Your thoughts on Astrolgian so far?

[Leiloni]

-SPREAD: I know alot of ppl want it usable out of combat. I think this might be a little OP but there are ways to fudge it now (unlike RR a card stays in Spread through zones and entering DF) so they might as well just give it to us lol
-ROYAL ROAD: My only complaint with RR right now is that it is used on the next card so if you have a card in spread with a RR effect you want you stop Drawing effectively eliminating our gimmick. A solution may be to have a way where where we use a card then choose to RR the effect after. An example would be: Draw Arrow, RR, now we have the AoE option, Draw Bole, at this point would could RR Bole for Potency increase or use Bole, if we use Bole RR would flash similar to a combo'd move and we have a short time to decide to apply RR effect to the Bole we just used, if we do the RR effect overwrites the old one (potency increase, duration increase, or AoE with current duration transferred). This would make us think on our toes. If we don't use it within the time frame we maintain the RR effect for next Draw.
-SECTS: I am of the camp to allow us to switch in combat. I believe this would raise the skill ceiling on the job and make us more versatile.

I agree with pretty much everything you said. Regarding Spread, there is a strange bug in the Accepted Bugs section here where the player is unable to use Spread. It seems like he's not in combat so obviously it's not going to work and I haven't heard of any actual bugs with this card. So the fact that it's in Accepted Bugs is rather odd. I know the tooltip clearly states it's not usable out of combat, however I have to wonder if there's something they do plan on fixing there.

Royal Road I like where you're going with this. They should just make it function similar to Spread. So Draw card, if you want to use the card as is then just hit the Draw button again. However if you'd like to use the RR buff, then hitting the RR key would use the currently Drawn card with the RR buff.

As for the stances, I don't feel the need to be able to switch stances mid combat but I wouldn't say no to such a change. I would prefer however that they improve Nocturnal stance to make it worth using outside of pairing with another AST.

[SmackyHuggins]

Royal Road I like where you're going with this. They should just make it function similar to Spread. So Draw card, if you want to use the card as is then just hit the Draw button again. However if you'd like to use the RR buff, then hitting the RR key would use the currently Drawn card with the RR buff.

I had considered this initially however if it functioned this way you would be unable to RR a different card if one came up that you wanted as RR would consume the card with the enhancement rather than RR the new card. Thats the only reason I suggested a combo style action so RR boosts a card effect after the card is actually used and we could RR a different card before it is used if we wanted.

As for the stances, I don't feel the need to be able to switch stances mid combat but I wouldn't say no to such a change. I would prefer however that they improve Nocturnal stance to make it worth using outside of pairing with another AST.

Yea, right now I pretty much Noct at the end of a pack and shield before a pull and switch back to Diurnal before I have any hate, which can actually be after the tank engages as long as you have not entered battle yet, i.e. generated threat

[RichardButte]

Get rid of card rng, replace it with a card queue. ex. balance -> spear -> spire -> bole -> arrow -> ewer -> balance. RNG can be fun, but consistency is better for the job's performance. Also increases the skill ceiling slightly by making the player remember the card order.
Shuffle can still return a random card to maintain a small amount of rng factor.

Agree with everything but this: I like the RNG, we just need the cards to be a bit more versatile.

[lordparanoia]

That is why complaints should focus on cards, and not on healing / shielding potency. I assume that current Astrologians were drawn to the job by the cards, not by "Oh look I can be a WHM or a SCH!".

Honestly, it is common sense that AST cant be as specialized as the other two jobs. The focus is on cards: whine about that if you must, not about potency.

Lol. Hello? You are a healer. If you can't heal efficently, you are not a viable healer. You are not a pure supporter. What you say just doesn't make sense at all. You are ignoring that your role is HEALING. What will you say to your raid group when you will not be able to provide strong heals and shields? "The fault is in the stars"? "No problem i can support with rng cards, lets try a three-healers strategy"?
Lol.
Healers must heal. Supporting is our secondary job: our first aim is to heal and keep everyone alive and AST lack in their primary role of healers.

[Seeri]

Cards need to be significantly stronger, a small adjustment would not be enough, scale expand down in 8-man content if you must.
As they are now they are nowhere near being able to make up for the lack of output cooldowns or the (by comparison) inability to
put out damage due to the hardships involved with trying to catch up on healing should you fall behind or people mess up.

Which leads me to; some sort of legitimate, reliable cooldown has to be added. The lack of cooldowns makes big pulls that are a
cakewalk as whm/sch borderline impossible as ast and unless I just magically draw the right card (which would still have to be
stronger than they are now) I'm just going to stand there turreting heals straight into the tank and hope to god that no one
messes up because unlike whm/sch virtually nothing is allowed to go wrong at all on pulls like that.

(This is all for HW content, not the 30-50 part, that part is just really easy)

[Vamperia]

Ast doesn't need anything.... They have Buffs, Debuffs, Good healing output it done right and your cycling your cool downs. Its a very nice and well done class you can pick your stances if your with another AST so you can Regen while they Shield thats a GREAT idea. There is no need for them to stack shields/regens that would really make the class OP and they already have the best of both worlds and some really great skills and fantastic cooldowns. Wish SE gave this much thought to the WHM's when comming up with skills in the Xpac :-(

[MidnightTundra]

I don't why people are asking for healing cooldowns like divine seal. That's WHMs forte and when you ask for WHM-like cooldowns, then there's less of a reason to use a WHM. AST does not deserve any sort of buffs like divine seal due to the versatility of their kit. This class is not underpowered by any means but I feel it should retain the weaknesses of the lack of significant healing amplifying cooldowns, slightly lower base potencies, lack of oGCD AoE curing and they should remain being the weakest healer DPS.

In return, cards need slight duration increases to statistically become the buffing class it should be in comparison to the DPS gains of Selene's consistent Fey Wind. The mana sustain of the class should be on par with WHM and SCH due to the lack of said healing cooldowns.

This class heavily rewards those who are great at multitasking and those who are really quick in coming to a solution. Juggling DPS (Combust II and I are very strong for 2 GCDs; Ignores Accuracy), Heals and Buffs efficiently makes this high skill cap class incredibly powerful when put in the right hands. The problem is, all three healers in 3.0 are incredibly powerful but this one isn't allowed to really shine because the developers are afraid of power creep.

[SuzakuCMX]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQryUmn4XCE

Someone in my FC linked me to this vid of an AST solo healing Ravana EX.

EDiT: also found a thread about it in the GD, posted by the uploader http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-Solo-tank-DRK

[Seeri]

I don't why people are asking for healing cooldowns like divine seal. That's WHMs forte and when you ask for WHM-like cooldowns, then there's less of a reason to use a WHM. AST does not deserve any sort of buffs like divine seal due to the versatility of their kit. This class is not underpowered by any means but I feel it should retain the weaknesses of the lack of significant healing amplifying cooldowns, slightly lower base potencies, lack of oGCD AoE curing and they should remain being the weakest healer DPS.

Cooldowns can come in many shapes and forms, it doesn't have to be a pure throughput one. Even if you were to give ast a throughput cooldown it would in no way diminish "WHMs forte" since White Mages have about approximately a bazillion healing cooldowns. Calling the kit versatile is like calling a roll of the dice versatile, versatility is worth next to nothing unless sufficient control is given in regards to the results and that is not the case as is. If Sects could be swapped while in combat that would be versatility worth discussing.

The class somewhat rewards people who are great at making quick decisions. The things that require you to think quickly are just not on the level of power you're suggesting.

[lordparanoia]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQryUmn4XCE

Someone in my FC linked me to this vid of an AST solo healing Ravana EX.

EDiT: also found a thread about it in the GD, posted by the uploader http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-Solo-tank-DRK

Solo healing an easy content as Ravana ex is simple if people don't make many mistakes.
People in full 180 gear, with 6 dps, makes this fight much more easier.
Scholars and White mage could solo heal even easier. Maybe a conjurer too.
Nobody Can say that astrologian is a bad job. It's just weaker then white mages and scholars.
And people Who keep saying that it is not true, should accept the truth: maybe the dev team wanted to avoid to create overpowered jobs so they maybe nerfed them but imho they didn't have to be so strict with astrologians.