Astrologian misconceptions

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Originally Posted by Lunafreya

I have been playing Astrologian since it was introduced and it is my favourite class in the entire game. I have a geared one as my main at i203 and I am a damn good AST if I do say so myself. I never understand why people like to shite on AST as a healer when compared to SCH and WHM.

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There is good......and there are those that have cleared A3S and/or A4S.
The majority of AST reputation is based on their current performance in the last two turns of Alex Savage. Just look up FFLOGS yourself, there are like 40 ASTs on the list of A4S cleared vs hundreds of WHM + SCH. There is more than a misconception here, the class still needs tweaking for it to become great.
Oh, additionally, a signifcant number of those ASTs on FFLOGs are simply there to pad the parse numbers, most of those teams are so good that healer composition means little.
While it is true that AST is a class that scales well with skill, most of the truly excellent ASTs are simply top tier players who would do well with any other healer too.

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Originally Posted by CallamarGaramonde

Its so true though.... I was denied several static opportunities because i had the gall to say that I'd rather play Astrologeon (although i have whm equally geared). However I have solo healed Thordan ex with astrologeon soooo they cant be all that bad? right?

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Could be the raid leader, or the scholar had no experience with AST raiding. So they go with what they were comfortable with, and if it's a replacement sometimes they just want a plug-and-go mentality. Which is the wrong way to think, as you want player skill. Do you want a WHM that probably has issues maintaining MP than an AST that is proven even though their toolkit apparently has it "better"? It doesn't matter though, when you have videos of clears in current content, they can't defend their stance.

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Originally Posted by Lorielle

Felt like I needed to step in here..Just because someone can Solo Heal something doesn't necessarily mean the job is OK. This comes down to play skill than it does the job itself let alone how well your team performs and help you, and how well you know the mechanics. However, AST IS in a better position, but it's still just the job to go to AFTER you know what's coming than it is AS you're going.

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Water must be getting salty again. It really is down to player skill over the composition. If it was White Mage it wouldn't have been debated. Our A4S server first was months ago and it was AST/SCH.

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Originally Posted by Lunafreya

Can someone tell me what exactly makes people hate on Astro?

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WHM does the WHM job better
SCH does the SCH job better
AST stances are not as good as the jobs it tries to copy

and then for progression, a RNG job is not the best.
Yeah AST is pretty sweet when you get Fire buff a lot but you can also end up with useless cards and your healing is not as strong as the other one and you mana starve when you DPS.

Having said that, it's perfectly adequate for most content. It's just what AST can do, the others 2 healers do it better.
WHM/SCH still the dream combo.

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Originally Posted by Hysterior

Having said that, it's perfectly adequate for most content. It's just what AST can do, the others 2 healers do it better.
WHM/SCH still the dream combo.

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Interesting. Do share examples where the White Mage kit has an obvious advantage over Astrologian with current content. While you're at it, how much mitigation a whm/sch combo can provide together over ast/sch

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Originally Posted by Roxas_Andrade

Well, saying the skill is an ability and not a spell doesn't change the fact that AST doesn't have acces to anything like it. We still could have some of them...

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It changes a lot. WHM having the power to blast an off-GCD every 90s is not something that will flip the table in healing as much as people claim it would. In 4-person content, it's not needed and in 8-man it's also not needed when your healing partner also have access to it. Using both Indomitability and Assize is not necessary in any encounter designed so far, so AST not having anything like that is not hurting anything and it's hardly something that brings the job down. WHM having no mitigation is not regarded as a problem, so why would AST not having a not needed instant cast AoE healing skill be a problem? Stop trying to transform AST in a WHM with cards. If they had all the tools a WHM has, WHM would become useless; is that what you guys want?

And for the love of god, if you feel boring only adding two DoTs and spamming Malefic, don't play WHM as well. Fluid Aura is barely a thing with its 30s recast timer and range, and Aero is a potency loss most of the time; and you have that as AST as well, so you can argue that they both DPS in the same way. Now tell me: why is doing it as WHM a nice way to DPS and doing it as AST a problem? Double standards.
It's so annoying having to respond to ridiculous claims over and over, so please stop.

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Originally Posted by Lyrica_Ashtine

Interesting. Do share examples where the White Mage kit has an obvious advantage over Astrologian with current content. While you're at it, how much mitigation a whm/sch combo can provide together over ast/sch

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The main in-your-face advantages of WHM over AST are Benediction and Assize. Benediction is strong; especially if used with Living Dead, WHM can do a lot of DPS with Living Dead whereas it requires a legitimate amount of MP/resources/time to save a DRK on AST. It can be used for pure DPS or a big MP saver or just a big emergency heal, just a great skill overall that's unique to WHM and is one of the reasons WHM can DPS more often than AST. Assize is for instant MP occasionally, DPS on adds/AoE, or AoE burst healing, all strong attributes AST doesn't really get on demand. Most of the kit is otherwise sidegrade-ish, but notably Disable being undisputed better than regular Virus in current fights, with how Anti-Body works.

Asylum is better in some scenarios, Collective is better in some scenarios (usually Collective can be better for mega attacks but if it's used as just a tank regen it's usually better to plop down Asylum than run up, possibly in the way of mechanics/cleaves, and wait for 2-3s for Collective to tick), same with DS/Synastry (DS usually better but when Synastry is hot it's HOT) and Tetra/Essential and PoM/Lightspeed (although in general, in current content, PoM is more useful since content has so little mobility required). Arguably Shroud's aggro control over LA is a real advantage, and it is, but that's more an annoyance than a strong advantage because the two points aggro can be an issue, A3 and Thordan, the boss isn't threatening for a while past the phase shift.

I'm not much for saying AST is weaker, and that's not the point of this post, in fact I'm kind of an AST white knight these days. To answer your question, Assize and Benediction are just things AST doesn't have an active answer to besides making sure they're not needed. Usually with more time spent healing or making sure there are less mistakes to warrant them.

One thing I do wonder, the one major advantage an AST/SCH combo would have is in mitigation. It just hasn't been needed in 3.0 thus far. WHM doesn't really bring anything, while AST has Disable which stacks with Virus, and Collective Unconscious. If we ever get to another Gigaflare situation, where people are literally rocking full vit right sides to survive - you'd have to imagine 20% more from an AST could swing it to normal accessories, which would be a very strong party DPS increase vs the WHM/SCH combo.

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Originally Posted by TatoRazzino

And for the love of god, if you feel boring only adding two DoTs and spamming Malefic, don't play WHM as well. Fluid Aura is barely a thing with its 30s recast timer and range, and Aero is a potency loss most of the time; and you have that as AST as well, so you can argue that they both DPS in the same way. Now tell me: why is doing it as WHM a nice way to DPS and doing it as AST a problem?

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You do Aero to avoid clipping the GCD (clipping tampers with DPS) with Fluid Aura and Assize. You can do both in one GCD depending on latency. Aero definitely still has its uses. Aero II is a low duration/high potency attack. You're not spamming stone III as much as you're spamming Malefic II because Aero III and Aero II have to be reapplied more frequently in comparison to Combust I/II. WHM also has 3 AoE skills to play with while AST has one. His boredom with AST's rotation is perfectly valid.

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

Snip

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Well... no point if you answer it when the person in question's selling it-

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Originally Posted by MidnightTundra

You do Aero to avoid clipping the GCD (clipping tampers with DPS) with Fluid Aura and Assize. You can do both in one GCD depending on latency. Aero definitely still has its uses. Aero II is a low duration/high potency attack. You're not spamming stone III as much as you're spamming Malefic II because Aero III and Aero II have to be reapplied more frequently in comparison to Combust I/II. WHM also has 3 AoE skills to play with while AST has one. His boredom with AST's rotation is perfectly valid.

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One of the AoE things you mentioned is Assize, up every 90s; the other is Aero III I assume, which is applied not that often in AoE situations because the mobs are usually dead for two casts of Aero III be worth the GCD; the other is Holy, which you spam just like Gravity. So yeah, every other mob pull in a dungeon you get an off GCD and once every pull you get to apply a HoT. Pretty boring as well, if you ask me.
If you're a good AST, you also have 3 DoTs in single target and the difference in duration you mentioned is not enough for you to say you wouldn't be bored as WHM; in one minute, you cast Stone III maybe two or three times less than you cast Malefic II, so I have absolutely no idea where that point is coming from. It's not as if you get a complete new animation from Aero II that makes it even a thing to break the so called boredom of spamming your burst damage spell.

If you guys want to talk about the advantages of WHM over AST, do it like Sleigh and talk about something real instead of bringing up ridiculous differences in DPS rotation that do nothing in an actual fight.