Astrologian - do you really want to rely on RNG in your group healer?

[Nihility]

I think your problem is more of a feel thing than an actual effectiveness issue.

all the hype about astrologian was around the cards and stances and both of those are about the most disappointing aspects of the class.
honestly you could probably ignore cards completely and your raid might not even notice anything different while stances are pretty much just opposite your healing partner and done
while the whole story for them is just reinforcing "OMG cards!" like every single quest

the rest of the astro kit is pretty solid though.
It may not have the damage reduction potential of a scholar or the bulk healing of a white mage but it kind of still fits in

[AlexanderThorolund]

Who liked the post? XD When it's fundamentally wrong.

[Teraluna]

" I don't like it, there for its bad "

Do you think so? I don't.
It's a newish class with some interesting mechanics. Would prefer to see a WHM and Scholar in a party though.
From what people are saying, and I agree, the cards come across as a little bonus that's all. - Well for a little bonus, there's 4 slots taken up in the UI as you try to take the rng - out of the rng.
That's just too messy for a small bonus.

Good comments on the class here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLjrNtx6dG8

[ArikDimas]

That video was made nearly a year ago, and the buffs that astro has gotten since then have probably fixed a lot of the problems that he may have mentioned in it.

[Kerii]

"Not everything you read or watch on the internet is factually correct. Please take everything with a grain of salt and do your own due diligence."

[Khalithar]

Do we want a healer that relies on RNG to heal? No. Fortunately, AST can still heal even if they get no useful cards.

[Teraluna]

Do we want a healer that relies on RNG to heal? No. Fortunately, AST can still heal even if they get no useful cards.

Absolutely - so the question begs: why go to all that rng messing about with the class if you don't really need it?

It just comes across as impractical in an intense full group scenario where you've got all kinds of aoe patterns, adds/boss mechanics, dynamic player movements - and in the middle of this, the card mechanic is to pull something out of the lucky dip bag for a small random effect? When your probably very hectic time could be spent doing far more effective actions for the group.

No, it's gimmicky.
Nothing against the idea of the six boons, but the call up mechanism needs looking at again by the devs.

[DarkmoonVael]

AST healing capability has nothing to do with RNG. So there is nothing RNG based about the vital role of group healer.......

Its buffing capabilities on the other hand are a bit RNG reliant, but there are enough abilities and ways to lower this RNG aspect of the class.

Good AST will always be good. Bad ones are the ones you sadly see the most of.

[TankHunter678]

Because AST has consistent healing its MP management is also incredibly consistent. Where a WHM would burn through mana because they are unlucky on procs, as they are deisnged with higher cost spells for the procs to matter, a AST wont have that issue. AST produces better consistency with shields then SCH, but if SCH procs a crit when applying a shield that is when SCH takes the cake on shields.

So when you look at it while WHM and SCH have RNG that determines the effectiveness of the main role healing and shielding, AST takes those 2 components and makes it consistent.

AST takes the RNG hit instead in its cards, but also gets skills to manipulate that RNG to its favor. Though WHM and SCH will still beat it when the RNG is in their favor in their extremes.

[Teraluna]

Hold on, crits are across all classes. Don't take up any ui slots, don't take up any time to use, and have been a standard in mmo's for years.
This is something different. Six class boon abilities where you have no idea what is going to come out of the lucky bag next.

Good v Bad AST player? With this mechanic the class starts to move into lucky v unlucky AST player for best performance.

A player who gets all the card rng luck will perform better than a similar one who doesn't - Really, how can that be good for any class set up?
So to maximize the class effectiveness, and the class is more than just heals, you're in the hands of rng for six of the class abilities.
This shouldn't be the case, it should be down purely to player skill. Leave these six class abilities as they are with a common cooldown - and let the player decide which one to use and when.