Savage Astrologian With Some Suggested Fixes
I have never once commented on a forum, but have been reading the AST posts in detail due to the fact that I decided to main AST. So far, the job is clearly underwhelming, though nowhere near as bad as some of the forums make it out to be. I am using it in end-game savage raiding and have been just fine, thanks to good groups and strong healing partners. Clearly, the last part of that last sentence is one of the only reasons I've succeeded, as AST is very tough to play in a pug, hence the discrimination out there in PF, which is justified in many cases if you don't know your other healer or your group well. That being said, I am currently 192 AST and have the same savage progression as most people (working on A3S). I also have SCH to 60 and geared at 189 (as that was my main for all of the coil turns), but I really do prefer AST for gameplay reasons (unfortunately, not it's heals atm).
I'm making this post not to argue that AST is awesome just because it can be successfully played in savage, because it is very hard to do so unless you've been fortunate to have a great group to play with. I've experienced it myself in pugs where we fail on healing, but I've also succeeded in both diurnal and nocturnal in savage with the right group.
That being said, I dislike the forums posts about how AST is not viable without corresponding suggestions on how to fix it. Haters gonna hate hate hate, but players gonna play play play. So let's figure out how to play and how to fix some of it, which is informed by Yoshi's recent interview answers about how he wants to fix the RNG of the cards and give a buff to some potency/healing. In addition to his answers, my personal feeling is that we need to work on dps of AST as well, because even if everything is equal in terms of heals, people still want SCH because of dps. So we need to try to fix it all with some basic changes and, in my opinion, a new card! Let's make the AST card system more manageable, more useful, and give it some additional utility. So, here we go:
Step 1: Cleric Stance allows AST to switch between diurnal and nocturnal. Has no effect on MND/INT stats for AST.
Step 2: AST damage is now determined by PIE stat (need some kind of reason to have PIE party bonus for when we have SCH/AST combo). This obviously cuts some AST dps due to the fact that PIE is lower than MND by about 33%, but see Step 4 below before you pass judgment. Alternatively, just have AST dps use the MND stat.
Step 3: We have a hand now of 9 possible cards, three of which are the (new) Star Card, which has no ability of its own, but is instead used in conjunction with other abilities (see below).
Step 4: Increase the AST spread to 4 cards, allowing us to either save Star cards up over time, or to use 4 full-potency cards on party members, at the appropriate time instead of willy-nilly as it is now, and without need for Royal Road at reduced potency. Of course, making a good spread and managing the spread would now be the AST's bread and butter of utility on top of its heals. Keep royal road the same for a well-timed single card, but allow us this option of saving multiple cards for the right moment on multiple players instead of a single player. This also adds some dps to AST by having the ability to buff multiple players with full-potency cards.
Step 5: Increase healing potency by 10 across the board on all healing spells? This may not even be necessary given the other changes I'm suggesting, which will somewhat take care of the fact that AST is (and should be) a lower potency healer.
Step 6: Allow AST (noct) shields to stack with SCH shields instead of cancelling it out. Just make it so that your own AST regen will overwrite your own AST shield and vice versa (so that my suggested change to Cleric Stance doesn't screw things up).
Now for the fun part, my suggested changes to certain abilities that let you utilize the above:
Shuffle: Drop the cooldown to 8-12 seconds so that ASTs still have the rng of the cards, but can manage it over time to build a good spread every minute or so, and which also takes into account that we added three Star cards to the deck. Also, clearly, make it so that you cannot draw the same card with Shuffle (unless it is a different Star card, of which there are 3 in the deck). Essentially, SE needs to track the 9 cards in the deck, including what is in the AST's new 4-card spread, before determining what can be drawn with a shuffle.
Draw: Like said above, track the 9 cards in the deck, so that if I have (for example) balance, arrow, bole, and ewer in my spread, using Draw cannot give me any of those cards again until they are used.
Aspected Helios: Increase range to 20 yalms (why it is at 15 now is a mystery to me).
Essential Dignity: Leave it alone in terms of what it does, but also allow you to use 1 Star Card from spread to reset ED timer when it is on cooldown. Alternatively, tie the use of ED to requiring 1 Star Card to use, with no cooldown associated with it. However, I prefer the former because I don't want this to be a Lustrate copycat.
Collective Unconscious: Just allow you to use other actions while it is up. Keep it centered on the AST, even if he moves around. Let's face it, no one stands there for 18 seconds and does nothing because we all die. Most ASTs use it now to get 1 or 2 ticks of free regen at an appropriate time, but that's it because then we have to drop it to do other things. This change also gives you a reason to use CU while in noct sect if you could use other abilities in the interim (like dps, mana regen, or party heals while a shield is up). Come to think of it, it may give an additional reason to use noct sect at all :)
Celestial Opposition: Complete redesign, as this is the level 60 ability and currently does not do much. So, in diurnal, consumes 3 Star Cards to deal damage to target equal to remaining damage left of all DOTS placed on target by the AST (think, something similar to Fester). In nocturnal, consumes 3 Star Cards to heal target and all party members near it with cure potency of 400 (this one, obviously, is a tremendous healing burst for emergency situations, something AST is in desperate need of). I mean, think about going into Noct with Cleric Stance, using my suggested Collective Unconscious, then using this suggested Celestial Opposition and an Aspected Helios with shields, then going back to Diurnal with Cleric Stance.
Luminous Aether: get rid of the enmity reduction, keep the refresh the same. Instead of enmity reduction, it automatically draws one Star Card from your hand and places it in your Spread without requiring use of Draw or Spread action.
Lightspeed and Synastry: These abilities are awesome and don't require a change.
Stella: useless as is so far except in A3 and A3S on adds, so maybe we keep the heavy effect, increase potency from 100 to 200-300, requires 1 Star Card to use? Maybe instead make it a weaker DOT with a heavy effect (think, Miasma), such that it would add to my suggested Celestial Opposition damage in diurnal? Maybe even scrap Stella as a dps ability altogether and possibly make it another kind of instant-heal, like a weak tetra?
All other abilities: keep them the same. Like I said, maybe the heals could use a buff, but maybe they now don't need a buff given the additional utility and few changes to emergency heals I've outlined.
I welcome any and all thoughts on the above, but let's please not make this an "AST is terrible" forum, as we have enough of those. In writing this, I may think some of what I am suggesting may make AST a little too powerful, so suggestions on toning back my suggestions are also welcome. Let's just please come up with some tweaks as a community that the developers can actually use :)
My personal feeling is that increasing the spread and adding the Star card to be used in other abilities (similar to WAR, MNK, SCH, SMN stacks) would: (1) give the AST something to do other than spam benefic II; (2) give the job some additional utility which is what it was clearly designed for; (3) help fix the rng of things; and, (4) give AST some much-needed emergency healing and/or other dps options.
Your thoughts on the above?