Astrologian Speculations! How will it fit in?

[TheCurls]

What do they call them? Vamipre healers or something along those lines.

Damage spells that heal allies.

This is an option. Another one is something that the Neverwinter MMO does. You mark a target and a party member's damage to the marked target heals them.

Another idea might be a ground based AoE (think Shadowflare) that heals people who stand inside.

[Eraqus]

I think this is a very mysterious Class....like it should be lol. The healing delay idea its very Great sincd an AST seema to predict the future....

But still i dont understamd the way how the tarots Will work. Still the biggest greatest idea SE ever had For me.

[DarkmoonVael]

Maybe the Astrologian can manipulate the enemies fate through the tarot deck? Dare i say (and wish for) doom style effects? (Although doubt it will be insta-death like in previous ff games). As for the healing aspect, a heal over time class would be interesting .

[lordparanoia]

What I Can imagine:
- AST will have one Classic cure ability like Cure1 and a burst like Cure2/lustrate
- AST will have a raise-type spell
- AST will have an esuna
- AST will have a medica/succor aoe healing

What I think will be different in Astrologian is:
- maybe the possibility to cast Comet and Gravity (since astro will use the power of the stars)
- maybe one of the cards will buff the party, like BRD foe/ballad and similar to Selene's buffs. The six cards could have six different effects:
1. Increase damage dealt by pt (like foe)
2. Increase healing power
3. Decrase magic damage like fey covenant
4. Reduce mp cost or increase the mp refresh
5. An aoe small regen
6. Reduce tp cost or increase tp refresh

- one type of different healing would be Mana Shield, so the damage to hp is converted in mp damage.


What i Can imagine is a proactive healer with heavy support role. Similar to time mage, corsair, astrologer and aritmetician.

[SakiKojiro]

I'd prefer Astrologian be able to use the type of skills as follows

Small heals
Large Shielding and barrier spells
Haste, Slow, Fury.
Demi, Comet.

Maybe a skill that completely absorbs the next magical attack your target takes, and restores it as mana?

As for the Tarot specifically. 2 seperate "draw" skills. One for buffing the party, one for debuffing the targetted enemy. Buff and debuff is random, but can't be reduced (Like if they get paralyze, and have been paralyzed before it won't be lower)

[Pomelo]

That would be cool. I played a similar class in LotRO called Rune-keeper who didn't have a normal incombat raise, but a pre-raise, you had to predict the person's death and give them a buff that would auto-raise them to the healer's current position. Draw back was that if healer was dead, the raise wouldn't work. RK also used single target hot heals as well as one channel aoe-hot heal. :> Would definitely like to play something liket hat again.

I had a 75 RK before the horrid new trait tree's came into effect and I totally loved the prediction skills of the job! Do Not Fall to <insert element>, the pre-rez, the runestone xD

It was a bit annoying to keep writs up on everyone but it felt fufilling at the same time, and rousing had such a nice animation.

Now I want to try LOTRO again ;(

[whoopeeragon]

I speculate that the tarot card ability is a raid-wide/party-wide effect; celestial/star magic is commonly all-encomposing, so the concept of, say, 'divination' of the cards will probably be AoE. I also doubt that it'll be a combination of cards, for the card drawing ability shown in the preview video was too long and focused on the drawing of a single card to be feasible for multiple combinations.

Here are my ideas for each tarot card;

Balance - recovers HP of party to an equal percentage (the concept of balancing - the colour of blood being red)
Ewer - removes all negative status ailments (Water is aligned with Esuna/Leech - blue for the element of water)
Bole - HP regen over time and vulnerability down (the trunk of a tree - tree of life etc. - brown for nature and wood)
Spear - increases physical melee attack potency (spears are melee weapons - light blue, of the Ice element, for which Halone governs)
Arrow - increases physical ranged attack potency (bows are ranged weapons - green associated with woods, typical of bow wielders -coughgridania-)
Spire - increases magical attack potency (most mages live in towers or 'spires' - the bearded man (common depiction of a wise magus) is also present - purple associated with BLMs and arcane)

The Astrologian video also shows her using a Water element spell with a cast time of 3 seconds. There are a lot of speculation points I can make about that one cast.

- The only healer/support skills with a 3 second cast are Protect and Stoneskin, which are both of the Earth element. But it is not a 'support'/'buff' skill as;
- The aura is a healing/purifying aura. Heals and Esuna/Leech have the aura shown in the video, whereas buffing spells such as Protect have orbs surrounding the caster.
- The only known/speculated water-aligned skills are Esuna, Leech, Raise, Resurrection, Embrace and Whispering Dawn. Four are support aligned spells, whereas two are direct healing spells. However;
- The moment of effect of the spell produces the same sound effect as Physick and Cure. Yes, the two have the same sound effect, with a different animation however. This spell of the Astrologians has an obvious different animation with the stars in the afterglow, kind of similar to Adloquium with the shield effect.

I'd say it is a healing spell with an additional effect attached to it, which may differ depending on the tarot card drawn. Or it is a straight additional effect such a regen, similar to 1.0's Sacrifice, but instead with a support effect.

I'd also like to see more than just heal and shield type spells, for example, stackable HoTs, delayed healing and delaying damage.

- Stackable HoTs; think Hullbreaker second boss' Dropsy, except its a HoT. Weak burst, but very good sustain. Would definitely need to be balanced to make it viable.
- Delayed healing; apply a buff on target ally that expires after three->five seconds. When it expires, the heal is applied on target. Makes healing up hard hits like death sentence and ravensbeak easier.
- Delaying damage; apply buff on target ally in which they become invulnerable, so almost like a hallowed ground, except any damage and heal sustained during the duration of the buff will be applied when it expires.

I can definitely see Astrologian having weaker burst in both AoE (WHM) and single target (SCH) but much better single target and party sustain with raid-wide buffs and support abilities.

In any case, so very excited for Astrologian!

[Merylx]

I'd prefer Astrologian be able to use the type of skills as follows

Small heals
Large Shielding and barrier spells
Haste, Slow, Fury.
Demi, Comet.

Maybe a skill that completely absorbs the next magical attack your target takes, and restores it as mana?

As for the Tarot specifically. 2 seperate "draw" skills. One for buffing the party, one for debuffing the targetted enemy. Buff and debuff is random, but can't be reduced (Like if they get paralyze, and have been paralyzed before it won't be lower)

I agree with all of this except shielding and barrier spells. It would be extremely unwise to give spells like this to Astrologian, when they are the bread-and-butter of SCH. It is a Scholars job to magically create shields to protect others. Giving it to Astrologian would be rather silly. I cannot see them using a barrier spell other than "reflect."

[Jamez82]

It won't happen but it would be interesting if their Limit Break was Supernova.

[Pomelo]

I remembered where I saw a Tarot-like system in an RPG before
In Shadow Hearts Series!

You could randomly roll for a card during battle by using certain party member, and you had a chance for the Card to be upside down (reverse!) or glowing (special!)

Reverse made the effects used on the enemy and special made the effect double, and you could have a glowing and upside down card ...so the effect is both double and on the enemy ...it made for some interesting and unlucky combinations..."if you draw "The Chariot", which takes away 50% of all enemy's max HP, in Special Reverse, all of your team is instantly killed without exception"