Synastry is a bit op.

[Lacifarus]

I started out playing Astro this expansion, and while hands down it is the most fun healer, it is no where near as powerful as sch. I leveled my sch a bit to see the difference and once I got Indom I never went back to astro. Sch only gets better with higher levels. I used to prefer my whm over my sch but I feel it might be even stronger then whm now, granted my whm is still at 50.

Basically, astro is nowhere near sch in terms of healing output, utility, mitigation, anything really. It is way more fun imo though and if they look at the class a bit and change a few things around I'll probably go back to it.

[Krixus]

I started out playing Astro this expansion, and while hands down it is the most fun healer, it is no where near as powerful as sch. I leveled my sch a bit to see the difference and once I got Indom I never went back to astro. Sch only gets better with higher levels. I used to prefer my whm over my sch but I feel it might be even stronger then whm now, granted my whm is still at 50.

Basically, astro is nowhere near sch in terms of healing output, utility, mitigation, anything really. It is way more fun imo though and if they look at the class a bit and change a few things around I'll probably go back to it.

Sooo you lvled astro a couple times and then got sch higher. Getting better gear and new abilities, with little astro experience, and then comment that sch is better... I guess that speaks for itself. I need to stop responding to these people who have no idea what they are talking about.

[Donarudo]

Sooo you lvled astro a couple times and then got sch higher. Getting better gear and new abilities, with little astro experience, and then comment that sch is better... I guess that speaks for itself. I need to stop responding to these people who have no idea what they are talking about.

Kirxus has a point. Allow me to elaborate. While AST is certainly difficult to master, it can be done. Attention to detail with this class, mana conservation, and understanding your card system and how it works greatly improve the job. Just reading the tool tips on your cast bar will not help. You need to cast anything that buffs you or your party and read the tool tip on your buff bar. Until Krix pointed this out to me I never realized that Luminiferous Aether was a mana regen. I use it every chance I get in conjunction with spear as it reduces the recast time to 96 seconds. I can also speed run all of the level 60 dungeons at this point. For those that don't realize it this job is highly dependent on your ability to make snap decisions.

Edit: With the whole RNG thing with our cards. If you have played AST enough you begin to realize instead of looking at RNG hating you, you should start taking advantage of using your card or shuffling it and so on. Each of those cards while giving a small buff does really matter in that as pointed out to me 6/6 of those cards help in conserving mana. So sure its great to get that one card, but the decision comes from making use of it or not. I always royale road spear and the reason is simple. Everytime I have done this it has always given me the aoe version of our draws. So by the next time I use it I can buff the entire group.

Point is, this class is highly technical.

[Shamirah]

Sooo you lvled astro a couple times and then got sch higher. Getting better gear and new abilities, with little astro experience, and then comment that sch is better... I guess that speaks for itself. I need to stop responding to these people who have no idea what they are talking about.

Says the guy who said that you could increase Synastry by 15 sec. Yeah ok. Take your own advice please :x

[Donarudo]

Says the guy who said that you could increase Synastry by 15 sec. Yeah ok. Take your own advice please :x

Just so you are aware it does work in theory however as soon as the buff wears off from the AST it drops from the other party member.

[Krixus]

Says the guy who said that you could increase Synastry by 15 sec. Yeah ok. Take your own advice please :x

It does increase the timer on the person you use it on, just didnt realize it came down to how long the self buff lasted. But because of the smallest detail I wasnt aware of in a job I have no idea what Im talking about? I played ffxi for 7 years, a game with a much higher skill cap, and have been main whm/sch since launch of this game. Maybe you could be a little bit more reasonable on your quick judgment of people.

[RichardButte]

I need to stop responding to these people who have no idea what they are talking about.

I need to stop responding

I need to stop responding

Yes, yes you do.

Seriously, are you the class designer for AST or something? Every time someone calls its effectiveness into question, you react like that person punched your grandmother.

Calm the hell down: this is a friggin' video game and it ain't worth getting this worked up about, and if you truly want to convince people of AST's effectiveness, you might try arguing your point with logic instead of insisting that they don't know how to play the class and have no idea what they're talking about.

[Remilia_Nightfall]

Yes, yes you do.

Seriously, are you the class designer for AST or something? Every time someone calls its effectiveness into question, you react like that person punched your grandmother.

Calm the hell down: this is a friggin' video game and it ain't worth getting this worked up about, and if you truly want to convince people of AST's effectiveness, you might try arguing your point with logic instead of insisting that they don't know how to play the class.

I am not sure. Shall we jump on the bandwagon of "OMG AST TOO WEAK, YOSHIDAAAAAA!!" ?

Is that ok? Because judging from the state of the board now, it seems that's definitely ok.

[RichardButte]

I am not sure. Shall we jump on the bandwagon of "OMG AST TOO WEAK, YOSHIDAAAAAA!!" ?

Is that ok? Because judging from the state of the board now, it seems that's definitely ok.

I don't care how you do it, so long as you do it nicely.

Stuff like this confirms my suspicions, though:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3086032

I think AST needs tweaks, but just a few tweaks could hypothetically make it OP.

Its just frustrating to have no problems with this job, and hearing nothing but good things/requests for sch/ast in raid groups. To then coming on these forums where the people are giving us a bad name because of lack of skill and practice.

I understand being frustrated (try arguing that the storyline in FFXIV should be optional, lawl...), but no one really has sufficient data to say one way or another, and that data will be raid progression.

The post I linked above though is along the lines of what I suspected would happen, but again, only progression will tell for sure.

However, we know that tweaks are already coming. Spear not reducing cooldowns that are already on cooldown is actually a bug and they're working on fixing it now.

That ALONE will boost the hell out of AST, IMO. A RRed Spear will shave 10% off of everyone's cooldowns that are currently ticking. THAT is the kind of buff that makes the RNG worth it, mainly because EVERYONE has cooldowns (unlike damage, TP, MP or even needing mitigation).

Also, tweaks are expected at this point: AST, MCH and DRK aren't even technically "done" yet as the playerbase hasn't had time to go hands-on with them until now, and players ALWAYS make the best playtesters (I reported an AST bug myself, which is now being worked on).

And I'm sure they shipped all of the new classes a bit on the nerfed side. Otherwise, they get over-rolled and people scream bloody murder about how OP they are (the concerns about AST right now are NOTHING compared to things like, "OMFG SE!!!! NOW I HAVE TO RETIRE MY WHM!!!!11!!!" or "WHY PLAY WAR WHEN DRK DOES EVERYTHING BETTER!?!?!?").

Again, I think it's going to need a bit of tweaks to get to the point where it needs to be for raid content, but I absolutely do not want to see them increase the healing potency because that would homogenize what's otherwise a unique and bold class design.

[Krixus]

Yes, yes you do.

Seriously, are you the class designer for AST or something? Every time someone calls its effectiveness into question, you react like that person punched your grandmother.

Calm the hell down: this is a friggin' video game and it ain't worth getting this worked up about, and if you truly want to convince people of AST's effectiveness, you might try arguing your point with logic instead of insisting that they don't know how to play the class.

Its just frustrating to have no problems with this job, and hearing nothing but good things/requests for sch/ast in raid groups. To then coming on these forums where the people are giving us a bad name because of lack of skill and practice.