Why people says AST is bad?

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Originally Posted by Crevox

Why do I bother explaining :|

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I have no idea, but someone has to TRY to be the voice of reason in the face of people just plain not understanding how the game actually works.

I have to agree that AST feels weak. It's not that the buffs are weak that is the problem, it's how skewed the effort/reward ratio is. I have 4 buttons dedicated to these stupid cards, and the amount you're supposed to juggle in order to get optimized cards just feels really terrible.

I also feel like AST lacks emergency CDs. If anything goes wrong, your only recovery tool is a single target heal on a 40 second CD. I want to play a healer because I love the feeling of saving a group from a potentially wipe scenario. I feel as though I don't have the tools to do that as an AST.

I really have to say that RichardButte and Crevox have really summed up the problems with this class quite well. I disagree that you need to be lvl 60 to see this. I haven't got a single class at 60 just yet, and these problems are painfully obvious at 50. The performance gap can only increase from there. However, I do have all 3 healers at 50. So, maybe that gives me a bit of a different perspective here. I'm hoping the problems get addressed soon since the class is fairly fun to play. AST being the only healer without Eye for an Eye doesn't help either. They could really use a boost in damage reduction if their healing potency is going to stay low.

At the end of the day, we have to look at the main question for the class: There are now three healers in the game. There are only two dedicated healer spots for raids. What does Astrologian bring to the table that Scholar and White Mage can't already do better?

And we already have the answer: Nothing. Therefore, it needs buffs. There is no reason to bring an Astrologian. There just isn't. The WHM + SCH combo is perfect enough as it is. You can't justify giving up reliable cooldowns and powerful healing potency to ditch WHM for AST, and you can't justify surrendering SCH's excellent mitigation and buffs for AST's cards. There's just no way to use this class right now.

AST doesn't have to be "better" in some way (though it should), but right now it's not even performing at the same level as the other two.

AST is just bad compared to SCH and WHM.
Try playing both job in Bismark/Ravanna Ex.

Here are the problems with AST

-Weaker healing: Due to no emergency cooldowns and no "overpowered heals" like cure 3, fairy heals, or adlo crits
-Runs out of MP fast
-Even though it has such severe shortcomings. In a raid setting , the current card system is a joke. It feels like they haven't even tested AST in 8 mans.
Very often you wont get any good cards (which basically means your AST for that run was just a burden) Even if you do get Arrow or Balance they barely even make a difference in 8mans.

It should be Strong Healing + current RNG card system
OR
Weak Healing+ Super Strong buffs

It should NOT be
Weak healing + current rng card system that barely competes with sch 3% haste
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Maybe instead of buffing its healing output , give AST unlimited mana like SCH.

Aside from cards needing buffs and to do more (among other issues with AST), let's not ignore how bad nocturnal stance is and how the abilities that get benefits from it also are bad and need attention.

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Originally Posted by EchuKayu

Aside from cards needing buffs and to do more (among other issues with AST), let's not ignore how bad nocturnal stance is and how the abilities that get benefits from it also are bad and need attention.

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On top of other natural abilities synergizing better with Diurnal, and offering nothing for Nocturnal.

For example, attack speed benefits the DPS spells, but Nocturnal's "healing" magic potency increase does nothing for them. They could've easily made it affect all magic potency.

Or, how about Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition's duration increase on Regens being far better (actual total potency increases) than on Nocturnal shields?

I can't think of anything that benefits Nocturnal but does nothing for Diurnal... maybe Essential Dignity? If it works on abilities, which it might not.

Feels like Nocturnal was an after-thought. :| And Yoshi was saying before the release "oh you can try to master one stance, then master the other, they play completely differently." I wish they took Nocturnal a bit more into consideration...

As a side note, I gotta say it's pretty annoying losing Gravity and Malefic II (our main nukes) whenever we want to do level 50 content.

Even from over here (L. 54) I get the feeling that Nocturnal stance is a waste of space. The stance passive increases the potency values so they roughly match Scholar/White Mage. Although the Aspected Helios provides equal protection to Succor, the Aspected Benefic feels too costly to not provide improved shields on crits. I'd much rather be in Diurnal and get the HoT effect.

Personally, I'd prefer if Balance was a 10% increase in weaponskill/spell potency to make it relevant to healing. If Ewer or the Tower reduced resource costs instead of just their own specific resource it'd be swell. Right now (and I might be wrong in doing this) I consume all the Ewers and Towers I get in with Royal Road and I get the feeling that if these two cards are perceived to be good for little else, the card effects might need a look at.

I think it would be neat if Spread was a two-step cast when holding a card. First cast will return the card to it being drawn, but as a separate buff and placing Spread on cooldown. From that you'd be able to either RR it or use it. Though I suspect it would interfere too much with the current ability setup.

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Originally Posted by Crevox

AST doesn't have to be "better" in some way (though it should), but right now it's not even performing at the same level as the other two.

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I didn't say/imply that it had to be "better." I said it needed buffs, because WHM and SCH PERFORM better.