Serious feedback on Astrologian after clearing A1 Savage.

[loreleidiangelo]

This does not work in the current state of the game.
You still need 2 healers to carry your group and it doesn't matter if 1 got magical super support if the group dies form too much damage and to few healing.
The problem is SE made a support job but not gave it a spot in the current game.

I don't think their potencies are THAT much lower where groups aren't able to clear content with a skilled AST healer (see OP). The point is that WHM and SCH are just making it so much EASIER, WHILE consistently bringing better buffs to the group (Selene) and allowing for more wiggle room for mistakes (WHM). AST currently brings neither of these to A-Savage, so...why bring an AST to A-Savage?

I started immediately gearing out my SMN as soon as SE announced their Astrologian "fixes" in this Tuesday's patch, which fixed absolutely nothing minus a few minor QoL quibbles like Spread not being usable out of combat. Collective Unconscious is still mostly situational garbage (thanks for buffing it in Diurnal, SE, while leaving the SIGNIFICANTLY WEAKER Nocturnal Unconscious unaffected!), Celestial Opposition is still only used to extend the AST's own MP refreshes by 5 seconds instead of actually doing something good for the group, and card RNG still sucks balls.

I think AST's "healing potencies" aren't terrible, but Nocturnal Sect needs to be comparable to SCH and ASTs NEED a way to consistently be able to buff their party with certain affects at certain times. Imagine if BRDs or MCHs could use their support skills for 15 seconds every 30 seconds, but only on a single player, and whether it was Paeon/Rook or Ballad/Bishop was completely random? "Crap, healer just rezzed and needs MP, goooooooo support! *gets Rook turret or Paeon* Errr, well, sorry, guess this is a wipe guys, better luck next time." There's still only one Spread slot, it still only starts its CD once you've USED the Spread card, not HELD it initially, the CD on it is 60 punitive seconds and Shuffle can still give you the same trash card you were trying to get rid of TWICE IN A ROW.

Please, SE, let poor Astrologians feel like they have some CONTROL over their fate, not that they need to constantly struggle with the "hand that has been dealt to them".

A healer has to be able to heal proficiently. If it cant, then your group is in serious trouble. The main issues with AST strictly centre around its healing underperformance. By pushing the support aspect of the job you sadly end up with a weaker healer than WHM or SCH.

Also SCH arguably is still the defacto healer/support healer. It brings a panopoly of utility cooldowns that do not rely on RNG, has many emergency heals and can DPS fairly unhindered whilst keeping healing up.

I think this speaks more that SCH is currently a bit overpowered in endgame meta, considering that they're largely indispensable to groups ATM. Their weaker AOE healing used to be their one drawback, but SE covered for that this expansion in SPADES. Though I'm sure this will be a super unpopular opinion on these forums, I think that SCH really needs a nerf, not that the other healers need that big of a buff.

[Reinha]

Could it be that Astrologian is meant to be a third support class, and you're only supposed to take one? The OP mentions that his/her group also has a Machinist, so they basically have two support classes. If they swapped it out for a caster or melee they may be able to get group dps to where it's supposed to be. Perhaps Astro was never meant to fit into the classic group composition, but rather allow new ones without a physical ranged dps. This still doesn't solve the issue with their healing output though. They either need a buff or some kind of healer support skills that buff their healing partner.

Edit. To clarify, I meant that Astrologians certainly need to be able to pass healing checks together with their co-healer, just like bards and machinists need to dps enough so their group can pass dps checks. But if they intended Astro to be a support type healer, it makes sense that their healing is the lowest of the three by a small margin. Right now that margin is too big though.

[Rumpelstiltzkin]

A healer has to be able to heal proficiently. If it cant, then your group is in serious trouble. The main issues with AST strictly centre around its healing underperformance. By pushing the support aspect of the job you sadly end up with a weaker healer than WHM or SCH.

Also SCH arguably is still the defacto healer/support healer. It brings a panopoly of utility cooldowns that do not rely on RNG, has many emergency heals and can DPS fairly unhindered whilst keeping healing up.

Like I mentioned in my post after that what if AST also actually buffs the other healer to the point where the AST potency deficiency is much less of a problem? So you would get stronger DPS buffs to make up for the SCH not dpsing at the same time as you buff the SCH to be able to heal even better. Why would that not work? I am just throwing out ideas, but I know I am not really good enough to know what would work and what would not that is why I am asking.

[Karen_Cerfrumos]

Could it be that Astrologian is meant to be a third support class, and you're only supposed to take one? The OP mentions that his/her group also has a Machinist, so they basically have two support classes. If they swapped it out for a caster or melee they may be able to get group dps to where it's supposed to be. Perhaps Astro was never meant to fit into the classic group composition, but rather allow new ones without a physical ranged dps. This still doesn't solve the issue with their healing output though. They either need a buff or some kind of healer support skills that buff their healing partner.

There's no support classes in this game. MCH is able to do 1k+ DPS, AST isn't.

[Daralii]

Could it be that Astrologian is meant to be a third support class, and you're only supposed to take one? The OP mentions that his/her group also has a Machinist, so they basically have two support classes. If they swapped it out for a caster or melee they may be able to get group dps to where it's supposed to be. Perhaps Astro was never meant to fit into the classic group composition, but rather allow new ones without a physical ranged dps. This still doesn't solve the issue with their healing output though. They either need a buff or some kind of healer support skills that buff their healing partner.

Except there's no reason to even take one when they bring very little to the table that white mages and scholars don't do and usually do better.

[Bakura]

I hope they will do something to help this job. I really wouldn't want to hear/read another "please look forward to it" to this. It would be so unfair, wouldn't it?

I tryed A1 savage with my group on tuesday and brought Faust to 0.01% before wiping a lot of times. Taking out DPS problems, i tryed it with both class paired with another SCH; so SCH/SCH and SCH/AST.. and SCH/SCH was betterin the overall fight; less stress, better healing etc.; i suppose WHM/SCH will be even better and so the poor AST will have no place there.

Personally i've appreciated a lot the latest AST buffs and they seemed great but honestly there weren't enough. I actually love AST even if my main used to be SCH until HS came out tho. I think the current meta of endgame savage content is focusing on doing more and more dps as possible (since the lack of ilvl) including off-tanks and healers with cleric stance in free-moment.

SCH is waaaaay better in this. I thought "Ok, if SCH can do a lot of DPS now, maybe AST won't do dps itself because its lack of self MP recovery and other things BUT mabye with cards.. i could push and help my friend's dps hoping in resulting the same overall dps output as if i had broguht a SCH instead..." but the RNG factor made it tricky. Sometimes there was an increase of dps because i had luck with streak of balance and arrow cards, other times i failed in picking cards and dps dropped (the real problem is that dps has dropped yeah but not so that much to justify my presence in a party instead of a SCH... am i useless then?).

So.. why a party would need me? Cards are unreliable, heals are weak, no dps, a single emergency button (lightspeed) is now almost ok but its cooldown is too high and we have still the recast time, nocturnal stance is weaker and unusuable, collective unconscius and celestial opposition (stun won't even works on adds, +5 seconds on cards for 150s cooldown? please) are both useless; in diurnal stance regens aren't so good but quite acceptable for now. The only thing seems good is.. the goodlooking spells effect.. maybe?

At this moment i have both at 186 ilevel and i'm concerned if i have to switch AST (for savage content) or not because of esoteric gear and BiS (i can't do both set for two jobs now).

I don't know what to do in this situation :/

[Mitsune]

OP's experience is pretty much identical to my own. Every point he had is 100% accurate and was my experience as well when running AS1. My group (AST/SCH) ended up making it past Faust but wiped to the Oppressor @ 50% on our best attempt. I have never felt, with any job other than AST, that I was pushing a class to its utmost potential and still have it fall short. It was obvious that I was having mana issues despite managing it very well, it was also obvious that the entire group was being forced to overcompensate for my lack of DPS because throwing out a single combust would result in a dead tank. At times, Benefic II spam wasnt enough, even with LS and a mind potion.

I am determined to make this class work but for the time being, I have been replaced by a WHM. I don't think this is the experience that SE intended.

[Sylve]

I just want Draw to have a 15 second cooldown but the card buff you give someone leaves behind a 30 second Apocatastasis type debuff so you can't just bomb the one person with buffs every time.

As for the Sects, I'd very much like to have been able to swap it in combat, But i can see why they might have decided against it. Still, it would be nice to be able to on a long cooldown. Kind of like swapping into another Job while in the field, you can do it, but it makes everything go on cooldown.

As to its healing output, I'd say they figured the Aspected versions would make up for the inherent lack of potency in Benefic/II.

Two final points ... One, They did say they were waiting for Savage to be up and being tried before they did more Job tweaks. Second, The very fact that you cleared it means it was working properly enough, just not quite how you feel it should have. Not saying you're wrong at all, i just had to point out that if you can clear the content, the issues aren't quite as severe as the post makes it sound.

OP's experience is pretty much identical to my own. Every point he had is 100% accurate and was my experience as well when running AS1. My group (AST/SCH) ended up making it past Faust but wiped to the Oppressor @ 50% on our best attempt. I have never felt, with any job other than AST, that I was pushing a class to its utmost potential and still have it fall short. It was obvious that I was having mana issues despite managing it very well, it was also obvious that the entire group was being forced to overcompensate for my lack of DPS because throwing out a single combust would result in a dead tank. At times, Benefic II spam wasnt enough, even with LS and a mind potion.

I am determined to make this class work but for the time being, I have been replaced by a WHM. I don't think this is the experience that SE intended.

Please keep in mind that you are not full i190, nor is the rest of your party. The fact that people are clearing despite literally being the minimal possible ilvl to do it speaks to their skill, But you can't assume that a class is inherently broken because you can't take the time to DPS during a progression fight. Not only are your own heals at the minimum strength, You have Tanks whose defenses are also running close to the bottom bar and lower in some cases as they probably wore STR gear to help push the DPS.

[Averax]

I've known we've needed buffs since i started.

Leveling up, I was struggling to do things that I had no issues with on my scholar. I would usually run out of MP halfway through boss fights.

After level 50, mp management was better with the one trait we get, but I was still struggling with groups that had tanks that weren't well geared.

At level 60, I couldn't clear either of the final bosses in the 2 dungeons without wiping a few times due to running out of MP, that's more of a group problem, granted, but a well balanced healer should be able to deal with a few screw ups.

The recent changes have made things better, but we still need more.

What we really need is a nanny spell to take care of the group for a short while we can provide some support dps, aspected helios/benefic doesn't do much to aid this. Scholars have Eos/Selene, WHM's have...(i don't have a WHM)

We could also just nix the necessity for cleric stance, and have our attack spells take from MND instead.

[DukeBurden]

We could also just nix the necessity for cleric stance, and have our attack spells take from MND instead.

I don't have anything to contribute on the AST subject but I love that you said this and I've been saying it since I started FFXIV. Cleric Stance is such a nuisance. Not that I want to bring up the whole FFXI vs FFXIV thing but FFXI had all WHMs DoTs and damage come from MND on Dia, Dia II and Holy.