Astrologian "BUFFS"

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Originally Posted by KarstenS

And forget the word "Emergencyskill". A serious healer use all skills and CDs as regular skills.

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That's the thing, people are too focused on the emergency skill button function rather than thinking of using lightspeed as a mp saving resource.

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Originally Posted by YuiSasaki

Yeah, cuz Ewer and passive mp regen don't stack I forgot...

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They do stack, so using ewer by itself is like having double passive mp regen for 15-30 seconds.

I don't know what you guys are all complaining about, everyone seems to be overlooking the true buff.

Resolved Issues:
-An issue wherein the astrologian's auto-attack attributes were incorrect.

INC AST defense force!

No really. The buffs are nice and all but people saying that Light Speed is an emergency healing tool are a little off on that. It is the equivalent of swiftcasting a spell on the initial cast under light speed. You're actually not gaining any type of HPS increase because the GCD isn't reduced. You're just casting spells without the casting time. I'm honestly using it as a glorified swiftcast with MP saving capabilities. I like having mobility. It's a nice change but its not the emergency healing tool like people are calling it.

The Ewer change is pretty cool. Due to my play style, I always want extra mp. Whenever I stumble across the card, I throw it on myself and there is a noticeable difference. No comment on Spire. It is a nice buff but I haven't run any content where I've really needed it.

Shuffle CD being 60s is lovely and Spread out of combat is a huge QoL change.

Basic maths! Cause that's what I can do :)

Assuming Ewer & Spire is like all HoTs and DoTs, with its 15 second duration and 30 potency refresh, that's a total of 150 potency refresh.

Extended Ewer & Spire has a 30 second duration which doubles potency refresh to a total of 300 potency refresh.

Enhanced Ewer & Spire changes potency from 30 to 45 (50% of 30 = 15, the 100% = 30, so 30 + 15 = 45); however, duration is the same. So that means you get a 225 potency refresh with enhanced.

Expanded Ewer & Spire is now AoE but 50% less potent. Therefore it's an 15 potency refresh (30 divided by 2) for a total of 75 potency refresh. Across a light party that's a 300 potency refresh collectively or 600 potency refresh in a full party. Factoring in benefits, expanded is kind of mediocre :P

Been running some Alex runs after the patch. Ewer and spire seem better than they were before. Lightspeed, while better than it was, still isn't very useful. I find it to essentially be like getting roundabout version of a WHM's free cure proc, except it takes like 4 casts to fully benefit from it and you can only do it once every 2.5 min. Honestly it's still not very good, but at least we can use it when when low on mana. The shuffle buff hardly seems noticeable to me. Spread is a nice QoL change, but does nothing for combat. And even though it's more potent, CU is in exactly the same spot it was before.

All in all, this buff did almost nothing to help the class. Our mana regen was slightly improved, but not by a huge amount. That's it really.

It's already been said...but I love to restate things. Lightspeed seems to be more about mana management than anything else. Not really sure how anyone is seeing this as emergency healing since it doesn't seem to really affect output.

That being said, i'm hopeful these changes will help fix some of the mana management issues. It's always felt like during an emergency I just dump my entire bucket of mp over everyone's heads then just shrug my shoulders as they ask me where the rest is. I'm viewing lightspeed like tanking cooldowns, use it often, not just for emergency.

That being said it's obvious that these changes are not "nothing" (though I will concede to "almost nothing" since that does acknowledge "some" change took place). Clearly they are positive and will change, if even a little, how AST's play. On the other hand, this also clearly does not fix all the issues with the job. Just because "you" as a player feel satisfied with the job and can keep up with SCH's or WHM's doesn't make AST "on par" with those jobs.

The hybrid argument doesn't hold up under scrutiny, since SE has not allowed the AST to freely switch sects during combat. That change alone would alleviate "some" of the uselessness of nocturnal sect. The main issue with that sect is being stuck in it.

Should White Mages or Scholars be able to perform better in certain areas than an Astrologian? Sure. However, AST's should also bring something to the table that the other two cannot. It looks like SE is looking in that direction, but doesn't want to change too much too quickly without proper observation.

Lightspeed as an "emergency healing tool" is mainly for allowing you to cast Benefic II/Aspected Helios at less cost. The being instant-cast/faster-cast is less for "emergency" and more for movement.

The Ewer change combined with the Lightspeed cost reduction should help sustainability issues, but AST still has a bit of a throughput issue. Lightspeed helps in letting you use your bigger heals more often (and being more reliable of a cost reduction than the old Ewer), but I'm not quite sure if it's going to be enough yet.

People are focusing on the reduced cast time of Lightspeed instead of the mana reduction aspect of it. More mana = more heals! Before we had to pace ourselves. Now with the Refresh and Lightspeed we can be more aggressive meaning more heals = more output.

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Originally Posted by Koopatroopa

People are focusing on the reduced cast time of Lightspeed instead of the mana reduction aspect of it. More mana = more heals! Before we had to pace ourselves. Now with the Refresh and Lightspeed we can be more aggressive meaning more heals = more output.

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It's literally 1 extra heal every 2.5 min. Let's not get carried away here.

I'm good with the changes, as a start. Hopefully, we will see some future adjustments to other skills.

However, I will say this. I'm pretty upset at the fact that SE specifically told us there would be changes to Celestial Opposition and Collective Unconscious, and CO got absolutely nothing and CU only got a slightly higher regen potency.

It makes me wonder if anyone here has actually tried AST yet...

- Do you even Spread Bole m8?
- Essentially Benedition Dignity
- Cross-class Cure (･ิω･ิ)
- Noct Sect

10% less damage taken
5% more heals done than WHM/SCH

To me, that looks like a sexy 5% perma heal buff with a 30s win-rate of awesomeness.

As our true savoir once said: gitgudscribs - Yoshi q

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Originally Posted by Eudyptes

It's literally 1 extra heal every 2.5 min. Let's not get carried away here.

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Um, what???????

Some people are incredibly ungrateful. Most mmos won't change a class so early in to an expansion. Get a grip.

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Originally Posted by Koopatroopa

Um, what???????

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In 10 seconds it lasts, you will get most likely 4 heals off saving 25% each. So for the duration, you will get 1 free heal per cooldown.

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Originally Posted by UlricCraft

It makes me wonder if anyone here has actually tried AST yet...

- Cross-class Cure (･ิω･ิ)

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3qjfQieg2w

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Originally Posted by Alahra

Lightspeed should be a decent emergency button now. The rest of the changes probably won't have much impact. They're probably waiting to see how AST performs in Savage before further adjustments. Personally, I think I'm going to switch back to SCH for healing, though.

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Not really, it still doesn't affect recast. But it's now a great deal better going from completely useless/detrimental to a useful MP conservation tool. All these changes seems to be focused on AST mp issues.

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Originally Posted by Koopatroopa

Um, what???????

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It's 25% less mana cost and you can only cast about 4 spells before the buff wears off. Plus it's on a 2.5 min CD. Admittedly I'm not a mathematician, but I don't think mixing a couple low cost + a couple high cost spells are going to change that. Or if it does it's negligible in the grand scheme of things.

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Originally Posted by Mortalitasi

Some people are incredibly ungrateful. Most mmos won't change a class so early in to an expansion. Get a grip.

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Ungrateful? The class has serious flaws to the point many groups refuse to take us to harder content. SE gives us a "buff" and it's peanuts...

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Originally Posted by UlricCraft

It makes me wonder if anyone here has actually tried AST yet...

- Do you even Spread Bole m8?

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Buff is halved when it's an AoE so it's 5% party wide damage reduction... such mitigation, so rng, much wow

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- Essentially Benedition Dignity
- Cross-class Cure (･ิω･ิ)

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WHM says hi, SCH smiles smugly as usual

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- Noct Sect

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still playing second fiddle to Diurnal

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10% less damage taken - nope
5% more heals done than WHM/SCH - AST heals are also 5% weaker than whm/sch counterparts therefore net gain of 0%!
To me, that looks like a sexy +5% perma heal buff with a 30s win-rate of awesomeness. - you need better glasses

As our true savoir once said: gitgudscribs - Yoshi q - sure he did

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Do you even AST bro?

Anyone else noticing Ewer/Spire randomly not applying or applying and immediately disappearing? I've seen it happen multiple times now; I was using it on a DRK tank, and every other time Ewer would just disappear after I used it.

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Originally Posted by UlricCraft

- Essentially Benedition Dignity

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Even at roughly 1000 Potency (its max potential, it means they're down to like triple-digit HP), Essential Dignity's in no way comparable to Benediction.

It barely keeps up with Tetragrammaton and is left in the dust by Lustrate. It's at the perfect intersection of too-long-a-cooldown and too weak to reliably compare with the other classes' emergency/MP-free heals.

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Originally Posted by GideonHighmourn

Anyone else noticing Ewer/Spire randomly not applying or applying and immediately disappearing? I've seen it happen multiple times now; I was using it on a DRK tank, and every other time Ewer would just disappear after I used it.

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Ewer doesn't work on DRK anymore due to Darkside negating all MP restoration effects. Ewer used to just reduce mp costs so it actually worked for DRK, now it is just single target mages ballad.

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Originally Posted by EdgyMemeGuy

dogememes and derps

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You so cute. :')
You are the one who might need their glasses /adjustglasses'd

Spread is a move that holds a card, not spreading it over the entire party.
(I'm explaining this because you obviously thought Spread = AoE when I didn't reference AoE in my post, is k, don't worry.)

So that's not RNG, that's 10% damage reduction. - Yep

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5% more heals done than WHM/SCH - AST heals are also 5% weaker than whm/sch counterparts therefore net gain of 0%!

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Nocturnal Sect = 5% heals + Cross-Classed Cure = ???

https://lh6.ggpht.com/Gg2BA4RXi96iE6...ku_xzyF4y=h900

I'm very happy with the Ewer change. I only ever use it on myself (or my co-healer if they need it), so an MP regen in addition to Lumin Aether is awesome.

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Originally Posted by Mortalitasi

Some people are incredibly ungrateful. Most mmos won't change a class so early in to an expansion. Get a grip.

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The only way they'll ever stop whining, Mortalitasi:

http://i.imgur.com/JGWeUZ5.png

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Originally Posted by UlricCraft

I5% more heals done than WHM/SCH

To me, that looks like a sexy 5% perma heal buff with a 30s win-rate of awesomeness.

As our true savoir once said: gitgudscribs - Yoshi q

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Huh? 5% "bonus healing" raises a 380 potency Benefic (akin to Cure/Physick) to 399 which is, hilariously, 1 potency short of Cure & Physick. :)

EDIT:

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Originally Posted by UlricCraft

You so cute. :')
Nocturnal Sect = 5% heals + Cross-Classed Cure = ???

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Oh! That's interesting. I'll actually try that.

Okay, maybe I didn't explain myself as well as I thought.

Cure is 400 potency, with Noct Sect it raises that by 5%.

I was merely joking at the fact there are ways to get more % healing out of AST to lighten the ever depressing threads complaining about Square Enix.

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Originally Posted by UlricCraft

Okay, maybe I didn't explain myself as well as I thought.

Cure is 400 potency, with Noct Sect it raises that by 5%.

I was merely joking at the fact there are ways to get more % healing out of AST to lighten the ever depressing threads complaining about Square Enix.

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It's okay. I laughed so hard for not thinking about this xD My FC followed suit too! I do love my Surecast, but I think I'll test out Cure to see how that goes. This reminds me of the days where I used Physick on my White Mage for a few not-so-difficult dungeons because I liked how Physick's icon looked. \o/

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Originally Posted by MidnightTundra

Ewer doesn't work on DRK anymore due to Darkside negating all MP restoration effects. Ewer used to just reduce mp costs so it actually worked for DRK, now it is just single target mages ballad.

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Ah, didn't realize that. That really sucks, then. xD

Thanks for the heads up.

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Originally Posted by UlricCraft

Okay, maybe I didn't explain myself as well as I thought.

Cure is 400 potency, with Noct Sect it raises that by 5%.

I was merely joking at the fact there are ways to get more % healing out of AST to lighten the ever depressing threads complaining about Square Enix.

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Don't worry Ulric, keep being awesome. :)

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Originally Posted by TonberiScholar

Lightspeed as an "emergency healing tool" is mainly for allowing you to cast Benefic II/Aspected Helios at less cost. The being instant-cast/faster-cast is less for "emergency" and more for movement.

The Ewer change combined with the Lightspeed cost reduction should help sustainability issues, but AST still has a bit of a throughput issue. Lightspeed helps in letting you use your bigger heals more often (and being more reliable of a cost reduction than the old Ewer), but I'm not quite sure if it's going to be enough yet.

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I agree. Though I'd say that if you need to move and heal, Lightspeed is undoubtedly the best ability in the game for it now, no question. It will come in handy for swift liberation, as an example. But the class still doesn't have an actual catchup tool. It can be more wasteful with benefic IIs, but that won't save it from a WHM that has a stronger regen, better actual healing throughput, divine seal, presence of mind, assize, and everything else that makes them a substantially better healer by raw throughput.

Even the Scholar has more throughput because the Fairy is just ridiculous for that, even though their AoE healing is arguably worse (or better depending on what you are after).

Until the AST gets its throughput fixed, it will always be a bad healer by comparison to the WHM/Scholar.

They solved our mp problems. That's all.
no change on CO at all.
CU change is shit.
no change on how much we heal at all.
no healing buff at all.
no raid utility at all, just a bunch of helios/aspected helios spam.

SE, please, close the servers, take a look at the forum and take some of your players ideas, rework, remake, destroy and rebuild AST.
open the servers again.

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Originally Posted by UlricCraft

Okay, maybe I didn't explain myself as well as I thought.

Cure is 400 potency, with Noct Sect it raises that by 5%.

I was merely joking at the fact there are ways to get more % healing out of AST to lighten the ever depressing threads complaining about Square Enix.

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Joking is right! Cure in NoctSect = 0.95pot/mana Benefic I in NoctSect = 1.1pot/mana

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Originally Posted by Emonik

Joking is right! Cure in NoctSect = 0.95pot/mana Benefic I in NoctSect = 1.1pot/mana

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It also doesn't proc Enhanced Benefic II; not that it does much anyways.

These are welcome fixes. Lightspeed is now worth using almost everytime it's available and a stronger CU is of course nice. 200 potency/tick is not bad at all and is a nice compensation for the inability to move and cast. I feel like the bubble should be a little bigger tho. However some problems still need to be addressed, namely the whole nocturnal sect and CO. Noct CU should be a 15% damage reduction at the very least to compensate for a weaker version of Virus (Disable), no E4E and the "scarecrow effect" or completely reworked. I really like the idea of increasing the shields' potency the more they are active on players up to a max value as suggested by someone here. AST is still a sub par healer and a not good enough buffer yet, but some steps in the right direction have been made. Also, please fix Shuffle AND Spread. If I use shuffle I don't want to draw the same card and if I have a card in my spread it makes no sense drawing the same card again.

I still have to play with these new features, but I don't think the buffs were that bad.

Sure we didn't have any changes on Celestial Opposition, as announced, but all people complaining about 'AST has to be in pair with WHM/SCH' don't consider that the card system is unique.
Whm doesn't have a mitigation skill (I'm considering SS as a shield, and it's cross class anyway). They don't have a support skill on their own to use on other players, they haven't how to directly improve dps.
SCH has Virus, which is better than Disable, but can't be used by anyone in a long time (if you have 4 members in a group capable of using Virus, 2 or 3 of them won't even use it while Disable can be used on CoolDown by any AST). Sch has better options on support with E4aE/Deploy and Fey Wind, bus AST has a defensive buff that doesn't depend on RNG to activate (only to draw) and has a haste skill that's better, although you depend on RNG for drawing and spreading it too.

Also any WHM/SCH has a tool to refresh mp/tp to self but not to other players. As long as AST use their buffs on cooldown, their contribution to mitigation, dps, makes things faster and still heal decently makes them unique.

The Japanese Forums have some real google translate gems:

I do not know have been made ​​how development, but
it is assumed that there is a team for each job even in the battle team.
Then of course, always some people who was responsible for the astrologer,
word towards its people. Astrology is sooo fun! I think that it is a very attractive job! But ... I am using while always feel guilty ... because my own white also not been to school even 60, but I do not because so and so in comparison, because "Astrology is weak." There is entrenched too have ... You have expect it in this fix is dispelled, apparently it seems unreasonable. We continue to use in the future because I love astrologer, but it proudly and looking forward to the day that you can participate in the end content.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...3%83%AC/page74

Edit: I love this:

The fate of the wheel: there is no longer words. I want to say ... and, but says once. 　　　　　People who are using the wheel of fate in Dyer null sect I think not. Except when you want to disconnect the hand. 　　　　　Do you know why? 　　　　　① range is too narrow. ②AOE is inevitably erased immediately effect too much.　 　　　　　In ③ range damage only use scene that, but around will recover I think tank will fall in AA other. 　　　　　Status quo ④ using Helios better to draw and attacks are totally safe and useful. And to have been in various and fun, it is sad. To believe had ....

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Originally Posted by Roxas_Andrade

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But cards depend too much on RNG. We don't really need statisticians or complicated reasoning about expected utility to see that having random buffs with similar utility to skills that schs have with certainty is just not enough. Consider an expanded arrow for instance, which is one of the best things that can happen to an ast. That's a 5% haste to the party for 15 seconds, but you need 2 cards for that so you will be able to have an expanded arrow once in a minute if you are extremely lucky. Then consider Fey Wind: it's a 3% haste to the party with certainty every minute for 30 seconds. It's stronger than and expanded arrow even if an ast keeps drawing the perfect combination of cards for all the duration of the encounter and it doesn't even depend on RNG. Sure, you can use CO and time dilation to gain a few seconds...but do we really need that much work, luck and different skills to be on par with selene in boosting the party's dps?

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Originally Posted by Lastelli

but do we really need that much work, luck and different skills to be on par with selene in boosting the party's dps?

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But my point is: you can have this perfect RR/arrow draw once in the battle and it will be wonderful, but if you draw bole, you sure have a good use to it. If you draw balance, you have a good use to this, if you draw ewer, you have good use to this...
You can use every single buff you get in any situation. And despite some buffs are copy from other jobs, other buffs are unique and and all of them are useful. Healing power is essential for a healer, but AST can help in some things that other healers can't...

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Originally Posted by Lastelli

... if I have a card in my spread it makes no sense drawing the same card again.

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I disagree, I've enjoyed at times being able to throw a balance card each on 2 different DPS.