Final Fantasy XIV Proposal Redesign Job: Astrologian

[Lemuria]

These are some terrible ideas, I'm sorry. For a start, the reason Benefic has a lower potency is because of Nocturnal Sect's 5% cure bonus. To put it into perspective, if you add 5% damage onto 380 potency you get 399 potency, which is only a tiny bit shy of the normal base cure potency of 400. Same goes for Benefic II, which actually gets a bonus +1 potency (651 effective potency with Nocturnal Sect versus 650 for White Mage's Cure II).

But of course, most people use Diurnal Sect for the simple reason that regens are far more resource friendly than shields, especially since Ast doesn't benefit from critical bonuses as Scholar's do.

[Daralii]

From what I seen the other healers can handle the load and astro cannot.

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The crux of the issue with AST is that the idea is their heals are slightly worse than the other healers because the cards are supposed to make up for it. The problem is that the cards are very underwhelming in addition to being completely underwhelming(spire -> shuffle -> spire nightmare), in addition to nocturnal sect being worse than diurnal in almost every regard. The result is a healer that can't heal and provides less damage for the group than a scholar spamming broil while their fairy and a white mage heal.

[Snolily]

I actually like this job just dont know how to properly play it yet cause i just started, But i think it looks cool and the heals to me are strong and grabbing hate almost all the time. If anyone has any advice on this job greatly appreciated, also how do you know when to switch to each sect?

[Daralii]

I actually like this job just dont know how to properly play it yet cause i just started, But i think it looks cool and the heals to me are strong and grabbing hate almost all the time. If anyone has any advice on this job greatly appreciated, also how do you know when to switch to each sect?

Unless you absolutely need the shields to extend everyone's max HP or are in a party with an AST already in diurnal, diurnal is always better.

[Duelle]

It should have been literally anything that makes it competitive with WHM/SCH. It can be a hybrid and be competitive, but it's undertuned right now. A massive rework is NOT required and is NOT likely at this point.

Undertuned or not, the fact that they effectively made a healer that apes the existing two healers is not a good thing. The OP has a point is that AST doesn't have much of its own thing per se. Being known as "the healer that can be like WHM and be like SCH" doesn't do it justice, IMO.

That a revamp is not gonna happen is a given, but let's not pretend the idea on which they built the job isn't questionable.

How is DRK a new tanking style? Their "style" is the exact same as a PLD but they get to use mana to enhance a few of their abilities, mostly for DPS reasons.

Different gameplay and mechanics. PLD doesn't have Dark Arts or a comboable self heal. PLD also doesn't have AoE options like DRK has. PLD also doesn't have a gap-closer.

Or it pulls friendly targets right into an AoE. Or pulls a melee away from the target for lulz. This would be THE troll skill of the game. Even more than Ninja's good ol' smokescreen on the tank.

It'd still be useful for pulling DPS that stand in the fire out of it rather than letting them kiss dirt.
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Kinda pressed for time at the moment, but I notice some callbacks to resto druids (being able to detonate HoTs into direct heals). That's a decent place to start if you want to build a HoT healer. The write-up does need to be cleaned up, though. Ability pruning and adjustments, too.

[SuzakuCMX]

Undertuned or not, the fact that they effectively made a healer that apes the existing two healers is not a good thing. The OP has a point is that AST doesn't have much of its own thing per se. Being known as "the healer that can be like WHM and be like SCH" doesn't do it justice, IMO.

Its own thing is the ability to throw different buffs out to each member of the team. Cards. They are just horribly undertuned and feel like they were glued on to AST as an afterthought even though 6 abilities are currently wasted on them. A rework is NOT required.

Different gameplay and mechanics. PLD doesn't have Dark Arts or a comboable self heal. PLD also doesn't have AoE options like DRK has. PLD also doesn't have a gap-closer.
It'd still be useful for pulling DPS that stand in the fire out of it rather than letting them kiss dirt.

Their style is the same; moderately healthed resistance tanking with combo-based enmity and DPS generation. Their actual style is the same. DRK is traditionally a magic-based tank but SE kind of flattened out class diversity with the expansion.

[Alistaire]

And this is why people bash these threads so hard. A job not doing well is a sign of some minor tweaks needed; not a complete overhaul. And it's really only the "scholar stance" of AST that's really lacking. If SE made changes like this when something needed a fix we'd be in a real mess.

Remember when NIN needed a nerf? 2 skills had their tp changed, and they lost their 20% damage buff to an ogcd used for damage 2x a minute. And the issue was completely solved. It looked like a really really small change on paper, where this...this is ridiculous.

[Adire]

It'd still be useful for pulling DPS that stand in the fire out of it rather than letting them kiss dirt.

Not useful enough to put such a power over other players in the hands of a player. I can think of a million scenarios where this skill would be more detrimental than useful, and the one you listed is the only positive about it. Not to mention, you'd have to have incredible reaction speed in most cases to get the person out of the aoe quick enough.

I can already see ASTs pulling MTs to the group in the 24man raid and getting the entire group cleaved to "save them from aoes". And if there's something like in A3 like tethers....well, let's just hope this skill is never added, or a lot of people will die from it.

[Tadacho]

I was thinking what if AST had a new effect added to their sects (both of them) Additional Effect: Star Gaze.

Basically this effect gives the AST a permanent buff called Star Gazing (so long as the Sect is also active). That buff is a roulette of each possible card - the buff icon would show the card in question and would change every 10 seconds or something (the buff counts down 10 secs, and then refreshes with the next card). Give AST a new ability to be used alongside this such as, idk "Ocular Draw". When they use Ocular Draw it allows them to draw the card that coincides with the current card displayed on the buff icon.

The idea behind this is that, AST's have a star globe whilst in battle and the cards on that star globe are seen spinning/rotating around. The buff Star Gaze is a representation of that. The ability Ocular Draw implies that the AST is actively looking at their star globe and drawing a card of their choice from it. Also, when Ocular Draw is used, it does not remove the effect of Star Gaze. The buff continues to rotate through the 6 cards.

The effect of Star Gaze is always active so long as:
1. the AST is in battle (this disallows abuse, stops the AST always being able to draw Balance before a battle) and
2. the AST is in a Sect. Perhaps each Sect could also change the rotation of the Star Gaze buff. Diurnal makes it rotate one way, and Nocturnal in the reverse.

The idea behind this buff, Star Gaze, is that the AST is actively paying attention to the rotation of their cards. Once drawing a card using Ocular Draw (they can still also use the regular Draw, but this is still privy to RNG) it can be used in conjunction with Spread/RR/Shuffle as normal. This gives the AST a new option of drawing a card, however it is not RNG related, so long as they can have a bit of patience in waiting for their required card to come around on the buff (10 secs per card means this is a full 60 second rotation). I would also lower the cooldowns of Draw and Shuffle so that these are also more desirable to use in a pinch, as opposed to just having the ASTwaiting for their Ocular Draw each time. Seen as Ocular Draw is a guaranteed card selection of your choice it should have a higher cooldown than Draw and Shuffle. I think it's a cool idea, it alleviates some RNG without completely taking that away from the job, and also ties into how the AST actually works, what with their rotating star globe. ^^ If Ocular Draw has a 70 second cooldown, this lines up with the full rotation of the buff and means the AST is unable to continuously use Ocular Draw on the same buff every time its up, makes it impossible for the AST to simply draw Balance every time the CD is up)

There are other effects that could even apply to this mechanic. Lightspeed could also have "reduces the rotation time of Star Gaze to 5 seconds", rather than 10 secs. Maybe whilst using "Collective Unconsciousness" the roulette of the buff freezes too, seen as your weapon isn't out and therefore the cards aren't spinning.

This of course is a whole new mechanic, rather than just a balancing thing. More of a what if scenario I'm not actually proposing it...

I would also just in general increase AST's healing output, they just can't keep up.

[Duelle]

Its own thing is the ability to throw different buffs out to each member of the team. Cards.

A RNG mechanic that is unreliable, and one people have been unsurprisingly complaining about (because as a rule of thumb unreliable mechanics should not be part of tank or healer design).

They are just horribly undertuned and feel like they were glued on to AST as an afterthought even though 6 abilities are currently wasted on them.

They're balanced the way they are because if you make the cards too powerful you'll end up making AST required for raiding. There's a reason Yoshida says he's trying to avoid encouraging something like AST x 2 (which is likely to happen if they buff healing and the cards too much).

Their style is the same; moderately healthed resistance tanking with combo-based enmity and DPS generation. Their actual style is the same.

As I said, their gameplay is different. You can't play a DRK the way you do a PLD and expect the same results.

Not useful enough to put such a power over other players in the hands of a player. I can think of a million scenarios where this skill would be more detrimental than useful, and the one you listed is the only positive about it. Not to mention, you'd have to have incredible reaction speed in most cases to get the person out of the aoe quick enough.

I can already see ASTs pulling MTs to the group in the 24man raid and getting the entire group cleaved to "save them from aoes". And if there's something like in A3 like tethers....well, let's just hope this skill is never added, or a lot of people will die from it.

And here's where I draw the WoW card. Are we (FFXIV players) really that much worse than the other guys?

The OP based his suggestion on the Priest ability Leap of Faith, which does exactly as suggested by the OP: pulls a party member to the caster. Since implementation I've seen friends screwing around with it while idle/in cities, but this whole trolling in serious content has been non-existent. It's been pretty much used (in my experienced) as mentioned. To pull DPS that stand in the fire out of it. If anything I've seen priests get shit for not using it instead of them getting shit for using it to troll someone.