Astro in savage

[Brightshadow]

The cards are overpowered in the idea presented above because you remove the "random" nature from the cards and can basically keep the best buff "balance" up 50% of the time; in addition it also makes the "bad" cards useless (spear,ewer,spire) because why would you use these if you can keep "balance & arrow" up full-time. While the RNG isn't optimal its one of the main features of the job, and by doing what you are suggesting with the cards it makes the job broken. All Astrologian needs is a bit more control over the cards (For example shuffle not redrawing the same card) and when a card isn't used (Royal Road) cut the recast of the draw in half. As for healing a new emergency heal and adjustments to Collective Unconscious & Celestial Opposition should be enough.

Another thing I think needs changes is the situational cards (Ewer & Spire) to function for any party composition by merging both TP & MP recovery into ewer, and making spire a "Mantra (HP recovery increase)" effect. And Definitely Spear needs to work on abilities already on cooldown.

[Rewind]

The cards are overpowered in this idea because you remove the RNG nature of the cards and can basically keep "balance" up 50% of the time, and it also makes the "bad" cards useless (spear,ewer,spire) While the RNG isn't optimal its one of the main features of the job, and by doing what you are suggesting with the cards it makes the job broken. All Astrologian needs is a bit more control over the cards (For example shuffle not redrawing the same card) and when a card isn't used (Royal Road) cut the recast of draw in half. As for healing a new emergency heal and adjustments to CU & CO should be enough.

My idea is that AST can supplement a BRD/MCH in raid. The benefit of the cards must also be as consistent as Eos/Selene buffs. I haven't discussed healing potency yet but I actually think no changes are needed to healing potency. Just some of the utility spells and some aspects of nocturnal stance because it just seems a bit...meh.

Maybe a debuff can be placed on a player so you can't roll the same card on the same player within a specific period of time? (e.g can't spam ewer on self, or balance on DRG) etc.

In most of the fights there are portions of downtime where other cards would be useful (bole, spire, ewer) that just don't get play now regardless because we didn't draw the right card at the right time and don't have the ability to spread more than once.

AST needs control of the cards to be a viable replacement. The potency of cards can easily be reduced (e.g Balance) to rebalance the now lack of RNG.

[Leoimy]

at the current ilvl cap for people who are in eso/proto gear, astro/scholar is very very VERY difficult to pull off. it wont be until people are full eso that you'll maybe be seeing those pair really shine. but for now i think whm/scholar is a must have for a1s. its possible with astro/scholar but my goodness its hard lol. i mained astro with a whm healer and we didnt get past faust at all until i went scholar. astro is cool definitely in pvp but for undergeared in savage yea, go scholar for now and go back astro when you're a little higher ilvl. just a tad.

[Vlady]

If people go the route of using white mage until content is on semi farm mode then swap to astrologian that will signal to se that the astrologian is not weak at all. Just people prefer the raw healing of the white over the astrologian because it vibes the perception ofbeing able to compensate for more mistakes.

[Parawill]

If people go the route of using white mage until content is on semi farm mode then swap to astrologian that will signal to se that the astrologian is not weak at all.

The thing about farm mode though is that you start to accumulate more higher iLvL gear which improves both DPS, Defenses and healing output, which will make things easier. Astrologians aren't weak to the point where they can't clear current content (and as far as we know, AS1 and AS2), but they have difficulties doing so with their counterparts. Plus, farm mode means people have done progressing a, b and so on.

I'm pretty sure a lot of us aren't saying Astrologians are complete garbage. We just see that the class can use some tweaks here and there to make it a stronger class that can be on par with White Mage and Scholar. And by "on par" I don't mean heal like a Scholar or White Mage, but be within the same tier bracket. Y'know, same efficiency but different ways of going on about it.

On a side note, I do agree with you, Vlady, that the cards shouldn't be buffed to the point where Astrologians are favored over WHM and SCH, but the point is... WHM & SCH are preferred over AST at the moment because it's a safer choice for progression. Albeit the few individuals who have cleared AS1 & AS2 with Astrologian, the tiny player base is somewhat significant that the class presently unappealing to most (collectively across all world servers) in terms of progression. For side content? Do whatever you like.

EDIT: Wooh! 1% Wipe! Healing AS1 is not really an issue to me, but if I had access to another off-GCD heal or something to cover a 1GCD mistake... that would make things a lot easier. x_X

[Muahbec]

The cards are overpowered in the idea presented above because you remove the "random" nature from the cards and can basically keep the best buff ....

Of course that would not be overpowered
Just look at this job, weak healing power, no healing cooldowns and not a huge healer presence like whm/sch thanks to our cards.
If we are going to exchange our healing power for buffs then we MUST at least be able to choose which buff to apply and WHEN to apply it.
I totally support the individual card skills idea.
AST should look more like a green mage and like a true buffer job.

[DarkmoonVael]

If people go the route of using white mage until content is on semi farm mode then swap to astrologian that will signal to se that the astrologian is not weak at all. Just people prefer the raw healing of the white over the astrologian because it vibes the perception ofbeing able to compensate for more mistakes.

What you have just said actually means AST is underpowered. If people only use AST when they are overgeared and have already learned the fight, then there is clearly a problem with the class if it can't be used whilst progressing and learning the content.

[Vlady]

Not necessarily.Just means progression teams value the superior cooldowns of a white mage to help pushduring oh shot moments.

[DarkmoonVael]

Not necessarily.Just means progression teams value the superior cooldowns of a white mage to help pushduring oh shot moments.

Notice how you described white mage cooldowns as superior. This means that AST doesnt have this. So yes, my original stance is still the same.

[Akyio]

Even if we took all those cards away and gave AST permanent 10% dmg buff for entire party 24/7, that would still be not enough. We would still have some broken skills like time dilation in nocturnal stance, we would still have practically useless collective unconscious and still reasonable healing issues.