Astro in savage

[Kerrigen]

Who cares about composition when farming content, really? I've seen CNJs in T5/9 when people had it on farm, all WAR runs, low-mans etc. It doesn't mean it's optimal or even good during progression, just that gear and experience give you enough wiggle room that you can go sub-optimal and still easily win.

Nothing to do with AST being on par with WHM and SCH, just like a CNJ is quite objectively not on par with WHM.

Nobody is saying AST is complete garbage. I speedrun expert dungeons and farm Alex normal and Ravana with it just fine, but SCH/WHM makes progression in Savage that much easier and it's what matters when it comes to balance.

[justinjarjar]

Ok, so there's a really big thread all about AST in the healer forum. It's 193 pages... o.O

In any case, it would appear that their main concern is the Cards. There's a lot of discussion on whether there's any point to them and how a lot of them aren't very useful.

"There's also debate on whether the class is too weak or not. Some claim it definitely is, others that it just seems like it is because people don't know how to use the job well. But there's a general consensus that the image of AST is that they are weak and that for difficult content, it's common for parties to want WHM or SCH instead because of the fear that AST might be too weak.
Finally, there's worry/complaint about AST MP problems. WHM and SCH have reliable ways to regain MP, but AST seems to run out of MP often.

All that being said, there is still a lot of positive posts saying they love the class, but would just like to see some improvements. And most agree that the job is viable, just tuned a little low."

Here is the JP community's take, defiantly similar to ours just seems that AST is a little under-powered and in turn not being taken to progression raids.

[Galadrium]

Interesting idea about reverse cards recently posted today. I think this would be a great buff to the AST class--depends on if card is used on friend or foe.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/f...251946/?page=2

[Lastelli]

Any A3S clears with AST in the party?

[AlphaSonic]

Any Double AST clear in any floor?

[BMattAttack]

I apologize, this post is going to be a bit long. I'm not really sure the best thread to put this in because there are so many now, but this one seems seems on point enough, and there has been some good discussion here it goes!

What follows is a whole lot of assumptions and opinions, so I would love to hear other well thought out opinions to the contrary.

I think one of the biggest issues facing AST right now isn't just one of numbers or cool downs, it's also player mentality and philosophy. As I read the dev post from earlier, the AST's healing power was balanced with the power of the cards being kept in mind. So we know that AST took a hit in the healing department in exchange for the cards and the ability to buff our party members. However, I believe one of the most important things people look for in a healer is reliabilty. The rest of the party relies on the healers to keep the show going, so it's vitally important that your healers be consistent and reliable. Of course, the healing from AST's is fairly consistent, but it's been de-powered in exchange for the buffs through cards, which, as has been discussed, can be quite inconsistent. I think much of the community doesn't really see this as a good trade-off. The lack of healing power presents itself as a risk, especially in progression raiding, and in return you get the possibility of buffs that help the party, but they seem unreliable at best. This also can put a significant burden on the other healer, as they'll be the one who have to burn CDs to cover any shortfalls.

Therefore, I believe balancing AST isn't just a numbers game, but a perception game. AST can't be seen by the community as a liability, but as a reliable member pulling its weight.

Some people have suggested buffing the card potency by a great deal to make the buffs feel more compelling. I believe there are a couple problems with this approach:

• One, it will only change how compelling the buffs seem, but leave the increased risk in place. I agree that this is a reasonable approach to adjusting AST, and would make AST more compelling for some groups, but I fear that ultimately this will relegate AST to a farming role, speeding up farm runs, but actual progression will still primarily fall to the greater security of the WHM/SCH combo.
  
• Two, I think the developers are unlikely to buff the cards in any meaningful way. This is mostly because I think the devs have a clear idea in mind of how fast they want groups to proceed through Alex Savage . They don't want a repeat of third coil, where the top guilds cleared in a week. You can see this in some of the design decisions they've made, such as making the best crafted gear 30 ilevel below the top tier gear as opposed to 20 during third coil. They've clearly intended A3S and A4S to have hard gear checks. During 3rd coil they said that they didn't take healer DPS into account when designing the encounters, but they were also surprised by the extent top tier progression groups were getting DPS out of their healers, SCH in particular. I don't think we can assume they're still ignoring healer DPS when designing encounters. They want to be sure that groups need to gear up before clearing A3S and A4S, so they have to take into account all sources of DPS, including healers, and set the DPS out of reach for those groups until a certain ilevel is met. If they were to significantly buff AST's cards, that might enable groups to push past the DPS checks they've designed, so I think that's unlikely.

Where does that leave us then? I think that means adjustments to AST will mostly likely have to come in the healing area. I also believe this is the better course of action. We've got the green icon, so we're brought to parties for our healing. Right now, AST seems like two different classes smashed together, a healer and a buffer, with both sides implemented in a poor manner. SE already said they currently have no intention of creating a support slot for parties and I think it's difficult to effectively shoehorn one into one of the healer roles. Personally, if I were king of Eorzea, I would go the extreme rout and take AST back to the drawing board; remove the aspects altogether (which I think is the biggest deisng cop out in the game) possibly remove the cards, rename them Time Mages, and work on making a unique healer rather than this jumbled mix of the two we have already. I know that's not going to happen and wouldn't be popular. Admittedly the lore is good and people do seem to enjoy the cards. So, I think the best option is to tie the cards in better with the rest of the kit.

Right now it seems like two different classes having trouble synergizing with each other and there should be more interaction between the skills. The devs seem to be worried about balancing the healing versus the cards. I think the best way to handle this issue is by wrapping the cards into the healing. I think there are several ways to do this, but perhaps one approach is to combine Ewer and Spire together and reduce the total number of cards to 5. This would make the RNG a little less of an issue. Then in it's place, they could give us another skill that burns a card that we've spread, or uses up the drawn cool down to boost our healing. I don't know what kind of boost, but I like the idea of a faster healer doling out smaller but more precise heals. I feel like they've already leaned that way a bit. I'm not really sure what to do about Celestial Opposition and Collective Unconsciousness. I actually don't mind Celestial Opposition too much, but Collective Unconsciousness seem quite underwhelming. It IS pretty though. I think they had a lot of different ideas when making the class and instead of taking one of them and running with them, they smashed them together in the hodgepodge we have now. I believe that, ideally, if AST is going to earn its green icon, it needs a healing identity of its own and not another class's.

T;DR - AST has traded the reliability and security of other healers in exchange for inconsistent card buffs. Regardless of the actual numbers at play, many groups, especially progression groups and PF groups, are going to favor reliability over uncertainty, leaving AST the odd man out. To improve the state of AST, it needs to be seen to play a more reliable role than currently perceived.

[DarkmoonVael]

@BMattAttack, i think you have it correct, and are echoing what myself and others are saying. First and foremost it has to heal. And it has to heal to similar standards as WHM and SCH.

I like your ideas about being able to use the cards to buff healing output, it would solve a few issues perhaps

As for the identity, i have to agree with you here as well, but this is completely subjective from my side. It lack identity at the moment, and well, Time Mage as a healer would be awesome .

[RaeyFonzur]

I think that a HoT style healer would be amazing (and fit with the whole Time Mage thing they have going on with AST), since AST will pretty much replace one of the healers if we gain SCH's utility or WHM's healing. If you really like one of the stances then you would probably like the original job a lot more. There's pretty much no reason to play AST at this point unless you like the idea of buffing so I doubt many people would be angry if we suddenly had our healing changed to be unique.

[EchuKayu]

I think that a HoT style healer would be amazing (and fit with the whole Time Mage thing they have going on with AST), since AST will pretty much replace one of the healers if we gain SCH's utility or WHM's healing. If you really like one of the stances then you would probably like the original job a lot more. There's pretty much no reason to play AST at this point unless you like the idea of buffing so I doubt many people would be angry if we suddenly had our healing changed to be unique.

They had the opportunity to do a new, unique healer, but instead they just gave us a rip off of a SCH/WHM, and left out the things that make SCH/WHM so strong, while stripping us of HEALER utility, and gave us SUPPORT utility, which is RNG and does not make up for the tools that are lost. I admit they have some unique things, which I think they should have been given more of, I think the stances should have done more. For example Synastry is a pretty awesome, unique spell.

I agree with what BMattAttack as well.

[Kolsykol]

Would it really be so overpowered if Ewer and Spire Royal Road gave 100% potency AoE buffs instead of 50%? .
And maybe even reduce the CD on cards?
I dunno how far you could actually take it without making it overpowered. I am not at 60 yet. But I've noticed that it's a bit harder to keep people alive than when I leveled my Scholar.
It's not really difficult, but then again. Leveling content isn't hard to heal, it doesn't really get hard until the endgame. But I still feel a difference.

I love the cards tho, I really do. But I feel like they could do some really quick and easy fixes, and make it a lot more enjoyable.