The positive Astrologian thread!

[Vlady]

What you describe is neither complex nor difficult. These "nuances" are a kind of pretentious, false difficulty that attempts to obfuscate how minimally impactful most card actions are in practice. One look at your party list and a little attention paid to how everyone appears to be doing gives you most of what you need to know.

If you had full access to your cards, there would be room for more strategy and complexity, but with RNG governing your card selection, it's not rocket science to choose your best options.

Yes. And throwing out a well timed balance on top of a Dragoon in mid burst stacked with blood for blood and strikes is only a trifle. I mean its hardly even worth mentioning despite the stack with it along the other two buffs can well push a dragoon over 2100 dps during the buff time. But times of hard healing while being able to 100% efficiently use your cards while watching other players buffs is trivial for your vast multi tasking skills I take it?

I assure you keeping on top of everything and playing the job to its fullest is far from easy for me itleast. Yes Scholar can push 400 dps on their own but I can buff a dragoon's dps by 400 while keeping itleast 180 dps through cleric stanced dots which is easily doable. Scholar has its strengths and the astrologian has ours.

[Zholi]

Yes. And throwing out a well timed balance on top of a Dragoon in mid burst stacked with blood for blood and strikes is only a trifle. I mean its hardly even worth mentioning despite the stack with it along the other two buffs can well push a dragoon over 2100 dps during the buff time. But times of hard healing while being able to 100% efficiently use your cards while watching other players buffs is trivial for your vast multi tasking skills I take it?

I assure you keeping on top of everything and playing the job to its fullest is far from easy for me itleast.

Momentary burst DPS displayed by a parser doesn't mean anything, sorry. The only thing that matters is overall contribution of buffs over a whole fight.

[WingsOfAzrael]

I like the general idea of ast and the benefic/benefic II skill effects.

[Vlady]

Momentary burst DPS displayed by a parser doesn't mean anything, sorry. The only thing that matters is overall contribution of buffs over a whole fight.

Glad we are able to make conclusions without knowing how much the astro contributes in buffs over the course of the fight then we can compare apples to apples. My brother when i run dungeons with him normally with my buffs throughout the entire dungeon gets boosted another 150 points so add that to easily sustained 200 and we are not as far off from scholars as people want to make you think. Dots i can keep up without any real mana loss so sustained 350 is just 100 less then a scholar and well within the margin of quite capable of contributing offensively in any level of content from dungeons to savage.

[Aurum]

Snip.

^This. Also, Vlady, when we're talking about AST, there's no such thing as a "Well-timed balance". The best we can do is hope RNG decides to throw us a bone at the appropriate moment, as control over when we get that balance isn't entirely in our hands.

I, for one, am totally against the RNG mechanic and think the cards deserve a mid-range buff(though spear and ewer are in a decent place) and the RNG element removed. I mean, is scholar given one button that uses one of their Aetherflow skills randomly? No, because that would almost destroy the point of having those skills in the first place. As a SCH, when I want to use lustrate, I need lustrate, not Sacred Soil; It's the same with the card skills. When I really want to have bole/balance/whatever, chances are good(5/6=83.3%) that I won't be able to use that specific card.

[Vlady]

^This. Also, Vlady, when we're talking about AST, there's no such thing as a "Well-timed balance". The best we can do is hope RNG decides to throw us a bone at the appropriate moment, as control over when we get that balance isn't entirely in our hands.

I, for one, am totally against the RNG mechanic and think the cards deserve a mid-range buff(though spear and ewer are in a decent place) and the RNG element removed. I mean, is scholar given one button that uses one of their Aetherflow skills randomly? No, because that would almost destroy the point of having those skills in the first place. As a SCH, when I want to use lustrate, I need lustrate, not Sacred Soil; It's the same with the card skills. When I really want to have bole/balance/whatever, chances are good(5/6=83.3%) that I won't be able to use that specific card.

Yes but it is more along the lines of 63% you will get cards that positive usefulness to your group then the all hated spear/bole. Spire and ewer are now quite useful for summoners/monks/dragoons. On average an astrologian card buffs will add about 150 during the 20 dungeon run I have done my own tests on with a ninja who on average when getting exclusive buffs from me has averaged out around 150 dps. I do not really even use Royal road much as I have noticed efficiency in 4 man teams go down with the addition of having to wait another 30 seconds for a possible royal enhanced card which is the trully suckage part.. My dots parse at around 180 dps so I guess mileage can vary but if bole is the worst of the group then our random factor is not as bad as it is made out to be. People just want to hit the lucky 7's jack pot for a full party enhanced balance which I will agree the 5% only is meh.

I would welcome a way for Astrologian's to pay a price to cheat fate and pull a more timely applied card but between pulls and before bosses I normally manage to nab a balance to spread easily quite a few times along the way to apply a properply timed balance to enhance a dps already impressive burst so yes you can aquire a nicely timed balance. Efficiency overall for an astrologian is more along the lines of once we get the card we want we save it for the timely use..

[GideonHighmourn]

Spire and ewer are now quite useful for summoners/monks/dragoons. On average an astrologian card buffs will add about 150 during the 20 dungeon run I have done my own tests on with a ninja who on average when getting exclusive buffs from me has averaged out around 150 dps.

Ewer is useless on SMN; they have no issues keeping near-full MP as long as they use Aetherflow. Ewer is really only useful healers in long fights.

Also, I'd really like to see your parses on how you added 150 DPS just through card buffs over an entire dungeon parse, as I have a really hard time believing that. It seems more like a number you just made up, like numerous others you've made up.

Sorry to go off-topic.

[TatoRazzino]

Again, people are showing how they fail to understand the core concepts of the job. And they're also biased and hypocritical, since a lot of the so-called SCH superiority over AST relies on... landing crit Adlos at very specific moments. Nocturnal Aspected Helios shields for the same amount as Succor and Nocturnal Aspected Benefic shields for around 150 less HP than Adlo, when it doesn't crit, but AST shielding is instant cast, which makes it easier to land in multiple targets and doesn't require any use of cooldowns (Swiftcast). Unless Adlo crits at the exact moment you need it to (which is TOTALLY based on RNG), SCH is not shielding more than AST. So, yeah, stop this whole "Oh cards are RNG based" so-called argument, because SCH relies on RNG too to be superior than AST.

[kiraan]

Well if the Ninja is doing 1500 dps and he can get balance every second during the entire dungeon run its possible.

yeah right more like you had 30 dps...

[TatoRazzino]

Also, if you think that cards are bad, ask your DPS players to stop using cooldowns like Blood for Blood. A normal Balance raises DPS for the same amount as Blood for Blood does, and you can extend it for 15 more seconds with Time Dilation. It's not about getting the exact card you supposedly need at an specific time, it's about adding utility to the whole raid and minimizing DPS loss. When you get a Balance and you see people on their burst DPS rotation, you can use it, or you can store it for later with Spread. If you draw a Bole and use it on your tank, he can save a cooldown that he's rotating to use it on a bigger blast; if you don't want to do that, you can increase the potency of your next card. There are cards for everyone and if you get an absolutely useless card, which is almost impossible during a raid progression (4 cards are always useful, which means there's a 4/6 chance you'll draw something good), you can always Shuffle it and try your luck.