Slow Effect on Gravity

Astrologians are essentially the Time Mage of FFXIV. They have various time-related spells and abilities that are based on time and space magic, including:

- Haste (in the form of Arrow)
- Stop (in the form of Celestial Opposition) (also shown to be a 'time freeze' in lore of lvl 60 quest)
- Gravity, Malefic, Stella (space related spells; last causes heavy) [thanks Rawrz ._.]
- Spear (reducing the timer of cooldowns)
- Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition (extending current buffs)
- Lightspeed

However, one notable time-related ailment is missing from the list: Slow. It seems odd that with all the other time-related effects of AST that the most common time-related debuff is missing from the AST's arsenal. Would giving a 5 or 10% slow effect to Gravity be a plausible avenue to round up AST's position as the Time Mage?

Stella causes heavy, not malefic. I wouldn't mind the change, but some will say its unneeded, which they are right... But flavor is flavor. In 4 man it would really encourage some more offensive defense. :)

Scholar can place dots and spread while fairy heals. WHM's holy can stun so the regens heal.... AST's gravity can... Uhm... Eh.... Oh shit.

Shadow Flare gives a slow effect so I don't see why Gravity can't as well. I'm all for this, personally.

If it gave the actual slow status to enemies allowing for a higher dps uptime I'd hate AST a lot less.

As an Astrologian main YES PLEASE, I was so disappointed when I unlocked it and it was so much worse than holy.
& although they have a lot of space-time related spells I'd hardly call them a time mage equivalent.

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Originally Posted by l---------------l

Scholar can place dots and spread while fairy heals. WHM's holy can stun so the regens heal.... AST's gravity can... Uhm... Eh.... Oh shit.

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That can be applied to any class though. AST can buff with cards, SCH have Selene, WHM can.... Uhm... Eh... Oh shit.

See my point? Not everyone shares the same strengths. If they did the classes would just end up homogenised. WHM have the strongest potential Healing output and powerful DPS and AoE but lack much in the way of mitigation tools and group buffs. SCH excel in Mitgation, have strong dps and have some mitigation tools to offer but have limited actual sustained healing output, particularly with AoE healing. ASTs can almost be as good as WHMs with healing or SCH with Mitigation and still retain some decent mitigation even without the Nocturnal Sect and they have a very potent set of buffs but are inferior in offensive options to the other two.

Id also point out that Gravity has two things over Holy. One, it can be targeted so you don't have to run into melee to cast it and two, its cheaper to cast.

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Originally Posted by Belhi

Id also point out that Gravity has two things over Holy. One, it can be targeted so you don't have to run into melee to cast it and two, its cheaper to cast.

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As a healer I don't like that. Good thing about playing SCH and WHM is that I can actually take a time to Cleric Stance without dropping my target from the tank to use my Holy (or to cast a quick Shadowflare) and quickly switch back for an emergency heal. With AST it gets a bit complicated as you don't have anything as powerful as Tetra/Benediction or Lustrate x3. DPSing as an AST is a bit risky but it's rewarding, at least to me as I can DPS better as a WHM or SCH, makes sense though as they don't have all those buff.

But I'd like to have some sort of high damage on Celestial Opposition since WHM have a 300 potency burst with assize, plus healing and maga regen on the same skill.

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Originally Posted by DevilsDontFly

As a healer I don't like that. Good thing about playing SCH and WHM is that I can actually take a time to Cleric Stance without dropping my target from the tank to use my Holy (or to cast a quick Shadowflare) and quickly switch back for an emergency heal. With AST it gets a bit complicated as you don't have anything as powerful as Tetra/Benediction or Lustrate x3. DPSing as an AST is a bit risky but it's rewarding, at least to me as I can DPS better as a WHM or SCH, makes sense though as they don't have all those buff.

But I'd like to have some sort of high damage on Celestial Opposition since WHM have a 300 potency burst with assize, plus healing and maga regen on the same skill.

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I can usually do that quite easily on AST just Essential Dignity with aspected benefic/benefic II. Essential dignity is every bit as good a panic button as lustrate/benediction because of how fast AST's cast times are (especially on diurnal)

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Originally Posted by Crescents

I can usually do that quite easily on AST just Essential Dignity with aspected benefic/benefic II. Essential dignity is every bit as good a panic button as lustrate/benediction because of how fast AST's cast times are (especially on diurnal)

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I tend to do that too now that I'm used to it but I can see it being quite the struggle to DPS a big pull on AST and save the tank at the last minute compared to WHM and SCH. But I think Lightspeed kinda makes up for it, as a 10s swiftcast can be really OP on the heavy-heals department. I just wish I could have other sources of damage, although I'm satisfied with AST's current state, but I wouldn't mind some small changes or a little buff.

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Originally Posted by l---------------l

Scholar can place dots and spread while fairy heals. WHM's holy can stun so the regens heal.... AST's gravity can... Uhm... Eh.... Oh shit.

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The gravity vs holy trade-off is that Gravity, while lacking additional effects, costs a whole heck of a heap less MP than holy, thus it is more spammy. Meanwhile, after like 5 or 6 holys you're done for a while.

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Originally Posted by Averax

The gravity vs holy trade-off is that Gravity, while lacking additional effects, costs a whole heck of a heap less MP than holy, thus it is more spammy. Meanwhile, after like 5 or 6 holys you're done for a while.

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The other issue with Holy is spamming it results in capping the diminishing returns pretty quickly. After the 3rd Holy all the mobs are immune to stun.

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Originally Posted by DevilsDontFly

As a healer I don't like that. Good thing about playing SCH and WHM is that I can actually take a time to Cleric Stance without dropping my target from the tank to use my Holy (or to cast a quick Shadowflare) and quickly switch back for an emergency heal. With AST it gets a bit complicated as you don't have anything as powerful as Tetra/Benediction or Lustrate x3. DPSing as an AST is a bit risky but it's rewarding, at least to me as I can DPS better as a WHM or SCH, makes sense though as they don't have all those buff.

But I'd like to have some sort of high damage on Celestial Opposition since WHM have a 300 potency burst with assize, plus healing and maga regen on the same skill.

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With AST you have synastry>aspected benefic>swiftcast>Aspected helios>collective unconscious>time dilation on the hots. Nothing else is needed to ehal the tank whilst you gravity spam. The mobs will die before the hots wear off. Next pull is just aspected benefic+helios and gravity soam, but them you have essential dignity and lightspeed to help with the stance dancing healing. Pull after is same as first and so on. You also use LA and celestial opposition during these pulls when needed, and obviously celestial opposition stunns for enough time for more dps or more healing :). Once you get this style of play down right, dpsing on AST becomes incredibly easy.

As for slow on gravity, i am not sure it will be worth it on a spammable skill due to diminishing returns. Its works on shadowflare due to it being a placeable ground aoe.

Isn't Gravity a post lvl 50 skill as well? XD

Poor AST gets shafted on a AoE skill while the other two healers have them eariler. Surprised no one brought this up yet xD

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Originally Posted by Esp

Isn't Gravity a post lvl 50 skill as well? XD

Poor AST gets shafted on a AoE skill while the other two healers have them eariler. Surprised no one brought this up yet xD

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Yeah, Gravity is 52 which is a bit annoying in all the level 50 content.

I'd rather have Stella inflict Slow and Gravity inflict... Well, Gravity...

Wish they'd change Celestial Opposition as well... Have it inflict Stop, rather than Stun... That could be interesting IMO, rather than interrupting a cast, for example, you'd just pause it... You wouldn't prevent an AoE from going off, you'd just buy more time for people to dodge it...

And, of course, change Nocturnal Sect... A third rate Adloquium ripoff isn't great... I'd much rather either have Phalanx, or stick to the time theme and have something of a Wildfire mechanic attached to it; It heals, provides a buff, a % of damage taken during that buff gets healed when then buff wears off... There, now Nocturnal Sect actually stacks with Celestial Opposition and Time Dilation... Phalanx is probably easier to balance though, and still stacks well with extending durations...