Astrologian "BUFFS"

[WingsOfAzrael]

Yeah problem is that people want to be OP and feel strong.... AST is strong but lacks cooldowns to increase there own healing....and thus give us the idea that ast is weak because we not healing to the other healer standards

Now everyone should group up with a SCH and WHM and just heal each other WITHOUT using cooldowns and u will see that they all heal just as equally,,,,, then start to use cooldowns afterward then this is where u will see AST will fall behide hard

The fact is asts don't have nearly as many oh shit buttons as whm/scholar do, people don't want to make asts op they want to make asts balanced with whm and sch in one way or another and that includes more oh shit buttons. The fact is nocturnal stance is trash it lacks the ability to crit like scholar shields the potency is lower and it raises the overall mp cost and its virtually useless with a scholar in the party which most raid parties have end game.

You also say that the healing potency is fine, the regen potency in diurnal stance is fine but the overall heal potencies for skills are lower and the cards do not make up for that considering they're rng based any way you look at it. Also both of the other healing classes has a healing boost skill that boosts by over 10% and doesn't increase the mp cost where ast does not, that's another place they fall behind, ast has nocturnal stance, 5% boost, higher mp cost.

[Yhisa]

The fact is asts don't have nearly as many oh shit buttons as whm/scholar do, people don't want to make asts op they want to make asts balanced with whm and sch in one way or another and that includes more oh shit buttons. The fact is nocturnal stance is trash it lacks the ability to crit like scholar shields the potency is lower and it raises the overall mp cost and its virtually useless with a scholar in the party which most raid parties have end game.

You also say that the healing potency is fine, the regen potency in diurnal stance is fine but the overall heal potencies for skills are lower and the cards do not make up for that considering they're rng based any way you look at it. Also both of the other healing classes has a healing boost skill that boosts by over 10% and doesn't increase the mp cost where ast does not, that's another place they fall behind, ast has nocturnal stance, 5% boost, higher mp cost.

the problem is that ur still comparing AST to WHM and SCH,,,, u need to stop comparing our skills to theres,, whm is the raw healing sch is the mitigation healer.... Ast is a buffer... the only difference is that we lack cooldowns to boost our own healing...... heck i did pvp last night and people couldnt kill me due to Nocturnal Sect..... me personally thing that it was made for PvP and not PvE..... i felt like god whilst healing in nocturnal sect in pvp running and throwing a shield on myself....... anyone order a slice of op pizza xD?

[WingsOfAzrael]

snip

That's the point, astroloians need something to contribute sch has shields and whm has raw healing output, ast has what? cards? those aren't enough to make up for the loss of what a sch or whm could have contributed unless the party is extremely competent. And thats a thing I mentioned, they need more oh crap buttons to make them on par to sch/whm in that department, thats a major reason why people don't want asts in general when they could have a whm or a scholar in that slot who contribute more.

[Vlady]

Astro contributes with buffs that are strong if you can take the time to master it. You have to watch the other people for when they usr thier buffs to stack yours with it. True it's a bitch to find a raid team ti coordinate with you on that level but when you see a dps top 2100 dps during that period is pure gold.

[Cynfael]

Astro contributes with buffs that are strong if you can take the time to master it. You have to watch the other people for when they usr thier buffs to stack yours with it. True it's a bitch to find a raid team ti coordinate with you on that level but when you see a dps top 2100 dps during that period is pure gold.

It's fine if you want to keep touting AST as a great Job despite all evidence to the contrary, but let's at least try to be a little bit real about numbers.

Please explain to the class how your Balance card is super-powering DPS to push 2100. Openers, AoE bursts, and Ravana EX vuln phases do not count....

[NovaLevossida]

It's fine if you want to keep touting AST as a great Job despite all evidence to the contrary, but let's at least try to be a little bit real about numbers.

Please explain to the class how your Balance card is super-powering DPS to push 2100. Openers, AoE bursts, and Ravana EX vuln phases do not count....

Yeah, I can't see hitting that without something like AoE bursts, but then again you don't need an AST to do ridiculous damage as a SMN hitting every button you have available to you either.

[Ahlah]

To make the awful card system slightly more tolerable:

• Change Draw recast to 15 sec
• Extend all cards effect to 30 sec
• Can only have one kind of card out at any given time - e.g. no double balance
• Royal Road (Ewer) - instantly restore 10% of own MP and MP of all nearby members
• Roryal Road (Spire) - instantly restore 10% of own TP and TP of all nearby members

Personally I will like AST to have more specialised role depending on the party needs:

Diurnal sect ('helaer stance")
Can only draw Ewer, Bole and Spear cards
20% chance Luminiferous aether recast will be reset when a card is drawn
Change Spear effect to healing potency +20%

Nocturnal sect ('buffer stance")
Can only draw Balance, Arrow and Spire cards
20% chance Time dilation recast will be reset when a card is drawn

AST will have decent healing power when needed and sacrifice some healing ability to buff the party in less healing intensive activities (e.g. dungeon)

[DarkmoonVael]

the problem is that ur still comparing AST to WHM and SCH,,,, u need to stop comparing our skills to theres,, whm is the raw healing sch is the mitigation healer.... Ast is a buffer... the only difference is that we lack cooldowns to boost our own healing...... heck i did pvp last night and people couldnt kill me due to Nocturnal Sect..... me personally thing that it was made for PvP and not PvE..... i felt like god whilst healing in nocturnal sect in pvp running and throwing a shield on myself....... anyone order a slice of op pizza xD?

This would be true if AST was a uniques healer in it own right. It however is not. It actually has 2 stances that are deliberately designed to mimic the other 2 healers in the game. Also, comparisons have to be made between the 3 healers when dealing with raids, you have 2 slots and 3 healers, therefor the only way to see which 2 you take is to compare the strengths and weaknesses if the 3 healers. (Which you have done to an extent in a previous post)

AST has been deliberatly designed to mimic WHM in Diurnal stance and SCH in Nocturnal stance, so my question is, why is it weird to compare ASt to the other healers when it has be designed so?

Also, it is an absolute misnomer to say (the sensible) people are wanting to make AST op. People are asking for AST to be on par with WHM and SCH. This suggests that it will be balanced with WHM and SCH.

Now in terms of actual healing, AST is still lacking, not majorly, but it needs some help. And this is not just about the raw potencies of the heals, but the actual panoply of cooldowns that go with it (if someone can not heal due to having 20 less potency on a 650 potency spell, then maybe the healing issues is not from the class). What is the issue with AST is the fact they have one emergency heal in Essential Dignity, which is a very good heal, but this alone is not good enough. If we look at WHM and SCH for comparison, they have many more (Assize, Tetragrammaton and Benediction on WHM, Lustrate, Indomnibility and Dissipation on SCH). Now what these emergency heals facilitate in raids is very major for raid progression. They allow you to recover from mistakes to push the experience of the group in the raid, allow for longer learning new raid through this, and can recover from bad situations. What it also facilitates is the stance dancing of healers in raids, allowing healers to also push dps in raids an minimising the risk of doing so. What an AST has in its move set is comoarable to WHM/SCH in 2.x, not 3.0. It needs one or two more emergency heals which help bring it on oar with WHM/SCH use in raids. At the moment, Celestial Opposition would be the best candidate to tweak to add an emergency heal element to it, as at the moment, it is probably the worst lvl60 ability in the game as it stands.

The disparity between Nocturnal sect and Diurnal sect has been brought up many many many times in these forums, but it is something that needs looking at. As it stands (and as AST has been designed), it is nigh on impossible to replace a SCH in a raid with a Nocturnal stance AST (and yes this goes back to the fact they have designed AST to mimic SCH in Nocturnal, comparisons have to be made). So, aspected Benefic is powerful in its own right, in a different manner to Adlo. Being able to move and cast a shield is powerful, but the relevance of its power is far lower than that of Adlo in a raid. Adlo strength comes from is increased shielding compared to A.benefic, as well as critadlo, and its interaction with deployment tactics. Adlo is usally used for tank busters and high amounts of damage going onto non-tanks. In these scenarios, strength of shield>ability to cast said shield whilst moving. Insta cast shields are a little too niche, and any healer worth their salt can time a shield correctly anyway, with or without a cast time.
Collective Unconcsious is flat out bad in Nocturnal, having to jepordise a healer to mitigate damage is a bad design choice. It means that this move can only really be used in boss transition phases, and not how sacred soil can be used for additional mitigation whilst pushing raid progression (think mega-flares t13 progression, if you were not targetted by it as AST, you would not be able to run in and use this move to mitigate it on other people). In Diurnal it is powerful (correct me if i am wrong, but i believe in Diurnal it turned out to be the highest potency regen in the game). However it is majorly hindered by having to channel it.

There are issues with AST that need to be addressed, many stem from the design decision to mimic the other two healers in the game rather than give us a third healer with a unique healing style.

[Yhisa]

Every time i come to the healer forums i see players talk about stuff they barely know about...... i seen soo many ast post crap and claim we r extreamly weak when we are not i bet u 15 million gil if we had a few cooldowns that increase our healing we will be fine... but nooooo people want our cards to be mega buffed... then our potency.... then come out will silly ideas to make us op.......but this is the problem with new jobs it takes time to get it right... and in my veiw point SE have done a brilliant job with not makin this job OP ... we need tweaks yes and healing cooldowns.. but we do not need MP management or potency increase if they do that....in future we will get nerf bat...