Thoughts on AST changes and job designs moving forward

As an AST main since 3.0, I'm happy that the devs finally buffed us this much. We can take the WHM spot in raids just fine. We can't replace a scholar for obvious reasons, but that's not what this post is about. Simple potency buffs across the board are fine. And yet I can't shake the feeling that AST should have been this strong right out the gate.

I wrote this in a post last year--the job's main problem isn't that it was underpowered since Heavensward's release. It's that the astrologian has no real identity of its own. It's a hybrid job in a game that requires maximum efficiency in order to deal with enrage timers and timed tank busters. With the sect system, astrologian tries to be too many things at once. It's a time mage, an RNG support job, a shield healer, a HoT healer. It's not particularly good at one of these things, especially when you can pick a white mage or scholar for reliable heals/shields, or a bard/machinist for reliable support.

Though they do provide support on-demand, bard and machinist suffer from this same problem. Forcing a support role onto our only physical ranged DPS splits their identities. I think a lot of people who played FFXI miss their rangers (pure physical DPS with crossbows and guns). While corsair (support/gun DPS like machinist) was fun, in a lot of ways, they paled in comparison to the pure support bard gave. On top of that, Wanderer's Minuet + Gauss Barrel further turns the jobs into casters. I know there are people who enjoy these things together, but from a design standpoint, it's a strange combination.

Often times, when jobs don't have a single identity, they fall flat. When they try to do more than one thing, they end up not being very good at anything. Unless they're overpowered. Scholar and warrior are two examples of jobs that can perform their main role on top of DPSing well. But we all know why that is, so I don't need to get into it.

The devs were too afraid of breaking the WHM/SCH combo that they ended up wasting astrologian's potential as a time mage support/healer. That felt indecisive. In the future, please commit to jobs having one, solid, strong and unique identity so that this doesn't happen again.

It would be nice if we could have a dedicated support role down the line.

tl;dr: in astrologian's case, the job needed to be its own thing from the start. It's too easy to go with a white mage and a scholar and call it a day. It's too late for people like me who decided to sit out this raid cycle because of how poorly the devs handled things. Hopefully in the future, we can have jobs that do one thing well. Not ones that try to do too many things at once and pale in comparison to other, more focused jobs.

Astrologian, for how much I love it, was a complete disaster at launch.

I recall picking up AST at 3.0's launch, and was pretty mortified at how weak the heals themselves were. The job received it's first buff almost immediately, but it still felt like a struggle despite having such a great character.

The fear, as I recall, was that AST was so reliant on the card buffs that they felt giving them strong heals would give it an unfair advantage over the other two.... For some reason. The problem with that was the RNG forced players to look at them as a bonus verses a reliable method of buffing yourself and your party, so the cards didn't aid in any sort of damage mitigation in a huge amount of instances.

This doesn't account for the fact Benefics were so small you could barely breathe long enough to Draw. MP maintenance was pain early on for this reason, too.

This was a huge factor in why I found myself favoring Nocturnal Sect from the start. The instant heal+sheild would give me the extra seconds needed to get a player back up, as my regular heals were simply not enough on their own.

I DELIGHTED that the job is getting these buffs, but I agree with you OP. Astrologian would be in a better spot if the Devs had a clearer vision.

Astrologian is so OP right now, I'm seeing whm on the bench.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mako007

Astrologian is so OP right now, I'm seeing whm on the bench.

---

I keep seeing people say this, but a Nocturnal AST and SCH can't play nice together as the sheilds cancel eachother out, and Diurnal heals are still the same as before.

If anything, the buffs mean Scholars need to worry, as their spot can be comfortably taken by an AST, and are no longer guaranteed a spot in higher level content.

Unless I missed the memo where we can stack sheilds now, I don't see White Mages getting "benched" anytime soom.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ametrine

I keep seeing people say this, but a Nocturnal AST and SCH can't play nice together as the sheilds cancel eachother out, and Diurnal heals are still the same as before.

If anything, the buffs mean Scholars need to worry, as their spot can be comfortably taken by an AST, and are no longer guaranteed a spot in higher level content.

Unless I missed the memo where we can stack sheilds now, I don't see White Mages getting "benched" anytime soom.

---

You missed the plethora of buffs that AST got for both sects:

Benefic II's proc chance has been changed to the next Ben II will 100% crit.
The potency of the Balance and Bole has doubled (20%, enhances to 30% and spreads to 10% on all party members).
The range of royal road has increased to 20y (medica II range.)
Celestial Opposition has had its duration increased to 10s (thats more card uptime and MP back from lum aether.)
Shuffing and Drawing work better in general.

So yeah. Lots of things went in Diurnal AST's favor. Almost as if... it was in their cards this whole time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mako007

Astrologian is so OP right now, I'm seeing whm on the bench.

---

think it would go down to group preference , i don't see any healer getting becnhed.

we have been runing ast/sch(me) for 7 month now in my static. sure i could feel the difference if i went with a whm in any instance, but i am very happy along side my ast healing partner as a sch, we learned to optimize our heals and bring the most dps we can to the party.

[QUOTE=Rawrz;3866878
So yeah. Lots of things went in Diurnal AST's favor. Almost as if... it was in their cards this whole time.[/QUOTE]

Oh yes, I saw all those, tasty, tasty buffs.

I'm just happy Nocturnal Sect's powerful enough now to be viable for many players verses the previous mentality of "Go Di or get out." I'm always worried about aggro with regens up. ^^;

But, I still can't see how any of AST's buff will edge out a WHM's reliable heals and DPS.

We still don't have anything like Cure 3, Aero 3, Stone 3, or the double OGCD instant heals in Tetragamatton and Benediction.

Or a fairy. Free Embrace spam!

So, White Mage and Scholar will be fine, but Astologian can truely fit in any healing slot now.

They accomplished making Noct viable sure but these other changes mean ast/sch is still going to be preferred combo and that Balance buff was silly, now Ast will revolve around getting Balance because everything else pales in comparison now.
SE really has no idea what they want out of this job do they?.

I'm more excited for the card changes. It's one of my favorite parts of the job and i'm glad to see it becoming so much more powerful. 20% damage buff?! I love it :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ametrine

I keep seeing people say this, but a Nocturnal AST and SCH can't play nice together as the sheilds cancel eachother out, and Diurnal heals are still the same as before.

If anything, the buffs mean Scholars need to worry, as their spot can be comfortably taken by an AST, and are no longer guaranteed a spot in higher level content.

Unless I missed the memo where we can stack sheilds now, I don't see White Mages getting "benched" anytime soom.

---

Except you'll never need them to stack. While neither Scholar or Astro have the raw aoe healing WHM does, they are both close enough to compensate. Coupled with their sheer versatility and WHM is decidedly third now in the healer battle. Scholar isn't afraid at all. Their DPS and infinite MP pet practically guarantee them a spot.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Except you'll never need them to stack. While neither Scholar or Astro have the raw aoe healing WHM does, they are both close enough to compensate. Coupled with their sheer versatility and WHM is decidedly third now in the healer battle. Scholar isn't afraid at all. Their DPS and infinite MP pet practically guarantee them a spot.

---

AST has raw AoE healing like WHM, I think Helios and Medica are exactly the same. ASt is just not quite as powerful in the AoE HoT department (Aspected Helios is a bit weaker and shorter radius than Medica II if I recall). Aside from the card buffs, diurnal AST is untouched, leaving it in a slightly better position than before. Whether or not this means WHM will be at the bottom of the healer barrel now because of the card buffs we can't really say yet.

What we can say is Nocturnal Sect is much better than before, and going WHM/N.AST will probably be better overall compared to WHM/D.AST now. Not that many statics do that anyway (will be useful for solo duty queues at least).

And, as you said, that N.AST won't be replacing SCHs despite the 100% consistent AND instant 170% AST shield because of SCH's overall damage output + Eos/Selene.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by File2ish

Aside from the card buffs, diurnal AST is untouched, leaving it in a slightly better position than before.

---

For the second time, Diurnal AST got buffed with the Ben II proc changing to 100% crit rate, celestial opposition duration increased, qol to cards AND increases to card potencies.

The only changes that were noct only changes were to aspected ben and aspected helios.

Diurnal Ast received double potency on Bole/Balance, doubled extension on Celestial Opposition (meaning even more mana than before), and can now redraw every single card... of course they are going to be much better than White Mages now.

WHM will certainly be up to filling its role but from the math I have seen AST is superior in its place in the Meta. AST simply brings more to the fight and is very much equal to WHM in healing. With Heals relatively on equal footing, the superior mitigation and buffing that AST is capable of puts AST in a superior position.

Unfortunately this is going to be the reality of the Healing meta unless they can actually alter the Healing meta. Since its always a Shield/Heal combination there is always going to be a particular pairing that is the superior option. As of now it seems to be SCH/AST. WHM's are quite capable of doing the content but they are the weaker option. WHM core strength has always been its heals with little in the way of solid mitigation or support buffing and that is what places AST above it.

This job was such a type-B cluster and part of the reason I eventually started moving away from this game. The very nature of the draw system sets it up where the only universally "good" cards are...you guessed it, the DPS boosting ones. I hated feeling like I wasn't bringing any reliable utility or support to a raid, I hated feeling like my job's whole identity was basically a gimmicky flavor ability and that I was a WHM in a black dress instead of a white one. Very wary about any new healing jobs rolling out of the gate at this point, as with raids' current reliance on some form of shielding/mitigation and healing potencies being scaled such that two healers can easily boost nearly-depleted health bars back to full in 1 or 2 GCDs, means that every new healing job will be judged on it's ability to bring DPS or reliably boost group DPS, and that's idiotic when we're considering that these are healing jobs.

The Noct Sect "buffs" clearly show that the devs don't even understand why SCH is such an uncontested raid slot right now as it is. Hint: it only marginally has something to do with their shields, which AST actually surpasses at this point, and everything to do with D-P-S.