Simple fixes for Astrologian

Maintaining a high cleric stance uptime/lessening the time frame I'm "locked" in cleric.

Also, Medica II has a slightly higher potency per mana compared to Aspected Helios.

Freecure procs at 15% effectively bring cure I's potency per mana to 1.06 from 0.9 (assuming you take advantage of every proc). Bene is at 1.13 for comparisons sake.

Regen/A. Bene was already beaten to death.

Helios and Bene II are infact more mana efficient than their counterparts but in circumstances that you're able to use Cure III on the entire group, it is more mana efficient than Medica and Helios.

And then there's the party MND buff.

Edit: I'll play around with the suggestions regarding A. Bene and see if it'll mesh with my playstyle in A3S.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

Synastry is nice but there wasn't a single time I needed it in that fight, I just used it for the divine seal-alike buff.
Only time I could think you would need it is if you were soloing both preys for some reason, though even then white mage could do that easily with a cure II on one person and a tetra on the other person.

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Thank god you didn't need it. If you did, it would mean other jobs couldn't heal that fight since AST is the only job that has anything like Synastry.

During A1S weeks 1-3, the Prey mechanic was hard to heal because of low HP/defense. The challenge wasn't keeping the prey target alive, but keeping your tank topped to wait for the buster that comes right after. WHM/SCH had to burn a lot of things to do that, while AST only had to use Synastry on the assigned tank and hit the prey target with two Benefic II - which meant the tank would get healed by a full Benefic II since Synastry would heal the tank for half the amount back then. A stressful mechanic was insanely simple for AST, and that's what people are talking about.

People have got to stop dismissing all AST's strenghts with "oh but WHM/SCH can so it with [...]". Of course they can! They're supposed to.

Assize and Asylum are not needed for anything, but they help; same goes for Indomitability. They're strong in several contexts, and such is the AST toolkit. People just choose to undermine the AST one, I have absolutely no idea why.

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Originally Posted by MidnightTundra

Stuff

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A few months ago by now I tossed it in a spreadsheet and Aspected Benefic's power comes from the combination of shorter time frame, lower mana cost in filler spells and Diurnal passively being faster. Basically, if you need to make up the difference in potency between Aspected Benefic and Regen, you'll either lose a lot of globals while casting Cure, or most of your mana gain (and still globals!) casting Cure 2. Essentially, if an AST still has to cast Benefic to add onto the required potency, that difference becomes significantly smaller and smaller to the point Aspected Benefic ends up more powerful. Add a time constraint to it and it shifts towards Aspected Benefic even more so.

Though the tables did assume that for one, you have 'perfect uptime' on both spells and two, you make full use of Aspected Benefic's upfront heal. Also, the calculations were done without any buffs/abilities and assuming that WHM's passive MND bonus and Diurnal Sect's attackspeed bonus would cancel each other out. I can't remember if I factored in Freecure either.

Basically Aspected Benefic in Diurnal Sect is the spell that frees up most of AST's globals to make up for what it can't do/doesn't have compared to a WHM. The others being CU, which is very fight-dependent, and Essential Dignity.

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Originally Posted by TatoRazzino

snip.

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Yes but AST was also nearly unplayable in savage at the time, so that's rather moot. I think you misunderstood my point...

It's a nice tool, but it really doesn't help THAT much. Especially with the mere 20 second duration. Maybe that is better wording?

Most powerful single target cool down in game...

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

Yes but AST was also nearly unplayable in savage at the time, so that's rather moot. I think you misunderstood my point...

It's a nice tool, but it really doesn't help THAT much. Especially with the mere 20 second duration. Maybe that is better wording?

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Nearly unplayable is a gross exaggeration. Most people weren't even popping ASTs cooldowns because they were using WHM/SCH with AST, and wondered why the strats weren't working. There was a thread about it and some people were shocked that you could use Synastry to heal prey mechanics, because most people didn't even bother to study the job properly. Nevertheless, people cleared A1S and A2S week 1; most people gave up AST then, so A3S and A4S AST progression got lost in the middle of the WHM/SCH thing. The nerfed state of AST was only part of the issue, since most of the toolkit got only minor political buffs; people who didn't bother to learn the job were the actual problem.