Why people says AST is bad?

[Crevox]

Faster cause their regen stance increases attack speed which is your casting speed. Any AST that doesn't know that, needs to seriously re-evaluate their stuff

A mediocre increase not worth the merit. It reduces our main heal's cast time by 0.10 sec, and our group heal by 0.13 sec. This in no way makes us a "fast healer", and serves only to attempt to slightly band-aid our already existing handicaps (weak healing) and hurt our already poor MP efficiency even further.

While yes, the increase is decent, it's not enough to put us into the category of "fast healer." That's all assuming you are actually using 1 of our 2 sects too (there's another one, even if it's weak right now). Other healers have speed increases of their own (Presence of Mind, Fey Wind) as well, along with stronger instant cast heals (Indomitability, Assize, Tetragrammaton, Benediction) so it's not like we're the only one, even if our bonus is passive.

Do you optimize your use of Luminiferous Aether and Lightspeed in order to spam Gravity in a group of ennemies after you put your dot on them

Using Lightspeed with Gravity is a DPS loss and an MP efficiency loss.

Holding aether until you have a spear card is an MP loss, and a DPS loss for your party because you're not using the other cards for them (or even that card).

Why are you doing this to yourself?

Some are usefull in dungeon, some in raid, some combo are quit helpfull in solo quest.

And yet all are weak.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-Needs-Changes

The only quantifiable gain you can get out of them is a party DPS increase, but again, AST's DPS as a healer is so poor that it's not worth it (the other healers will contribute more, and cost less MP doing it). That's also ignoring the fact that Selene is a better party DPS buffer than Astrologian is.

Lightspeed is nice when you run around and spam helios/aspected.

This will absolutely kill your MP pool at higher levels, while also making the heals much weaker. There's also no reason to do it when you can just stand still and cast it.

Like that only a little of players can handle this.

There's nothing to "handle." The job is straight up weaker than the other two healers with nothing in return.

You're also not 60 yet. Please refrain from commenting on the performance and difficulty of the job until 60. It gets much, much worse.

At the moment, playing AST, all you're doing is crippling yourself and your party. Either one of the other two healers would be far better, in both DPS and healing. Beside all the weaker heals, worse MP efficiency, and worse DPS, we are also lacking all the great cooldowns the other two jobs have at their disposal.

[JonnyBigBoss]

Lightspeed is nice when you run around and spam helios/aspected.

Personally, one thing I think will fix AST for good is to lower card draw cooldown to 15 seconds. This means there's always a card in play.

I'd like that but it will never happen.

[Cynfael]

Faster cause their regen stance increases attack speed which is your casting speed. Any AST that doesn't know that, needs to seriously re-evaluate their stuff

People know this; it just doesn't matter.

The only real benefit the additional attack speed provides is a marginal DPS increase from Malefic spam. Refer to the numerous discussions on how casting speed increases are generally worthless for healing purposes for more information as to why this is.

[RichardButte]

The buff are good enough.

No, they're not.

They're not good enough to justify bringing an AST over anything else. As we've already said, SCH has a party wide buff which averages out to a constant 1.5% increase in DPS AND healing, and they have better emergency buttons, utility and DPS.

I'm sorry, but you're arguing against cold, hard math, here. That's a sure sign that it's a good time to rethink your stance.

And yes, I do all of those things you mentioned as an AST, and I do the equivalent as a SCH and the SCH contributes more DPS because SCH has 4 AoE DoTs (the three spread with Bane + the AoE on the ground) AND one single target from cross classing, plus a fairy that heals the tank for 300 potency cures every 3 seconds, giving me even more time to stand there and DPS, AND the fairy gives a 1.5% DPS and healing buff all the time to the entire party.

It doesn't matter how well you play AST: the best played AST in the world would still be a more effective healer playing as a SCH or WHM, just like how the best Bowser player in the world will still lose out to a good Shiek in Smash Bros Melee.

The technical limitations of the class >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> player skill, when it comes to determining how effective the class can be.

The buffs aren't worth it, and even if you pull balance EVERY time, SCH still beats us.

[RiisWolf]

A mediocre increase not worth the merit. It reduces our main heal's cast time by 0.10 sec, and our group heal by 0.13 sec. This in no way makes us a "fast healer", and serves only to attempt to slightly band-aid our already existing handicaps (weak healing) and hurt our already poor MP efficiency even further.

While yes, the increase is decent, it's not enough to put us into the category of "fast healer." That's all assuming you are actually using 1 of our 2 sects too (there's another one, even if it's weak right now). Other healers have speed increases of their own (Presence of Mind, Fey Wind) as well, along with stronger instant cast heals (Indomitability, Assize, Tetragrammaton, Benediction) so it's not like we're the only one, even if our bonus is passive.

Do you have ANY idea how effective Fey wind is now?

AST's Diurnal Sect increases attack speed by 5% while active.
Fey Wind increases attack speed by 3% for 30 seconds and has 1 minute CD. And keep in mind, you said how ineffective 5% is, so why are you spouting NEED favoring spell that is so nerfed it's doing no one a huge favor?
Presence of mind from WHMs, sure increases speed by 20%, but your not using it again for 2.5 minutes! Sooner if for whatever reason they get buffed by the spear card. That CD is best for killing things faster or speeding up with much need healing normally for emergencies. THe CD is so long, why is this even being compared to the other two???
And WHM's are always the best when it comes to raw healing (and power), but they sure can't support like ASTs do, not even as much as a SCH, whom are not capable of providing any significant Damage increase, resource reduction, CD reduction.

[Crevox]

Fey Wind increases attack speed by 3% for 30 seconds and has 1 minute CD. And keep in mind, you said how ineffective 5% is, so why are you spouting NEED favoring spell that is so nerfed it's doing no one a huge favor?

Fey Wind got buffed. It used to increase skill speed and spell speed, and they were on seperate timers. The only time those were better than the new Fey Wind is if you actually had enough spell/skill speed so the multiplier was worth it.

There was only one job in 2.0 that stacked speed (Black Mage) so it is overall a win for everyone. That's also assuming the Black Mage in your party actually did stack Spell Speed, which currently, due to the minimal gear choices that exist, they have no control over that.

I say how great Fey Wind is because it's a DPS increase for the entire party; more so than Astrologian cards give, due to the consistency and reliability of it.

That CD is best for killing things faster or speeding up with much need healing. THe CD is so long, why is this even being compared to the other two???

Because it exists for when you need it. It's far better than Lightspeed, because Lightspeed doesn't touch your GCD, and cripples your healing. Presence of Mind affects GCD (which ultimately increases healing throughput and DPS) while also having no penalty. Yet, for some reason, Lightspeed has the same recast timer........

Like Cynfael already explained, passive speed increases on healing (spell speed, Diurnal Sect) are not useful. They are mediocre throughput increases with decreases in MP efficiency. Presence of Mind is good because you can turn it on when you do need the throughput, and it's a huge amount.

SCH, whom are not capable of providing any significant Damage increase, resource reduction, CD reduction.

Fey Wind gives more DPS than all of Astrologian's cards throughout the entire fight. It takes an Astrologian far too long to set up the buffs to increase damage due to RNG, Draw cooldown, Royal Road, etc. Scholar also does much more DPS single target and AoE, while costing a portion of the MP, while being able to heal in Cleric Stance (fairy). Scholar can also get huge value out of cleric stance by just snapshotting dots, turning it off, and going back to healing.

Not even going to comment on resource reduction and CD reduction because I already explained in huge detail as to why those cards are poor.

[RichardButte]

And WHM's are always the best when it comes to raw healing (and power), but they sure can't support like ASTs do, not even as much as a SCH, whom are not capable of providing any significant Damage increase, resource reduction, CD reduction.

Do you actually play AST? If you do, have you also played any other healer?

Lv59 SCH and 56 AST, here, and I can safely say that the buffs just...aren't..worth...it. Nothing an AST brings to a party is worth bringing a healer with crappier cooldowns and emergency buttons, and that's even IF the AST could pull the right every single time (which it can't).

Again, the numbers are against you, here. Anyone who insists on saying that AST is fine in the face of the raw data that proves otherwise may as well just be trying to argue that the earth is flat...

[RiisWolf]

Fey Wind got buffed. It used to increase skill speed and spell speed, and they were on seperate timers. The only time those were better than the new Fey Wind is if you actually had enough spell/skill speed so the multiplier was worth it.

Fey Wind used to be two parts that gives 30% skill speed or spell speed. Now it's both speeds at a tenth of what it used to do. It's a nerf.

[Crevox]

Fey Wind used to be two parts that gives 30% skill speed or spell speed. Now it's both speeds at a tenth of what it used to do. It's a nerf.

It didn't affect attack speed before, it affected the skill/spell speed stat in your character window, which was far worse. Attack speed is a straight up 3% reduction off of cast time, auto attack delay, and recast time. It's also important to mention that it didn't even affect auto attack delay before, which is a huge portion of any physical attacker's DPS.

The combined nature of it also allows you to better control the DPS gain in tense DPS phases of fights. Rather than only half the party benefiting every 30 seconds, the whole party does, so you can pop it during something like Bismarck's back and the whole party can reap the DPS benefits.

Why do I bother explaining :|

[NorthernLadMSP]

You're also not 60 yet. Please refrain from commenting on the performance and difficulty of the job until 60. It gets much, much worse.

At the moment, playing AST, all you're doing is crippling yourself and your party. Either one of the other two healers would be far better, in both DPS and healing. Beside all the weaker heals, worse MP efficiency, and worse DPS, we are also lacking all the great cooldowns the other two jobs have at their disposal.

As much as I was so incredibly excited and pumped for Astrologian, unfortunately, I have to agree with this. It really doesn't bring anything to the table that is worth the weak heals and worst healer MP efficiency in the game.