With all these astrologian complain threads

I've read some complaints and don't really understand them. My AST is 60 now. Outside of dps being complete derps, I've have no mana problems or trouble keeping a tank up. And the cards aren't bad either.

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Originally Posted by fanservice

http://xivdb.com/?skill/189/Lustrate

http://xivdb.com/?skill/150032/Embrace

http://xivdb.com/?skill/166/Aetherflow

http://xivdb.com/?skill/150033/Whispering-Dawn

You make it sound like adlo is the only spell SCHs can cast at all. Abilities don't exist in a vacuum.

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I was doing something called comparing moves to their counterparts not to other moves as lustrate is not the counterpart to Aspect Benefic same with the rest of those spells and none of those allow you to heal 2 people at once with just one cure.

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Originally Posted by Kaizersan

I was doing something called comparing moves to their counterparts not to other moves as lustrate is not the counterpart to Aspect Benefic same with the rest of those spells and none of those allow you to heal 2 people at once with just one cure.

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http://xivdb.com/?skill/3583/Indomitability

The fairy can be ordered to heal someone else you're not healing.

Whispering dawn is an AOE HOT.

Lustrate has a recast time of one second, effectively allowing the SCH to heal two people in the same amount of time it takes for an AST to finish the cast of one spell during synastry.

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Originally Posted by fanservice

http://xivdb.com/?skill/3583/Indomitability

The fairy can be ordered to heal someone else you're not healing.

Whispering dawn is an AOE HOT.

Lustrate has a recast time of one second, effectively allowing the SCH to heal two people in the same amount of time it takes for an AST to finish the cast of one spell during synastry.

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Fairy still has to move in range to heal and fairy heals are no where near as high as Benefic 2 even at 50% of Benefic is still higher and your lustrate has a 6 max use which if you were to use them all you would screw your mp regen up while Aspect Benefic doesn't have a 6 time limit and can crit for 2k plus which is basically 4k due to the barrier with proper use of cards it's better overall.

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Originally Posted by Verdan

Wow healers are catty.

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We just love to argue. :p

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Originally Posted by Kaizersan

Fairy still has to move in range to heal and fairy heals are no where near as high as Benefic 2 even at 50% of Benefic is still higher and your lustrate has a 6 max use which if you were to use them all you would screw your mp regen up while Aspect Benefic doesn't have a 6 time limit and can crit for 2k plus which is basically 4k due to the barrier with proper use of cards it's better overall.

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Now we're comparing apples and oranges, you're comparing the fairy that's out all the time to a situational 2 minute cooldown that lasts 20 seconds, grasping at straws about fairy being in range (that's what the place command is for), claiming using lustrates screws up MP regen (it doesn't), and it's getting annoying talking to people that make me doubt they play this game at all before coming to the forums, or read other posts while on the forum, you included.

SCHs are stronger healers than ASTs. Period. Everyone with sense knows this. Don't argue it.


Are ASTs functional? Yes
Do they have problems? Yes
Do they have a place in 8 mans? In my opinion, yes
Can they react to unexpected damage as well as/more consistently WHM or SCH? No. Especially not SCH. They have the game's most consistent 'oh shit heal'
Can they outdo a WHM or a SCH in raw healing? Hell no

What are ASTs good at? Their card buffs are good, but tied to RNG, with benefits potentially marginalized by SCH's personal DPS. Their AOE healing is a tad more consistent than SCH, but the need for consistent AOE healing has been dying after 2.0 titan hard mode, and the days people took on T4 in darklight, making the AOE phase an inevitability.

If you think any of the bolded is wrong, I'm sure someone else will tell you the same thing I'm force-feeding you. If you don't disagree, there's nothing further to discuss.

I forgot what this actual topic was about seeing as the responses are shifting from how AST is not underpowered or bad, to how easy the SCH supposedly is to play, etc. Well, let's do this anyway.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

If you weren't DPS'ing much on WHM, you're not going to DPS more with AST. If you were primarily letting Eos/Selene do cures before as SCH and you play WHM or AST, you'll find that you have to do all the healing and as a consequence have less opportunity to DPS.

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You don't let the fairy do anything, you make it do things. Some of you are talking about SCH as if it was just, "let the fairy do its thing and look pretty", which is not the case, but something you can get away with regardless in easier content or when you've overgearing things etc. It seems to me like some of you are basing your scholaring views at large based on this kind of sloppy and inefficient play, if the posts are anything to go by. Healing awareness is a thing, even if you're in CS. A part of healing awareness is knowing how well your partner can maintenance heal (ie. heal without dents in their MP-sustainability), being able to calculate incoming damage on the fly - unmitigated and with the present levels of mitigation - and accomodating to these needs without fucking up.

A good, career off-DPSing SCH is not unaware of the healing requirements, even if they sit in Cleric Stance for as long as it is comfortable to do so. They are manually forcing out fairy heals via never-ending Embrace keybind spam whilst simultaneously hitting keybinds for their own GCDs, moving or doing whatever it is they need to do. The throughput levels get high and rhytmical when you never waste a single GCD of your own or the fairy's. Just because one is not healing manually using their own GCDs doesn't mean they are ignorant towards what happens during the fight - most of the time it's the complete opposite in high-end raiding. Spamming Embraces manually easily adds a ton of HPS on your fairy which makes the MP-sustainability of your co-healer who is "main healing" a lot better. ("Auto-Embraces" are triggered at 80% HP and below, so them not going out in a pre-casted fashion when someone is at 81-100% and about to be struck again adds up a lot of reactive patch-up healing over time).

A good SCH is expected to have the highest throughput and a lot of dexterity by constantly keeping tabs on everything depending on the variables of the time, serving as a quasi-DPS, never having an idle GCD [your own or the fairy's], mitigating the spikes on demand, adapting to situations etc. Even if the HPS of a SCH doesn't end up being high in off-DPS heavy fights, the times heavy healing for spikes is needed, it can not be omitted. This game has a lot of spike-healing moments followed by a ton of fluff, especially with tank killers and other things that benefit more from timely proactive mitigation rather than healing - which a SCH has had to do. At least this has been the case so far.

And while it's true SCHs have superior MP-sustainability, it can be pretty buttclenchingly brutal on you to pump out tons of DPS in progression, whilst also balancing the healing so that your co-healer doesn't suffer from your actions, whilst also mitigating on demand and constantly be doing something. Something like the first few weeks of 2.4 and pushing T13, for instance.

I really don't like to do these "my job is harder than yours" -debates, and I am not even saying SCH somehow is the be-all-end-all job transcending time and space, but it's pretty irritating when people are legit downplaying some aspects of its gameplay and the things required of it in an endgame setting, caricaturing the actual ideal gameplay pretty badly. (Yes there are a ton of SCHs who are bad).

Now, whoever reads this and thinks I am comparing the required duties of SCH's with those of WHM's and AST's - I am not. I don't want you to get back at me with some listings, I know what it entails to be a healer. I am merely posting feedback to these people who are seeing SCH as some sort of freeloader party slot who just facerolls it up as a wannabe DPS and lets that lil fairy do its thing.

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Originally Posted by fanservice

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I asked you to elaborate, thus you did. I answered accordingly to whatever you proposed as "problems". However, you brought in additional tools that are unrelated to the issues you mentioned before. This would cause a chain that would last forever and ever, which I have no intention of triggering. So unless you have anything to add that would find faults or practical/theoretical purposes to the Astrologian alternatives I've provided to the points you have mentioned in another post, I'm ending it here.

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Originally Posted by Tranquil

I forgot what this actual topic was about seeing as the responses are shifting from how AST is not underpowered or bad, to how easy the SCH supposedly is to play, etc. Well, let's do this anyway.

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-The topic was a thinly-veiled complaint thread about complaint threads. By that, I should be ashamed I contributed to making this thread this long.

-OP taking a subtle jab at people saying AST has shortcomings (which they do, very noticeable ones).

-In response, I write up all the factors SCH has that contribute to that mentality.

-Then like a child, the OP decides to tl;dr me when they can't face facts, or whoever was reading the thread for them called it a night.

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Originally Posted by Lyrica_Ashtine

However, you brought in additional tools that are unrelated to the issues you mentioned before.

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Every heal a SCH doesn't need to lose a GCD to use is a tool related to the issue. AST does not have nearly as much. See below.

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Originally Posted by Lyrica_Ashtine

So unless you have anything to add that would find faults or practical/theoretical purposes to the Astrologian alternatives.

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I did; their healing output is inferior, and restricted by GCDs more than SCH heals.
Their MP sustain is lower. Emergencies are where the strain is put on healer MP the most.
SCHs have direct healing output buffs. ASTs lack that.

I spelled that out for you on multiple occasions. That is why AST is not as flexible in an emergency.

Your fairy can die while AST healing like WHM is tied to the player and if your fairy dies your HPS drops by a lot and spamming Lustrate does effect your mp regen as you no longer have charges left to help your mp regen what AST has is cards the ability to make all their heals instant cast on the move with light speed and the ability to heal 2 people at once no matter the distance making AST the most mobile healer in the game.

No one in their right mind can argue that SCH and WHM have better "oh shit" button and more reliable heals, better MP management and better CDs.

The only thing AST has going for himself is the cards buff. And maybe Synastry but it's not THAT good compared to what the other two offer.

No one is saying WHM and SCH are easier to play and OP.

All we're saying is that the only discussable strong quality of the AST are their unreliable cards buff.

Also no one is saying AST can't heal trials/raids.

We are talking about the balance between the three healers.

I love AST, I'll still play it even if they stay that way but it does not change the fact that there are a lot of things totally wrong with the job.

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Originally Posted by Kaizersan

Your fairy can die while AST healing like WHM is tied to the player and if your fairy dies your HPS drops by a lot and spamming Lustrate does effect your mp regen as you no longer have charges left to help your mp regen what AST has is cards the ability to make all their heals instant cast on the move with light speed and the ability to heal 2 people at once no matter the distance making AST the most mobile healer in the game.

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if you fairy dies it means you fucked up. You can't use an argument like that... that adds nothing to the discussion. It is well known that SCH has the least mana issue of all healers. AST has cards... when the RNG god is okay to help us. Yeah all cast on the move with light speed at the cost of -25% potency. Meanwhile the fairy heal at 300 potency while you move and you have lustrate. And using Lightspeed causes more MP problem than using 6 lustrate.

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Originally Posted by Seryl199

I've got to back to this and comment... AST has my favorite auto attack among the three healers. Aggressively karate chopping mobs with card in hand is ever so slightly more satisfying than the SCH book whack.

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Ignoring all the nonsense in the thread just to say, yes our auto attack is absolutely the best.
Papercutting the enemy to death rather then bashing them with blunt objects is the way to go.

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Originally Posted by Shamirah

if you fairy dies it means you fucked up. You can't use an argument like that... that adds nothing to the discussion. It is well known that SCH has the least mana issue of all healers. AST has cards... when the RNG god is okay to help us. Yeah all cast on the move with light speed at the cost of -25% potency. Meanwhile the fairy heal at 300 potency while you move and you have lustrate. And using Lightspeed causes more MP problem than using 6 lustrate.

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If Synastry is used properly with Lightspeed and Ewer with your mp regen ability up it's not as much of a issue it's all about holding the right cards for the right moment.

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Originally Posted by Kaizersan

If Synastry is used properly with Lightspeed and Ewer with your mp regen ability up it's not as much of a issue it's all about holding the right cards for the right moment.

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No one gives a damn about Lightspeed because it already knocks our already LOW healing. What purpose does this serve?
No one would be hootin' if that 25% was done for...I'd take 15% or 10% If not for the insta heals, you're better of healing in Cleric Stance.
Also LOL, if you use Lustrate as SCH...wtf? You have SC for fairy and if you time Aetherflow right, you have near 6 instant heals going for you.

Ewer don't mean crap if you're rolling Spire 6 gazillion times then the CD is abysmal.
I'll be sure to hold Ewer for days on end then if I ever get it.

Edit: BTW, without Faerie, AST and SCH have the near same healing potencies.
If you can't Faerie up at least you have a better MP regen until SC is up, which doesn't take long.
And shields to help for a bit...AST has nothing to fall back on sadly, not sure about CU, not there yet.

oh god don't make me think of the early days of pet micro

you're delusional if you think scholars were totally fine in 2.0

Fanservice the only fool around here is you wasting Aetherflow charges does effect your long-term mp regeneration any SCH worth a damn would know that and in long fight long term matters otherwise you run out of mp if you poorly time your uses of Aetherflow charges but it seems you only go by everything going perfect for you and not accounting for the skill of the player playing the class.

While I agree with most of what you say fanservice, I think it's kinda out of place and rude to insult her or him. Let this be a relatively "safe" place, no need to get personnal.

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Originally Posted by Shamirah

While I agree with most of what you say fanservice, I think it's kinda out of place and rude to insult her or him. Let this be a relatively "safe" place, no need to get personnal.

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I take insult when someone less informed tries to lecture me, while wrongly shifting blame away from what lies between the chair and the screen in order to blame class mechanics to berate SCH. Anyone who played for any length of time should know the tools available, yet here's someone who insults the reader's intelligence by omitting common facts to make their point seem like it has merit. It's absurd to see.

SCH was broken because the pets did whatever they wanted, which was especially bad because whispering dawn was the only AE heal to get the grp up.

it never was bad, it was just annoying.

It's not a front I have been playing since 1.0 and in 2.0 SCH was my 1st 50 which was my main class that I did everything with so I think I have a good understanding of what the difference between AST and SCH but the difference between us is that I can see AST potential and what SE made them for which it seems you don't want to or can't.

Fanservice insults make a poor weapon and are only used when you need to make yourself feel superior to someone else by using what amounts to childish name calling.

@ Fanservice: If you don't stop now, you're going to get banned.
I suggest you cool off, edit your posts and apologize.
Trust me, been there done that! Your insults to Kaizersan will land you a permban.
Just a friendly warning...She probably already reported you.
AST is in a tough spot and a lot of what she saying makes me lol but there's no need
to get mad at her like that.

Astrologian is incredibly powerful and once people figure out that mobility is a powerful strength people will shut up. The randomness of some cards with requiring of alot of communication for the cooldown card is the only true flaw the job has. Other then that it will compete on par with white mage and scholar.

Yeah if alexender require you to move every 2 sec ast will shine. But it'll never happen Vlady :) And you'll still get oom. And the cards need buffs. Most of them are totally useless or extremely niche.

Edit @Krixus : yeah sure, let's use the TP reduction on a fight where it will make no difference whatsoever. Hooray ! so effective. Or : "guys, pls don't use your cds. Wait for me to maybe get the spear and put it on you then you can use them " so effective.

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Originally Posted by Shamirah

Yeah if alexender require you to move every 2 sec ast will shine. But it'll never happen Vlady :) And you'll still get oom. And the cards need buffs. Most of them are totally useless or extremely niche.

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Most of them are totally useless?

They are all quite effective in real content, Im loving them.

Looks like a certain someone never learned that if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all and a ban would probably teach him a good lesson.

I play my AST similarly to how I played WHM up to 34 with the cards tossed in.

I really don't like Noct sect. There's not enough throughout to cover the damage shields didn't stop and we don't have a fairy. It's like a war of attrition with the incoming damage.

Took SCH to 46 before HW launched. I preferred WHM but never got it caugt up. I almost exclusively run Dinural. I've tried Moct on trash but have *massive* issues on bosses. Just eats MP.

When I'm playing solo I use diurnal and when I'm in party with 4 ppl I use nocturnal. When I'm in raid I change my stance depending on my healer companion. But u know ppl forget how to have Fun in this game.

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Originally Posted by Eraqus

When I'm playing solo I use diurnal and when I'm in party with 4 ppl I use nocturnal. When I'm in raid I change my stance depending on my healer companion. But u know ppl forget how to have Fun in this game.

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Try Diurnal again , Aspect benefic>Aspected Helios at the start of large pulls . The 150 potency regen justs makes it alot easier to heal.

I find it overall better then Noct. Even when doing trials with a partner being WHM i prefer diurnal stance since it much more mana efficient then Noct.

SCH's base shield are lackluster. It's their crit shield trait that AST does not have.

But if u critic aspect ed beneficial it's good. And don't forget that right after a beneficial u can instant shield your target with aspected benefic . They're both cool it just depends on your way to play.

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Originally Posted by sharazisspecial

Try Diurnal again , Aspect benefic>Aspected Helios at the start of large pulls . The 150 potency regen justs makes it alot easier to heal.

I find it overall better then Noct. Even when doing trials with a partner being WHM i prefer diurnal stance since it much more mana efficient then Noct.

SCH's base shield are lackluster. It's their crit shield trait that AST does not have.

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Keep in mind that Aspect Benefic is 2/3rds the cost of Adloquium. It would be an incredibly powerful spell if it inherited the boost of the shield's potency on crit for a fraction of the MP cost. Noct stance is there to fill the role of preventative healing. It's a big thing in raid scenarios where there's a mechanic that needs a large amount of mitigation to survive its impact. Think t13's Gigaflare. Dirunal Sect isn't going to do much when the boss is one shoting the group. So you need nocturnal stance to soften the blows of the raid killing ability (Or maybe for mechanics like T10 prey).

Pretty much, Noct for raid (If WHM/AST); Dirunal for everything else I guess.

aspected benefit costs twice as much as benefic I for fairly low potency heal. it's incredibly mana draining and doesn't even offer high throughput in exchange. diurnal spells are very mana efficient. I wouldn't use nocturne even with a whm since the hots stack.

adlo isn't an efficiency heal, it's the sch equivalent of cure 2. it gives you throughput at the cost of mana since crit heals go all the way up to 900 potency. ast doesn't need that because we have benefic 2.

I love it! it's a really fun job to play, plus I've always wanted to fight with tarot cards!

I think my biggest concern at this time is how well AST will do when paired with a SCH for raid content. At least in my case, I handled nearly all of the healing in FCOB while our SCH was dpsing, only healing for mechanics such as earthshakers. With an AST partner, I feel that SCHs may have to adapt into the "main healer" type of role, reducing the amount of time they can spend dpsing. On top of this, both AST and SCH bring the piety party buff, leaving WHM the only class to bring the mind buff. With this in mind, it seems that AST currently has better synastry with a WHM partner, as the WHM will handle the bulk of the healing while AST supports and buffs the party. As much as I enjoy the class, I'm continuing to level my WHM just in case the AST/SCH combo doesn't go as planned in Alexander.

Of course, without knowing how the new raids will function, this is all pure speculation and may become irrelevant.

I like it more with better gear. 40-50 was rough until I got my 130 gear. It's just harder to keep up if you have an oh snap what just happened moment. Coming from a WHM main I'm always in Diurnal stance unless I'm confident. I'm trying to practice more with the other stance. My only complaint is the lower heals make me feel like I'm spamming the heals button more and the struggle is real when crap hits the fan.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...68#post3069868

As I stated in this, The buffs and utility just aren't doing it. The base healing is fine. The AoE stun has to go. Utility needs to be added to the skill and the stun needs to be removed. Honestly, It feels like Square Enix figured AST to be overpowered and changed it right at the last second, and now our pops are crap. I remember reading that one of those abilities was supposed to "spread" our buffs to other party members. So, like increased card effectiveness. I can see how this would be really powerful, but what they gave us instead is not okay.

Personally I think they are a little underwhelming all round. Whilst the baseline healing is indeed passable (and I've had no issues on Rav/BisEX healing alongside them), they just don't bring the same overall package to the table that I can see. When the RNG falls into place and you get the right cards for the moment then the job is incredible, trouble is that just doesn't happen even remotely often enough mid encounter to make up for the personal HPS/DPS shortfalls.

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Originally Posted by Krixus

Most of them are totally useless?

They are all quite effective in real content, Im loving them.

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So you've run Alexander already? Tell us how it went...

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Originally Posted by Kaizersan

Looks like a certain someone never learned that if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all and a ban would probably teach him a good lesson.

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You can technically not insult someone, yet still be trolling them and this is very much trolling, like you want to bait Fanservice back into a fight.

Beyond that, no, AST is not worth bringing to a raid in its current situation. The lack of real emergency options A) pales in comparison to what other healers have and B) a 17% chance to make a BLM do 10% more damage for 15 seconds is not enough to compensate for this fact.

If people want to sit around in this thread, going "yay! cardz r fun!!!!11!1!", at least they won't be distorting the discussion in other threads where people are actually trying to seriously analyze the AST's weaknesses and make suggestions for balancing them...

AST is purposefully designed to be lower in raw healing power than the other two healers. Just step back and look at the conceptual designs of these classes:

AST: has cards for non-healing buffs.
SCH: has a faerie to put out additional healing.
WHM: has no gimmicks but just more abilities that feed into their core competency as the king of HP restoration.

For the sake of evaluating AST's overall balance as a class, it is best to compare to WHM because it is more like comparing apples to apples. The basic healing spells are about the same, but WHM has a lot more cooldowns at their disposal, as others have already explained in great detail. IMO, AST about as effective in healing as WHM is at lol 50. At level 60, WHM has a lot more healing potential, especially in a pinch.

Does this mean AST is underpowered as a class in general? Not necessarily. Remember that WHM is a no frills max healing class and that AST is a healer with buffs, most of which are DPS buffs or MP/TP buffs. Aside from Selene, who got nerfed pretty hard, the other healers don't have comparable buffs at their disposal.

The question really becomes how good are these buffs, and does it make up for having fewer healing tools? On the one hand, most content can be healed with just the basic stuff they have. As a SCH, I have a LOT of resources and cooldowns on tap that go mostly unused in most content.

On the other hand, cutting edge raiders are always fighting for every little bit of DPS. A lot of runs are made or broken by whether the healers (usually SCH) can put out just enough extra DPS to get them through a DPS check. If you get the right cards, you can buff the entire party's DPS by 5% for 15s. That's huge. It's also hard to get and entirely unreliable due to RNG, but gambling is part of the theme with Cards.

We need to look at AST for what it is, not what it isn't. It was never meant to be as potent at healing as WHM and SCH. Their main shtick is their cards. They also have the ability to switch between SCH style shields and WHM Regen, which isn't ground shattering but has at least a few uses other than adapting to the other healer in an 8-man.

By the way, I haven't heard anyone mention Time Dilation, which, if it does what it sounds like it does, has the potential to add 15 more seconds to Hallowed Ground. Proper use of that ability to extend tank cooldowns may very well close the gap in speed run viability.

I think there is a valid discussion to be had over maybe buffing or tweaking a few of their skills (Light Speed and Collective Unconsciousness come to mind), but not for rewriting or buffing the class to the point where it can heal equally with WHM.

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Originally Posted by Kaizersan

Looks like a certain someone never learned that if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all and a ban would probably teach him a good lesson.

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Trolling someone to the point where they lose their cool more than you do does not grant you some kind of moral high ground.

P.S. Fanservice was right in his analysis of the classes' healing abilities.