The positive Astrologian thread!

[RichardButte]

Exactly this. I'll happily eat my foot if someone can detail a new, effective strategy exclusive to or simply optimal for AST that allows it to shine as well as the other two healers do.

I did that months ago, but please, don't go marinating your foot in BBQ sauce because you're still not WRONG at all...

The "new AST meta" would've revolved around a simple principle: the job of a healer is to keep the party alive until the end of the encounter. WHMs and SCHs do this by healing or shielding incoming damage.

AST, hypothetically, could've done this by bringing about the end of the encounter more quickly. Weaker healing and fewer emergency buttons are fine as tradeoffs if the AST is genuinely capable of increasing the party's DPS to the point that phases end more quickly, and everyone would take less damage because the boss/adds aren't alive long enough to DO that damage.

THAT would've been the new AST meta. However, the card buffs aren't even strong enough that they beat out a single Selene firing off it's 3% buff every minute for 30 seconds, in terms of adding any significant increase to the overall party DPS.

I expected AST to be a weaker healer out of the gate. Out of the three jobs, they were the most scared about someone finding an exploit with AST and facerolling savage content and I don't blame them. In hindsight, ASTs were going to have to sit this one out one way or another.

I actually support Yoshi-P in not wanting to repeat Blizzard's Death Knight debacle, what with the class launching stupidly overpowered (all three specs could tank AND DPS, and did it stupidly well, too...).

ASTs will have their day soon, and I'd rather be unique in being an AST player than one member of a horde of people playing an OP class.

[Cynfael]

I did that months ago, but please, don't go marinating your foot in BBQ sauce because you're still not WRONG at all...

The "new AST meta" would've revolved around a simple principle: the job of a healer is to keep the party alive until the end of the encounter. WHMs and SCHs do this by healing or shielding incoming damage.

AST, hypothetically, could've done this by bringing about the end of the encounter more quickly. Weaker healing and fewer emergency buttons are fine as tradeoffs if the AST is genuinely capable of increasing the party's DPS to the point that phases end more quickly, and everyone would take less damage because the boss/adds aren't alive long enough to DO that damage.

This is rather what I imagined for AST, too. Who knows what the upcoming changes will bring, though. If the patch delivers what it sounds like it might based on what Yoshi was talking about, with more impactful card buffs and some improvements to AST's healing game, AST might more effectively fill the "support caster" niche while closing the healing utility gap with WHM and SCH just enough to allow them to hold their own.

Even if it takes more skill and more effort, that would be an acceptable tradeoff and a welcome challenge if the reward were there.

[RichardButte]

AST might more effectively fill the "support caster" niche while closing the healing utility gap with WHM and SCH just enough to allow them to hold their own.

And that's pretty much exactly where it has to land: 90% of the healing and emergency potency of SCH/WHM, with the cards being beneficial enough to close that last 10% gap.

Due to the RNG of the cards, sometimes ASTs will be giving 110-120%, but most of the time they'll probably be more around 90-95%, but the POTENTIAL to hit 120% will justify it.

Again, I'm hopeful for ASTs. They fixed warriors up properly and I'm sure they'll do the same here. I don't begrudge Yoshi-P one bit for erring on the side of caution. Savage world firsts SHOULD be a big deal, not a week one thing because ASTs were shipped overpowered.