Astro in savage

[Vlady]

Even I know savage is not kind to double astro. I don't think se had it in mind to support double astro by design until we can stance dance again. Scholar and white mage seems destined to be one of the healers astrologian are paired with.

[Parawill]

Even I know savage is not kind to double astro. I don't think se had it in mind to support double astro by design until we can stance dance again. Scholar and white mage seems destined to be one of the healers astrologian are paired with.

I actually can see A1S being able to completed by double Astro (like double WHM and double SCH can already). It's just a bit trickier since both Astrologians will have to coordinate very well to not kick buffs off specific targets.

> I can't say much about A2S, A3S and A4S since I've never been. Watching videos isn't the same as doing them live xP

[RaeyFonzur]

So after finishing A1S with AST/SCH, I feel like AST needs a new skill, a number of small buffs and a single very large buff. (A complete rework into a spell speed healer would be nice too, but I'd prefer not waiting for the next expansion to be on par with WHM/SCH...)

Our party composition was PLD, WAR, SCH, AST, DRG, MNK, BLM, BRD. The SCH used Selene for the entire fight.
I was the main healer, but we split the party after 0.5 came out and I mainly focused on the WAR, DRG, BRD and myself.
For double prey, I change tactics depending on who is targeted:
DPS/Anyone except me or the WAR - I Synastry one of the DPS (If time permits, I Aspected Benefic them too) and Benefic 2 spam the WAR the entire time, I use Essential Dignity on the PLD if nobody else needs it.
WAR/Anyone except me - I Synastry the other target and Benefic 2 spam the WAR the entire time, then I use Essential Dignity to top the PLD off, allowing the SCH to DPS.
Me/Anyone except the WAR - I Synastry the other target (So the SCH can heal the target once and then focus both tanks) and Benefic 2 spam myself, I use Essential Dignity and possibly Benefic 2 on the WAR to top him off before Hypercompressed Plasma.
Me/WAR - Synastry sucks and I probably die unless the SCH helps (I could probably fix this by using Synastry on the PLD and having the SCH heal me).
For the jumps, BRD uses ballad (I'm always at about 2-4k mp at this point), SCH uses Deployment Tactics, PLD uses Divine Veil (Assuming its up) and I use Aspected Helios to top everyone off while we are busy placing resin along the walls.
The SCH already has up Sacred Soil in the corner by the time we get there and is already in Cleric Stance to put DOTs on both bosses as soon as possible. When the bosses land, I use Helios once to top people off (only if Divine Veil wasn't up) and Aspected Benefic on both tanks.
Then we repeat.
For the enrage double preys, I solo heal them UNLESS its on both healers, in which case I just dps instead and let us die.

Of course I could have done this way easier on WHM and allowed the SCH to DPS more (he did 224 dps, but can maintain 500+ during the first phase) and even probably pulled the same 73 DPS as I did on AST.

I drew 4 Balances (Used on everyone), 2 Boles (Used one on each tank), 2 Ewers (Both used for Royal Road) and 1 Spire (Royal Road). I ended up using Expanded Balance a total of 4 times (I had Expanded prepared and drew The Balance the moment the fight began) during the fight. So I would say I increased the group DPS by about 30.

My thoughts on current balancing:

Mind party bonus - Too much healing is lost without this. AST is definitely bringing the party down because of this alone.

Healing - O.K., doesn't really shine and is JUST enough to keep people alive (Which is horrifying).
Benefic/Helios - These are fine.
Benefic 2 - The trait for this needs to reduce mana cost to be lower or something because theres no reason to use it unless you need a psuedo emergency heal or just can't keep up with the damage output.

Diurnal - The 5% bonuses are completely backwards, 5% haste just kills your mana faster and doesn't really shine unless you aren't the main healer and are DPSing. This stance could compare to WHM if it gave the mind party bonus or if we had some sort of potency buff.
Aspected Benefic (Diurnal) - Doesn't even compare to Regen, this HOT is laughable for its mana cost. I'd prefer the HOT be the same potency but less duration than Regens HOT, even if this meant losing its instant heal.
Aspected Helios (Diurnal) - The less range is super annoying and really hurts in this fight, forcing SCH to deal with party damage too.

Nocturnal - 5% healing bonus... why on Nocturnal? This stance doesn't even compare to SCH.
Aspected Benefic (Nocturnal) - Can't see a reason to use it unless you absolutely need it's shield/instant cast or else someone will die. SCH can at least use Adloquium as a psuedo Cure 2 if Physick isn't cutting it.
Aspected Helios (Nocturnal) - Worse than Succor in every possible way, also no reason to use it unless the AoE damage is too much without mitigation. Also, that 3 second cast time...

Its like they took Regen and destroyed the best part about it (mana efficiency), or took Adloquium and made it instant at the cost of the crit double, which would be fine, but we already have Benefic 2 which is more mana efficient and its awful too...
Then to make it worse they took everything awful from Medica 2 (Cast time) and Succor (Range) and put it into a single skill that ends up being slightly behind Medica 2 and way behind Succor.

Damage - Pretty mediocre for the mana costs when we don't really have much mana to spare.

Utility - Compared to the other 2 healers? Non-existent.
Essential Dignity - Pretty borderline overpowered if it was on any other healer, but as our only emergency heal we can't really waste it every 40 seconds.
Luminiferous Aether - Would be nice if this was a unique skill instead of a copy-paste of Shroud. No complaints though because of its beautiful animation.
Lightspeed - More likely to put you into an emergency since you will (almost) always get stuck in a 4.5 second delay between the next heal at the end of it's duration (Which is why I never used it during A1S). Also, this is as much of an emergency skill as Swiftcast is.
Disable - Wish it didn't work on auto attacks. Also, its not very clear if this only works on the first hit of multi-hit skills or all of them.
Synastry - Only really shines in situations where a second target is only taking half of the damage of whoever you are healing, or if half of the healing would actually be enough to keep up a second target for the amount of time needed (A1S). Also, what is the point of making this unable to be used on myself, or making it where healing myself doesn't heal the other person? And, why is this skill called Synastry when it doesn't even work with over half of my heals?
Time Dilation - Should double durations. Also, why can't I cast this on myself? Just make it only extend cards or something and make this skill actually powerful (No, a 750 potency Regen on a 90 second cooldown isn't powerful when you have to spend 2000 mana to set it up).
Collective Unconscious - You have to be desperate to use this skill outside of Nocturnal. (I don't use it in A1S)
Celestial Opposition - I don't even know if this thing deserves a 30 second cooldown, let alone 150 seconds. I just extend Luminiferous Aether with it if I don't manage to get an expanded card in time.

We really need some sort of other emergency healing skill.

Cards - The RNG or this whole system has to be removed. EXTREMELY lackluster for wasting 4 of our skills on.
Draw - We should really be able to have 100% uptime on at least one card...
Shuffle - Pretty sure this skill has a hardcoded 60% chance to draw the same card.
Spread - Only a few cards are worth using this on.
The Balance - One of our only balanced cards.
The Bole - Another one of our only balanced cards.
The Arrow - Worse than The Balance unless you use it to heal. Needs to be 12-15%.
The Spear - Interesting concept, but putting this on someone can really mess with their sense of time if they map out a fight with their skills.
The Ewer - Actually balanced now.
The Spire - Royal Road fodder every time since nobody in my group runs out of TP anymore unless they are AoEing.
Royal Road - Puts RNG inside of RNG and makes you stop using cards if you get awful combos (Expanded Bole/Ewer/Spire).
Enhanced - Why isn't this 200%? Its only better than Extended if the card is 15 seconds normally and you use both Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition to extend it.
Extended - You're better off just using the card twice than trying to play with the RNG again.
Expanded - Halved potency makes this feel a lot weaker than it should be for the gamble you have to take (Can't really use some cards when you have this up or else they become too weak to be noticeable).

I can post the parse of the fight if anyone wants it.

[technole]

I can't see the AST ever having the the ability to switch PIE party bonus based on sect. It's built into the role itself, it's not a skill based system. Like if you don't bring a DRG or MNK in a party, you don't have STR. Plus this obviously lends the ability for the next healer job to likely have MND party bonus.

Over time the party bonus situation won't be as severe in savage as us healers gear up more ilvls. But it does make a difference when undergeared, that cannot be understated. It's about making the best of the situation, and that is what server first groups have done.

[Vlady]

Astro utility nonresistant? Astrologian is the ultimate healing support job right now. Range is not as bad as people make it out to be 17% goes up to uhh 22% when factor in shuffle. Plus range is only an issue if they had a system that could provide a negative buff. Every card has strong uses now minus spear which requires strong micro management with team mates. Arrow has been clocked at about 1.5% dps increase which is on par with Eos haste ability. Balance about 4% when in effect unless used along with other melee/caster burst buffs then it can jump to 8-12% total increase exponentially.

Bole is the only one I feel which is borderline useless. If you cannot see a reason to use Nocturnal then it is pointless to even bring it up. The last few astrologian a1/a2 videos shows it being used with positive results. Time Dilation used on ourselves is a head scratcher. Disable I find from my tests it only works on the first hit. Celestial and collective are borderline useless I agree. The rest of the Astrologian kit is actually good. Once more I reiterate that the Astrologian use to be able to stance dance in combat but two weeks before Heavensward it was removed because SE deemed it OP. I would like it reintroduced with maybe Collective being changed to allow stance change while the buff is in effect to trully give the Astrologian its hybrid ability during the cooldown or let a astro use it to swap a stance if the need arises in combat.

[GideonHighmourn]

Astro utility nonresistant? Astrologian is the ultimate healing support job right now. Range is not as bad as people make it out to be 17% goes up to uhh 22% when factor in shuffle. Plus range is only an issue if they had a system that could provide a negative buff. Every card has strong uses now minus spear which requires strong micro management with team mates. Arrow has been clocked at about 1.5% dps increase which is on par with Eos haste ability. Balance about 4% when in effect unless used along with other melee/caster burst buffs then it can jump to 8-12% total increase exponentially.

What are you even talking about? Shuffle still has a 17% chance to return the card you're looking for, and a 17% chance to give you the same card you just drew; that number never changes from a 1 in 6 chance. Where was Arrow's DPS contribution calculated, as you've indicated? And how are you coming to the conclusion that Balance is only a 4% buff, but somehow changes to 12% during burst phases?

[DarkmoonVael]

Astro utility nonresistant? Astrologian is the ultimate healing support job right now. Range is not as bad as people make it out to be 17% goes up to uhh 22% when factor in shuffle. Plus range is only an issue if they had a system that could provide a negative buff. Every card has strong uses now minus spear which requires strong micro management with team mates. Arrow has been clocked at about 1.5% dps increase which is on par with Eos haste ability. Balance about 4% when in effect unless used along with other melee/caster burst buffs then it can jump to 8-12% total increase exponentially.

Bole is the only one I feel which is borderline useless. If you cannot see a reason to use Nocturnal then it is pointless to even bring it up. The last few astrologian a1/a2 videos shows it being used with positive results. Time Dilation used on ourselves is a head scratcher. Disable I find from my tests it only works on the first hit. Celestial and collective are borderline useless I agree. The rest of the Astrologian kit is actually good. Once more I reiterate that the Astrologian use to be able to stance dance in combat but two weeks before Heavensward it was removed because SE deemed it OP. I would like it reintroduced with maybe Collective being changed to allow stance change while the buff is in effect to trully give the Astrologian its hybrid ability during the cooldown or let a astro use it to swap a stance if the need arises in combat.

So today we are playing pulling numbers out of thin air again are we Vlady? As far as we know, shuffle does not effect the card you can draw with it, so you have a 17% chance to draw any card with the Draw action, and that percentage doesn't change with Shuffle. Shuffle still has a 17% chance to draw any card from the 6.

With arrow are we talking about drawing arrow all the time and using it? Or just the one use of it over the entire raid? First example doesnt matter since it never happens, second it flat out wrong. Maybe a bit of clarification?

With balance, numbers dont magically change like you are suggesting. Oh and an FYI, for that one balance to change raid dps over the entire encounter like you are claiming, it must be one hell of a short encounter or that one DPS must be doing some serious numbers at the time.

Can we at least stop basing AST arguments on something other than Magical Christmas Land when it comes to the buffs and healing output of them, and maybe, just maybe, base it in reality for once?

[RaeyFonzur]

Astro utility nonresistant? Astrologian is the ultimate healing support job right now. Range is not as bad as people make it out to be 17% goes up to uhh 22% when factor in shuffle. Plus range is only an issue if they had a system that could provide a negative buff. Every card has strong uses now minus spear which requires strong micro management with team mates. Arrow has been clocked at about 1.5% dps increase which is on par with Eos haste ability. Balance about 4% when in effect unless used along with other melee/caster burst buffs then it can jump to 8-12% total increase exponentially.

Bole is the only one I feel which is borderline useless. If you cannot see a reason to use Nocturnal then it is pointless to even bring it up. The last few astrologian a1/a2 videos shows it being used with positive results. Time Dilation used on ourselves is a head scratcher. Disable I find from my tests it only works on the first hit. Celestial and collective are borderline useless I agree. The rest of the Astrologian kit is actually good. Once more I reiterate that the Astrologian use to be able to stance dance in combat but two weeks before Heavensward it was removed because SE deemed it OP. I would like it reintroduced with maybe Collective being changed to allow stance change while the buff is in effect to trully give the Astrologian its hybrid ability during the cooldown or let a astro use it to swap a stance if the need arises in combat.

Pretty sure RNG is random and will always be worse than its guaranteed counterpart unless the worst case scenario is still on par/just a little bit worse than the guaranteed scenario. Also, AST's healing is weaker because of its cards, so there's the negative buff.

Balance can never be greater a 10% DPS increase (over the 15s duration) no matter where it is used. DPS will always be 10% greater than what it would have been without it (Assuming the target has no other buffs), however if it is used at a point in time where the users damage isn't at maximum output their entire encounter DPS will be lower than it could have been with the potential 5% increase to a single target that Balance can provide. Also, everyone seems to forget that damage buffs are additive, Balance doesn't actually get more powerful from other buffs and is actually less than a 10% direct increase almost 100% of the time, in fact, Arrow is probably better than Balance only if the target has all of their buffs up, but Balance is better at pretty much every other point in the fight.

Bole is pretty powerful when it lines up with a tank buster (Better than E4E).

Yes, when compared to the other two we have pretty much no unique utility or one that isn't outclassed. Lightspeed (Only better than PoM if you are using this to move and cast), Spear, Ewer, Spire (Arguably useless) (Possibly Time Dilation and CO if you can really count them since their use is just to benefit our other utilities) are the only utilities we get that the other healers don't have a better version of.

[VanEinstein]

@ RaeyFonzur - I agree with so much of what you've said in your last couple posts. It seems like it's an uphill battle when trying to spell out the reality of the job versus it's potential outcomes, and in my opinion, you've done a good job of it.

I feel like Astrologian somehow suffered from a lack of ideas or time during its development.. almost like it was rushed to the finish without a great deal of thought as to what the implications of the chosen design was. The job still has an enjoyable *feel* to it (though describing that isn't exactly my forte), but the harsh realities of the design set in once you put it under pressure.

[Minorinz]

Astro needs its own thing going on just like how sch is specialized with mitigation and whm with their heavy heals. Also why are astros' sects locked down in battle? I hope SE does something about astro very soon.