As ast i actually need to watch my mana now

Not sure hows the other healer class, but back in pre 4.0 i never run out of mana, my mana even never reach half back in HW day and thats was a "good" play for me (everyone top up, dps quite often, esuna etc)

Now for every heal, dot appliance and combat spell, my mana just drop pretty fast toward half, there is even a case where my party reach boss and i realize i have 1/4 mana left which got me panicked a little bit (thankyou mana card)

Overall i like this change.

Fake edit: i just realized gravity and earthly star cost a whooping 700+ mana, no wonder my mana is leaking so fast zzz

I don't know, I'm still finding 31 second lucid dreaming keeps me going pretty well even with good chunks of Gravity spam. But I'm also using all the oGCDs to help out (Lightspeed, Earthly Star, CU, etc).

If I'm only dotting and using Malefic 3... I never even go below 75%.

Yeah if I'm not spamming gravity I tend to end fights in a comfortable place.

I'm guessing everyone being somewhat ilvl relevant might be throwing numbers off with certain runs.

The last boss is an MP nightmare. No matter how carefully i tried to manage it, i was grasping for it halfway through the fight. There's just so much damage going out, it was the only fight where i had to regularly use ewers on myself. Probably didn't help that i had a WHM that never reacted to anything as a cohealer, and i had caster dps and ranged dps that kept forgetting they had refresh/mana shift.

This is a huge issue for me as well, my mana constantly gets depleted...I'm hoping it gets better at 70 once I have better gear

AST have a good few ways of replenishing MP, including being able to extend the Lucid Dreaming duration.

If I am Gravity spamming then yeah. Just Malific 3 no mp problems. However, many of the new fights are unavoidable AoE intensive and I have been using a lot more Helios, which will deplete me pretty fast as well. But an extended Ewer or Lucid Dream with duration boots is usually more than enough.

How i dwell my heal method is also one of the factor i guess.

My habit when healing is tend to use aspect benefic (the instant heal with added effect, i use regen btw) on every person who drop to 3/4 of their hp, its practically my instinct to do it now, especially if there is a range class who like to stay far from the group so i have no choise to put it on them first because aoe heal cant reach them (most of the time)

this also prompt me to less dps-ing in boss fight and in event where tank goes full sprint and grab all mob like crazy, at best i can only help dps until my mana drop to 1/2 then i just went heal only "mode" because tank in 4.0 seems not that tanky as before (at least for me)

But... You also have Ewer. If you are having MP problems this can help. Also you may need to pay attention to what you are casting, and make sure it is efficient for the situation.

I actually find ast mp management pretty decent. Scholar's is the worst right now by far.

As others have suggested you can extend the duration of Lucid Dreaming with Celestial Opposition. Additionally if you feel you are going to be lacking mana then hold on to an ewer when drawn.

Honestly, I can spam gravity, benefic II and other skills and feel my mp is usually in a good spot - but that is mostly because I ran through the SB story as a scholar who is actually mp starved right now. The fact that astrologian's skills cost less mp than the other healers only benefits their mp management.

I have actually been making more use of the dreaded spear card lately. The card does have a bad wrap, because it does require coordination with other classes and their cd's BUT if you do happen to draw it and you have earthly star, lucid dreaming and maybe even celestial opposition (maybe even essential dignity) - use it on yourself and then you reduce the cd's of these skills - this can make having lucid dreaming readily available for you. Make sure you use the card first before using the skill (lucid dreaming).

I think you can reduce all skills cd's this way and gives astrologian a lot more synergy with their skill set/cards i.e. use spear card, use lucid dreaming use celestial opposition - so effectively you have reduce the CD on lucid dreaming and celestial opposition AND you have extended the duration of lucid dreaming - you should also use earthly star to reduce it's cd as well.

This may be ineffective way (largely because you will want to celestial opposition those balances BUT if you have two cards then apply one card on a party memeber and the spear on yourself and then use celestail opposition which mitigates its ineffectiveness as two party members are receiving extended benefits :p )... honestly you can only draw so many spears before you need to desperately make use of them xd.

Note: you could also just leave out the celestial opposition if you are really waiting to extend those balances - the 20% cd reduction is still great for lucid dreaming.

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Originally Posted by gumas

Not sure hows the other healer class, but back in pre 4.0 i never run out of mana, my mana even never reach half back in HW day and thats was a "good" play for me (everyone top up, dps quite often, esuna etc)

Now for every heal, dot appliance and combat spell, my mana just drop pretty fast toward half, there is even a case where my party reach boss and i realize i have 1/4 mana left which got me panicked a little bit (thankyou mana card)

Overall i like this change.

Fake edit: i just realized gravity and earthly star cost a whooping 700+ mana, no wonder my mana is leaking so fast zzz

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Earthly Star has no MP cost. The healing component of it can top off DPS within its radius, saving you a GCD and some MP.

Gravity spam has always drained MP much like Holy; no difference there.

If you utilize your CDs and your abilities, MP should be very manageable. If MP is an issue without the party being bad, that probably means that you're going a bit too shield-happy when people don't really need it. It's fun to see boss AoEs hit for 0 damage, but in the case that it does inflict enough damage that you probably need to follow up with a second heal, it wasn't an efficient action.

I'm not sure which sect you are running, but I find Diurnal better when you are not over geared for content.

CurrentLy iam trying out the shield buff sect (forgot the name), all of my friend suggest me to use this especially after the buff, still not used to it because unlike the regen sect i keep spamming it when their shield is gone, i know i shouldnt do that i guess

The MP cost on Aspected Benefic has been increased quite a bit. In Diurnal it's best to pair your Aspected spells with Largesse. In Nocturnal it's best to pair Aspected Benefic with Synastry because once the shield falls off you may need to single target heal and the extra 40% will be helpful. Earthly Star has no MP cost so not sure what you were talking about there, but it should be used on CD either for the heal or damage. Just be mindful of where you place it. You should also still be pairing Lucid Dream with Celestial Opposition. I haven't had any MP problems at all throughout the entire expansion.

Yeah i miss read the earthly star part, that 720 thingy is heal potency, i mistook it as mana cost duh...

I see where a lot of people are having trouble with MP. I'm always weaving in little ewer cards every now and again to keep my mp afloat when I don't need to buff people.

I haven't had much mp issues unless there is a death or two in the party+ entire party getting hit pretty hard. It's a bit rough because we are not grossly over geared for these dungeons. Use mp cards on yourself. Take up largreese(using it often) for increase healing so you don't have to heal as much. Can extend dreams on yourself if you really need to. Use earthly star every pull/other pull for that big heal gain with timing it just right. On top of all this I burn cards I don't need and use lady card on tank. I use eye for eye to reduce damage on tank when they do massive pulls.

Using all the things I just mentioned will def save quite a bit of mp regardless what sect you are in. I go pretty ham on the dps too, but sometimes you don't need to go so hard on the dps if your mp is a bit questionable. Don't have to just gravity spam + malefice III. Dot all the adds n just take dpsing based on what you are comfortable with.

It will get better the more gear we get.

Yeah I've found that I have to be really careful about my mana because it runs out so quickly now. I've always been very careful to not overheal, but I guess it's an interesting change that will make healing more challenging.

This is coming from someone who tries to do 110% in EX primals atm. If you try to do the bare minimum, then I think you will have less issues re: mana management, but I think it also relies on having a party that minimises the damage taken from mechanics too..

Always try to use Celestial Opposition with Lucid dreaming and cards of course to extend the duration.

Run with a RDM so he can feed you mana shifts and dualraise. xD

I main AST as well and I macro lightspeed with lucid and celestial opp. Both lucid and opp have the same cool down....so this works well, like others have said I also weave in cards (ewer) when I know a big pull is in bound... So I never have mp issues.