What AST needs to set them apart from other healers

AST needs more emphasis on what they bring to the table that other healers don't; that is their buffs.

AST's healing and shield potency is lower than WHM/SCH for good reasons, but no other healer can bring buffs quite like AST through their card system. However, their current buff potency isn't high enough to consider the buffs are turning tide for the AST. They are only a nice additional tool to bring small buffs, but in my opinion the potency isn't quite there to call them really great.

For example, having a 20% damage reduction on bole would mean a 10% damage reduction AoE which is pretty good. However a 10% damage reduction on bole makes a 5% damage reduction AoE which is quite minor. I honestly don't mind if the duration of the buff is lowered (time dilation and celestial opposition can help with this) but I feel like the AST needs to excel more in buffs in order to set them apart right now.

Another interesting topic would be allowing AST to switch stances during fights.

It would be great because if encourages a form of stance dancing and would give AST more to do with skills like combust and aero that doesn't put your skills on a GCD. If you could switch stance, it is almost mandatory that AST and SCH shields should at least stack. Is it too OP if they do? If so, at least make the AST shield to be reduced in potency by 50% and the SCH shield to be kept at 100% potency.

What I wonder is, is it really giving AST too much flexibility if this was allowed?

I am not sure if this is the reason why SE didn't allow the switching of stances to be done for AST, but I honestly think the benefits of making the class even more interesting and complex outweighs the negatives (if any).

AST can already switch stances, and pulls out quite a significant amount of dps.

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Originally Posted by ChocoChick

For example, having a 20% damage reduction on bole would mean a 10% damage reduction AoE which is pretty good. However a 10% damage reduction on bole makes a 5% damage reduction AoE which is quite minor. I honestly don't mind if the duration of the buff is lowered (time dilation and celestial opposition can help with this) but I feel like the AST needs to excel more in buffs in order to set them apart right now.

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But that would also mean 30% dmg reduction on the MT for 35 sec, or 20% for 50 sec. Same for dmg, etc. It would end up making AST pretty OP. Honestly I think the buffs are fine as is. Bole isn't too great when used in its AE form, but it's amazing for single targets. Same with Ewer/Spire. Arrow/Balance on the otherhand are great with just the 5%, because in 8 mans it's effectively a 40% overall dmg or speed increase. And Spear, while I still believe it needs an "on use" effect, is still good for self use. All the cards have their place, and knowing where that place is is part of the class.

I've been playing AST a lot since it was released, and honestly I think that the class is in a good place in most aspects. The only real area it needs help is in its CDs. Many of them need to be buffed, or flat out revamped. I wouldn't be upset if they made cards less RNG reliant, but that's not a must. Mainly it's just the CDs.

expanding our buff should not lower their potency. In a perfect world it takes us 60 seconds to get an aoe buff. But, in reality, it takes more than that since you can't decide which cards you'll draw, so i really don't see the need of nerfing the potency upon expanding.

What I would do with AST is make the cards far less situational. Card that gives 10% more damage is ok. Card that gives 10% more attack speed is ok.
However, the other 4 cards are too situational. 20% MP and TP reduction for the next 15 seconds feels almost like an insult...either remove those or add a straight gain to TP, MP like...recover 100 TP in the next 15 seconds or...recover 500 MP in the next 15 seconds (like a mini shroud of saints without reduced enmity).
Remove bole. Literally. That thing is useless. You can't rely on randomly having a card that reduces damage by 10% on the stuff that will matter, so 90% of the times will be a dead card. And lastly...the recast card.........is kind of meh........ (please people SAVE ALL YOUR CD CAUSE I'M GOING TO DRAW A CARD AND IT COULD TURN OUT I DRAW THE RECAST ONE LOLZ).
I'd either remove it or completely rework it into something like 3% crit bonus crit on everyone.

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Originally Posted by Gallus

However, the other 4 cards are too situational. 20% MP and TP reduction for the next 15 seconds feels almost like an insult...either remove those or add a straight gain to TP, MP like...recover 100 TP in the next 15 seconds or...recover 500 MP in the next 15 seconds (like a mini shroud of saints without reduced enmity).
Remove bole. Literally. That thing is useless. You can't rely on randomly having a card that reduces damage by 10% on the stuff that will matter, so 90% of the times will be a dead card. And lastly...the recast card.........is kind of meh........ (please people SAVE ALL YOUR CD CAUSE I'M GOING TO DRAW A CARD AND IT COULD TURN OUT I DRAW THE RECAST ONE LOLZ).
I'd either remove it or completely rework it into something like 3% crit bonus crit on everyone.

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Please actually play AST before commenting on how to fix it. None of the cards you mentioned are issues, and all of them have their place if you know how to use them.

Was there the need for yet another thread about this?

The average tp usage for a ninja is around ~60 tp per GCD.

They get about 9~ GCDs in at 20 seconds with huton up.

60 * 0.20 = 12 reduced tp usage per GCD.

12 * 9 GCDs is 108 tp saved on average from the Spire card being thrown on a ninja. Halve that when you expand it to your group (outcomes may vary).

You saved the ninja an extra 2 (kinda) GCDs to be used. I don't think the spire card (or ewer card) is worthless but I do think it needs a duration increase. Spear is very useful in coordinated set ups when voice com is a thing.

The cards are fine but I feel Bole/Balance/Arrow should be 20s while Spire/Ewer/Spear should be 30s. I thought about Draw being a 25s CD too but I think that might be a bit too much.

Astro being able to switch stances is pointless. I can switch a job and be stronger then a astrologian. Maybe put in a cool down to let them switch sects in battle. 5 minutes. The buffs need to be strong enough that Astros buff dps more then a scholar could provide personal dps or remove partial randomness from cards.

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Originally Posted by Vlady

Astro being able to switch stances is pointless. I can switch a job and be stronger then a astrologian. Maybe put in a cool down to let them switch sects in battle. 5 minutes. The buffs need to be strong enough that Astros buff dps more then a scholar could provide personal dps or remove partial randomness from cards.

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But all of the Card using is not on the GCD - an AST can provide their own DPS in addition to the card buffs - and their single target damaging skills are quote potent.

Clearly people are disappointed with AST. I find it funny seeing the ones that defend it to the death. I liked it at first but I find it just too boring now. The card buffs don't interest me like they did when I first started it, getting excited to see what would come up. Just did Haukke on roulette with an okay party, but for some reason the final boss wiped one person, then was constantly keeping us all with under 30% HP. Just kept thinking to myself man as WHM I have so many great tools to fix this, but instead was just button mashing to try and get our heals without running out of MP. What I thought was funny though was that there was NO time to start messing with cards, I was literally curing the tank as she was taking damage that would have wiped her. Had I paused for a second to draw a card, we'd have all wiped.

I agree the cards are too situational as well. Like never fails, start of a boss battle and you pull Spire, then Ewer. You can't even see the tanks TP so you don't even know if using that Spire card saved the day or did anything. I'd have preferred even slightly weaker buffs, but be AoE for the party. People can say what they want, but I'm pretty sure most DPS players have no idea when they are hit with a card buff. When I started AST I felt so cool, drawing cards thinking everyone else was looking at me thinking wow awesome! Then now that I've gone back to WHM, any time I get an AST in the party I don't even notice them drawing cards since people don't pay that close attention to other players. Same with the buffs. The players on here are all clearly dedicated, but all my friends I play with (that play often as well) aren't as hardcore, and would have no idea if a card buff was on them. When you play on PS4 you don't have a mouse to just quickly mouse over a buff to see what it does. For all I know, an AST could have used Ewer on me during an instance, and I'd have zero clue since there's always random buffs that pop up, and when you play with the controller you can't just check what they are that easily and are usually too busy with the battle anyway to keep checking "do I have a buff on me?" I'd have almost preferred cards that target the enemy instead, like when using Virus. A card that does 10% damage reduction for 10 seconds, Slow, reduces attack power by 10% etc, those I feel would be way more beneficial because it wouldn't matter what card you get, they are still going to be slightly beneficial.

I think the cards are alright and at the end of the day, novelties wear off.

I do feel like ewer should be more potent than it is.
Also please for the love of god prevent drawing the same card twice
It would also be amazing to have a 2nd spread slot

After doing a bit of 8-man content I can say that about the only thing AST is in dire need of is MP help.

I made a white mage fairly envious, but at the end of the night I was calling for him to take over a bit more due to sustainment issues.

He was shocked at the difference between the first hour (Nocturnal Sect) and afterwards (Diurnal). My output overall shot up enough to allow him time to DPS, which eased a few checks.

Expanded almost anything in 8-mans is fairly good. 45 second Aspected Helios + 30 second Aspected Benefec is also very strong from Diurnal Sect. A lot of MP savings and not needing to recast expensive buffs for the tank.

Ewar almost immediately goes on me unless I have Expanded RR active. Then I spread it for after burning the RR.

Then there is the 50% healing to another target buff. Made the whm sick that I could almost keep both tanks up through damage spikes.

There are perks... but the MP crunch can get painful.

AoE buffs shouldn't lose potency; you're already sacrificing a card in order to make it AoE, or change it to 20% reduction instead of 50%
Make Enhanced RR double potency instead of just +50%. Outside of DoTs, Extending Balance/Bole/Arrow is going to be a larger gain than Enhancing it...

Well so far what astro is suppose to have going for it is the buffs they bring to enhance group defenses and or dps and mp/tp usage. What I am seeing is white mage brings the strongest heals in the game and as of now damage spike is high enough that I am not capable of providing dps from constantly having to sustain smaller and overall more button work. Normally it takes 3-4 global's just to intelligently use the card buffs to its maximum effect. Spread Ewer for myself for mana intensive situations and shuffle/royal road the rest hoping for arrow/balance. Bole imo is too situation and range dependent to even consider it a viable buff without using spread which is better suited imo for Ewer or Balance.

My dps maybe potent but it is also on par with white mage and still under the scholar and if I do manage to go into dps mode my mana will drop like a rock. I do not believe Astrologians are bad. They are extremely mobile and I believe Astrologians will perform well as gear scales so will our mana issues and our ability to go offensive will increase. We do not need a heal increase. We do not even need a potency boosting cooldown since those are covered by other jobs. What we need is that silly bubble to not force us to stand still and channel it along with immunity for pulling the same card twice in a row if we use shuffle.

I love the Astrologian job to death though and it will be my main as long as I am interested in the game.

I think the best part with AST is that the gear is the same for the most part as WHM and SCH. So for myself as WHM which I absolutely love, I like that I can switch between them if I want to change it up and not have it be like playing some DPS class where I need to gear it all up separately.

Okay, if I was going to make real changes they would be as follows:

Changes to the Spear Card so it also reduces target's action recast time which have already been used.
Add an effect to Royal Road that reduces the cast time of Draw to either 15s or 20s. This would encourage players to use it more often. Also for increase Royal Road recast to 30s.
Add an Addition Effect: Slow to Gravity that last for 10s.
Allow Spread to be used when not in combat.
Change Aspected Benefic to Lv. 30, yea it's actually 34 while Diurnal Sect is Lv. 30

At the end of the day though, people need to accept this is FFXIV version of the Gambler job.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

Changes to the Spear Card so it also decreases the cooldown of GCD which have already been used.
Add an effect to Royal Road that reduces the cast time of Draw to either 30s or 45s. This would encourage players to use it more often.
Add an Addition Effect: Slow to Gravity that last for 10s.

At the end of the day though, people need to accept this is FFXIV version of the Gambler job.

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The Arrow already reduces GCD. If you mean reducing the cooldown of spent off-gcd abilities, then yes, that'd be really nice. There was a rumour of a change like that happening, but I'm saying that's unlikely.
Draw already has a 30 second cooldown. I honestly think Royal Road is fine, although the Enhanced Royal Road has really poor efficiency compared to the other two.
Slow (not to be confused with Heavy) would actually be a great addition to Gravity, and give it the same quasi-mitigation purpose that Holy has. 10 seconds would be a bit much, but it's otherwise a pretty great idea.

As an aside, I'd totally play a Corsair were it added - but it seems that MCH is supposed to be a mini-Corsair that doesn't do Corsair right at all.

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Originally Posted by Ayrie

After doing a bit of 8-man content I can say that about the only thing AST is in dire need of is MP help.

I made a white mage fairly envious, but at the end of the night I was calling for him to take over a bit more due to sustainment issues.

He was shocked at the difference between the first hour (Nocturnal Sect) and afterwards (Diurnal). My output overall shot up enough to allow him time to DPS, which eased a few checks.

.

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If that the case that whm was a noob or a scrub, because a good whm will never be envious of an AST

Balancing out AST with the cards is going to be really difficult. The problem here is if they get too powerful, only for a tiiiny bit, then AST becomes a must have job.
They really shot themselves in the foot with introducing a support healer in the group of two dedicated healers.

If anything, I think they really would need a better MP management tool but making the cards more powerful is a very slippery slop. Obviously the RNG of the cards IS an issue and preventing the same card being drawn right after you put it away might help.

On a slightly different note: AST solo healing Ravana Ex kinda tells me that the job is A-ok. Just needs a bit of adjustments as mentioned above.

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Originally Posted by Kietsu

Snip

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Sorry about that. I wrote if one foot out the door heading to work. Edited to make more sense.