Astro in savage

[Dyvid]

Collective Unconscious - When Y'stola uses it, it push monster away from the person she is trying to protect. Not sure if SE can even make it an actual physical barrier that mobs can't enter but at the very least remove the Sect effect and just combine it where it's a 10% damage reduction and also provide powerful regen. The main reason is because AST can't do anything while the bubble is up.

Spread - Not even sure if this a good idea or bad but would people prefer to save a card or save a royal road effect?

[RichardButte]

I thought the same. I think SE AST designer did not a good job releasing the job in the actual state. Maybe he could be tested the job in Alexander Savage or check the global numbers vs the other healing class.

I am lvling whm right now because i think the AST rework it take several months that i dont want to wait. SE guys, take your time, do your tests but re-release a great healing-suport class again. The western and JP community will be happy ;3

I hope you are prepared for an extremely heavy workload if you want to fix this job. I also encourage you to improve your testing protocol, because releasing a job in this state is not something that should ever happen.

Eh, I wouldn't go that far.

I firmly believe they ship classes in a weaker state with the intention of buffing them later, and in their defense, AST has been able to heal everything up until now (so long as the party is competent and doesn't take avoidable damage, I mean).

Savage is likely the first time they've really, REALLY seen the AST's weaknesses, and they're already posting about how they're going to do something about it.

Again, yes, AST is weak, but let's not make it personal to the devs.

Cards - Useless. That's right. Taken as a whole, they are useless. The buff strength is simply too small. Their power needs to be boosted so much that most people's initial reaction will be that the developers have gone overboard. The only thing that will allow the card system as a whole to be useful is for individual buffs to be very powerful. Because of the randomness of cards, these effects that at first glance seem extreme will balance out over time. Some of the card effects may even need to be changed entirely (Spear).

I've said this in the past time and again and people don't seem to really get it.

The 10% chance at boosting DPS for 15 seconds comes at the cost of a 1 in 6 chance to get that ability, which averages out to a 1.67% DPS boost on one player per minute. It would have to be closer to a 40-60% DPS increase for 15 seconds to actually be worth anything, but as you said, people would cry OP because they don't understand how statistics work...

[LycorisSelunis]

To the people healing this level of play-

One of the things I have seen mentioned is comparing lvl 50 AST to lvl 50 WHM/SCH and then saying they don't keep up the same way after 60. One if the things both WHM/SCH get post-50 is an instant aoe heal (assize/indomitability). Do you think adding an aoe heal component to CO or as a new skill would help a lot? The discussion seems to agree the lack of 'oh shit' buttons is part of the hindrance, and CO is awfully underwhelming for our capstone with such a long cd. DO you think adding a gcd reduction into Lightspeed, making you ACTUALLY able to pump out more healing in that duration instead of just frontloading, would fix the lack of real healing cd, or do we need more than one?

I would love to heal at this level of play but my fc is small and we are struggling just to put together a static. We probably could if everyone was online at the same time, but time zones....I may be more casual but I love this job and still want to contribute!

[Ghishlain]

The 10% chance at boosting DPS for 15 seconds comes at the cost of a 1 in 6 chance to get that ability, which averages out to a 1.67% DPS boost on one player per minute. It would have to be closer to a 40-60% DPS increase for 15 seconds to actually be worth anything, but as you said, people would cry OP because they don't understand how statistics work...

Uh, Richard, no offense, but I think you need to stop talking about math ^^; You're kinda putting a foot in your mouth with this assessment as you're showing you don't really understand how math works either .-. Again, no offense, and again, not trying to make you sound terrible.

I give you a minor correction that is in your favour though.

The actual increase to a personal player's DPS with Balance is 0.835% because it's a 10% boost at a 1/6 chance (10% * [ 1/6 ] = 1.67%) that has an up time of 15 second for every 30 seconds due to Draw's cooldown (1.67% * [15 / 30] ) = 0.835%).

There's a lot more statistical factors that need to be considered for proper card analysis and while the other effects from Draw do not directly affect DPS, they do indirectly affect them and change how you can play an AST. For example, Spear on a DRG or MCN will provide a small DPS increase because it'll generally be up when Jump / Quick Reload goes on cooldown. Any other ability they get with Spear is just a bonus past that. Likewise, as mentioned earlier in the post, Arrow is much more useful for a MNK / NIN than it is for other DPS classes.

The math isn't hard to do, but getting it "correct" is the hard part - and can also be left to interpretation on a per player basis. And doing all the potential permutations of card draws is a time consuming process.

Overall, the more I think about it, the happier I am with how the card system is. It needs a few minor tweaks - my gut instinct tells me increasing Balance and Arrow by 2% would be nice,or reducing Draw to a 20-25s CD would be great too.

[Leiloni]

To the people healing this level of play-

One of the things I have seen mentioned is comparing lvl 50 AST to lvl 50 WHM/SCH and then saying they don't keep up the same way after 60. One if the things both WHM/SCH get post-50 is an instant aoe heal (assize/indomitability). Do you think adding an aoe heal component to CO or as a new skill would help a lot? The discussion seems to agree the lack of 'oh shit' buttons is part of the hindrance, and CO is awfully underwhelming for our capstone with such a long cd. DO you think adding a gcd reduction into Lightspeed, making you ACTUALLY able to pump out more healing in that duration instead of just frontloading, would fix the lack of real healing cd, or do we need more than one?

I would love to heal at this level of play but my fc is small and we are struggling just to put together a static. We probably could if everyone was online at the same time, but time zones....I may be more casual but I love this job and still want to contribute!

Well even at level 50 WHM/SCH have a good amount of healing CDs. They only got more with the expansion. But it's not just skills that allow them to pump out significantly more healing (or skills that allow them to prevent more damage), but they can do this for usually no mana cost whatsoever. Someone listed in the cooldowns for each healer and it shows pretty nicely what the problem is.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ed_ast/ctd43mq

The main issue is that ASTs don't have the utility that every other healer has to improve their own healing and it's extremely obvious in Savage Alex. ASTs have
* Collective Unconscious (90s)
* Synastry (120s)
* Disable (60s)
* Essential Dignity (60s)
WHMs have
* Shitty Virus (90s)
* Shitty E4E (180s)
* Tetragrammaton (60s)
* Benediction (300s)
* Assize (90s)
* Asylum (90s)
* Presence of Mind (150s)
* Divine Seal (60s)
Scholars have
* Dissipation (Almost as shit as CO) (180s)
* Virus (90s)
* E4E (120s)
* Deployment Tactics (120s)
* Indomitability (30s)
* Lustrate (0s)
* Sacred Soil (0s)
* Rouse (90s)
Imagine Scholars without any Aetherflow skills. That's basically the healing utility that Astrologians bring currently

We have half the amount of healing CDs that the other healers have and the few we do have need improvements for the most part or are inferior to what the other healers have.

So basically what I'm trying to say is we need a lot more than a GCD reduction on Lightspeed. Yes I'm well aware that all of our card associated skills basically take up some of those healing CD skill slots. So improving that entire system - while also taking into account the inherent RNG - is going to need to be a big part of that. Along with improving the few other CDs we actually have.

Improving those few CDs shouldn't be a huge deal, but the problem comes with the card system. They take the skill slots of longer major healing CDs, while not actually being long major CDs. So they need to be comparable in overall benefit while keeping in mind that they're skills we'll be using consistently for much of the fight, so they can't be as powerful as a longer CD. Perhaps they can adjust the above skills to make up for that and allow us to more effectively handle emergency situations with those few skills.

[RichardButte]

Uh, Richard, no offense, but I think you need to stop talking about math ^^;

Forgive me father, for I have sinned: i was tired and forgot to divide by two (I'll flog myself later in penance, don't you worry).

That totally justifies telling me that I "need to stop talking about math", which is then totally not offensive because it was prefaced with "no offense".

Never mind the fact that I was wrong in my favor, meaning my argument was actually stronger than I stated, so it's not like I was trying to mislead anyone.

Besides, if I stopped talking about math, who would you be smarmy and condescending to?

Overall, the more I think about it, the happier I am with how the card system is. It needs a few minor tweaks - my gut instinct tells me increasing Balance and Arrow by 2% would be nice,or reducing Draw to a 20-25s CD would be great too.

The more I think about it, the more astonished I am that you can revel in the math of this discussion like a, no offense, pig rolling in filth, yet somehow still completely miss the point of it...

We're talking about the fact that the buffs do not compensate for the AST's overall craptacular healing and terribad mana management. No amount of card micromanaging is going to change that fact.

Either the cards make a HUGE impact on ending the fight more quickly or the AST needs to have its healing potencies dramatically increased.

And you think a 2% increase on Bole and Balance is going to fix anything? Or these generally crap buffs arriving 5-10 seconds faster?

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt (which is clearly more than you do for me...) and assume that in part two you follow it up with "...and some serious buffs to emergency healing potency and mana regen."

[MistralLevante]

Uh, Richard, no offense, but I think you need to stop talking about math ^^; You're kinda putting a foot in your mouth with this assessment as you're showing you don't really understand how math works either .-. Again, no offense, and again, not trying to make you sound terrible.

People always say "no offense" before they say something obscenely offensive and uncalled for. I suggest you edit your post and apologize, because you're kinda putting a foot in your mouth with this assessment and you're showing you really don't understand how respect works either.

On a side note, nice work strengthening and agreeing with his point while you insulted him.

Oh yeah, and, ^^.

[starLivitation]

so if i get this right the OP and his supporters, want AST to have equal healing power to WHM or SCH, but give more dps to the raid than both? how is that gona be ballanced? and would the other jobs have the same problem if the AST has their healing power + more DPS? what would be the point to play SCH or WHM then?

[MistralLevante]

so if i get this right the OP and his supporters, want AST to have equal healing power to WHM or SCH, but give more dps to the raid than both? how is that gona be ballanced? and would the other jobs have the same problem if the AST has their healing power + more DPS? what would be the point to play SCH or WHM then?

Their specific wants may be too much, but the general opinion of the raiding community seems to be that AST is not exactly in a great place right now either.

[DarkmoonVael]

so if i get this right the OP and his supporters, want AST to have equal healing power to WHM or SCH, but give more dps to the raid than both? how is that gona be ballanced? and would the other jobs have the same problem if the AST has their healing power + more DPS? what would be the point to play SCH or WHM then?

Ah no, a little bit of a misunderstanding here. What is being argued by the majority of the people here is that AST, as a healer first and foremost, needs to heal to the same capacity as a WHM or SCH to be viable in end game content.

The issue centering around DPS stem from the fact that SCH can put out a beastly amount of DPS itself as well as buffing their parties DPS (fey wind). It has emergency, instacast heals to facilitate the stance dancing.

Likewise WHM, with its new found lvl 52-60 abilities, can do beastly DPS in a raid, which is again facilitated by it powerfuly emergency heals.

AST at the moment can not bring much DPS to a raid, lacking the ability to quickly regain the healing situation once cleric stance is dropped, and its buffs are weaker than the SCH in terms of over all contribution to raid DPS.

Ther are lots of suggetsions on this thread. Some centre around the increase of AST support capabilities so the AST can increase the DPS of others to counteract the shortfall of overall DPS due to AST struggling to DPS itself. Some centre around increasing the number of emergency heals an AST has, thus facilitating the AST stance dancing and contribution to overall group DPS. Other are a hybrid of the pervious 2.

But, more than anything, the majority of people seem (feel free for anyone to disagree with me here, after all not everyone has the same opinion) to acknowledge the need to increase the AST healing capacity, healing cooldowns and emergency heal ability to make it a healer that is as viable in end game content as WHM and SCH currently are.