Astrologian buffs confirmed

[GideonHighmourn]

Fey Wind is roughly equal (.25% higher) to having an Expanded Arrow running on the group (discounting RNG, assuming 25% up time for Expanded Arrow); Fey Wind is about .25% more effective given it's duration.

Food for thought.

[ViDare]

I would love to see the following changes come to AST soon

Lightspeed Give a +10% healing potency bonus with instacast but keep the -25% potency when used with damaging spells
Ewer and Spire To give a 30 potency Refresh and Regain effect respectively, even buffed these wouldn't be incredibly gamebreaking considering the RNG involved.
Draw Would love to see the duration of buffs increased to 30sec
Expanded Royal Road Instead of -50% potency I would like it changed to -50% duration, make using it worth it because right now the best we have is +5% attack for 15sec
Collective Unconscious Be floor targetable similar to Sacred Soil and Asylum
Shuffle 45 sec cooldown

I really think the enhanced Ewer would go a long way with helping ASTwith MP issues as well

[Leiloni]

I would love to see the following changes come to AST soon

Lightspeed Give a +10% healing potency bonus with instacast but keep the -25% potency when used with damaging spells
Ewer and Spire To give a 30 potency Refresh and Regain effect respectively, even buffed these wouldn't be incredibly gamebreaking considering the RNG involved.
Draw Would love to see the duration of buffs increased to 30sec
Expanded Royal Road Instead of -50% potency I would like it changed to -50% duration, make using it worth it because right now the best we have is +5% attack for 15sec
Collective Unconscious Be floor targetable similar to Sacred Soil and Asylum
Shuffle 45 sec cooldown

I really think the enhanced Ewer would go a long way with helping ASTwith MP issues as well

I like these ideas except I'm a bit unsure about your Expanded RR suggestion. Sure that'd be nice for some burst but I wonder if the randomness of our buffs would make that less useful, since you can't always use it exactly when you want to.

[ViDare]

I like these ideas except I'm a bit unsure about your Expanded RR suggestion. Sure that'd be nice for some burst but I wonder if the randomness of our buffs would make that less useful, since you can't always use it exactly when you want to.

Currently all our buffs give a 15sec buff and when used with Expanded Royal Road you get a -50% buff for 15 sec, so with the changes i'm suggesting we'd be back at 15sec cause of the -50% duration but a full strength buff. I think this will make AST more appealing to have join parties, since we could offer some serious buffs but without breaking the game since the RNG factor makes us a little unreliable

[RichardButte]

Unfortunately, you "dumbing it down" is still stating the incorrect information. Your fault is that you're assuming everyone in the raid DPS' at the same level.

I acknowledged that I was saying that for the sake of simplicity, but really, I don't care about the nitty gritty details because they don't make any difference at this point. We already have our answer.

If you wanted to start working toward a useful number, here's what you can do:

Determine how much quicker an AST can end a boss' phase via whatever speed/DPS they bring to a fight on average, specifically looking for phases where the boss flings out periodic AoE burst damage that the healers would benefit from not having to heal if they could push to the next phase more quickly.

From there, it's a question of which is better: the WHM/SCH's emergency options and sustainability vs. the AST's chance to expanded RR Balance the party multiple times to reach the end of the phase more rapidly.

But I'm prematurely going to lean toward victory going to the WHM/SCHs because, even assuming perfect card draws (expanded RR + Balance every minute) and no DPS from SCH/WHM, the lack of healing output and mana base still...won't...justify...bringing...an...AST due to weaker emergency options and mana management.

Is 5% extra damage done (from the classes who are dealing damage) 15 seconds of every minute worth the risk of losing a tank to a lack of burst healing and emergency buttons? THAT is the question, though I'm pretty sure we already know the answer...

[Leiloni]

Currently all our buffs give a 15sec buff and when used with Expanded Royal Road you get a -50% buff for 15 sec, so with the changes i'm suggesting we'd be back at 15sec cause of the -50% duration but a full strength buff. I think this will make AST more appealing to have join parties, since we could offer some serious buffs but without breaking the game since the RNG factor makes us a little unreliable

No you said to replace the potency debuff with a duration debuff. So instead of a full party 5% attack buff for 15 seconds, they'd get a 10% buff for 7.5 seconds. So instead, you're saying you meant to ask them to remove the penalty entirely and just expand a full strength/full duration buff on an entire party?

[ViDare]

Sorry I meant that I'd like to see Draw buffs increased to 30 secs to make them more noticable/appealing to groups. Then if you use this with Expanded you would get a 15 sec buff

[Ghishlain]

I acknowledged that I was saying that for the sake of simplicity, but really, I don't care about the nitty gritty details because they don't make any difference at this point. We already have our answer.

Richard, I've seen your post regarding AST and how they're a hybrid role and I commend you for taking the time and thought with it. My intent isn't to belittle your thoughts, but to show some insight in my train of thought.

What I'm trying to impart on you is this - If you wish to truly balance a class, you must first understand where it must be balanced. This is why it's important to understand these nitty gritty details because it allows the people to provide meaningful suggestions.

As much as we can all work off "gut feelings", this is not how the game works and is balanced. It's important to remove emotion and consider hard facts when determining how to balance a class.

This is why I take issue with your error. It's not because your explanation is simple, but because your explanation is flat out wrong.

Let's take your example you gave.

A 1.5% increase to all players is the same value as a 12% increase to one person (assuming everyone is DPSing at the time)

This error implies that the easiest fix to AST is to make sure the card you draw that increases damage output to a 36% mark (1/3 chance to draw Balance or Arrow) and have it last 30 seconds long to match Fey Wind.

If you did this, you would put AST into the realm of overpowered. If you take my previous math example.

Let's say this is the DPS breakdown:

DPS #1 - 1,000 DPS
DPS #2 - 900 DPS
DPS #3 - 800 DPS
DPS #4 - 600 DPS
Tank #1 - 400 DPS
Tank #2 - 350 DPS
Healers - 0 DPS

Raid DPS is now 4,050 DPS. A 1.5% increase to DPS results in an increase of 60.75 DPS which then translates into 4,110.75 DPS.

Now, if we use your example that we increase the power of a single DPS by 12% and increase DPS #1 by 12% they're doing an additional 120 DPS and bringing up the raid DPS to 4,170.

Ergo, 1.5% DPS increase for the raid =/= 12% DPS increase for a single player.

For simplicity sake (yes, I know, irony), let's say Balance is now 36% Damage boost for 30 seconds.

If we draw a single Balance in a minute, we've given our #1 DPS a 180 DPS increase (18% / min increase) or a 4.4% increase to party DPS
If we draw double Balance in a minute, we've given our #1 DPS a 360 DPS increase (36% / min increase) or a 8.9% increase to party DPS
If we RR Extend Balance in a minute, we've given our #1 DPS a 360 DPS increase (36% / min increase) or a 8.9% increase to party DPS
If we RR Enhance Balance in a minute, we've given our #1 DPS a 270 DPS increase (27% / min increase) or a 6.7% increase to party DPS
If we RR Expand Balance in a minute, we've given our entire raid an additional 9% increase to party DPS

Can you kinda see where I'm going at here? By providing the wrong feedback, you've now improperly balanced a class and made it much more powerful than it should be.

Again, please don't mistaken this as me trying to belittle your opinion. I'm only trying to open your eyes and try to keep the spread of misinformation from happening. I've always been a staunch supporter of "proper information" because it allows us as players to make correct decisions and opinions.

[RichardButte]

Again, please don't mistaken this as me trying to belittle your opinion. I'm only trying to open your eyes and try to keep the spread of misinformation from happening. I've always been a staunch supporter of "proper information" because it allows us as players to make correct decisions and opinions.

Fair enough, but as I said, we still don't have the important piece of the puzzle, that being how quickly an AST could hypothetically help to end a phase faster.

And frankly, I don't even really care to deal with the issue beyond that. I could spend hours testing AST vs. SCH, but I'm not even sure the Japanese devs even consider feedback from this forum (they sure as hell haven't listened to requests to make hunt mob HP scale so that a few griefers can't ruin hunts for the whole server...).

I'm just sick of people saying, "AST is fine!" when most of them haven't even played another healer at 60 for the sake of comparison, and I'm extra sick of people not understanding how risk vs. reward and probability need to function in order to balance the AST. How a higher chance AGAINST drawing the best buffs means that, when those buffs DO get drawn, they need to be pretty damn amazing to justify all of the times you WON'T be drawing them.

[Nihility]

I acknowledged that I was saying that for the sake of simplicity, but really, I don't care about the nitty gritty details because they don't make any difference at this point. We already have our answer.

If you wanted to start working toward a useful number, here's what you can do:

Determine how much quicker an AST can end a boss' phase via whatever speed/DPS they bring to a fight on average, specifically looking for phases where the boss flings out periodic AoE burst damage that the healers would benefit from not having to heal if they could push to the next phase more quickly.

From there, it's a question of which is better: the WHM/SCH's emergency options and sustainability vs. the AST's chance to expanded RR Balance the party multiple times to reach the end of the phase more rapidly.

But I'm prematurely going to lean toward victory going to the WHM/SCHs because, even assuming perfect card draws (expanded RR + Balance every minute) and no DPS from SCH/WHM, the lack of healing output and mana base still...won't...justify...bringing...an...AST due to weaker emergency options and mana management.

Is 5% extra damage done (from the classes who are dealing damage) 15 seconds of every minute worth the risk of losing a tank to a lack of burst healing and emergency buttons? THAT is the question, though I'm pretty sure we already know the answer...

there is more to it still than your even getting at there

like the scholar's fey wind is 50% uptime of 3% haste which is also effective on the tanks and healers and no downtime trying to set it up again.
VS
if you somehow manage to get perfect cards nonstop to get 15s of 5% damage for the dps per minute

and that scholar and whm can actually do considerable dps on their own while astro's personal dps is complete garbage and they don't really have the mp to spare on it anyways.
Is that even something you can make a comparison for?
the odds of never actually getting the combo to extend a balance during an entire fight seems to be just as good as getting it only once or twice while a scholar can heal and maintain dots and fey wind and has a whole plethora of damage reduction and emergency healing skills at their disposal too

don't get me wrong i really like playing as astro, it has a lighter feel than the other healers and the actual card mechanics are very fun.
but the numbers for healing output and mana management and utility and damage are just not there


just as one example take collective unconcious. It is actually equivalent strength to sacred soil
but sacred soil is 30s cooldown, ogc instant cast, targeted, and has a mana efficiency component
VS a 90s cooldown, channeled spell, that you have to be in the center of
it's just very clearly inferior in every way. Like with all the downsides they should make it like 30% damage reduction, it actually needs to be so strong that the second healer can handle things on their own while it's channeled or it has no point even existing