What do you want to see on Astrologian?

[Seryl199]

I'm an avid DPS healer, both WHM and SCH, but I'm quite interested in seeing where AST will take us. I'm all for AST being primarily healing/support, with the caveat that it keeps me busy and provides as much party support to equal the damage output of Holy or Shadowflare + DoTs. If playing AST brings strong party utility, good heals, and requires a good amount of finesse to maximize it's potential, I'll be happy with it, maybe even enough to switch mains.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

There are actually two different cards, one which does as you describe, but then there is another with a 10%(25%) speed buff. (Can read more here and here.) I do have to wonder if the buffs from Selene will have their percentages adjusted in light of how skill and spell speed will work in 3.0, but in the meantime I'll assume they will be left unchanged.

Actually, the speed buff from Astrologian is similar to Monk's Greased Lightning and Ninja's Huton (assuming the translation is correct). Both of these give the user an "attack speed" increase. But in reality they also reduce the GCD of weapon skills and spells. Spells?! Yes, spells. You can confirm this by removing the soul stone and cross classing Cure. Meanwhile Selene's Fey Light and Fey Glow only grant the user skill- or spell speed. It wouldn't be strange if the effects would stack, but Selene's buffs wouldn't double stack on top of haste. Because haste doesn't give the user skill- or spell speed. So if we assume the translation is correct and indeed gives the same kind of "attack speed" as Greased Lightning and Huton does, I don't believe there is a need to tweak Selene's buffs.

[NorthernLadMSP]

I'm an avid DPS healer, both WHM and SCH, but I'm quite interested in seeing where AST will take us. I'm all for AST being primarily healing/support, with the caveat that it keeps me busy and provides as much party support to equal the damage output of Holy or Shadowflare + DoTs. If playing AST brings strong party utility, good heals, and requires a good amount of finesse to maximize it's potential, I'll be happy with it, maybe even enough to switch mains.

I agree with you completely and couldn't have said it better myself!! Excellent post!

[loreleidiangelo]

I'm already planning to swap, but I hope the job has a high skill floor to differentiate between those who are serious about mastering it and those who think it "looks cool" (yes, I'm aware that you can be of both mindsets at the same time, but sometimes I feel like AST will wind up being the NIN or DRG of healers). Maybe I'm too much of a healing snob, but I am worried that with AST's flashy animations, if that is paired with a low skill floor AND no real need to Stance-dance, that it will become the haven for mediocre healers everywhere.

So far the baseline seems to be, "pick between a moderately less specialized SCH or WHM and remember to Draw every 30 seconds or so and you'll be fine", which makes me a little concerned. Of course, I'll wait until early access to make a more concrete judgement. And even if "lolAST" becomes a thing, I'm still super excited to play it, as I love healer/support hybrids, and I'm looking forward to mastering all of the job's nuances.

[KisaiTenshi]

It has been said that all of the new skills would be from quest, and job only. No new class skills should come in this expansion, due to SE's will to reduce classes' importance over time.

I have a feeling that people are just reading what they want into it.

FFXIV has classes and Jobs, the two are mutually exclusive of each other. The class skills you automatically get when you get to that level. The Job skills are all quests that can only be done after reaching that level. Unless they are going to retroactively change this for every existing class, I'm pretty sure they will be unlocked the same as before. If you're not playing the Job, then you can't use the Job skills, even if there is a quest for it.

Where I think the interpretation is being lost is that whatever comes after level 50. Because if we continued the previous trend you got a new Job skill every 5 levels. The class skills you got a new skill automatically every 4 levels after level 15 as well as a new trait every 4 levels after level 8. So if there are 10 new levels, there would be no less than 2 new class skills, 2 new job skills (4 for ACN/SCH/SMN) and 2 new traits.

We do not yet know how these slot into the existing skill set. For example, does Aero III/Stone III replace Aero I and Stone I in the same way that Carbuncle's were replaced with the Fairies for Scholar, and Garuda/Titan? Or do they just appear as new skills that can't be accessed in all level synced 50-and-below content?

And it would be ridiculous to retcon this new way of getting the skills for the new class/jobs.

[Cynfael]

I have a feeling that people are just reading what they want into it.

No, they're reading what Yoshida has been saying over the past few months. All of the pre-release information is of course subject to change, but it's not spun out of whole cloth.

Frankly no one will give a damn whether new skills are class or job-based, anyway, except for SCHs (because Ruin III as an ACN class skill would automatically be granted to SCHs, and indications thus far are that it's not happening). Besides, all Astrologian, Dark Knight, and Machinist original abilities will be Job-based, so it fits with the new paradigm.

[Kuwagami]

I have a feeling that people are just reading what they want into it.

As said just above, people are reading exactly what has been said multiple times before. anyway :

FFXIV has classes and Jobs, the two are mutually exclusive of each other. The class skills you automatically get when you get to that level. The Job skills are all quests that can only be done after reaching that level. Unless they are going to retroactively change this for every existing class, I'm pretty sure they will be unlocked the same as before. If you're not playing the Job, then you can't use the Job skills, even if there is a quest for it.

Yeah, that's how it works. Not sure what you tried to say here.

Where I think the interpretation is being lost is that whatever comes after level 50. Because if we continued the previous trend you got a new Job skill every 5 levels. The class skills you got a new skill automatically every 4 levels after level 15 as well as a new trait every 4 levels after level 8. So if there are 10 new levels, there would be no less than 2 new class skills, 2 new job skills (4 for ACN/SCH/SMN) and 2 new traits.

and this is where you're wrong. We already know that new skills will all come from quests, will be "job only" skills, and will start form 52 (possibly every other level due to being around 5 new skills per job). No new trait will be added, with the exception of CNJ losing their lv16 trait, and no new cross-class skill slot will be added (so still 5 slots at level 60 for jobs)

We do not yet know how these slot into the existing skill set. For example, does Aero III/Stone III replace Aero I and Stone I in the same way that Carbuncle's were replaced with the Fairies for Scholar, and Garuda/Titan? Or do they just appear as new skills that can't be accessed in all level synced 50-and-below content?

We do know how it will work. They will be new skills. The devs already said they were aware of the space issues on hotbars and are working on it so that we can fit all the skills we want, along with items and macros.

(because Ruin III as an ACN class skill would automatically be granted to SCHs, and indications thus far are that it's not happening).

Isn't Ruin III only available while under the Dreadwyrm trance though ?

[Nadirah]

I personally have no problems with tossing an Aero or Holy out here and there but I really will have a problem with "wtf healer, DPs so this goes faster."

I kinda liked while leveling that dungeons weren't a "pull to nods, aoe. Pull to next boss, aoe, pull to last boss, aoe" like wow.

Bleh.

[DarkmoonVael]

No, they're reading what Yoshida has been saying over the past few months. All of the pre-release information is of course subject to change, but it's not spun out of whole cloth.

Frankly no one will give a damn whether new skills are class or job-based, anyway, except for SCHs (because Ruin III as an ACN class skill would automatically be granted to SCHs, and indications thus far are that it's not happening). Besides, all Astrologian, Dark Knight, and Machinist original abilities will be Job-based, so it fits with the new paradigm.

Yeah its been confirmed that sch only get one new attack spell. Its also a sch only one, which will be interesting. Its actually in the ability video, which also confirms its going to be sch only due to the cast effects being the familiar dual red rings casting animation on the book that delineates sch abilites from acn ones . Now i just want to know what this sch only attack spell actually does........

[Shurrikhan]

Honestly, I just hope that it's healer/shielding stance makes sense. Not this "Cleric Stance makes you a crappy healer and a mediocre DPS" in which I hope future dungeons actually align combat better where you can't just faceroll over top of it with sheer DPS. I'm talking about actual phases of trash and boss monsters where shielding saves the party instead of just buying a few seconds for the healer to DPS.

Aside from hitting the tank so hard that the healer literally can't do anything but heal every GCD with zero hesitation, I don't really see any way they could prevent healer dps from being a thing. And in many other cases, more than making heals more relevant again, it'd simply bring CC back into use.

I'm probably minority here but... I don't want to DPS as a healer...

This will simply depend on the particular encounters. Just keep in mind that not dpsing will only be a thing in the same fights that give you no breathing room (spam heals), or somehow further restrict your mana (especially if it could somehow do so only for dps abilities).

If you're really really against DPSing as a healer, I highly suggest you either play a WHM or an AST (Speculation only, but from most info seems AST DPS capabilities are even worse than a WHM, rely more on cards to buff team members).

Just keep in mind that already ideal healer dps is done by both healers stance-dancing according to DoTs, and technically by WHM spending more time in cleric than the SCH, since its filler dps has higher potency (more than double from Ruin to Stone II). WHM's dps will likely further push upward through Aero III, Assize, and Holy in place of Bane and Shadow Flare alongside Stone II-III and Aero I-II for single-target.

AST, from what we've seen, may well be your best bet at filling up healing-nonintensive time with something other than DPS.