Tips and advice for a new lv60 Astro?

This is my first time trying to main a healer in an mmo. Just trying to get used to the ropes, any necessary macros or things I should know before trying harder fights like Sephirot.

I've never played a shield type healer before and everytime I'm with a Whm it seems a bit unnatural. Been practicing Lost city of Mhach and trying to put shields up before the boss does big AoE's and it's been working well.

I'm playing on Ps4 also, so if anyone else is a healer on Ps4 I would be interested in hearing your set ups

thanks guys :)

As an Nocturnal AST main here are some little advices:

- First, you don't need any macro as an AST
- If you're paired with a SCH, even if your shields are stronger, move to Diurnal to get more heal potency
- Crit is life, crit is love :3
- Thing is, if you're playing Nocturnal: you have to know what gonna happen to put your barrier in time and mitigate damages or provide your party from wipes
- Keep your Celestial Opposition for your Luminous Aether or the party buff increase
- Basically the card buff/stuff just need practice and you're gonna get used to it
- (troll) Use Collective Unconcious everytime it's up because the animation is gorgeous

I wasn't a main healer either (basically the dude playing assassins/rapid DPS) and mooved to AST 10 months ago or something and it's so fun ! The only thing you need to be a better healer is practice ! :)

The only macro I have on AST is a Cleric Stance one that switches from healing crossbar to DPS and vice verca whenever I hit it. Lifesaver, that. Playing a shielding healer means you have to know the fight to an extent in order to play to your potential. I usually play the fight as DPS or Diurnal AST until I feel I know it well enough to go Nocturnal or SCH. :)

1. Don't treat either Synastry or Lightspeed as emergency buttons - use them. Use them a lot. They save you mana, and make your heals stronger.
2. If you're not using Draw right now, you should be! Use Draw even if you have a Spread/RR combo ready to go - you might get a good card and save yourself the Spread card.
3. Practice the order/timing in which you use HoTs + card buffs + CDs followed by Celestial Opposition to maximize the duration of your abilities.
4. Really take the time to learn the ranges of your AoE heals/buffs. Where your place yourself could mean the difference between including your entire party, or missing one or more.
5. (troll) ALWAYS use Astral Stasis when its available, even if your melee DPS is about to kill the boss.
6. 3+ = Gravity, 2 or less DoTs + Malefic II. Stella only as an opener when soloing.
7. Have fun - AST is an incredibly active job - it should feel busy, but fluid (in my opinion).

Oh, and no macros needed! <3

I'm going to go against the grain here and say that I find 1 macro helpful for Astro, especially playing on a PS4.

Discard Card Drawn
/statusoff "Bole Drawn"
/statusoff "Balance Drawn"
/statusoff "Arrow Drawn"
/statusoff "Spear Drawn"
/statusoff "Spire Drawn"
/statusoff "Ewer Drawn"

Essentially what this macro does is discard the card that you have drawn and puts draw back on cooldown, instead of waiting for the drawn card to time out. You can also do this by manually clicking on the status bar, but like I said, on PS4, that's a pain. I mostly use this before a fight when I'm trying to bait an expanded/enhanced balance before we queue up. Not optimal when you're already in a fight, as you should really be trying to use the cards that you're dealt to the best of your ability.

I use macros for Draw and Spread so that they first attempt to cast on my mouseover target.

It's very convenient not having to swap hard targets just to use cards while actively healing or dealing damage.

Basics of an AST:

-Know what your cards do
-Royal road (know effects)
-Know what stance is optimal. If you are with sch you should never be in nocturnal, for instance.
- Always use spire for royal road fodder as it is a very useless card unless your party has tp issues. Ewer should be used for Royal road as well but you can hold it if you need mp.
- Use aspected benefic as it is insanely good
- Collective unconscious is also extremely good to mitigate ultimate attacks.
- Do not throw cards at roles that don't need the card!!!
-Use LA for refreshing mp and use Celestial opposition afterwards to get 5 seconds more on it. This can also be used on beneficial AOE card effects.
-If you are dpsing, always start with dots and then spam malefic II. Gravity should only be used for AOE.
-SYNASTRY is RIDICULOUSLY GOOD. ABUSE it.
-Make sure to disable tank busters or damaging AOES.

I hate macros in this game because they're unable to queue up like regular skills which causes delay, and because of the necessary /wait times between skills which can easily result in you accidentally switching targets before a skill activates, applying it to the wrong target or no target at all.

That being said, the 2 macros that I use are Swiftcast > Rez, which is slower than having them separated and doesn't actually save crossbar space, I just like to spam chat with funny things. The other is for Disable so I can apply it to my target or the target of my target. Overall this second macro is, IMO, preferable over the base skill due to its convenience in preventing me from having to select the appropriate target before applying, but because it's a macro I sometimes don't hit it at PRECISELY the right time and it doesn't activate at all. So it's a trade off.

Healing has heavily to do with time management, which is why I hate macros so much. To give you an example: In A12 P1 he does an AoE and then a tank buster, so I cast (Asp./)Helios timed to go off right as Alex's AoE goes off. As I'm casting Helios, I target the MT and click Stoneskin. Once Helios is completed it will automatically cast StoneSkin to the tank for me even if I'm targeting someone else for another skill. Now I want to apply Disable to the boss—since it's a macro though, if I click it while Stoneskin is casting then it won't activate. I have to stare at my cast bar until it finishes, then apply Disable ASAP and if I'm too slow activating it then it won't land in time to mitigate the tank buster and if I spam it it won't activate at all. Being ahead of mechanics lets you DPS more, or more importantly, allows you time to recognize mechanics and what other players are doing.

-For your opener, when you hopefully have a nice card held and royal road ready, draw again. You may get a nice card and can use that instead of your held one. If not simply use the held one and royal road the new one.

-Always always always use Luminiferous Aether with celestial opposition if you\\'re able. Even in your opener I suggest using synastry, Luminiferous Aether, your cards, and aoe/single target regens and throwing up celestial opposition. This will boost the time on nearly all your best abilities.

-If possible, extend synastry. Yes it\\'s possible to extend the effect of synastry, making the strongest healing CD in the game also the longest.
You\\'ll have to be in range of the target you\\'re synergized with and hit him with celestial opposition for it to work.

There\\'s more but that\\'s all I can think of atm. Have fun, AST is the strongest and most support heavy healing job in the game right now, and as a bonus it\\'s the most fun to play as well ^^

Awesome advice here! Thanks guys :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RubyScarlett

I'm going to go against the grain here and say that I find 1 macro helpful for Astro, especially playing on a PS4.

Discard Card Drawn
/statusoff "Bole Drawn"
/statusoff "Balance Drawn"
/statusoff "Arrow Drawn"
/statusoff "Spear Drawn"
/statusoff "Spire Drawn"
/statusoff "Ewer Drawn"

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This is a really good macro to have, however i recommend removing the balance status off, as theres never a situation where you would want to discard it.To prevent any miss click simply remove that line from the macro.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ChiiSoSeriouz

This is a really good macro to have, however i recommend removing the balance status off, as theres never a situation where you would want to discard it.To prevent any miss click simply remove that line from the macro.

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Before pull, you have The Balance saved and Expand ready. You draw in the off chance that you can get another Balance before the pull, only you then find out the tank won't be pulling any time soon (someone says brb, etc.) Clicking off The Balance which you can't save or use will get the CD timer ticking sooner. This happens every now and again, it's like getting blue-balled.

Personally since playing AST I've become comfortable clicking off the buffs without delaying my casting, since cycling UI elements by clicking the touch pad and using your crossbars can be done simultaneously without interrupting each other.

Buy a stress ball for those times when your AST co-healer overwrites your enhanced Balance with a Ewer or Spear.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GeekMatt

Before pull, you have The Balance saved and Expand ready. You draw in the off chance that you can get another Balance before the pull, only you then find out the tank won't be pulling any time soon (someone says brb, etc.) Clicking off The Balance which you can't save or use will get the CD timer ticking sooner. This happens every now and again, it's like getting blue-balled.

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No, since you should only draw as the tank starts his countdown. If you're drawing earlier then the pull countdown after a ready check then you're setting yourself up for that situation, that's probably why you say it happens now and again.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lunaxia

Buy a stress ball for those times when your AST co-healer overwrites your enhanced Balance with a Ewer or Spear.

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OMG I HATE that! And it happens WAY too often.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ChiiSoSeriouz

No, since you should only draw as the tank starts his countdown. If you're drawing earlier then the pull countdown after a ready check then you're setting yourself up for that situation, that's probably why you say it happens now and again.

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Assuming there's a countdown. In DF/RF if you assume that, you're at a loss as an AST or a DPS. Obviously a good tank will use a countdown, but unfortunately tanks also have to account for bad players and so a lot of them don't use one. PLD is my secondary and it's not unusual for DPS to pull as I activate the countdown. NIN is my third at ilvl 239 and I know from experience that depending on a DF/RF tank to do my 18s countdown is a DPS loss more often than not.

Edit: Can also have the pull delayed after the start of a countdown.

Use yourself as the catalyst to spread a group wide card buff. It's the best way to guarantee everyone gets buffed.

I beg to differ about the no macro
There is one I absolutly love because it make things go easier no matter the situation

Disable in focus target
so you apply the damage reduction on the boss or your focus target (if not the boss)
and it only require you to be in range for it, no target deselection or else
=> very useful when healing the tank and willing to mitigate damage in the same time without de-targeting

I played as a SCH before Heavensward and since then I started my AST and never dropped it. I can't really say about Savage raid stuff, but when doing typical duties you can switch between Diurnal and Nocturnal as you wish, it's a good way to shake things up when you start getting bored with one type of healing.

As for macros, I stack Swiftcast with Ascend.
/ac "Swiftcast" <me>
/ac "Ascend" <t>
/ac "Ascend" <2>
...
/ac "Ascend" <8>

This way you either rez your target on the second click (the first casts Swiftcast) or you rez the first downed character on your list. As a fellow PS4/Controller user I find this quite useful in the middle of a chaotic combat.

Ah, also you can macro Diurnal and Nocturnal on a single button, quite simple and saves you a slot.