Your thoughts on Astrolgian so far?

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Originally Posted by Normalizer

This I would like to disagree. I don't know why a lot of people think Diur Sect better

Beside, Lightspeed is not really complete garbage, use it while you have to move a lot and need to heal/esuna ppl. Sure it lower your potency, but if you can heal for a bit while moving, it better than not healing at all! Many of the boss fight right now require a lot of movement, and using lightspeed at the right moment may save you from a wipe.

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I don't want Nocturnal to be bad because I do prefer shield and bursts/regens since I mained SCH for 2 years but that stance is crap on ice.

I tried Sohm Al in it, nearly got my party killed. The shields are HORRIBLE, and spamming anything with the shield on it eats MP like mad.
It woulda been better if it crit'd and gave the galvanize effect.
What I do is in oh sh!t moments is I use LS and LA and Syn on another person, I actually use LA quite a bit no matter how good MP management I have
and I'm pretty good at it.
Who would use a near useless barrier over Regen? Tested, Diurnal is much better.

i haven an idea about making the RNG of AST cards a bit better for important situations

new skill: force draw
when using this skill you get a buff that lasts 10 sec. in this time you can use the skill again as often as you want without it going on cd
each time you use the skill (including the first time) you put your current card away and pull a new one. this can either be random or in order (looping through them)
when you use the card, the skill goes on cd and the buff vanishes
when the buff times out, the skill goes on cd and you keep your current card like usual
cd: something from 180 to 300 sec

this way, if you know there is something you need a specific card for, like a tank killer, or an important dps race, you can use this skill to force draw the one card you need, but you need to think about when to use it since it has high cd

thoughts?

I've been using diurnal for everything really, including the vault, and seems like it does better in boss battles. However, last vault I did had a drk that was doing huge pulls, keeping him alive was very stressful, I'm thinking if I was in nocturnal with the 5% potency increase and alternating cures and shields I probably would of done better.

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Originally Posted by Mhikail

I don't want Nocturnal to be bad because I do prefer shield and bursts/regens since I mained SCH for 2 years but that stance is crap on ice. The shields are HORRIBLE, and spamming anything with the shield on it eats MP like mad.

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Then the problem lies in the fact you try to use it as scholar shield :)) Don't use Noct sect as if you are on scholar (and I would suggest don't use Diur as if you are whm either). For me aspected benefic in noct sect is an instant cure that kind of "emergency" or "buy-me-some-time" heal. Like while i have to dodge mechanics and someone are low, i can AB them while moving, or while i need to draw card and don't want to risk the tank HP too much (draw card is not instant, it does delay a bit, so i can AB then draw or apply card buff).

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Originally Posted by Normalizer

Then the problem lies in the fact you try to use it as scholar shield :)) Don't use Noct sect as if you are on scholar (and I would suggest don't use Diur as if you are whm either). For me aspected benefic in noct sect is an instant cure that kind of "emergency" or "buy-me-some-time" heal. Like while i have to dodge mechanics and someone are low, i can AB them while moving, or while i need to draw card and don't want to risk the tank HP too much (draw card is not instant, it does delay a bit, so i can AB then draw or apply card buff).

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Then I dunno when or how to use it unless I am in 8 man.
I def don't use it in mobs. I try to quickly use it before pulls for tank, then switch back.
Also Diurnal stance has my casts faster and I get like a 100hp potency booster with weak shield on Noct.
Just don't' see when it's a good time to ever been in that stance.
I accidentally had it on in end of Sohm Al boss and it did me no good.
Granted, I did not wipe, but with new people and stuff it was a chore...a fun chore! but it woulda
been smoother if I were not in that stance. I'll give it another shot though.

For more: Playing a bit more, I am content with our healing potencies and I still manage MP well and use LA whenever.
Got a MP replenish...might as well use it.
When things get spicy, LS is good but the fact that we're already have low heals, and 25% down is bad.
This needs to be removed immediately. The Vault is a waker-uper it seems so I won't have much say till then.
Atm I am in Moghell...

Atm im AST 51 and I really like the Nocturnal system to heal. I have both SCH and WHM lvled and as i saw in the high lvl dungeons (lvl 50), AST in nocturnal is like a SCh while in nocturnal mode. We can't do so much dps but i'm feeling comfortable healing and buffing this dungeons.
These days i'll start with lvl 51+ dungeons and i'll check if AST is in troubles to heal.

If SE fix a bit the card system i'll really love this job.

I hear alot of dps complaints, but in any dungeon 52+ you should be doing just fine. I most my parses so far I've been at 100 dps over the course of the dungeon, which is about half the tanks. Same as sch or whm would be. Just combust I/II + aero on high hp targets if under 2 mobs, or spam gravity on groups. Drop cleric during global CD, use insta heal + aspected benefic, then go back to dps.

If the tank is speed running I will admit it is harder to dps than whm with their divine seal regen, but we can't have it all.

Level 60 astro who used to be whm/sch here! I was reading through this post and decided to contribute my experience since I'm really enjoying this class at the moment.

I think some of you might be a bit too picky about the cards system, or are looking at it in a way it's not supposed to be considered. I healed through all dungeons and trials and while I know this doesn't count much - need to test the class in proper raids - I still think it helped me get the hang of the class. Cards buffs are not supposed to be game breaking, and honestly I wouldn't want them to be. They're there so you can give the party that little more oomph, and in turn they need to be reactive to make good use of it.
When I first started I was getting pretty pissed whenever I was drawing what I considered useless cards (dem spears), then I simply started realising that every little bit helps. I don't consider myself to be OMG BEST PLAYER EVAH or even a good theorycrafter, but I'm pretty sure that rather than going *draw* "naah" *shuffle* "meh" *have card sit there and go to waste*, it's best to balance the amount of royal roads and play them. If I draw a balance towards the end of any fight, I just spread it and use it later. If I draw bole towards the beginning of the fight, I might use it on the tank to add something more to his cds and use that time to dps, or maybe I can decide to RR it because I have a balance waiting to be used in my spread.
What I'm trying to say is, sure, you hardly ever get the cards you really want, but that doesn't make whatever you get useless. Try experimenting, try being more loose with them in short fights and use the downtime as the fight is about to finish or as you're running to the next enemies to try and prepare a nice RR. You'll have more fun and the others will spend more time with some buff up and less wondering what the hell this new class is doing, sitting there spinning the cards wheel.

As for Sects, I tend to use Nocturnal on trash and Diurnal on bosses, though that might change for different boss fights. I do admit that as a fresh 60 a couple of days ago I was almost traumatised trying to clear the new dungeons, but as I got more gear and as the people started learning how to avoid unnecessary damage, even with only a very few blue pieces, I can now safely speed run all of them while dancing in and out of CS to throw in dots and gravity and help with boss adds. I think the biggest issue at the moment is that everyone needs to learn how to play with both brand new classes and old classes who got major revamps. Instead, people who haven't rerolled, hit 60 and expect to faceroll new dungeons while still being in toilet paper armor, just because that's what everyone used to do until a week ago, when highly overgearing the content.

This said, I only have one issue with cards. When you read that Draw has 30s cd you think "wow, amazing, that means A LOT OF CARDS". Well, nope. 30s in a normal boss fight is actually a very long time, not to mention you will want to RR some cards as well. I'd love some kind of tweak to RR, something like reduced cd on Draw when used within x seconds after drawing a card.

I just want to say, Collective Unconscious is really fun to use in the Moby Dick fight when standing on him.

That is all.

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Originally Posted by Kaerline

Instead, people who haven't rerolled, hit 60 and expect to faceroll new dungeons while still being in toilet paper armor, just because that's what everyone used to do until a week ago, when highly overgearing the content.

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So much this. Even on WHM, oversized pulls while we're still barely geared is the biggest source of grief.

To the rest of your post... I would say the learning curve for WHM is, to me, relatively shallow. Mostly our abilities just make us better at what we already do and fill in some weak spots.

Compared to AST which is completely new. That said, I have not been having trouble with AST so far simply because I accept it for what it is: A high mobility, very support focused healer. It's not supposed to be "WHM, but with cards!" or even a card-dealing SCH. Yes, if the tank overpulls AST can't pop divine seal to deal with it, but SCHs have always had that trouble and Cure II spam... WHMs still run out of buffs and in not too long, MP.

Emergency Tactics can only be used once every 30 seconds, by the way, and they have no equivalent to "benefic II".