first timers’ difficulty either.

Whilst I agree that the way in which cards function needs to be revised (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...83#post3109683) and some spells (aka collective unconscious and nocturnal stance…), AST is an overall decent (not perfect, not amazing) healer for Alexander normal raids.

What becomes more apparent in alexander, is the mistakes (most often stupid mistakes) that other players and I made during the encounters and how AST deals with them. AST is not built to heal through stupidity of yourself and other players.
Diurnal AST healing is all about sustaining players through damage rather than responding to damage, even more so than SCH which is traditionally viewed as preparing for damage. It has relatively no impactful response (and cost effective response) for dealing with:

• Players taking excessive damage from a poorly executed mechanic
• Players (tanks) not using cooldowns correctly (too late or not accommodating for latency)
• Other healers not using their utility to the best of their ability or mis-prioritizing heals
• Players incorrectly handling mechanism
• Players not acknowledging their HP and jumping into a ‘dangerous’ situation (absorbing orbs, dpsing adds which emit localized aoe damage)

WHM and SCH (with eos/selene) have the heal potency to heal through mistakes like this or atleast stabilize so that the fight can continue. AST has little ability to recover from one-two important death (e.g a tank or healer) whilst other impactful mechanics continue to hit.

In Diurnal stance the potency of aspected helios is strong enough to sustain through mild aoe damage and weak enough to be rolling on raid for almost the entirety of a fight without pulling hate. Aspected Benefit can save a DPS that has taken excessive damage from an aoe ability, healing them sufficiently for the initially effect and healing them to full over time.

Does that mean everything is fine with AST? Probably not - I think about my AST healing in first coil 2.0, I feel like it would work fine in a competent group. That would be assuming that all players were privy to the fight and could play their own class to perfection. In reality there are going to be things that ruin that whether it is just bad play, latency or RNG.

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Originally Posted by Selli

Another problem I noticed with AST is level 50 content. They have no way to help mitigate incoming damage on the tank and party.

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I do want to comment on this as I do believe there is a way to help with that along with addressing another issue. For starters, I want to comment on the lack of AoE damage any sooner than level 52. To be perfectly honest it's one of the things that most annoys me about the job. When I tried to figure out why the job lacked a means for AoE damage at level 50 I noticed that their ability list is rather tightly packed due to having four abilities slots taken up by actions related to the Draw mechanic. Gravity simply didn't make the cut and believe this also related to why the job seems to be lacking in useful cooldowns. This isn't necessarily a problem as long as they pack the most into the abilities that we do have, but in some cases that isn't what they've done.

Let's look at a few specific spells. Malefic is mostly the same as the Stone spell, but with the Heavy effect lifted and given to a completely different spell that has no function beyond the Heavy effect which is Stella. What White Mage can do with one spell, Astrologian gets two. Stella becomes a waste of a spell when you consider how it's utility could have easily been applied directly to Malefic. Stella should have been made into something much more useful, such as an AoE DoT spell that won't be immediately replaced by Gravity at later levels.

But let's take it another step. Astrologian is probably the closest we're going to get to Time Mage with them having access to Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition. With that said, it surprises me that not a single one of their spells apply the Slow effect. Once again I find myself looking towards Stella as a way to incorporate that. In combination with making it AoE DoT it would be even better if it applied a Slow effect as well, essentially turning it into their own version Shadow Flair, but behaving like Aero III in execution. The Slow effect won't help much against enemies immune to Slow, but it mostly just bothers me that Stella is nothing more than a filler spell when it could have been something much more useful.

TLDR: Give Malefic the 40% Heavy effect and change Stella into an AoE DoT around the target with an added 5% Slow effect, giving AST a way to deal AoE damage at lower levels (that will still be useful and viable even after learning Gravity) while adding a tool to help them mitigate incoming damage.

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Originally Posted by Rewind

Does that mean everything is fine with AST? Probably not - I think about my AST healing in first coil 2.0, I feel like it would work fine in a competent group. That would be assuming that all players were privy to the fight and could play their own class to perfection. In reality there are going to be things that ruin that whether it is just bad play, latency or RNG.

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I'm not quoting you to single you out, as this is what my general consensus is with AST, as well.

However ... In that same scenario, why wouldn't you bring SCH to heal the fight over AST? They literally offer every utility AST does (aside from CD reduction, which is mildly iffy at best, and MP/TP reduction, which is not necessary at all) more reliably, along with more healing output (synastry is like a faerie on CD) and better emergency cooldowns (especially now with Indom, ET, and DT).

AST doesn't offer anything (considerable) that SCH doesn't offer on their own in terms of utility, and nothing a WHM can offer in terms of throughput.

AST could heal the fight if everyone is playing perfectly, yes; however, AST doesn't offer anything to the group that SCH can't bring to the table without RNG involved. SCH would allow for wiggle room on mechanics, AND bring more utility to the table than AST. WHM would allow for considerably more wiggle room than AST or SCH, but not bring as much in terms of utility.

Right now, SCH+WHM is still the powerhouse combo for content. AST is only there if a WHM/SCH isn't available or if someone fancies tarot card RNG mechanics. It is numerically weaker compared to SCH/WHM in almost every way.

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Originally Posted by GideonHighmourn

*snip*

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MP/TP Management has always been huge in end-game raids when you first start. PDPS (aside from MNK) and tanks will TP out after about 4 minutes on their own; you can extend that with Spires and Spears and Ewers on the healers or DRK will be great.

AST is just lacking the ability to stabilize the party after flubs and missteps, which, I assume, will be most of what will hold them back from end-game. Especially Nocturnal Stance is hurting right now because Collective Unconscious is severely lacking as a 90s cooldown for Noct, and the weakness of the Aspected Shields makes it an MP waste most of the time when you could have just brought a SCH who has better emergency healing, better overall healing, and better mitigation utility via Virus, E4E, and fairy buffs on top of Adlo crit shields for mitigation.

In my opinion all AST really needs is some base potency buffs on Benefic/Benefic II to level the playing field and change potency on Noct Benefic and let it double shield on crit. Maybe lower CD of Lumin Aether or increase potency as well. Everything else will be cake, because it's primarily a healing class and it falls short in that regard compared to WHM/SCH

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MP/TP Management has always been huge in end-game raids when you first start. PDPS (aside from MNK) and tanks will TP out after about 4 minutes on their own; you can extend that with Spires and Spears and Ewers on the healers or DRK will be great.

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Doesn't seem to be the case, so far in Alexander. Even if it is later, it's far more reliable just to use MCH turret or BRD song. They give up so much in order to offer such a small, short, RANDOM boost to a single party member compared to what SCH brings.

20% reduction for 15s on a single target isn't going to make or break a DPS check, period. Especially since you can't RELY on them drawing it enough times for it to actually matter.

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Originally Posted by GideonHighmourn

Doesn't seem to be the case, so far in Alexander. Even if it is later, it's far more reliable just to use MCH turret or BRD song. They give up so much in order to offer such a small, short, RANDOM boost to a single party member compared to what SCH brings.

20% reduction for 15s on a single target isn't going to make or break a DPS check, period. Especially since you can't RELY on them drawing it enough times for it to actually matter.

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Alexander is NOT a real end-game raid. It is an entry-level raid designed to allow people to gear up for savage and progress the story. Go back to the coils and ask progression groups on Day 1 how hard it was to manage MP and TP until they started getting better gear. There is a reason BRD has almost always been brought to raids.

It might not make or break a DPS check, but it will take pressure off your DPS and allow them to perform better. You get 8 Draws in the 4 minutes it takes them to TP out; you are likely to get at least one Spire or Ewer in there, and I'm highly suspicious most of the people complaining about AST MP management being awful are people who RR an Ewer until they are almost out of MP.

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Originally Posted by SuzakuCMX

Alexander is NOT a real end-game raid. It is an entry-level raid designed to allow people to gear up for savage and progress the story. Go back to the coils and ask progression groups on Day 1 how hard it was to manage MP and TP until they started getting better gear. There is a reason BRD has almost always been brought to raids.

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You are entirely missing the point by pointing backwards in time at content that's no longer relevant. AST cannot possibly replace either BRD or MCH in terms of MP/TP consumption/restoration utility; so, why bring AST (for MP/TP like you suggest), since BRD/MCH is likely going to be there anyways?

Sorry, but even in Savage Alex, AST's RNG'd 20% reduction to TP cost for 15s on a single target isn't going to buy them a spot in a static group over SCH/WHM.

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Originally Posted by GideonHighmourn

*snip*

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You're right, it's not necessary. I didn't say it was. I just thought you were severely underplaying the power of a cost reduction buff. It's a huge help, and it lasts for 20 seconds, not 15. It's not going to buy them a spot unless they have a baseline healing, which they currently don't. But if they can baseline heal about the same as SCH/WHM and provide a range of powerful buffs on top of that, then they can vie for a spot. Right now they can't, because they just don't even have as powerful healing as either WHM/SCH.

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Originally Posted by GideonHighmourn

However ... In that same scenario, why wouldn't you bring SCH to heal the fight over AST? They literally offer every utility AST does (aside from CD reduction, which is mildly iffy at best, and MP/TP reduction, which is not necessary at all) more reliably, along with more healing output (synastry is like a faerie on CD) and better emergency cooldowns (especially now with Indom, ET, and DT).

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Main reason? My SCH is only level 55 :)

The other reasons include the fact I enjoy the challenge and that this raid doesn't require the powerhouse combo at the moment - We'll clear the content regardless of what combo we bring. WHM feels too overpowered and all the fights just seemed attuned to WHM healing. I don't even have to watch my mana anymore. It might be because I've 'mastered' WHM after almost 2 years and the new spells just make my role easier rather than challenging. I know that gives me a greater opportunity to DPS but I'm not playing a healer class to DPS. I would rather spend 80% of my time in non-cleric stance rather than 80% in cleric.

It might just be the fact that AST is new - I made a lot of mistakes last night with Synastry, poor use of Essential Dignity, not using my cards as effectively as I could, not prioritizing my heals as effectively as I could. Regardless, playing AST was fun and challenging.

I won't be taking AST in the first week of savage. I'll likely go SCH for a WHM/SCH combo. Depending on the difficulty (please actually be diffcult!) I'll rotate AST in the third week.

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Originally Posted by SuzakuCMX

You're right, it's not necessary. I didn't say it was. I just thought you were severely underplaying the power of a cost reduction buff. It's a huge help, and it lasts for 20 seconds, not 15. It's not going to buy them a spot unless they have a baseline healing, which they currently don't. But if they can baseline heal about the same as SCH/WHM and provide a range of powerful buffs on top of that, then they can vie for a spot. Right now they can't, because they just don't even have as powerful healing as either WHM/SCH.

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Even at equal healing potency, I'd still find their range of "powerful" buffs severely underwhelming, most of all since they're reliant on RNG. In my eyes, AST's buffs are only powerful on paper. Since paper doesn't account for RNG, or actually NEEDING one of the buffs AT A SPECIFIC TIME, AST's range of "powerful" buffs is anything but "powerful". It feels tacked on and poorly thought out, especially RR/Shuffle which almost always result in a "loss" compared to just using the original card in the first place. I've drawn Ewer 8+ times in a row in a group with no MDPS. Spear is iffy at best, and I usually just let it expire (so I don't get another CD from RR, since it's also a "loss" with Spear).

I love the idea and concept of AST. I was super excited for it before launch; however, I'm severely underwhelmed at the gimp WHM with RNG cards tacked onto it. It doesn't feel complete, at all. Especially since Nocturnal Stance is so awful and lacks synergy with the baseline toolkit that Dirunal has. The distinct lack of healing cooldowns and poor MP efficiency is terribly evident even at level 50 (compared to WHM/SCH); let's not even talk about Lightspeed. I'm not hating on AST, but the vehement defense of such an underpowered, incomplete class makes me sad; it could have been really awesome, but what we got was a gimp WHM with "meh" RNG buffs.

To me, a perfectly AST being only "passable" in content with a perfectly played group is unacceptable.

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Originally Posted by GideonHighmourn

Poor MP efficiency is terribly evident even at level 50 (compared to WHM/SCH);

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Just want to mention that MP management becomes easier in end-game, it curves weirdly at 50 mainly because you are lacking your end-game spells. I've never really had a problem with MP, and I think those that do don't understand the class as of yet. It's almost identical to how a WHM should manage its MP.

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Originally Posted by GideonHighmourn

*snip*

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The RNG isn't that bad if you actually make use of RR, Shuffle, and Spread. Or you could just use the card. There's never a time when you NEED a certain buff (except for Ewer if you haven't been using them on the healers). I usually spread my first Ewer, RR my first Spire, and Shuffle a Spire if it comes up after that (fuck you Shuffle giving me Spire/Spear 3 times in a row).


Spear is always useful on: NIN/SMN/SCH > Yourself if you need to pop Lumi Aether or ED/WHM for SoS or Assize or Tetra > Tanks if they need their CDs in the next 20/40 seconds.
Arrow is always useful on: Highest DPS or BLM > Healers > Anyone Else
Spire is always useful on: Tanks (so when you get a TP Song it's for DPS and not for enmity) > NIN/DRG/MCH > other DPS
Ewer is always useful on: Healers or DRK > SMN > just RR it
Bole is useful if: You see a tank buster coming, someone isn't dodging an AoE, otherwise RR it
Balance is always useful: top DPS or whoever has CDs up for burst.

Spread off-CD? Spread Ewer or Spear or Bole if it comes up; save it for when you need it.
Spire? RR it if you don't need it (trash pulls, early on in boss). If you draw it next time, great, 40s of 20% reduced TP costs.
You can Shuffle 1 out of 3 cards.

Also you are throwing out one of these buffs every 30 seconds. Over a long fight that is huge.

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Originally Posted by SuzakuCMX

Also you are throwing out one of these buffs every 30 seconds. Over a long fight that is huge.

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That's assuming every buff is always useful, which they aren't always useful. Using RR is almost always a loss in long-term utility, and Shuffle is just as likely to draw the same card as it is a different card.

Again, listing all the utility AST offers on paper (as you have done, again) is great; however, it's rarely as useful as it seems in practice. It doesn't account for RNG, timing, or requiring that specific buff at that time.

I'd be fine with the buffs AST offers, if:

Spire/Ewer combined.
Arrow/Spear combined.
Shuffle can't give the same card.
Reduced Draw-CD on RR.

It would be far more reliable and useful in far more situations than it is currently. This would, too, assume AST's healing is adjusted to match/compete better other healers and Nocturnal Sect was reworked.

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Originally Posted by GideonHighmourn

*snip*

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I...literally just listed the ways in which cards are always useful.

It seems to me at this point you are just denying the power of the card buffs. Astrologian doesn't seem to be for you. Like I said, the problem is that their baseline healing is too weak to even compete as a healer unless you are overgeared for the content. The buffs on top of being able to keep the party alive are the draw. And the buffs are strong, given how often you can pump them out.

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Originally Posted by SuzakuCMX

I...literally just listed the ways in which cards are always useful.

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No, you didn't. You listed the priority you use for dealing with card RNG in a perfect scenario, but failed to acknowledge that RNG exists.

Your list didn't account for drawing the same card you didn't need previously twice (or more) from either Shuffle or Draw. Every buff is not always useful, period. RNG/cooldowns makes sure of that, along with group composition, specifically in 4 man groups.

What happens when you draw Ewer 6 times in a row with no MDPS? What happens when you draw Spire 4 times with no PDPS? What about drawing the Bole several times when no one is taking significant damage?

Are they always useful then, or will you continue to deny that this happens (due to RNG)?

Yes, you can help manage the RNG factor in perfect scenarios through smart play. However, when RNG doesn't play to your advantage, there is nothing you can do to make your class more useful compared to WHM/SCH.

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Originally Posted by SuzakuCMX

The buffs on top of being able to keep the party alive are the draw. And the buffs are strong, given how often you can pump them out.

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The cards give the illusion of strategy. In theory I know what card I want to draw and when I want to utalise them but there are times I draw the wrong card at the wrong time and I feel like SE hasn't given me the opportunity to actually play effectively


This is a copy and paste from my other post but...

Take Ravana extreme. Imagine you go into the fight for the first time. Whilst you’ve watched a couple of videos and read the strat, there are things you only begin to understand when experiencing the fight. For example, there are significant periods of ‘down time’ in this fight where Ravana leaves the arena. Unless you are fully prepared with the timings of these abilities you are most likely going to waste your buff times – there were plenty of times where I could have wasted an spear/arrow(royal road) + balance combo (when RNG was nice) without realising that the DPS couldn’t actually DPS for the next 40 seconds.

This makes AST significantly weaker than both WHM and SCH. Selene own her own accord has the ability to consistently roll buffs on the raid – Whilst you may lose half a speed or spell buff due to mechanics, there will be opportunity to benefit from this buff again. In comparison, there is a chance that AST may never roll balance again for the remainder of that encounter. A WHM doesn't need to buff per say but has the ability to 'save the raid' with strong heals through unpredictable damage and abilities.

What SE need to do is give more options for cards which include (but are not limited to)

• Allowing Royal Road to stack up to 3 (in combat only!)
• Allowing spread to hold up to three unique cards
• Shuffle cannot draw the same card
• (QoL) Fast discard option which reduces next draw CD by 15 seconds
  

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Originally Posted by GideonHighmourn

No, you didn't. You listed the priority you use for dealing with card RNG, but failed to acknowledge that RNG exists.

Your list didn't account for drawing the same card you didn't need previously twice from either Shuffle or Draw. Every buff is not always useful, period. RNG/cooldowns makes sure of that, along with group composition, specifically in 4 man groups.

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No, I literally listed who to use it on. Because it's always useful on those people. Every card is always useful whether it's to use or to RR it.

You seem to have trouble mitigating RNG. I was trying to help with that. You see "RNG, don't think these buffs are useful, therefore buffs suck" and say AST sucks, instead of trying to see how a card can always be useful.

I can't make it any clearer for you than what I said before, at this point we're just yelling "No I'm right!" back and forth.

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Originally Posted by SuzakuCMX

No, I literally listed who to use it on. Because it's always useful on those people. Every card is always useful whether it's to use or to RR it.

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The poster immediately above you stated the exact thing I've been trying to explain more clearly.

You are also ignoring the entire second half of the same post you quoted; I edited it afterwards to make it more clear.

You are still ignoring the RNG like it's perfectly manageable in every possible situation, but it's not. Yes, I know who to use cards on. Yes, I know I can RR/Shuffle them to try again; however, this only mitigates the RNG sometimes, but doesn't control it.