Astrologian buffs confirmed

[Leiloni]

I read an extremely interesting idea earlier:
What if Synastry was a permanent buff?

What if it were something you could toss out and leave up indefinitely, or switch targets at will?
In short, what if AST were a class based around card buffs and synchronicity heals?

It would certainly go a long way to redeeming their lacklustre heal potency.

I posted that in a comment on some Reddit post recently. It's a mechanic that one of the WoW healers has and I want to say another game does that too but I can't remember which one. Except it works a bit differently. Instead of only heals from that one target going to your tank (or whoever else), any heals on anybody in the group go to your target. And it's essentially a permanent buff.

But that healer class is primarily a tank healer, and they also don't have a lot of AoE healing, so Synastry can't work exactly the same way. It would be interesting if they modified our Synastry though since it is useful, but with the short duration and cooldown it's a bit disappointing. I do think if they rework Synastry in some way it can be a great way to help up save mana and increase our healing output which are two things we do need help with. And it would be unique to the AST so they're not directly copying the other healer's skills.

[LycorisSelunis]

I read an extremely interesting idea earlier:
What if Synastry was a permanent buff?

What if it were something you could toss out and leave up indefinitely, or switch targets at will?
In short, what if AST were a class based around card buffs and synchronicity heals?

It would certainly go a long way to redeeming their lacklustre heal potency.

:/ This is not WoW- It works there but I don't think it would work here since the healing is so different. Though I kinda wish we had a chain-heal type spell...it could be called constellation or something like that ._. Actually since our aspected helios range is so small something like that would be great for spread healing. But I digress.

Though I would suggest perhaps if we have synastry on a target, and we heal that target, the heal gets a 25% increase so we can at least perhaps have ONE cd that is good for a tank spiking into oblivion, since lightspeed is not good for that whatsoever.

[Parawill]

I'm changing my perspective. The more I discuss the more I realize that I feel like I'm understanding AST wrong. Despite us not having emergency heals, take note that both White Mages and Scholars have received many quality of life skills such as Assize, Tetrgrammaton, Deployment Tactics, Emergency Tactics and whatnot. Now look at party composition for raid.

With an introduction of three new classes with this expansion and ninja (from whenever that was), party dynamics have changed and there will be optimal compositions that triumph over another.

Currently, as I mained a White Mage prior to Heavensward, I've been trying to heal like a White Mage and let my Scholar do their typical Scholar things; however, due to my inability to heal like a White Mage, a Scholar must change their playstyle to compensate for mine. So instead of Astrologians taking the place of a White Mage, it's actually the reverse. Scholars become the "main healer" as their priority should be more mitigation with Astrologian helping out with sustained heals.

In situations where it's Astrologian & White Mage, White Mage will handle the bulk of the healing and Astrologians will be a pseudo-scholar but will still be prioritizing their main core system, the cards. Astrologians are there to increase DPS and whatnot, and capitalize on certain situations such as saving a Balance with spread during a burn phase and coordinating with the party to stack damage buffs for maximum effect. In addition to this, since AST doesn't have Virus or a reliable type of Sacred Soil, you can shift your party composition to compensate for that. So yeah, in the event you run AST & White Mage, you should maybe take in a more defensive party composition and have a Warrior, Monk, Summoner & MCH for the stacking damage/stat reducing debuffs.

Oh boy. I'm getting excited talking about this >_< Tell me what you think. I don't have math to justify this, so please take this with a grain of salt.

[Glasya]

Too many people would cry op if that were to happen.

If you look at the raw numbers, and consider the fact AST have extremely few contingency options, furthermore that Synastry only works with Benefic 1/2 all it really does is level the playing field against the other healers- who at this point are extremely strong in comparison.

I doubt this is the path SE will have decided to take the class down, but it would establish a new niche for Astrologian and make them slightly more interesting than the raw mix of Lv 50 WHM/SCH they are now (with the card gimmick thrown in).

[Cynfael]

I'm changing my perspective. The more I discuss the more I realize that I feel like I'm understanding AST wrong. Despite us not having emergency heals, take note that both White Mages and Scholars have received many quality of life skills such as Assize, Tetrgrammaton, Deployment Tactics, Emergency Tactics and whatnot. Now look at party composition for raid.

With an introduction of three new classes with this expansion and ninja (from whenever that was), party dynamics have changed and there will be optimal compositions that triumph over another.

Currently, as I mained a White Mage prior to Heavensward, I've been trying to heal like a White Mage and let my Scholar do their typical Scholar things; however, due to my inability to heal like a White Mage, a Scholar must change their playstyle to compensate for mine. So instead of Astrologians taking the place of a White Mage, it's actually the reverse. Scholars become the "main healer" as their priority should be more mitigation with Astrologian helping out with sustained heals.

In situations where it's Astrologian & White Mage, White Mage will handle the bulk of the healing and Astrologians will be a pseudo-scholar but will still be prioritizing their main core system, the cards. Astrologians are there to increase DPS and whatnot, and capitalize on certain situations such as saving a Balance with spread during a burn phase and coordinating with the party to stack damage buffs for maximum effect. In addition to this, since AST doesn't have Virus or a reliable type of Sacred Soil, you can shift your party composition to compensate for that. So yeah, in the event you run AST & White Mage, you should maybe take in a more defensive party composition and have a Warrior, Monk, Summoner & MCH for the stacking damage/stat reducing debuffs.

Oh boy. I'm getting excited talking about this >_< Tell me what you think. I don't have math to justify this, so please take this with a grain of salt.

Without going into too much detail, the issue that immediately comes to mind is that there is little room in the meta for "defensive" party comps. There's simply no reason to stack all the mitigation in the world when what you really need is just enough mitigation to handle mechanics and then as much DPS as you can possibly get.

I like the train of thought here, but I'm not sure with which party comp the somewhat random and mostly weak buffs of AST will really shine. Perhaps after they receive a round of buffs and tweaks they'll truly have a place, but at the moment it's difficult to come up with a situation where AST is a competitive pick over the other two healers. They work, but they're undeniably a bit underpowered except in those moments when the stars align (horrible pun, forgive me) and RNGesus rewards your diligent planning with exactly the card selections you were hoping for.

[RichardButte]

In situations where it's Astrologian & White Mage, White Mage will handle the bulk of the healing and Astrologians will be a pseudo-scholar but will still be prioritizing their main core system, the cards. Astrologians are there to increase DPS and whatnot, and capitalize on certain situations such as saving a Balance with spread during a burn phase and coordinating with the party to stack damage buffs for maximum effect. In addition to this, since AST doesn't have Virus or a reliable type of Sacred Soil, you can shift your party composition to compensate for that. So yeah, in the event you run AST & White Mage, you should maybe take in a more defensive party composition and have a Warrior, Monk, Summoner & MCH for the stacking damage/stat reducing debuffs.

The problem with this is twofold...

First of all, forming a raid group around the weaknesses of the AST isn't going to go over well with many players. If I was told I couldn't bring my BLM because we need to build the raid around compensating for the weaknesses of the AST, it's only going to stoke the flames of animosity toward ASTs.

Second, if savage encounters are lenient enough on healing that you can lean on one healer to do the majority of the healing, then the encounters are going to steamrolled by groups bringing two reliable healers, unless every encounter has a DPS check with a wipe mechanic, but it's not like AST can reliably get a RRed Balance every single time, either. The odds are sadly in favor of the AST actually adding no meaningful contribution via their cards at...all. Building around an AST is just inviting trouble.

And if you COULD build a group that would only need one healer, you'd be better off building that group with one extra DPS instead of an AST.

At this point, I think they should just give the AST some more healing potency and call it a day.

-Remove the stupid 25% potency reduction on Light Speed and have it reduce the GCD as well
-Let us move while in CU so we don't waste it seconds after we cast it when a random AoE pops up
-Maybe make ED 20 seconds instead of 40 for CD
-Make the CD on LA 90 seconds instead of 120
-Let Noct stance's shields crit like SCH's do

There, now the AST will be only slightly less reliable than one of the other healers instead of massively less reliable, and the cards will still be shit the majority of the time but will occasionally help the party a little bit.

But in the meantime, people won't be groaning every time an AST shows up in DF, and really, so long as ASTs are queuing as healers and not some support hybrid, they should be able to handle emergency situations like other classes because those situations are GOING to happen in DF runs.

[yorjen]

Good afternoon willing to add my 2 cents on fixes and buffings this and there i came with an a idea wich may be of the likeling of the majority.

SE concived the astrologian as support healer but thing is that is not a role himself you already a support you cannot be more
supportive because if you turn the support of the support were is the other guy who will support the party?

So i came to this why dont turn the Astrologian instead in some kind of Booster healer

It will work in is own way instead to be a weaker versions of WHM/SCH depending the instance

how to achive this:

-Depending of the sect you will use you will draw the card Normal or inverted and that will change what the card will actual do changing your playstyle a little
Keeping on the line of what Efect actual do and adding some modifications on Ewer and Spire to make them more useable and less aww shit this again...

-Lowering draw CD to 15s to at least have 1 effect sustained at least 90% of the time

-Lowering spread CD to 45s in addition to those buffs already mentioned by SE

-Adding a GCD to Royal road to keep the balance ill recomend a 30s one

-Lower the Shuffle CD to 60s

-Make some healing readjustment probably we will get sightly cut (hope not)

-How it should look after the cards update

Diurnal sect (Or to be cast in the party) Normally paired with a Scholar [This should be more like a buffer mode]

the Balance Increases target's damage dealt by 10%. Duration: 15s

the Bole Reduces target's damage taken by 10%. Duration: 15s

the Arrow Increases target's attack speed (skill, spell, auto-attack) by 10%. Duration: 15s

the Spear Reduces target's action recast time (non-GCD) by 20%. Duration: 20s

the Ewer Reduces MP cost of target's spells by 20%. Duration: 20s <- Change how the skill works to some kind of refresh/resource regen effect (reason, more party wide useable than before)

the Spire Reduces TP cost of target's weaponskills by 20%. Duration: 20s <- Turn it into a Critical rate booster (All party members will be able to benefit from it instead just Tp users)


Nocturnal sect (Or to be cast in the enemy) Normally paired with a White mage [This should be more like a debuffer mode]

the Balance inverse Reduce target's damage dealt by 5-10%. Duration: 15s

the Bole inverse Increase target's damage taken by 5-10%. Duration: 15s

the Arrow inverse Decrase target's attack speed (skill, spell, auto-attack) by 10%. Duration: 15s

the Spear inverse Increase target's action recast time (non-GCD) by 20%. Duration: 20s

the Ewer inverse Reduces MP cost of target's spells by 20%. Duration: 20s <- Turn it into Accuarcy debuff

the Spire inverse Reduces TP cost of target's weaponskills by 20%. Duration: 20s <- Turn it into a critical rate debuff


Hope you like and like to read your coments

[Rahaya]

I'm changing my perspective. The more I discuss the more I realize that I feel like I'm understanding AST wrong.

AST still has issues with its capstone abilities being very lackluster. Celestial Opposition needs to do more for the cooldown, period. The channeled ability sacrifices too much for the end result. Lightspeed is bad. However, aside from that AST is SCH 2.0. SCH is the new WHM. WHM got better.

Either the brunt of tank healing or the brunt of raid healing would be on the AST, but it doesn't have the tools (or rather MP management) to do both at once. Which is....just like my SCH in Coil.

That's bad.

Apparently. In spite of SE being the one to make both the AST and the raids and we aren't in Binding Coil where there was a gear gap and the devs didn't expect people to get as far as they did.

What *I* don't understand is how people say the AST buffs are weak. Is the comparison taking place in a vacuum? Is an Eye for an Eye that doesn't need to be procced by physical hits weak? 5% raid damage for 15s seconds or 15% single target is weak? Etc, etc. Individually, the buffs even without Royal Roading are more than fine, especially since they are available every half a minute. The real 'issue' is RNG. Everyone brings up the bad RNG like Spires in a row for card effect buffs, and conveniently forget that SE has to balance around really good RNG as well. AST already has Spread which guarantees at least 1 'useful' card every minute.

We don't have crafted gear anymore, remember guys? There won't be i110 pentamelded cheesing of DPS checks anymore. You have Selene (which probably won't even be out because savage. Fae Covenant and Illumination) and AST card buffs. That's it now. SCH has the ability to spread adlo once every two minute but succor, AST has Nocturnal. WHM got nerfed stoneskin. That's it for HP checks. No more vit gear.

No, the real problems are AST two high level CDs and Lightspeed. A little QoL on Shuffle and it's perfectly fine.

[Vlady]

Heal potency is not the issue with Astrologian. Thematically we are close enough in healing strength with white mages for it to not be a deal breaker. It is benfic 2 insta buff not being mana free and imo a uselss trait because I do not need the buff when it pops most of the time that needs addressing. They are buffing the card system which fixes most of my innate problems and our cooldowns. We will be in a pretty good foothold if they change our cooldowns to fit astro playstyle but still deliver some sort of bang for its buck that deals with emergency situations.

[Ghishlain]

It is benfic 2 insta buff not being mana free and imo a uselss trait because I do not need the buff when it pops most of the time that needs addressing.

This has probably been mentioned somewhere in this thread but I think if they added an additional effect to the trait for Benefic II that is based around the spec you're in.

For example Nocturnal Benefic II could provide additional Healing potency on the spell while the proc is active (maybe something in the vein of 20-30%). Likewise Diurnal Benefic II could cause Benefic II to cast without consuming the GCD (make it oGCD) so you can immediately begin casting another cure.