Your thoughts on Astrolgian so far?

[SuzakuCMX]

(I never use lightspeed... it's really that useless. Oh no i do use it to dispell quickly. That's about it.)

It doesn't change the rate at which you use mana; you still have the GCD as the same.

[Shamirah]

That's the thing, it's a dps loss because of that. You gain little to no benefit from it and you heal 25% less. => mana efficiency is down. It lets you heal on the move sure, we'll have to see if there are fights when you have to move a loooooooooot so it can become handy, but still if you spam during lightspeed you're gonna have a bad time.

[Sidra]

So I don't play AST, but I am a SCH and was looking at their skill list. Am I wrong in saying that AST may be the strongest healer nuker - and combined with their cards make a great use of the off-healer slot. Combust 2 is literally a 450 pot dot, and at 200 potency Malefic II is much stronger than Broil. I could see them effectively taking the old SCH role where they dps and use cards, while getting up shields for the big attacks.

[GideonHighmourn]

<snip.

Fairly certain SCH has more DoT Potency/AoE potential. Bio, Miasma, Bio II, Miasma II, and Shadow Flare. SCH also has Bane, which can significantly increase group DPS on AoE pulls; something that AST distinctly lacks from what I can tell. AST has Gravity, yes, but no AoE DoTs. AoE DoTs allow the SCH to switch back from CS to heal, while maintaining DPS. Comparatively, AST will have to individually DoT each target, all while not having a faerie to keep the tank up.

Single target, AST might come pretty close to SCH. However, they can only do this while not being able to contribute to group HPS.

It might be roughly similar, but again, AST lacks utility and flexibility of SCH in terms of what tools are available to increase/spread DPS potential.

[SuzakuCMX]

bonk

We can also cross-class Aero (since there really isn't a GOOD cross-class after Stoneskin/Protect/Swiftcast anyways...maybe Raise if you want to swiftcast macro something). They definitely aren't made to be primary healers it seems, but they do offer a good amount of support between instant Stoneskins, the instant shield in Noct Stance, Disable's 10% reduction on tank busters, party buffs, ability to DPS without accuracy, Essential Dignity to get people out of the danger zone so the primary healer can top them off, etc.

They're just missing in something to deal with the fact that sometimes people make mistakes, and some of their CDs are really weird for what they do (Celestial Opposition and Lightspeed mostly), coupled with the fact that you can sometimes get screwed with RNG....there's room for buffs but I think they're perfectly viable as-is.

[jars]

I really feel the lack of bane on ast but that's just for dungeons it's not as important in 8 mans. AST damage spells burn a ton of mana though, in fates I find myself running oom far quicker than whm/sch do. all the storyline duties were terrible, I constantly ran out of mana

[SaintK]

snip.

Even if Succor is only 150 potency its still more reliable than helios to hit each target. Emergency Tactics is a thirty second cooldown and lasts 15 seconds. Seems pretty consistent to me. Turns your succor into a medica equivalent, meanwhile your pet is auto curing every low party members. If you just shuffle whispering dawn and tactics you will never run out of a cooldown you need for aoe healing, or you could just succor twice because SCH have almost no mana problems compared to the other healers. On top of that you have idomitability which is literally better than medica. Your supposed to rely on your options on SCH, thats the point of the class. Saying that AST doesnt need to rely on cooldowns is obvious, that should be the case. AST aren't SCH. We dont even have half the options scholars have. So of course we don't have to rely on cooldowns. What would we use? Lightspeed?

[Leiloni]

Even if Succor is only 150 potency its still more reliable than helios to hit each target. Emergency Tactics is a thirty second cooldown and lasts 15 seconds. Seems pretty consistent to me. Turns your succor into a medica equivalent, meanwhile your pet is auto curing every low party members. If you just shuffle whispering dawn and tactics you will never run out of a cooldown you need for aoe healing, or you could just succor twice because SCH have almost no mana problems compared to the other healers. On top of that you have idomitability which is literally better than medica. Your supposed to rely on your options on SCH, thats the point of the class. Saying that AST doesnt need to rely on cooldowns is obvious, that should be the case. AST aren't SCH. We dont even have half the options scholars have. So of course we don't have to rely on cooldowns. What would we use? Lightspeed?

What are you complaining about? AST have equivalent heals - Helios=Medica, Aspected Helios =Medica II or Succor, depending on stance. Single target heals also compare to both. Math was done one page ago to show why everything remains equal in terms of potency/GCD.

Helios and Aspected Helios can be spammed so base AoE output is fine. Essential Dignity is very useful for single target burst when necessary and the Benefic II proc if the timing is right (and Benefic II proc could be used to save your ED cooldown, or replace it if it's already on CD). Freecure feels like it's up all the time on my WHM and in Diurnal Sect you're casting more Benefic with the speed buff anyway, so the proc should be up often enough for some reliable single target burst.

The thing in terms of healing that AST doesn't have enough of is emergency cooldowns like Divine Seal. Lightspeed needs fixing to do something about the magic potency debuff because that makes it useless outside of recasting Stoneskin or something (which I do use it for a lot). Collective Unconscious looks a bit strange too and I think everybody agrees on the card related changes that are needed.

However, SCH was in the same boat comparatively in terms of AoE heals pre-3.0 and they did perfectly fine. I remember leveling SCH after my WHM and noticing the difference in AoE healing capability, but SCH's all still got through the 4 man content fine and in 8 man you'll have another healer to help out.

As for mana problems, they have the same mana cooldown that WHM had pre 3.0 and WHM always did fine, but AST's is on a shorter CD.

If they can fix the emergency CDs and card skills, the class would be fine.

[LycorisSelunis]

I really feel the lack of bane on ast but that's just for dungeons it's not as important in 8 mans. AST damage spells burn a ton of mana though, in fates I find myself running oom far quicker than whm/sch do. all the storyline duties were terrible, I constantly ran out of mana

I agree. gravity costs more then 1/10 my mp.... I know we don't want to spam-aoe like a blm but this is just silly-unsustainable...

[Saseal]

Most likely this wont help anyone... But that's how I remember things. >_>;

Actually, it does help ^^ It makes me look at the symbols/names in a different light .... by association rather than by memorization. Thank you!