Please do not nerf Astrologian instead buff WHM/SCH

[Cupcakesu]

AST needs to step back a bit.
I don't care if they keep their utility buffs, that's their thing. But by no means, should they be healing for the same numbers as a WHM, and even stronger than a SCH. It's so stupid.

They threw themselves into a hole with Astrologian by making it heal identically to both other jobs. Healing is what's most important for a Healer, and yet AST also has buffs that need to be taken into account for balancing. Problem is, if you nerf their Healing, they still need to be able to heal all content. If their healing is weaker than WHM and SCH, that just means WHM and SCH will heal in excess because content will be keeping AST's nerfed healing as a baseline. If you nerf their cards, they lose the only identity they have. SE needs to improve SCH's healing or mitigation and give WHM something other than big heals. Each Healer SHOULD have a completely unique strength that makes them desirable or special in at least some content.

[loreleidiangelo]

They threw themselves into a hole with Astrologian by making it heal identically to both other jobs. Healing is what's most important for a Healer, and yet AST also has buffs that need to be taken into account for balancing. Problem is, if you nerf their Healing, they still need to be able to heal all content. If their healing is weaker than WHM and SCH, that just means WHM and SCH will heal in excess because content will be keeping AST's nerfed healing as a baseline. If you nerf their cards, they lose the only identity they have. SE needs to improve SCH's healing or mitigation and give WHM something other than big heals. Each Healer SHOULD have a completely unique strength that makes them desirable or special in at least some content.

Serious question. How does nerfing Balance specifically (the one true "problem" card in AST's deck) hurt their identity? If anything, Balance ITSELF is what hurts AST, because now their card system is set up in such a way where the only real desirable outcome IS Balance. I actually think nerfing or reworking it entirely would open up a lot of new avenues for more varied and engaging cardplay. Tank buster coming up? Whatever, I still want Balance anyway, the tank can deal with their issues on their own. Fight with heavy movement? Whatever, I still want Balance anyway, I just won't use it on the BLM cuz most of it'll go to waste, I'll use it on the mobile RDM or heavy-hitting SAM instead. I need MP? Whatever, I still want Balance anyway, cutting back on my own personal DPS a bit isn't worth losing 20% on an actual DPS job or 10% on an entire raid group.

For the most part, I actually agree with your statement about the devs developing AST into the gutter from the get-go with their stupid "hybrid" idea. But I also don't think we'll be ruined forever if Balance gets adjusted or changed to something else. I get tired of fishing for nothing but that orange icon 90% of the time.

[TankHunter678]

And on the topic of Balance, AST is the only job with the utility to give a party wide 10% damage boost

*looks at ninja trick attack with 60 sec cooldown* I wish to correct you on something...

If you are lucky within 1 minute you can have an AoE balance, if you are unlucky the next AoE balance can be up to 5 or even 10 minutes away, this I have personally experienced as AST is the healer I main.

Meaning that in terms of total 10% raid wide damage boosting Ninja is in fact superior and has higher uptime on that damage boost, because it is 100% consistent in how it functions.

If you were to nerf balance then people would simply run a Ninja for raid wide damage boosting, especially since ninja also brings a good chunk of DPS to the table. If SCH was superior off-healer then AST would be dumped, as Ninja handles the damage boost during the burst moments and SCH would handle the shields with WHM handling the power healing and main healing.

[MrSmiley]

Other than ast stealing sch's identity, the issue is the others need more utility. SCH had their taken, and they now...uhh... not really sure. AST does it better. WHM has more snap heals to fight back with, but that's all they have. A healer has to be able to heal enough to cover content though, or they are unusable, like original AST. If the other healers do not get some kind of utility, AST will always be better, unless its just made bad.

[HyperSMB]

-snip-

Except SCH shields are crap and unreliable. AST brings reliability in Noct power. A SCH shield is only ever really worth anything 10-15% of the time. AST shield is ALWAYS good.

The whole AST thing of light (Sun) and dark (Moon) is honestly just dumb. Instead of shields and regen, which already belong to other classes, why not get real creative and try an actual support class or something.

Right now, Balance...not even whether it is good or not but the community obession with DPS pushing this to be the only desired outcome, warps the entire class identity.

[TankHunter678]

Other than ast stealing sch's identity, the issue is the others need more utility. SCH had their taken, and they now...uhh... not really sure. AST does it better. WHM has more snap heals to fight back with, but that's all they have. A healer has to be able to heal enough to cover content though, or they are unusable, like original AST. If the other healers do not get some kind of utility, AST will always be better, unless its just made bad.

Besides healing SCH used to be great off-healer DPS because even in mobility heavy fights their dots were always ticking for good chunks of damage, something that neither WHM or AST could do nearly as well.

But that got nerfed for SCH which really hurt them having a spot.

Except SCH shields are crap and unreliable. AST brings reliability in Noct power. A SCH shield is only ever really worth anything 10-15% of the time. AST shield is ALWAYS good.

The whole AST thing of light (Sun) and dark (Moon) is honestly just dumb. Instead of shields and regen, which already belong to other classes, why not get real creative and try an actual support class or something.

Right now, Balance...not even whether it is good or not but the community obession with DPS pushing this to be the only desired outcome warps the entire class identity.

Because SE decided to make SCH shields unreliable. Just like AST's cards are unreliable.

The problem is that SCH shields should have been consistent because SCH is built conceptually around preventing damage with foresight a proactive agent rather then a reactive one which is why their base was Arcanist. So clearly that needs buffing to make them consistent and reliable. At which point they stop being crap.

Of course if you do that then SCH gets their shield spot back from AST, and AST becomes all the more focused on their RNG card draws.

[Cupcakesu]

Serious question. How does nerfing Balance specifically (the one true "problem" card in AST's deck) hurt their identity? If anything, Balance ITSELF is what hurts AST, because now their card system is set up in such a way where the only real desirable outcome IS Balance. I actually think nerfing or reworking it entirely would open up a lot of new avenues for more varied and engaging cardplay. Tank buster coming up? Whatever, I still want Balance anyway, the tank can deal with their issues on their own. Fight with heavy movement? Whatever, I still want Balance anyway, I just won't use it on the BLM cuz most of it'll go to waste, I'll use it on the mobile RDM or heavy-hitting SAM instead. I need MP? Whatever, I still want Balance anyway, cutting back on my own personal DPS a bit isn't worth losing 20% on an actual DPS job or 10% on an entire raid group.

For the most part, I actually agree with your statement about the devs developing AST into the gutter from the get-go with their stupid "hybrid" idea. But I also don't think we'll be ruined forever if Balance gets adjusted or changed to something else. I get tired of fishing for nothing but that orange icon 90% of the time.

Here's the issue with the other cards: You can't make content that relies on them and thus no one will care about them. Balance and Arrow are both damage boosts, and people find that appealing because damage is ALWAYS useful. We trade our single target DPS for that boost. Will people care about Bole if content doesn't require it? Will people bring Astrologian to raids because of Bole? Probably not, because Bole will never matter. SE can't design content around having an extra 20% damage reduction, both because the other Healers don't have that level of mitigation and because you're not guaranteed a Bole draw, which means you will never need a Bole and thus can heal through damage naturally. Spear has never been useful, and it's clear by this point that SE doesn't care. Ewer and Spire are, again, not important enough to care about for raid content because one is only useful if the fight is terribly long (and most of the time raid content has enrage timers), and the other is useful typically only for yourself.

If they want to make the card system work without Balance, they need to literally redesign the entire system and every card with it. Otherwise, cards (without Balance) will be unnecessary bonuses that no one care about.

[Hikuras]

^^^^^^^

Failing that though, Balance at the LEAST needs to be looked at/addressed. A flat 10% DPS increase on everyone in the raid is something no other healer comes even close to emulating in value.

Why? Why does everyone want to kill BALANCE? Leave Balance along. So what that Astro gets that card.. it's an astro's card. Whm and Sc don't need to take Balance away. instead LEave astros alone and just give the other two healers some tools that are only for them. LEts do THAT instead of fucking up Astro cause of a card it was made to have. :c

[Rhindas]

I don't want to see AST nerfed, but unless they're willing to give WHM and SCH something comparable if not equal, The Balance does need looked at. A 10-30% DPS buff depending on Royal Road that stacks with other DPS buffs is hugely significant now that they removed a lot of them from jobs thanks to the reworking of cross classes. In a game where the meta becomes "as much DPS pumped in as possible," AST is a huge source of it now. That's just a straight up damage buff that can be semi-manipulated for maximum uptime that doesn't rely on random dice rolls in crits and direct hit. Moreso if you have two coordinating ASTs that had it ready to go before the fight started and work together to make sure the next is up as soon as the first falls, and then extended.

Baseline healing probably should be the same in all jobs but we eventually got to a point in ARR and HW (and will in SB) where excess healing is just not needed. Tanks are already wearing STR gear because they don't need the extra health. It's superfluous. WHM had the best healing throughput but we didn't need it, and thus were left behind in favor of the other healers that offered buffs to raid DPS. I'm not sure they'll ever be able to change this mindset. It's just how it goes in MMOs. But because we just don't need the throughput, we instead look to what else the healer can bring, and AST is winning without a contest. Even if RNG doesn't grace you with a Balance, you still have reliable shields and throughput healing.

[Ootarion]

AST needs to step back a bit.
I don't care if they keep their utility buffs, that's their thing. But by no means, should they be healing for the same numbers as a WHM, and even stronger than a SCH. It's so stupid.

By no means is AST a definitive more powerful healer then WHM.

Can they Benedict? No, their closest comparison is Essential Dignity but not even that is anywhere near as good. WHM has better MP management by default in that their MP costs on abilities like Medica II and Regen is infact lower then Aspected Helios and Aspected Benefic.

Do ASTs have anything even remotely as good as the WHM ability Thin Air? No, not even close. Even with Enhanced Ewer and Lucid Dreaming, AST does NOT have a means of Infinite MP like what WHM can pull out.

Do ASTs have the same DPS potential? Nope, WHMs have Stone IV, Aero III and Aero II and they also have Assize which is a 300 potency AoE that also heals respectively well and restores 10% mp, AST only has ONE offensive AoE and that is Gravity and they dont even get that until lvl 52. You could sit there and say that in a WHM vs AST comparison that the AST will have better damage, but this is incorrect, the WHM will still have better damage potential then the AST regardless of whether or not the AST buffs themselves with Enhanced Balance.

AST: Malefic III (Potency 220), Combust II (Potency 50, Gravity (Potency 200), Lord of Crowns (300), Earthly Star (Potency 150 in the first 10 seconds, 200 in the next 10 seconds)

WHM: Stone IV (Potency 260), Aero III (Potency 50 with a dot potency of 40 and is AoE), Aero II (Potency 50 with Potency 50 DoT), Assize (Instant Off Global AoE with Potency 300 attack and Heals and restores MP), Holy (Potency 200 with Stun)

WHM has has a stronger Off Global Cooldown aoe that is centered on them, while Earthly Star is an Off Global as well but once you set it, its stuck where it is, and in some fights, this is useless. Furthermore, again, WHM can use Thin Air at lvl 62 to negate ALL mp costs for 12 seconds, and thats 12 seconds of free casting whatever the heck they want, combined with Presence of Mind for faster casting....yeah, you really wanna say that AST is op? Yeah no. Am I saying WHM is op? No, but neither is AST, now please people, calm down and back off, AST is not op, there are PLENTY of things WHM can still do better.

Is AST better then SCH? Not from what I have seen.

SCH Adloquium has a cure potency of 300, which is 100 points higher then ASTs Aspected Benefic, even with a 15% heal buff increase, that isnt going to make Aspected Benefic+Nocturnal Sect shielding better at healing or shielding because of the fact that Adloquium still has a baseline potency of 300 AND it shields for the SAME amount it heals while Aspected Benefic's shield is 250% of what it heals, this means that if anything, without a crit, Aspected Benefic has a stronger shield, but when Adloquium crits, its healing is not only doubled but so is the shielding, so this means when a SCH CRITS with Adloquium, it will have a much stronger shield then AST will.

SCH still has an identify of it's own to, it has PETS! It even has more dots then AST and can bane for multi target dotting, but the pets alone, Eos and Selene still bring ALOT of helpful abilities to a fight.

So if anything, AST and SCH are about equal in my eyes. Oh and also, it has more offensive AoE then AST does.

If SCH and WHM are falling behind, it is only because they need buffs, so dont blame or accuse AST as the reason for the problems WHM and SCH might be having. If you nerf what AST has, it will NOT solve the problem as WHM and SCH will STILL be where they are. They need to buff WHM and SCH if anything.

I can even prove that WHM has better damage. I just attacked some target dummies and the numbers I got for my WHM's Aero III and Aero II, was a grand total 8,199 damage from just the Aero III and Aero II ALONE where as Combust II, an ASTs ONE and ONLY dot, only managed 7,660, a difference of 539 damage! OH and before anyone tries to say "AST has the balance card, your argument is invalid!" I should let everyone know, that my WHM when I did this test, is only lvl 60 with an average item lvl of 256 while my AST is lvl 68 with an average item level of 275! and yet despite this, like I said, between Aero III+Aero II vs Combust II there is only a damage difference of 539! So you guys still wanna say AST is to strong? Also this test did not take into account off global attacks like Assize, which is far and above stronger damage wise then Earthly Star ever will be, even with Enhanced Balance, Earthly Star would at best gain 100 more potency but that would just raise it up to Assize's damage potency, not exceed it and because of the Lily System, Assize can potentially have far more up time then Earthly Star. The ONLY thing Earthly Star does better is it has a stronger healing potency then Assize, but again Assize can have a much quicker cooldown if you use the Lily System to your advantage! Also I dont see Earthly Star restoring 10% mp each time it is used!

WHM has Benediction (Full Heal no matter what and is Off Global), Tetragrammaton (Cure Potency 700 and is Off Global and thanks to the Lily System it's cooldown can be shortened), Assize (Cure Potency 300 and is also Off Global and thanks to the Lily System it's cooldown can be reduced) oh and lets not forget Asylum (ground targetted aoe that remains in play for 24 seconds and has a cure potency of 100 and can ALSO have it's cooldown reduced by the Lily System). So many of you claim that AST is the better healer BUT IT DOES NOT have anywhere near the same number of Off Global Heals of such power! Even I, a tried and true main stay Astrologian, can clearly tell where a WHM does something better then me! That being said....am I saying Im weaker as a healer? No, I can say without any bias, that AST and WHM are on par, they have their own niches, I still gladly use my WHM when the mood strikes me.

But again, if any buffs are needed, I can see SCH getting buffed at least a little bit cause like I said, AST and WHM both are doing just fine.