Your thoughts on Astrolgian so far?

[Seryl199]

I've yet to play truly challenging 8 man content, but in the few 8 mans I've played, most healers don't really know how to react to Astrologian. They tend to act as though you are the WHM to their SCH, or vice versa, or ignore you entirely, but I don't think AST will be able to shine like that. They simply don't have the specialization. I feel that AST should act to cover the other healer's blind spots, while they work to cover AST's.

The WHM/AST dynamic seems fairly straightforward, WHM healing like they do best, with AST buffing and DPS'ing, stepping in to mitigate and spot heal. AST/SCH seems fuzzy, but I'm curious to see how they work if they meet halfway. AST needs some help to deal with burst healing, which brings up complaints about SCH's DPS uptime, but you end up with two healers that can buff the party in myriad ways and apply high potency DoT's without the need for accuracy to compensate. I'd need to spend some time with coordinated players to really feel out the dynamics of full party play.

That puts AST in a tricky position, because it benefits the most from interacting with the other healer. WHM and SCH act more as separate entities working towards the same goal, whereas AST seeks to cooperate with the other. This isn't inherently a bad thing, except for the fact that, if your co-healer goes down, you'll find yourself in a tight spot very fast if they can't be revived in time for important mechanics. I'll withhold my judgement for now, not having much first hand experience, but I still find AST to be a lot of fun to play, and don't plan on quitting it any time soon.

[GideonHighmourn]

While it's true they are in a tricky position, I'm not sure how you're supposed to "cooperate" with each other with AST in the group. At most, I see that as meaning you'll have to spend more time healing (to make up for the difference) and managing mana, while AST flips through cards and hopefully pulls an Ewer to help you out on MP. AST lacks heavily on burst healing capability and on-demand utility; something both WHM and SCH bring to the table, respectively.

I see working alongside AST to be more trouble than it's worth and less reliable, so far. I'm just not seeing AST as equal in value to what a WHM or SCH brings to the table, especially when all fights are heavily scripted and patterned. SCH will always have Sacred Soil, Fey Wind, etc. AST will never be able to rely on pulling the proper card combinations at the right time.