Astrologian range tips?

Hello fellow healers, I'm a career white mage and I recently leveled astrologian to 60 and I've been playing around with it. It's been a lot of fun and a breath of fresh air but I ran into two problems. Aspected Helios's range, and MP problems.

Toying around with it, I got the MP management problem down, but Aspected Helios's range just always gets to me, I guess I'm spoiled by medica 2's range. How do you guys deal with it's range limitation, and how do you guys make sure everyone gets buffed?

In A1 I can easily hit everyone with medica 2 by sitting directly in the middle ring, but with astrogoian I'll barely hit any melee DPS with it, so I've adjusted myself by "picking" which oppressor group will get my buffs, but I can't help but feel I'm doing it wrong.

I've run into similar problems in other content as well such as void ark, the old towers, certain coil turns, and some trials. Of course I might miss one or two DPS on my white mage with my medica 2, but it was never as pronounced as it is on astrologian. In fights like thordin, and circular areas such as a3, and a4 I never run into this problem at all, so if I could get any tips I'd welcome it. Or to know if this is normal.

I also had one other question, is the nocturnal stance aspected helios shield 130% of the heal? Or is it like succor in the sense that the numbers becomes the shield, for example 345 heal so it would be a 345 shield?

It's fight dependent, as you mentioned. I would not bother requesting or demanding PUGs in A1 normal don't deviate further than 15y from you, that'd be selfish, so your option is pretty much to try and hit as many as you can and then Aspected Benefic anyone who wasn't hit and still needs some love. For the record, yes, 15y is an annoying range limitation and I am not sure why any healing AoE spell has 15y. Or buff, for that matter.

In a static, you will find more success if you politely ask tanks to make sure they're not too spread apart. That will ensure tanks and melee are all within reach.

Nocturnal Aspected Helios is like Succor. What you see is what you get, shield wise.

Why would you think its 130% shield? Like, that's a weird number and never mentioned anywhere. Lol. The shield amount = the heal amount.

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Originally Posted by Rivxkobe

Why would you think its 130% shield? Like, that's a weird number and never mentioned anywhere. Lol. The shield amount = the heal amount.

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Originally Posted by Rivxkobe

something constructive and intelligent.

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Aspected Benefic in Nocturnal Sect has a mitigation shield with 130% value of the amount healed. I personally don't find it strange if people just assumed Aspected Helios would have the same effect - Which it doesn't, like Succor and Adloquium. Simply:

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Originally Posted by Rivxkobe

incredibly rude

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I've been playing for almost a year now, as WHM up until maybe 2 months ago when I switched to AST. To be honest I don't notice any difference or feel that the range is too small. Before HW I'd always keep Medica II up non stop on everyone. However now that I'm at 60 I feel that I understand strategy more, and am more careful if there's adds about to spawn and so on, as usually Regen on the tanks is enough as is. Since I got into that mind set, I only would use Medica II when really necessary, otherwise sticking to just Medica for lesser MP and bit shorter cast time. As AST I do the same, only popping it when completely necessary even if it means doing it twice once at each side.

This is what makes AST so much fun. At first it seems like MP is an issue, but you'll see once you start to play it more. You can always Spread an Ewer card to hold on to it in case you need it later, especially if you have a buff up from Royal Road like the enhanced potency or extended time one. There's popping Spear on yourself before Luminiferous Aether followed by a Celestial Opposition to make it come off cool down quicker but also keep the buff up longer as well. Things like that, lots of fun combos you'll be able to do to maximize the tools you have to get more MP. Remember Light Speed as well, it's a 25% MP reduction I believe it is, so when things get really bad I pop that and hit a Helios once or twice.

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Originally Posted by Rivxkobe

Why would you think its 130% shield? Like, that's a weird number and never mentioned anywhere. Lol. The shield amount = the heal amount.

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No it isn't lol. The buffs they gave astro in 3.05 (or was it 3.07?) buffed Noct shields so they're 130% of the heal.

Nevermind it only applied to aspected benefic.

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Potency of the regen effect from Diurnal Sect has been increased from 100 to 140.
Amount of damage nullified by the barrier from Nocturnal Sect has been increased from 100% of HP restored to 130% of HP restored.

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Tell your party to stop being retarded. If someone's out of range, they can just die.

That is a pain. Like A1S what is the distance the Oppressors need to be apart not to link 35 yalms? That seems to be pretty tight for AST

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Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

That is a pain. Like A1S what is the distance the Oppressors need to be apart not to link 35 yalms? That seems to be pretty tight for AST

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Not at all. WHMs have 20y range for Medica II only, all the other spells or skills have 15y range. Even with a WHM in the party, everyone has to stay within 15 yalms to be hit by their other spells/skills, and those were needed when Savage was launched. This issue is being treated as a huge problem, but it's nothing major at all; ask the group to be closer. It's not a DPS loss.

This should be a tip for DPS, not the healer. If you're at least half attempting to get everyone, then you're doing your job fine. DPS awareness is a thing too, if they're going to stand completely out of range then they will most likely suffer for it.

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Originally Posted by AutumnsHollow

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I honestly just sort of play it by ear. If Aspected Helios doesn't hit someone, so long as they aren't around 70%-79% health, I don't worry about it. I'll just walk over to them or cast Regen on them. But if a massive AoE is about to out, I consider using Synastry or quickly throwing a Benefic II their way, depending on the severity of the incoming attack. If an AoE hits before I can get them out of the 70s, I'll use Essential Dignity to get them back up to where the party's health is before throwing out AoE heals.

As for MP management, the advice someone gave me was to use Luminiferous Aether at around 80% MP. That way, it'll be back up again when you need it. I follow this advice more when I'm DPSing in Cleric Stance or I know that I'll have to pump out a lot of healing soon.

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

I would not bother requesting or demanding PUGs in A1 normal don't deviate further than 15y from you, that'd be selfish, so your option is pretty much to try and hit as many as you can and then Aspected Benefic anyone who wasn't hit and still needs some love.

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Asking people not to stray too far away isn't selfish; it's proper. This game isn't just about knowing how to play your own job, but also knowing how to interact with people of other jobs. Part of playing with an AST is maintaining as tight a formation as is possible and still safe. As long as enemies are spread out enough to accommodate mechanics, and party members are spread enough to prevent stacked AoEs, everyone should make an effort to stand closer together.

In this A1 example, most parties overseparate the two bosses anyway; they can afford to bring them closer together without triggering the tether.

Thanks everyone for feedback, and for clearing some stuff up for me!

Asking people to be cognizant of how far away they are is not rude at all. Personally, I think it's very rude when one party member stands themselves in BFE while everyone else is in proximity. This happens all the time in Void Ark. If you are the only person completely on the opposite end of the rest of the party, I'm sure not chasing you all over the arena to heal you. If you want heals, you stick with the group. If you want to sit in BFE, you take your chances on living or dying.

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Originally Posted by NorthernLadMSP

Asking people to be cognizant of how far away they are is not rude at all. Personally, I think it's very rude when one party member stands themselves in BFE while everyone else is in proximity. This happens all the time in Void Ark. If you are the only person completely on the opposite end of the rest of the party, I'm sure not chasing you all over the arena to heal you. If you want heals, you stick with the group. If you want to sit in BFE, you take your chances on living or dying.

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I'm the same, it's one thing in Alexander or whatever where it's more obvious but Void Ark if we are Alliance A and you want to go stand and fight with C on the complete other side then you're on your own, I'm not chasing you to heal you!

"We're team "C", I'll be in the vicinity of "C" and if you're out of range you'll probably die" - My Void Ark battle cry, but it still doesn't stop half the party from being over at "A" all fight.

Outside of that sort of scenario, it's really situational in my experience. In AS1 I was finding I basically took 2 DPS and a tank and my co healer did the same, and I'd just drop an Aspected Benefic (Diurnal) on his tank now and again.

It just depends on the fight. Such times where the party has to spread out you have to rely on single target, such as aspected benefic or benefic and in the case for cards aiming for extended or enhanced royal road. especially in A1 and A1S you can try to time expanded cards, aspected Helios, LA, and CO during the jump phase.

Happened again last night. There was ONE single bard who was adamant at staying out of heal range the entire fight, where everyone else was grouped up. That bard died, not one, not two but three times (just during the fat blob boss), and still never learned to come and join the rest of the group.

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Originally Posted by NorthernLadMSP

There was ONE single bard who was adamant at staying out of heal range the entire fight, where everyone else was grouped up. That bard died, not one, not two but three times (just during the fat blob boss), and still never learned to come and join the rest of the group.

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Raise once, then cut off raise privs. Spend the MP on attack spells instead. You'll do more damage than the double-weakened DD, and won't have to spend extra time casting redundant heals for the one person who doesn't get it.

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Originally Posted by TatoRazzino

Not at all. WHMs have 20y range for Medica II only, all the other spells or skills have 15y range. Even with a WHM in the party, everyone has to stay within 15 yalms to be hit by their other spells/skills, and those were needed when Savage was launched. This issue is being treated as a huge problem, but it's nothing major at all; ask the group to be closer. It's not a DPS loss.

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Gonna have to agree with Judge. With A1s in mind, that extra 5y is huge since it is a radius giving the whm 10 more yalms to work with over the AST. In that scenario the Whm is 5 over granting full coverage whereas the Ast is 5 short having to pick who gets heals. Only assize is 15y that is worth mentioning and that's not a big deal since it's on a 90s timer and there are better places to use it than when everyone is spread out.

What I normally do when I know I need to heal a group as an AST that I can't reach because of the reduced range is to pop light speed, and run to each group so that it's not an issue. I know it's more mp, but a good group tends not to need it, also you can catch up on some of the damage if the DPS is handling the adds properly by popping collective unconcious at each launch phase, the cooldown is just long enough to pop as you are all running from the aoe pulses.