Revamping Astrologian

[RazeLandale]

Maintain current potency of cards however target AOE effect is baseline.

I think this might need done, or alternatively, removing aoe altogether. Either way you get a consistency you can balance around.

[Brightshadow]

Astrologians have a lot of potential, but we cannot possibly compete with our fellow healers unless we get a revamped toolkit. We don't need super game breaking changes or anything like that, but we do need a way to entice people to consider whether to bring a whm,sch, or ast for the second healer spot because if we are considered a second rate whm/sch hybrid job the job is going to be a forgotten art in eorzea that nobody uses because it's useless.

Here are adjustments I think would be beneficial to the job. Many of these ideas revolve around giving the Astrologian their own identity with the cards rather than making them stronger whm/sch second rate hybrids.

1.) Cards of Fate
It's obvious that this is the main mechanic of the job; however, its just not powerful enough to warrant them a possible raid spot because Scholars have 100% control over their "haste" buff and surprisingly the scholar is not only capable of providing healing, and buffing but they are also fully capable of DPSING 50% to 100% of the time depending on certain encounters because they have a pet that compliments their healing perfectly fine so we are overkilled by the scholar raid utility. As for the White Mage they do what they were made to do which is healing so we are never going to beat them in that department, now the problem is that we are competing mostly with the White Mage because we are more closely related to them due to our "diurnal sect" being our bread and butter stance. Instead what I propose is to make us more powerful and comparable to Scholars so we can compete for the same spot because realistically we are never going to be able to compete with the White Mage because they are the staple healer of the game and any new healer that is added is going to bring more utilities than healing power. So here are my ideas to make them not only stronger but also more capable backup healers.

A.) Make the stances affect our cards.
-Diurnal Sect: Increases casting speed by 5% while adding a "Regen" effect to certain actions. (Additional Effect: Increases the potency of the cards by 50%.)

-Noctural Sect: Increases healing magic potency by 5% while adding a damage nullifying barrier to certain actions. (Additional Effect: Extends Effect of the cards to nearby targets while lowering the potency of the cards by 50%.)

B.) Make "Draw" a fundamental tool for recovering MP.

-Every Draw should recover 5% of the Astrologian base MP.

C.) Cards should function in any party composition.

-The Balance: (+6% Physical Damage/+6% Magical Damage)

-The Bole: (-8% Damage Taken/+4% Evasion Up)

-The Arrow: (+8% Haste/-10% Recast Timers)

-The Spear (+8% Accuracy/+4% Critical Hit Rate)

-The Ewer (-10% MP cost/-10% TP cost)

-The Spire (+10% HP up/+4% Parry)

D.) Additional Changes.

-Royal Road (New Effect): Consumes the drawn card Increasing healing magic potency by 10% for 15s The card Consumed cannot be redrawn for 1 minute. (Recast: 1 Minute)

-Spread (Adjustment): The card "Spread" cannot be redrawn until used or discarded.

-Shuffle (Adjustment): 2 Charges (Recharges one charge in 45s)

-Lightspeed (Adjustment): Remove the debilitating effect, and lower duration to 10s.

-Stella (Adjustment): Change Additional Effect to "Slow".

-Essential Dignity (Adjustment): Additional Effect (Scales the same way that the burst heal does)
Diurnal Stance: 250 (MAX) Potency Regen 8s / Noctural Stance: 500 (MAX) Potency Shield

-Gravity (Adjustment): Additional Effect: Heavy, and level learned lowered to 46 while combust II is increased to level 52.

-Celestial Opposition (Adjustment): beneficial effect duration extend upgraded to 15s, and recast lowered to 1 minute.

-Wheel of Fortune (New Level 58): (Collective Unconscious: Deleted)
A RNG emergency cure that can heal in a multitude of ways.

Possibility No.1: Bouncing Cures (A wave of energy bounces between friend and foe causing damage to enemies and healing the party member with the lowest HP. (6 Bounces)

Possibility No.2: Chained Fates (Connects all your cures to the party spreading 50% of the healing potency done to the main target to the party.) 8s duration

Possibility No.3: Lady Luck (Applies a Reraise effect to the target with the lowest HP, allowing them to revive instantly at full HP without weakness. Does not work on dead targets.) 8s duration

Possibility No.4: Time Reversal (Applies a living dead type effect on the target with the lowest HP, allowing you to heal them to full before they the timer runs out or they KO.) 8s duration

[Heinel]

-Essential Dignity (Adjustment): Additional Effect (Scales the same way that the burst heal does)
Diurnal Stance: 250 (MAX) Potency Regen 8s / Noctural Stance: 500 (MAX) Potency Shield

This will mostly just overheal. The problem with AST burst heal wasn't that the burst wasn't big enough. It's because we only have one.

[Rajeme]

This will mostly just overheal. The problem with AST burst heal wasn't that the burst wasn't big enough. It's because we only have one.

I agree with this. Either they add another emergency heal, or adjust lightspeed so it can act as a makeshift one.

[Zaresin]

I really hate this stupid text limit. Annoying.

[Zaresin]

Ok I\\'ve read a crap ton on people\\'s opinion on ast. Yes they have their issues (my think is SE intentionally made them underpowered to avoid what happened with NIN when it came out.

I do have one question. Why is it everyone is only focusing on Diurnal in their posts? I\\'ve noticed if you played whm then thy prefer Di where as former sch (like myself) prefer Noc.

The way I see it Noc is superior in my opinion inn that we get 5% pot increase on spells and a shield on the aspected spells. Ive always viewed shields as essentially a double heal as that shield will take the brunt of the damage rather than their health allowing me to use a lower cost heal. Di while offering a regen mechanic may make you cast 5% faster but as someone in another thread did the math that only comes out to .18 faster spell cast. Not enough to warrant losing 5% potency over when AST need as much spell potency they can get. While certain tanks (warrior only) I've had problems having to spam heals on them during speed runs of 60 content other tanks I don't go below half mana most the time leaving me plenty of time to cast my dots and use my cards. So I'm honestly a little confused as to where some people are coming from. I would be curious to see what ilvl people are running the content in that they are having issues as mine is only 163 at the moment and have not been having issues and the several AST in my FC that have done the new extremes also did not have much issue when they were geared appropriately.

[sharazisspecial]

The 5% heal potency doesn't effect Damage Spells but the 5% Haste does.

AST has mana troubles. Noct Ast has to cast more heals then Dinual sect.
Aspect benefic DI is much more mana efficient then aspect benefic noct.

[Zaresin]

Wait wait wait....hold on. Are you telling me people are basing their opinions on the life of a job because of people wanting to cast milliseconds faster rather than heal 5% more and either completely mitigate damage or a large chunk of it allowing you to DPS or some other healer duty in that time. That is the dumbest thing I've ever read. DPSING comes secondary to Healing.

[NorthernLadMSP]

No, we are saying that the shields from Noc disappear so quickly, you end up having to use MORE mana to heal properly as opposed to the regen from Dinural being much more mana efficient.

[sharazisspecial]

completely mitigate damage

Aspect benefic shield are very lacklustre

At ilvl 179
AB - 1750 shield
AH- 950

DI aspect benefic is potentially 790 potency overall. Whereas Noct is 500.

Wait wait wait....hold on. Are you telling me people are basing their opinions on the life of a job because of people wanting to cast milliseconds faster rather than heal 5% more and either completely mitigate damage or a large chunk of it allowing you to DPS or some other healer duty in that time. That is the dumbest thing I've ever read. DPSING comes secondary to Healing.

I was simply listing a perk of Di over Noct. I was not trying to say that because of this sole perk Di is better.
2.31 gcd Dots vs 2.44 gcd Dots isnt a miniscule difference either.