Astrologian Speculations! How will it fit in?

[VanilleFang]

From the small video that they revealed of AST it seems that the cards are just used to cast the spells that the AST can use. In the video the AST is charging a spell. They then grab a card, hold it up, and appear to heal themselves with a green glow. It looked like a basic single target healing spell. I could be wrong though.

[Lorevi]

I don't know about the idea of a random support ability being handed out. If you have, say 3 party wide buffs linked to 1 draw command then you only get the buff you need 1 third of the time.
Instead I think it'd be interesting if the deck of card will be deciding the potency of the action. For example the Astrologist's basic cure could have a potency ranging from 300 - 500 depending the card it drawn. Then players could chose to either save their cures for when they get a good draw or spam heals as normal and trust in the rng. Factors like the size of AoE's and duration of buffs could be randomized in a similar way.

[Eraqus]

I have read that someone saw a video of AST casting a Spell....where is this video lol

[DarkmoonVael]

I have read that someone saw a video of AST casting a Spell....where is this video lol

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMbKlCs_6pk

Here you go.

[VanilleFang]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMbKlCs_6pk

Here you go.

I'm gunna put that in the first port so people can see it. Thanks!

[DarkmoonVael]

I'm gunna put that in the first port so people can see it. Thanks!

No worries. I just wish that it showed more of this class in the video. So far out of the 3 new jobs, this has the least amount of ability footage .

[Alice_89th]

I have been wondering about which classes/jobs AST will get their cross class abilities from.

WHM, ACN, BLM would be the most logical choices, but unless we can cross class from 3 others classes in the expansion one of those will have to drop.


WHM
-Protect
-Stoneskin
-Cleric Stance
-Aero
That last one isn't very important, just a minor dps spell, but the first three are pretty vital. I don't see this one being left out unless AST gets its own version of at least some of these.

ACN
-Ruin
-Bio
-Eye for an Eye
-Virus
Again, Ruin and Bio are dps fluff. Both Virus and Eye for an Eye can be pretty useful though...


BLM:
-Surecast
-Swift cast
-Blizzard II
Surecast has its uses, Blizzard II is dps fluff (and bind), but Swiftcast is the love of my life.... I would not want to raise people without it in the heat of battle.


(Cure, Raise, and Physick are also cross class abilities, but I am going to assume that a new healer class will have its own basic heals and a raise/ressurection variant :P )

It looks like a tough choice to me, although SE could suprise us by making them cross class with an entirely different class....

[dtv20]

What I really want for the astrologian is to be the support focused healer. I want the cards to be an aoe that can be placed with different effects. Card 1 grants healing overtime, card 2 grants 15%less damage taken, card 3 is tp restoration while card 4 is MP restoration and finally card 5 can be idk. What do you think?

[UOdhn]

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.

- 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 quite agree with your card mechanics. As someone who understands the meaning behind things, you've definitely put thought into what these could do. However, there could be other beneficial effects of the cards as well. Rather than just a straight increase to damage (Which we've seen before, such as Foe's Requiem), it could be some form of reduction of cost or adding another component to these attacks (regain TP/MP based off damage, say). Either way, I'll be interested to see what these do, and will definitely be playing an AST up to 60 at any rate.

I would love to see a stackable HoT. This sounds fun and interesting. There is a flaw I think in your delayed damage buff, insomuch as if the tank were to take enough damage to kill him during the debuff, there is no way to prevent this from happening. Instead, what it should do is deal that damage out as a DoT over a period of a number of seconds, thus allowing healers to respond to it over time, rather than an automatic death.

Good thread, can't wait to see more speculation!

[Bead]

What if it works sort of like the FFT Calculator? The cards represent spells you have learned from WHM and SCH and you have to select which ones add. Each card being sort of like a cross class slot, but obviously with a lot less restrictions. The class would have a lot of it owns spells too but a big part would be the spells you take from the other healers.

I also think unlocking these stand-alone classes with probably be quests like in FFXI.