Astrologian buffs confirmed

[Staris]

If a group is i107 pushing i130 content they will bring a job that can provide consistency. Ast is not that and doesn't bring enough with "good rng" to justify bringing it over other jobs. Fine for farm content but not for early progression which is why those who love the job are asking for buffs.

Yeah they might bring 2 sch.
They will never bring a WHM they add 0 dps?
rng > 0

[TheWaywardWind]

Glad we have ruled out trying to math Astro's party dmg output, because like I said, way too many scenarios (arrow / spear) that cannot be calculated. Unless you calculated a single fight, which would be quite hard. And do this over hundreds of fights to see the actual increase. Basing everything off balance increase is far too simplified.

Oh no, you can still DEFINITELY use math to calculate Astro's totally DPS increase to the raid. That's simple and easy to do. You misread my point completely. My point is that there's not use in doing more math because 99% it's going to come out weaker than Balance's 1.5% increase anyway, so showing how shitty Astro is isn't going to help defend it. The class still very much needs buffs.

[RichardButte]

Your trying to simplify a lot of things that just aren't that simple at all. For one thing, Balance is the only buff in discussion that actually is a flat damage increase.

Then Arrow is more than likely worse than balance and I'm being kind. If not, it's not going to magically math out to being worth having garbage emergency options.

Basing everything off balance increase is far too simplified.

No, it really, REALLY isn't.

Balance gives the biggest DPS increase in all of the AST's tools (and no, Arrow isn't going to magically be a 1,000% DPS increase, which is pretty much what it would need to be to make the class not terribad), and it maths out to be negligible at best.

If Balance can't sell AST, then there's absolutely no reason to even consider bringing one over one of the other healers.

I see your SCH is at 50. My advice: get it to 60, put it in the same gear as your AST and you'll be able to appreciate just how much better of a healer SCH is by comparison, including how many more opportunities you have to unload your DPS and how much more mana you have to do so with.

Oh no, you can still DEFINITELY use math to calculate Astro's totally DPS increase to the raid. That's simple and easy to do. You misread my point completely. My point is that there's not use in doing more math because 99% it's going to come out weaker than Balance's 1.5% increase anyway, so showing how shitty Astro is isn't going to help defend it. The class still very much needs buffs.

See, if AST was a DPS class and we were sitting here trying to determine if its buffs made it worth bringing when compared to a BRD or MCH, that'd be one thing.

But seeing as it's a healer and will be queuing as a healer and as such will be expected to keep the group alive through encounters that are balanced around a SCH or WHM's emergency healing abilities, then yes, this is going to be a problem.

If AST could be the "good groups only" healer, where none of the DPS get hit by anything and you'll only ever have to heal unavoidable damage, sure, you can probably swing that and give some DPS to the party that's almost on par with what a SCH brings while having none of the same emergency options.

But again, ASTs are GOING to be in the DF, landing in bad parties or parties who are used to being able to chain pull packs of mobs without the healer going OOM after the second pack. You can blame the playerbase itself for this, but the end result is the same: if ASTs cannot handle those situations, it's only going to generate even more of a stigma toward the class than exists already (I've already had tanks say "Oh shit, an AST" in DF...).

It's actually pretty funny that the AST class quest storyline is all about how Astrologian magic isn't being accepted in Ishgard when SE is kinda seeing to it that the general playerbase feels the same way... (not everyone, of course, but the anti-AST bias is growing)

[Parawill]

Cheaper mana costs and lower potencies doesn't mean it's a better alternative. It means it takes more GCDs to do what Scholars or White Mages can do, which means you're almost (or always) playing catch-up with healing. Outside of RNG mechanics, when in Nocturnal Sect, it takes around 20 heals to gain one free GCD (5% * 20 = 100%), whereas Divine Seal takes a White Mage 3.3 heals to gain one free GCD (30% * 3.3 = 99%). Scholars have Fey Illumination, if we're talking a straight modifier to HPS, which takes 5 heals to make one free GCD (20% * 5 = 100%).

If AST heals are weaker because they should be providing a major increase in DPS to push phases and reduce the amount of HPS require (like 2 tank, 5 DPS, 1 healers T12 scenarios), then their cards are going to seriously need to be buffed. =/

[Leiloni]

So while you could do all the math in the world, it's not going to magically make AST any better. It requires too many perfect scenarios, too many perfect draws, too many perfect things, where as other buffs from other classes are set in stone. AST, unfortunately, does not have that luxury, and the cards need a buff in their overall DPS increase to show that.

Well that's the point I was trying to make. The poster was trying to say that this number is exactly how much DPS you get from an AST when it's just not something you can so easily quantify (and by the way I haven't been able to find a quality source post for that SCH math either). I'm pretty sure most people would agree that SCH offers more not just in the DPS buffs department, but defensive buffs, healing, etc. There's no need to come up with bad math to try to "prove" the class needs work. If he really wants to get into the details of some things I know people would appreciate it, but in this context all you're doing is giving people incorrect numbers to spew around the internet to support whatever their argument of the day is. That's what happened with that SCH number too.

[PetiteMalFleur]

Yeah they might bring 2 sch.
They will never bring a WHM they add 0 dps?
rng > 0

I don't know why people are so ready to discount WHM potential dps. My static whm spikes at 950 dps in A4 throwing boulders. The ease at which a whm can meet the minimum required hps to clear the encounter allows their partner to spend more time in clerics. Ast mana issues when dpsing full time are limiting and the unrealiable buffs lower total raid dps well below what the other healing pair can bring in raw damage even without selene.

[Leiloni]

If Balance can't sell AST, then there's absolutely no reason to even consider bringing one over one of the other healers.

I see your SCH is at 50. My advice: get it to 60, put it in the same gear as your AST and you'll be able to appreciate just how much better of a healer SCH is by comparison, including how many more opportunities you have to unload your DPS and how much more mana you have to do so with.


See, if AST was a DPS class and we were sitting here trying to determine if its buffs made it worth bringing when compared to a BRD or MCH, that'd be one thing.



But seeing as it's a healer and will be queuing as a healer and as such will be expected to keep the group alive through encounters that are balanced around a SCH or WHM's emergency healing abilities, then yes, this is going to be a problem.

Well you take a healer for more than DPS buffs which is why I find it odd that people are so focused on the Balance buff. You don't take a WHM for dps buffs and you wouldn't take a SCH if they didn't have a well rounded toolset to handle other situations outside of giving the party Fey Wind. AST needs more than just a better Balance. Our other cards have a lot of potential with a few tweaks to those and the card abilities. Our cooldowns need a lot of work to allow us to handle emergencies better. Our mana regen could use a little love. Even when the class gets all the fixes it needs people need to get rid of the SCH comparison. AST is a different healer that will not be able to exactly copy the roles the other ones do. We need a paradigm shift to find AST's niche and find one that makes us viable. SE already said any changes are going to be in the style of the AST class so we already know they're not going to try to make us closer comparisons to the other healers anyway.

If AST could be the "good groups only" healer, where none of the DPS get hit by anything and you'll only ever have to heal unavoidable damage, sure, you can probably swing that and give some DPS to the party that's almost on par with what a SCH brings while having none of the same emergency options.

I've seen this happen in other games actually. For the first couple years TERA was out the Priest was basically a SCH and WHM put together, and the Mystic was an AST with better buffs and less healing. The Priest was loved for nearly everything and Mystic's niche was with good statics that really only wanted their double crit buff, lots of mana regen, power buff, etc. Lesser and smaller heals didn't matter cause good parties took very little damage. However that was a small niche considering the Priest could still do the same job well, so that made the class unpopular to play for a long time. It was not fun for the community or the Mystics that they had a harder time with a lot of situations, or some they just flat out could not do. Their reputation suffered for it. (It did eventually get patched enough to where they were balanced). I see the AST in very much the same way here, but it really needs more than a "good static" niche.

But again, ASTs are GOING to be in the DF, landing in bad parties or parties who are used to being able to chain pull packs of mobs without the healer going OOM after the second pack. You can blame the playerbase itself for this, but the end result is the same: if ASTs cannot handle those situations, it's only going to generate even more of a stigma toward the class than exists already (I've already had tanks say "Oh shit, an AST" in DF...).

This is actually a big problem right now. I'll have one group that's amazing and makes me enjoy the class and another one that is just not in so many ways and they blame all the issues on the AST, furthering their own stigima of "AST is bad". But do that same dungeon on a WHM or a SCH and the party doesn't do that. For a bit I was trying to level AST and WHM at the same time because I'd had enough groups to where I didn't even want to do group content while leveling. Until I took my WHM into a dungeon my AST had had issues with and realized the class was fine. It does need some adjustments, but the overall game community's opinion is more negative than positive.

[Leiloni]

Cheaper mana costs and lower potencies doesn't mean it's a better alternative. It means it takes more GCDs to do what Scholars or White Mages can do, which means you're almost (or always) playing catch-up with healing. Outside of RNG mechanics, when in Nocturnal Sect, it takes around 20 heals to gain one free GCD (5% * 20 = 100%), whereas Divine Seal takes a White Mage 3.3 heals to gain one free GCD (30% * 3.3 = 99%). Scholars have Fey Illumination, if we're talking a straight modifier to HPS, which takes 5 heals to make one free GCD (20% * 5 = 100%).

If AST heals are weaker because they should be providing a major increase in DPS to push phases and reduce the amount of HPS require (like 2 tank, 5 DPS, 1 healers T12 scenarios), then their cards are going to seriously need to be buffed. =/

It's not the base heals that are weaker but it's our cooldowns that don't really measure up. The stance effects in both stances bring our base heals up to par, but when you really need to pump out more is when we start falling behind. They can leave our base heals where they are in terms of potency if they give us more useful cooldowns.

[Arcana]

We’re thinking of making adjustments where astrologians will be able to use Spread while not in combat, or shortening the recast time for Shuffle. We have received feedback on how Lightspeed is hard to use, and so we’re planning to make adjustments so you can clearly feel the strength of this. As for Collective Unconscious and Celestial Opposition, instead of adjusting the stats similar to other healer actions, we’ll make astrologian-like adjustments where they switch between stances. We’ll make these adjustments without waiting for Alexander (Savage).

Are you sure this is the correct translation about Yoshi-P said? If this is true then Alex Savage will be in at least 2 weeks from now because still no love for AST...

[lordparanoia]

I'm almost sure that the adjustment will come with patch 3.05, when Alexander (savage) is added.