Your thoughts on Astrolgian so far?

[Lycinder]

U'd differ once u get smacked in the face in the vault. Its like the 1st dungeon to make u question if ast will do well in high aoe burst fights.

I haven't gotten to the Vault yet but if its like the T9 plus some of final coil level of burst damage - Aspected Helio before hit - Lightspeed - Go ham on that helios button.

[Mhikail]

1st point No, no and no again those kinds of buff on a 15 second cooldown is bordering on both overpowered and ridiculous, 30 seconds is generous enough as it is.

I worded it wrong, as said in an older post, should be cut down to 25 seconds or 20.
Remember, the hook of AST was the cards, but it feels like forever to use them. :/
30 second is generous to you? Lol.
Something feels missing...I don't mind the low heals right now but def a change of pace when you mained other healers, I'm still 52 so I'll see later on.

[kupokage]

The only validation to this AST bashing is for me to run it too and fail like others. Almost as if players are saying "I farm Final Coil and can't heal this as an AST. It's not me, it's the class." If I don't fail? Not a thing will change. The struggled will continue to struggle and therefore ask for buffs. SCH had a hard time once healing Aurum Vale, just saying.

[Aphel]

Get to 60 and watch these tanks speedrun dungeons, pulling 2-3 packs of mobs. Their health spike like crazy and lightspeed on a 150sec CD Benefic II ain't gonna save your tank. Cool I manage to get a massive 30+sec Ben II and Regen and 15% damage reduction extended with time dilation + compression. He survives nicely with 7 mobs beating on him, but then goes on to pull another 2-3 packs. My most powerful CDs are all on cooldown, no cards that are RRed. Watch helplessly as the tank's health goes lower and lower even though you're doing absolutely everything you can. Of course it's partially the tanks fault but since almost every tank I've come across does it, I have a feeling the Schs and Whm are capable of it and that's why it's so rampant.

Just because you healed successfully in T9 doesn't mean it's smooth sailing here. Btw it's not only here, our JP brethren are pointing out some stuff on the AST too

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...E3%83%AC/page7

[Shamirah]

Yeah SCh had a hard time healing Aurum Vale because their fairies use to die to the dots...

AST healing is subpar. Lightspeed is a mana drain. Of course you can play what you prefer and you should... but you'll notice quite fast that if SE does not buff AST... you will not get taken in group (unless you play with a casual guild).

give the same potency as WHM to AST heals, take away the +5%power of nocturnal sect and give it +5% crit reduce the CD on the cards action make lightspeed remove the GCD aswell OR make the spell cost 50% less mana AST is viable.

I'm seriously thinking of taking Cure cross skill and heal with it only...

[Remilia_Nightfall]

Odd. My gf is leveling AST and had no trouble healing The Vault multiple times. Of course, it helps if other people aren't dumb, but it is perfectly doable (especially if you are used to Savage Coil, admittedly).

[Shamirah]

Odd. My gf is leveling AST and had no trouble healing The Vault multiple times. Of course, it helps if other people aren't dumb, but it is perfectly doable (especially if you are used to Savage Coil, admittedly).

I had no trouble aswell. The issue is balance. At this time, AST is clearly below the other two healers. Since you only take one or two healers... guess which one will be taken ? yeah.

Even the japanese players are saying the same.

[kupokage]

Speed run with an AST, DRG and SUM and you'll wipe, but a team of WHM, BLM and BRD had a blast. Buff classes? No. Smaller pulls seems more logical. Players once beat T5 at i80 while i130s fail even today with echo. AST makes life harder, I suppose. But not impossible. Some farm groups run with 2 healers while some roll with only one. If one can run with just a single healer, why need a second one at all? It's doable obviously. But harder. One weekend in and it's all "Blerg! I can't heal this as an AST! Fail class. Rabble rabble." Give it a chance, jeebus.

[Remilia_Nightfall]

I had no trouble aswell. The issue is balance. At this time, AST is clearly below the other two healers. Since you only take one or two healers... guess which one will be taken ? yeah.

Even the japanese players are saying the same.

I don't see it so clear cut as you paint it to be.

As a main SCH, I feel that at this stage SCH is borderline mandatory. The other two spots are debatable. WHM got some pretty noticeable nerfs, and the only big advantage it has is the MND buff it gives in raids.

I am sure AST is harder to play, but I think it is still viable. It relies a lot on other people not failing, but hey, that should be a given.

[Dayala]

The issues I see with Astro, as far as speed runs / end game is concerned is the unreliable use of the buffs being pulled out. It's just not a viable tool to use end game when you need a specific buff right then. Getting the TP card 7 times in a row is BS and infuriating.

Also, Light Speed is garbage - it makes you insta-cast but you still have to wait 2.5 seconds to re-use and the mana drain is significant, the 25% reduction of potency is pointless - if it's insta cast, it should be insta cast including a lower cool down or no cool down on the spells you are spamming it with. They should decrease the length of time it's available and increase the cool-down time on Light Speed so it's not abused. There's too many negatives to use it as a oh crap button.

Personally, Astro should be something similar to COR in FFXI, where you picked a buff and depending on the roll you got, the potency of it was affected (lucky numbers, unlucky numbers, etc) Letting "Fate" lead the cards is so stressful and unecessary. You could use this job in raids, but it's unreliable the way it is now. It needs tweaking, a lot.

We need more control on the cards, buffs. The abilities from Royal Road / Shuffle should still work the same but something called "Fate" or some BS name to do a % of potency instead of juggling cards. It really takes away from healing when you have to look at cards and think what to do with them, if you should save it for later, etc.

At least if we can pick what card to draw and let fate decide the %potency it would still fit with the lore / class and give the player a little more control.

The lower healing potency is complete utter crap, not even sure why that's a thing when SCH and WHM are on par with each other on potency.