The positive Astrologian thread!

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

What you describe is neither complex nor difficult. These "nuances" are a kind of pretentious, false difficulty that attempts to obfuscate how minimally impactful most card actions are in practice. One look at your party list and a little attention paid to how everyone appears to be doing gives you most of what you need to know.

If you had full access to your cards, there would be room for more strategy and complexity, but with RNG governing your card selection, it's not rocket science to choose your best options.

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Yes. And throwing out a well timed balance on top of a Dragoon in mid burst stacked with blood for blood and strikes is only a trifle. I mean its hardly even worth mentioning despite the stack with it along the other two buffs can well push a dragoon over 2100 dps during the buff time. But times of hard healing while being able to 100% efficiently use your cards while watching other players buffs is trivial for your vast multi tasking skills I take it?

I assure you keeping on top of everything and playing the job to its fullest is far from easy for me itleast. Yes Scholar can push 400 dps on their own but I can buff a dragoon's dps by 400 while keeping itleast 180 dps through cleric stanced dots which is easily doable. Scholar has its strengths and the astrologian has ours.

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Originally Posted by Vlady

Yes. And throwing out a well timed balance on top of a Dragoon in mid burst stacked with blood for blood and strikes is only a trifle. I mean its hardly even worth mentioning despite the stack with it along the other two buffs can well push a dragoon over 2100 dps during the buff time. But times of hard healing while being able to 100% efficiently use your cards while watching other players buffs is trivial for your vast multi tasking skills I take it?

I assure you keeping on top of everything and playing the job to its fullest is far from easy for me itleast.

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Momentary burst DPS displayed by a parser doesn't mean anything, sorry. The only thing that matters is overall contribution of buffs over a whole fight.

I like the general idea of ast and the benefic/benefic II skill effects.

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Originally Posted by Zholi

Momentary burst DPS displayed by a parser doesn't mean anything, sorry. The only thing that matters is overall contribution of buffs over a whole fight.

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Glad we are able to make conclusions without knowing how much the astro contributes in buffs over the course of the fight then we can compare apples to apples. My brother when i run dungeons with him normally with my buffs throughout the entire dungeon gets boosted another 150 points so add that to easily sustained 200 and we are not as far off from scholars as people want to make you think. Dots i can keep up without any real mana loss so sustained 350 is just 100 less then a scholar and well within the margin of quite capable of contributing offensively in any level of content from dungeons to savage.

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Originally Posted by Zholi

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^This. Also, Vlady, when we're talking about AST, there's no such thing as a "Well-timed balance". The best we can do is hope RNG decides to throw us a bone at the appropriate moment, as control over when we get that balance isn't entirely in our hands.

I, for one, am totally against the RNG mechanic and think the cards deserve a mid-range buff(though spear and ewer are in a decent place) and the RNG element removed. I mean, is scholar given one button that uses one of their Aetherflow skills randomly? No, because that would almost destroy the point of having those skills in the first place. As a SCH, when I want to use lustrate, I need lustrate, not Sacred Soil; It's the same with the card skills. When I really want to have bole/balance/whatever, chances are good(5/6=83.3%) that I won't be able to use that specific card.

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Originally Posted by Aurum

^This. Also, Vlady, when we're talking about AST, there's no such thing as a "Well-timed balance". The best we can do is hope RNG decides to throw us a bone at the appropriate moment, as control over when we get that balance isn't entirely in our hands.

I, for one, am totally against the RNG mechanic and think the cards deserve a mid-range buff(though spear and ewer are in a decent place) and the RNG element removed. I mean, is scholar given one button that uses one of their Aetherflow skills randomly? No, because that would almost destroy the point of having those skills in the first place. As a SCH, when I want to use lustrate, I need lustrate, not Sacred Soil; It's the same with the card skills. When I really want to have bole/balance/whatever, chances are good(5/6=83.3%) that I won't be able to use that specific card.

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Yes but it is more along the lines of 63% you will get cards that positive usefulness to your group then the all hated spear/bole. Spire and ewer are now quite useful for summoners/monks/dragoons. On average an astrologian card buffs will add about 150 during the 20 dungeon run I have done my own tests on with a ninja who on average when getting exclusive buffs from me has averaged out around 150 dps. I do not really even use Royal road much as I have noticed efficiency in 4 man teams go down with the addition of having to wait another 30 seconds for a possible royal enhanced card which is the trully suckage part.. My dots parse at around 180 dps so I guess mileage can vary but if bole is the worst of the group then our random factor is not as bad as it is made out to be. People just want to hit the lucky 7's jack pot for a full party enhanced balance which I will agree the 5% only is meh.

I would welcome a way for Astrologian's to pay a price to cheat fate and pull a more timely applied card but between pulls and before bosses I normally manage to nab a balance to spread easily quite a few times along the way to apply a properply timed balance to enhance a dps already impressive burst so yes you can aquire a nicely timed balance. Efficiency overall for an astrologian is more along the lines of once we get the card we want we save it for the timely use..

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Spire and ewer are now quite useful for summoners/monks/dragoons. On average an astrologian card buffs will add about 150 during the 20 dungeon run I have done my own tests on with a ninja who on average when getting exclusive buffs from me has averaged out around 150 dps.

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Ewer is useless on SMN; they have no issues keeping near-full MP as long as they use Aetherflow. Ewer is really only useful healers in long fights.

Also, I'd really like to see your parses on how you added 150 DPS just through card buffs over an entire dungeon parse, as I have a really hard time believing that. It seems more like a number you just made up, like numerous others you've made up.

Sorry to go off-topic.

Again, people are showing how they fail to understand the core concepts of the job. And they're also biased and hypocritical, since a lot of the so-called SCH superiority over AST relies on... landing crit Adlos at very specific moments. Nocturnal Aspected Helios shields for the same amount as Succor and Nocturnal Aspected Benefic shields for around 150 less HP than Adlo, when it doesn't crit, but AST shielding is instant cast, which makes it easier to land in multiple targets and doesn't require any use of cooldowns (Swiftcast). Unless Adlo crits at the exact moment you need it to (which is TOTALLY based on RNG), SCH is not shielding more than AST. So, yeah, stop this whole "Oh cards are RNG based" so-called argument, because SCH relies on RNG too to be superior than AST.

Well if the Ninja is doing 1500 dps and he can get balance every second during the entire dungeon run its possible.

yeah right more like you had 30 dps...

Also, if you think that cards are bad, ask your DPS players to stop using cooldowns like Blood for Blood. A normal Balance raises DPS for the same amount as Blood for Blood does, and you can extend it for 15 more seconds with Time Dilation. It's not about getting the exact card you supposedly need at an specific time, it's about adding utility to the whole raid and minimizing DPS loss. When you get a Balance and you see people on their burst DPS rotation, you can use it, or you can store it for later with Spread. If you draw a Bole and use it on your tank, he can save a cooldown that he's rotating to use it on a bigger blast; if you don't want to do that, you can increase the potency of your next card. There are cards for everyone and if you get an absolutely useless card, which is almost impossible during a raid progression (4 cards are always useful, which means there's a 4/6 chance you'll draw something good), you can always Shuffle it and try your luck.

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Originally Posted by TatoRazzino

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Did you just say that Aspected Benefic shields for around 150 less HP than Adlo but SCH is not shielding more than AST ? But the big thing is, thats not even the main problem of AST vs SCH or AST vs WHM.

To get back on track with the topic, i like the concept of the class and i'm waiting to see if SE reinforce the card aspect to take care of the shortcomings that we can experience at the moment.

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Originally Posted by TatoRazzino

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I can't speak for everyone else, but for me, it's not the shields that are the problem, it's that even though we can shield almost as well as a scholar, we aren't given all the other healing capabilities a scholar has, aka the fairy and all the various aetherflow abilities, which is really what makes scholar viable. If I wanted to play scholar without aetherflow and without the free healing the fairy adds and with less dps, I'd be playing scholar without the free healing, the aetherflow, and I'd dps less often.

And no, I'm not saying AST should get a fairy and aetherflow and whatnot. What I am saying that I don't want to be a thrift-store scholar; I want to be an Astrologian.

And please, SCH players need to stop talking about Selene as if that fairy did anything amazing and OP to the group; she adds like 30 dps to some jobs, while she does almost nothing nothing to jobs like SMN and can drain the TP of other jobs. People are talking about WHM and SCH as if they didn't have any downsides, which it's not true. They act like there are no cooldowns, no losses and no restrictive mechanics to anything. Like, SCHs only get 3 Aetherflow stacks per minute, which means they get to choose which skills to use; you can't just blast 3 Lustrates and then pretend you don't lose almost ALL your AoE healing potency. Emergency Tactics is nice, but it only makes your Succor equivalent to Helios/Medica, which AST/WHM have all the time; and on Adlo, it makes the potency reach 600, which is lower than Benefic II/Cure II; it can go up, but it depends on RNG – and if RNG is bad for AST, it's bad for SCH, so you can't depend on it to make your case against AST.

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Originally Posted by kiraan

Did you just say that Aspected Benefic shields for around 150 less HP than Adlo but SCH is not shielding more than AST ?

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I may have phrased that badly. My point is: 150 extra shielding will not save your target from death, it will only delay it. And AST has means to heal big when needed, with Benefic II, which is a skill that SCHs lack. Lustrate is nice, but it has less potency and it's not available all the time, since you need to be smart to not overuse it and drain your Aetherflow stacks. People are stressing over aspects that are easily fixed with playing the job right.

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Originally Posted by TatoRazzino

I may have phrased that badly. My point is: 150 extra shielding will not save your target from death, it will only delay it. And AST has means to heal big when needed, with Benefic II, which is a skill that SCHs lack. Lustrate is nice, but it has less potency and it's not available all the time, since you need to be smart to not overuse it and drain your Aetherflow stacks. People are stressing over aspects that are easily fixed with playing the job right.

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Don't forget that SCH has Emergency tactis that can be use either on ST healing or group healing that still get the crit bonus multiplier on a 30sec CD. Plus SCH can recover MP pretty easily even if you were to spam heal.

Its cool that people enjoy AST, i do too, but saying that SE don't need to take a serious look at their abilities and spells is just ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by Aurum

[...] even though we can shield almost as well as a scholar, we aren't given all the other healing capabilities a scholar has, aka the fairy and all the various aetherflow abilities, which is really what makes scholar viable.

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SCH got Indomitability, which makes up for their lack of an AoE healing burst. It's 400 potency, but it has a 30s cooldown and it eats an Aetherflow stack. AST can make it up with a Swiftcast/Lightspeed Helios, which will heal the same as WHM's Assize. If you use Indomitabilty once, you lose the ability to cast one Lustrate, which is the only big reliable heal SCH has; AST has Benefic II all the time. Emergency Tactics has a 30s cd, and turns Adlo in a weaker heal than Benefic II unless it crits, which is RNG based. Fairies are nerfed, and the long cast time and positioning makes it less reliable than a big heal. The so-called SCH big healing things are all either RNG or cooldown based and are not always available.

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Originally Posted by TatoRazzino

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Yes, it's true that aetherflow has a cost, but that being said, SCH gets 3 more aetherflows a minute than AST does, so saying it's not that great is like telling a person without a car that "yes, I have a car, but it just gets me from point A to point B. It's nothing special". Yes, maybe you're not riding around in a ferrari, but that's not what the person who has to walk to work every day cares about.

And as far as the RNG element goes, if you wanted to level the RNG playing field between SCH and AST, you'd have to do this: take all of your aetherflow skills, roll them into a ball, and put them on one button. You can only press that button every 20 seconds, and when you do, it randomly activates a skill that consumes aetherflow. Oh, you wanted to lustrate that tank? Too bad, you get Sacred Soil.

The bonus multiplier from Emergency Tactics is only applied to Adlo. ET with Succor turns it into a Medica/Helios, which WHM/AST have all the time. And again: to get a heal out of Adlo that passes Benefic II, you need to get a crit at that specific moment. And, like I said, RNG is bad, according to people bashing on AST. I'm not saying that SCH is bad. I love it. I have it at 60. It was my main in 2.x, but people are treating it as if you could do everything at the same time without any problems or setbacks or hindering mechanics. That's just not true. I was doing A1 savage tonight as SCH and there were several times in which I was playing AST instead, because I needed some healing tools like Synastry and a more dependable AoE healing spell like Helios.

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Originally Posted by Aurum

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I don't want to level the RNG playing field, I'm saying that RNG is not a bad thing. SCHs use it too, and a lot. And it works out for them. The point of the cards was never to make a party pass a DPS check they couldn't pass without them or save a tank from a blow he wouldn't survive without them. That's not the core concept of the job. It would be like saying that SCH was crap for not being able to land critical Adlos at specific moments to shield tanks from busters they wouldn't survive with a normal Adlo. ASTs have very nice healing tools and are reliable at the healing end when played properly; the cards are a bonus and add utility to long runs. You have a 4/6 chance to draw cards that are useful all the time to almost all groups and you get tools to manage the ones you don't want. You're not gonna see DPS numbers go sky high, but that was NEVER the point. Stop saying that RNG to cards is a problem, because it isn't.

True astro has access to helios at all times but as long a boss mechanics are based around tired patterns then the scholar has access to those abilities when it is most required in the raid which matters most off all.

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Originally Posted by TatoRazzino

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SCHs use RNG in an entirely different way than Astro does. SCH RNG can only ever work in a SCHs favor since a crit adlo is always nice. It's not necessary, and isn't something people rely upon for specific things. AST RNG on the other hand often makes your cards come up at irrelevant times. A crit adlo is never irrelevant; AST's cards often are.

And if the cards aren't the core aspect of the class(even though many of our abilities are related to manipulating them), then what is? WHM has AoE heals and general healing output covered. SCH has single target shielding and DPS covered. Where does AST fit?

Every job has downsides. The lack of a Cure III is one of the things AST haters bitch a lot about. During A1 tonight, our WHM never got the chance to land a Cure III outside of the stacking before the jump the oppressors do. So, the thing that made our WHM shine was Divine Seal, which is a bonus that neither SCH nor AST has (Dissipation make you lose the fairy, which heals too so, it evens out). This means that a SCH/AST group will have that weakness to cover. One solution is placing Eos near the healers, since Selene is hard to use during that fight and make her buff healing potency when needed. There are strategies to minimize lack of healing issues from not having a WHM. People can also work out the direct DPS loss as a WHM/AST duo. This also means that groups will have to work out the lack of utility from not having AST; this can put some stress over BRD/MCH, for example. My point actually is: it's not all sugar and rainbows with a SCH/WHM duo. And I was doing this duo tonight.

The problem, though, is that people aren't missing that utility. All the bases are already covered by other classes more capable of covering them. And from what you've said about how AST works with another healer tells me that our place in a raid is to make things harder on our co-healer. When paired with a scholar, what we bring to the table shouldn't be "more fairy micro and less dps for you, Mr. scholar". and when with a WHM it shouldn't be "You get to DPS less, Mr. WHM". Both of these situations seem directly detrimental to the party, and is indicative of the fact that AST is currently just a second string pinch hitter in an otherwise all-star lineup.

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Originally Posted by Aurum

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If you're only getting bad cards, you're using them wrong. Drawing a Bole can save a cooldown from your tank rotation (and yes, tanks rotate cooldowns during raids) and the Spear can make a NIN do more DPS with Ninjutsus. If you don't have a NIN and your tank is doing fine, then you use your tools. By using RR, you can make up for the Draw you "lost". The other cards are always useful in raid situations. Arrows can be used for healers and almost all DPS jobs, the Balance is a direct DPS increase which can be Spread in case you can't use it at the moment. MP and TP add a lot of utility and make your BRD/MCH dps more steady since it takes some of their Refresh job. There's no possible scenario in which your cards won't help the party; the chance of that happening (like, drawing all Spears) is so low that it only makes this whole argument ridiculous: people are overreacting about something that is not gonna happen in a raid encounter.

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Originally Posted by Aurum

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You sound like you never did progression raiding before, dude. You're all stuck in a 2.x meta and you can't shake it off. There were several situations tonight in which having Synastry, Time Dilation, Lightspeed, Disable, insta-cast shields and even Collective Unconscious would have made healing a lot EASIER. Having an AST in the party adds utility and some nice healing tools which WHM/SCH don't have. Things are going to be hard no matter which healing duo you get in there. People are using WHM/SCH because everyone is used to that, since they've been used since 2013. Hardcore progression groups don't want to waste time learning anything other than the fight, and that's why lots of them are sticking to the old jobs or to jobs that have easy learning curves. Healing is more complex than DPSing, since there's no rotation to follow and no dummy to train on.

I would agree with you on the DPS cards if the cards made up the difference between our personal dps and the dps lost from replacing a WHM or SCH with an AST, but the cards fail to do that by a wide margin. If AST is given the ability to buff dps, then what is the point if they can't even account for the loss of dps from having us in the party in the first place? As for spear, I would agree that it's a good card to draw, but the way it works is currently so awkward that I find it night useless. As far as spear/ewer go, I'm okay with ewer, but none of the current endgame content sees people TP starved, so why would I care about spire?

There have been people saying that TP is a problem in A2 Savage. Also, when my group cleared t13 (pre-echo), TP was an issue. Tonight in A1, there was BARELY room for healer DPS. Anytime me or the WHM went into Cleric, someone died; the healing check is intense. Cards would have helped a lot. Other than that, I can pull similar DPS on my AST and on my SCH in short bursts, and I can pull over 400 on Faust. AST has 2 DoTs that can't miss and a 200 potency burst; one of the DoTs is stronger than Bio II by 100 potency, which can make up for the lack of Miasma (which can miss); the difference between the burst from Broil and Malefic II can make up for the lack of Shadow Flare. Of course, you won't be able to do that for a long time, but WHM got some new nasty tools too. You just need to work out a strategy. Healing checks won't allow a SCH to DPS for a long time even with a WHM on the party, so an AST will be more than fine solo healing for short periods while the SCH does it.

So to put this back on topic ...

I really like your screenshot, Parawill. Gravity is easily one of my favorite animations from HW!

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Originally Posted by Vlady

True astro has access to helios at all times but as long a boss mechanics are based around tired patterns then the scholar has access to those abilities when it is most required in the raid which matters most off all.

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I forgot to answer this. Yes, it's true: SCHs can make up for the job's downsides by learning the fight and practicing. This is true for WHMs as well: you learn how to live without the skill to shield efficiently. AST players need to get better at their job and 1 month practice isn't time enough to make up for the 2 years people have been playing WHM and SCH.

Haha, sorry for getting off track. I really enjoy a good debate and tend to get pretty involved in them. But yeah, definitely a nice shot of gravity; It almost looks like it's throwing off the light that's making those shadows. My compliments to parawill ^^

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Originally Posted by GideonHighmourn

So to put this back on topic ...

I really like your screenshot, Parawill. Gravity is easily one of my favorite animations from HW!

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And I'm sorry if I sounded off-topic, but I just want to point out that there's a lot of good things about our job. It's very fun, pretty and unique. My favorite animation is still Celestial Opposition, tho :)

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Originally Posted by TatoRazzino

And I'm sorry if I sounded off-topic, but I just want to point out that there's a lot of good things about our job. It's very fun, pretty and unique. My favorite animation is still Celestial Opposition, tho :)

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The LB3 is also pretty spectacular. I'm really impressed with the detail the devs put into it!

As a PLD, i am more than willing to cover you while you're doing your bubble.

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Originally Posted by rawker

As a PLD, i am more than willing to cover you while you're doing your bubble.

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Marry my character, please.

Something I find awesome about AST is that Noct A. Benefic makes it easily the best pvp healer. There's nothing like having 3 people all trying to take you down and not being able to XD

Thanks for trying to get back on topic, I understand its easy to get carried away with a conversation. I intended this thread as a place to point out the positives of the class, so that people can voice the things they like, so mayhap they don't end up getting changed. Unfortunately, there a lot of people on the AST is bad bandwagon, who gave up leveling or haven't played it at all, who spread some pretty bad information. Do I think this job is gear dependent, yes. Are bad players more noticeable when healing as AST, yes. Is that necessarily a problem, no. Personally I don't feel a healer should be able to drag bad players through content, like it is really easy to do with a WHM. (but now I am getting off topic :))

I think the RNG of the cards is integral and a very core concept of this job though. I mean, pick up a deck of cards, and pull the card you want every time??? The fun, and the thing that separates the good from the bad , is what to do with the cards you get, on the fly, and how to best use them. This job isn't for everyone, that's why there are 2 other healing jobs. I just feel there are a lot of people who are trying to change this into something its not. and I do not want to see that happen, It is nowhere near as bad of a place as people are making it out to be. Have a great day!

Enhanced Arrow + Time Dilation on a WAR in Deliverance makes me SQUEEEEEE SO MUCH!

Rev up your engines, the buzzsaws are coming!

I didn't take this one, but it was a winner on reddit's screenshot contest! I thought it was pretty awesome :-)
https://i.imgur.com/ew59Oe9.jpg
Entitled: "The party's Astrologian casts Collective Unconscious" (Congrats, /u/ComradeShiny)

And this one is simply gorgeous (nor did I take this one >.< I'll more some...day...this weekend?)
http://i.imgur.com/QUf6QV4.jpg
Entitled: "Healing in the Great Gubal Library" by /u/Dangoke

(Thank you by the way ^-^ It was my first Dusk vigil run too)

ASTRO is amazing job - it is by far the hardest healer job to master because there are so many random and quick decision thinking you must do. Hence you see so many complaints because this is not a straight up pick and play healer like WHM. My Astro is not yet 50, but I can contrast and compare the bad astro and a good astro when I play as tank on lower level dungeons. Astro tools below level 50 is extremely OVERPOWERED for a healer, but you can clearly see the shitty Astro overwhelmed itself with the myriad quick thinking they have to do on lower level dungeons. Stone Vigil and Dzaemel Darkhold is a good example. I am not surprised the SE team is taking a slow approach to fix this job, since on a seasoned player's hand, ASTRO is totally fine, and should the luck is on your card's draw, the benefits can be quite nice.