3.1 : Astrologian "adjustments''

[Nekotee]

The scholar is stronger than the AST in mitigation damage only if he crit
Otherwise the AST is slighly better

It's true that the AST do not have instant mp recovery but if he put luminiferous aether + ewer + CO, the AST might regen way more than the other other

...

That being said...
The only change in 3.1 is the maintain of royal road during an area change ?
I'm kind of disappointed XD

[NorthernLadMSP]

Extremely disappointed in the "AST changes."

[Kabzy]

The scholar is stronger than the AST in mitigation damage only if he crit
Otherwise the AST is slighly better

I think that's kind of situational. Mitigation really shines when you need to soak heavy raid-wide damage, and that's where SCH shines because deployed Adlo (crit or not) is unmatched in it's power.

[Mibgestalt]

Eh. Honestly with the flood of 210 gear, class balance isn't going to be a huge issue. A decent AST will be able to fill either role in a decent group. Hope Square realizes this is a temporary fix for Noct's problems, though.

Also another patch of being a God of Life in Frontlines. Bow down.

[Ghishlain]

I wasn't surprised at all with the limited AST "adjustments". While there are a few changes to adjust in Noct overall AST is a good healer and won't need much aside from some tweaking.

It's the fact it was mentioned in the live letter that these "adjustments" got as much attention as it did.

[Averax]

Our huge "adjustment" was a royal road fix.

[Lilith_Merquise]

AST is the jack of all trades, master of none. Essentially the "RDM" of the healing class. It isn't a terrible class, but it isn't better then the other two. The problem though is that by taking a WHM and a SCH, there is essentially no reason to take an AST outside of there just not being a WHM or SCH available and making due with what you have. AST in Nocturnal does not = SCH, AST in Diurnal does not = WHM.

Sure I get why AST can't be greater then those classes, but making it fairly equal while in those stances would be beneficial if we ever hope to see AST be more considered. That or SE needs to figure out how to make cards and what AST does so good, that the lack of healing is acceptable because it makes up for it in buffing, to which it currently does not.

What I find funny is that SE recognized that PLD DPS is an issue in the current DPS meta, DRK TP sustainability is an issue even after their small TP adjustment, and AST is still mediocre option compared to other healer classes (again if it's the same skill level and same iLvl, WHM and SCH will beat out AST every time, it's a great class for dungeons, but is lost in serious raids). SO what are they adjusting?

PLD, NIN, BRD minor tp reductions to abilities... yep that should fix PLD's DPS issue in savage content, yep lowering NIN and BRD is super necessary not like DRK could of used even a minor reduction to at least attempt in helping their TP. And AST being able to keep their royal road when enter/leaving dungeons..... because I was really concerned about that.... Now I'll just have to tell my future static to please wait 5 minutes before every run so I can try to roll card for AoE before we enter raid.... I'm sure that will really benefit the class lol.

I'm hoping there is more to this being that this is preliminary but if this is it, I can't hide much of my displeasure in this, especially because I was hoping they would halve or 1/4th the recast timer for MCH Reload as mentioned in the notes @_@....

[RazeLandale]

It's a fine little quality of life thing, but they never should have mentioned it beforehand and got the hypetrain rolling.

[Vlady]

AST is the jack of all trades, master of none. Essentially the "RDM" of the healing class. It isn't a terrible class, but it isn't better then the other two. The problem though is that by taking a WHM and a SCH, there is essentially no reason to take an AST outside of there just not being a WHM or SCH available and making due with what you have. AST in Nocturnal does not = SCH, AST in Diurnal does not = WHM.

Sure I get why AST can't be greater then those classes, but making it fairly equal while in those stances would be beneficial if we ever hope to see AST be more considered. That or SE needs to figure out how to make cards and what AST does so good, that the lack of healing is acceptable because it makes up for it in buffing, to which it currently does not.

What I find funny is that SE recognized that PLD DPS is an issue in the current DPS meta, DRK TP sustainability is an issue even after their small TP adjustment, and AST is still mediocre option compared to other healer classes (again if it's the same skill level and same iLvl, WHM and SCH will beat out AST every time, it's a great class for dungeons, but is lost in serious raids). SO what are they adjusting?

PLD, NIN, BRD minor tp reductions to abilities... yep that should fix PLD's DPS issue in savage content, yep lowering NIN and BRD is super necessary not like DRK could of used even a minor reduction to at least attempt in helping their TP. And AST being able to keep their royal road when enter/leaving dungeons..... because I was really concerned about that.... Now I'll just have to tell my future static to please wait 5 minutes before every run so I can try to roll card for AoE before we enter raid.... I'm sure that will really benefit the class lol.

I'm hoping there is more to this being that this is preliminary but if this is it, I can't hide much of my displeasure in this, especially because I was hoping they would halve or 1/4th the recast timer for MCH Reload as mentioned in the notes @_@....

What about the the astrologian is it not equal with to the white mage in healing now? Potency heals are side by side the same as the white mage and the ability to put out a potentially 1200 instant cast potency heals makes it superior to the white mage now for single target heals. It is a few % behind white mages now but the meta of the game is about burst heals at 60-90 second intervals which the astrologian can deal with as easily as the white mage.

The white mage is an old school type healer for 1.0 days that has been left behind. As others have said astro now have replaced the white mage as the healer to team up with a scholar. And that is not even speaking about the utility and buffs we bring. I am sorry but we are not three months ago. White mage needs more help then we do and the most likely outcome is astro potency nerfs before we should even be given a second glance.

[Sleigh]

What about the the astrologian is it not equal with to the white mage in healing now? Potency heals are side by side the same as the white mage and the ability to put out a potentially 1200 instant cast potency heals makes it superior to the white mage now for single target heals. It is a few % behind white mages now but the meta of the game is about burst heals at 60-90 second intervals which the astrologian can deal with as easily as the white mage.

The white mage is an old school type healer for 1.0 days that has been left behind. As others have said astro now have replaced the white mage as the healer to team up with a scholar. And that is not even speaking about the utility and buffs we bring. I am sorry but we are not three months ago. White mage needs more help then we do and the most likely outcome is astro potency nerfs before we should even be given a second glance.

The meta is not about burst heals every 60-90s, it's about strong as hell HoTs sustaining the tanks while the healers DPS. WHM is better at that. Regen, Asylum, and and Divine Seal are better than Aspected Benefic, Collective, and Synastry for that purpose, potency wise and consistency wise. The one ace AST has up its sleeve is Essential is better than Tetra for that purpose but it's not a big enough difference.

So you've got the how they DPS, which is in favor of WHM, and then you've got the what they contribute to DPS. Honestly? WHM is at the forefront of that. We're not exactly seeing AST in most of these speed runs, almost none of them actually. Wanna know why? RNG, and WHM DPS >>>>> AST DPS. WHM's ability to DPS, and the raw potencies of said DPS, are so far above AST that cards, even if they weren't an RNG fest with many opportunities to draw useless cards multiple Draws/Shuffles in a row, just don't even match what a WHM is doing.

I checked your profile. Mostly i190/i200 gear. Level 50 WHM. Probably haven't done a savage raid even once yet, much less have the ability to speak on the balance of well played WHM vs AST. I'm going to assume you are just talking out your rear if you honestly believe AST is replacing WHM right now.