Astrologian buffs confirmed

[Rahaya]

It's the inability to Crit shield AND the fact that diurnal regens benefit from time dilation/celestial opposition. I honestly don't know how they would fix nocturnal. I'd rather not get a double shield from Crit but rather get something unique attached to it, but who knows if they will even tweak it....even though it's very obvious they should.

Well Celestial Opposition at least is getting tweaked to have unique effects in the stances, we'll have to see what that looks like =/ It better be amazing for Nocturnal!

[DarkmoonVael]

Do you know how many abilities that are worthless in 4 - man content on my SCH?

To counter, the AST does indeed offer at least 1 thing more useful than the WHM/SCH. The ability to stack defensive cooldowns such as Virus + Disable and Collective + Sacred Soil, Bole + Eye for an Eye. I find it funny, almost. The card buffs such as Bole have identical end effects as much longer cooldowns. What makes the other buffs like Eye for an Eye super useful, but if an AST uses Bole it's an 'unnecessary' and 'un-impactful' buff? That is my argument. Please answer that question?

The issue is AST can not be analysed purely in this vacume that lots of people are doing. AST has to activly compete against WHM and SCH for a raid slot. Against SCH it falls short, with the power of SCH shielding being greater than AST, having far more emergency heals than AST, being able to increase the groups DPS significantly more through SCH own dps and fairy buffs, being able to multitask heal with SCH + fairy. SCH ability to solo heal highest level content has been made easy now with its 3.0 abilities. Too many things playing in the SCH favour here over AST.

Against WHM, it has to compete against an absolute powerhouse of a healer that churns out some of the biggest heals in the game, now has some exceptionally good emergency heals (3 in total), mana efficient regen powers, high DPS capability now in raids, able to solo heal extremely high level content for a very long time and has very powerful healing cooldowns. Again, AST can not, in its current iteration, offer anything to a progression based raid group that would take the place of a WHM.

AST at the moment feels like its a 2.0 healer competing with the 3.0 healers for a spot in a raid group. Synystry is an amazing cooldown, probably the best it has. Celestial Opposition is rubbish, pure and simple, needed changes. Collective Unconciousness at the moment is unwieldly, in Nocturnal its a poor replacement for Sacred Soil, in Diurnal its useful, but the inabaility to do anything whilst chanelling makes its raid applications questionable. Its single emergency heal it has at the moment is amazing, but one is not enough, it needs another. Sects could do with some tweeking, it really needs its own identity rather than slightly worse SCH style sect and slightly worse WHM style sect. To be able to DPS better in raids, the AST needs some tweeks to its healing portfolio, you have to have a reliable way of keeping the tank alive whilst Cleric Stancing in raids, either through stacking regens or emergency healing after Cleric is dropped.

The card system needs overhauling, plain and simple. Reliability and predictability is a major factor in raid healing, at the moment, the card system needs to have some way of taming the RNG better than it currently does. As for the cards themselves, they need to diversify the effects to make each card matter no matter what the groups compisition is. Duel functioanlity on each card is maybe a way to go for this.

[Cynfael]

On my phone this morning, so I'll make this post brief.

Rahaya, I'm not sure why you are attempting to argue that cards are fine or that you can somehow beat the RNG (even with Spread, all you are guaranteed is the card you tried for and held before going in), much less why you are still attempting to debate the semantics of the debate. I suppose we could be less generous and outright say that you are failing to successfully address "the point" in the interest of continuing to argue for the sake of arguement.

[Cynfael]

Side note about Bole:

Like E4E and Sacred Soil, it becomes fluff when mitigation and healing requirements are already non-issues. It's not that Bole is bad, but that it's both part of AST's core card mechanic and of little practical use outside of mitigating a tank buster or a mass pull (at which time the other healers would have their mitigation tools handy, whereas you may or may not even have a Bole to cast unless you drew one prior and used your Spread slot just for that moment).

[LycorisSelunis]

What if nocturnal shields became ticking shields? Like sacred shield for paladins/stone bulwark totem for shamans in WoW. A small potency shield that refreshed itself if it was gone or stacked up larger if you hadn't taken the damage yet. Then extending the duration would still be beneficial.

[RichardButte]

So can Nocturnal AST.

1. No, they can't: a bubble you can place and move around inside of is infinitely better than one you must stand there and channel. In Alex1, I toss my SCH bubble onto the ground then shield everyone up so no one walks out of it with any kind of damage.

2. All of Diurnal's HoTs stack with WHM HoTs (unless both buffs can appear on the player's bar but only one ticks) yet Noct's shields are awful and the stance is terrible for healing throughput. There's really no reason to ever be in Noct stance.

Where is the 17% coming from, might I ask? And why on earth is 'DPS boost' the only thing that matters when the cards are very versatile?

1/6 = 17%.

And most of the cards are actually surprisingly NON-versatile. Think about it...

Spear: You either use it on yourself if your LA happens to be up or you RR it. Seriously, you're not going to be able to ask your raid if they have a cooldown up, and Spreading a spear is just silly when you should really be holding out for a balance/arrow.

They can make spear less situational by having it reduce the cooldowns of abilities already on cooldown.

Ewer/Spire: You have no guarantee that the player you cast it on will even see it, nor that they'll actually get a chance to use it to any full potential (if a raid mechanic happens it could easily be completely wasted). Consider that 20 seconds / 2.5 second casts on average is only 8 abilities anyway, and that's if they're completely freecasting for the whole 20 seconds.

A better way to handle this would be to have them RESTORE a % of T/MP over 20 seconds. Then, it doesn't matter if the player sees they have the buff, nor if they don't have a chance to use their abilities right then and there: when they next look down at their T/MP, they'll see that they have more leeway, and if they're full on T/MP, it'll be getting restored as they spend it (if they're spending it).

Balance: Should give 10% more damage AND healing done. Usually wasted on healers otherwise.

That said, only Balance and Arrow really guarantee a DPS increase. I'd like to see the aforementioned changes, as well as a few increases in emergency healing. I still think the DPS buffs are marginal, but the other cards having better utility would make up for it.

Ultimately, AST doesn't bring anything beneficial enough to justify it's lack of healing cooldowns and emergency saving power, and that's what it NEEDS to have if we're going to be queuing as healers.

[Parawill]

No worries. I'm not trying to sound mean or anything so please don't read it that way.

I want to main AST. For as effective as SCH is, I've always found it a bit on the bland side. I'd just literally feel bad trying to bring an AST to my static.

I want to main AST too! I have the most fun on it, despite still loving White Mage (and Summoner). I'm really excited for the incoming buffs, however. I'm keeping my fingers cross so that they make CU absolutely worth standing still for--or actually, if they just removed that part entirely and was a moving bubble/dome. That would look hilarious xD

[RichardButte]

or actually, if they just removed that part entirely and was a moving bubble/dome. That would look hilarious xD

I'm hoping this is the change they make. It would then make the bubble unique from those of SCH/WHM and make the time spent channeling it worth it, since the other healers can bubble and then continue healing.

Also, allowing it to move would make it resemble the bucket from Crystal Chronicles, which would be neat in and of itself.

[SuzakuCMX]

Also, allowing it to move would make it resemble the bucket from Crystal Chronicles, which would be neat in and of itself.

You know I'd have to sing "Sound of the Wind" into teamspeak whenever I used that skill if they did that....

[Rahaya]

On my phone this morning, so I'll make this post brief.

Rahaya, I'm not sure why you are attempting to argue that cards are fine or that you can somehow beat the RNG (even with Spread, all you are guaranteed is the card you tried for and held before going in), much less why you are still attempting to debate the semantics of the debate. I suppose we could be less generous and outright say that you are failing to successfully address "the point" in the interest of continuing to argue for the sake of arguement.

Considering I already said AST needs to stand as a healer first, show some class and stop dogpiling.