Astrologian 5.0 Discussion

[Sanghelios]

From what it looks like my 5.0 healing rotation will be, along with the MP issues AST will have due to loss of skills in the kit, anyone I co-heal with will actually have to heal. Like I said before, I was hoping for a change that would promote the other healer to heal more but these changes to AST look like they will become the focal point to MORE drama and abuse between healers, between a healer and the rest of the group.

Dont forget they revamped the whole mana system. Taking this in mind will very much likely end up in you having no mana issues at all, even with loosing ewer/CO.

[MintnHoney]

Dont forget they revamped the whole mana system. Taking this in mind will very much likely end up in you having no mana issues at all, even with loosing ewer/CO.

Considering we have no other means to manage our mana other than Lucid Dreaming, I sincerely hope so.
But to be honest, unless we build max piety (and piety has a substantial impact), AST will likely suffer mana droughts during long fights.

[Shurrikhan]

I have to admit, it's like they managed to find the one way that would do little to alleviate concerns yet piss the most players off. Skillful, but hardly commendable.

There only a few things I really do not like about the current kit:

• I feel that Nocturnal Sect and Diurnal Sect, if retained, ought to be more than just "SCH-mode" and "WHM-mode".
• Spear remains undertuned. Spire is useless. Cards on the whole should be reconsidered for balance without destroying their uniqueness. I also have conflicted feelings about Balance being the strongest offensive card but granting zero advantage to healers, unlike the other cards. I find cards the most fun in aggressive dungeon speed-runs because there are far more numerous viable ways to make use of them, but they are obviously the most rewarding in 8-mans (where they feel rather constrained). That discrepancy leaves a bit to be desired.
• Celestial Opposition. I don't like how many CDs are effectively wasted if not paired with it. It makes it feel more like an clunky obligatory step in 4-5 other cooldowns' usage rather than a skill in its own right. This ultimately obliges AST into boom-and-bust play. The rush is good, but the lulls are disproportionately... not.
• Healing Ability arsenal feels overtuned on the whole, especially given everything else, and the cards don't seem in a position to act in exchange with this (e.g. managing to pull through with an otherwise underpowered kit via raid-Bole, Arrow-heals, or whatnot, where the effect of cards for such is presently a fancy at best).

That's literally it. AST is a fun class. I'd have liked to see it fleshed out and better tuned. I certainly did not want to see its core component gutted, filleted, ground up, and spat upon.

I was actually just talking with my AST friend about this. We agreed that AST should have kept a lot of their current cards, but instead of being a direct damage buffer with Balance, instead become indirect like Spear and Arrow. A Crit buff is only effective if you actually Crit. Skill/Spell Speed buffs are only a buff if you don't clip or are a caster, and even then it's barely a few more GCDs pushed in. Change Spire to a Direct Hit Buff, and Balance into a True North type buff. You've nerfed a bit of its DPS utility while still giving it a way to effectively buff your DPS output, albeit randomly and not as much as before. This effectively keeps its identity, while making it less desirable due to no longer having that pure DPS boost.

Identity is also my core requirement here. Inevitably any card can be boiled down to situational rDPS, but the less direct the equation, the better, I'll agree. Heck, there's a ton I'd gladly sacrifice to maintain Card variety and their utilities. I've run out of daily posts, so I'll respond in edit here:

Spitball stuff. I'll start with my most controversial ideas.

• Exalted Dignity, Lightspeed, Synestry, Celestial Opposition, and Collective Unconscious all replaced with Card functions.

• Exalted Dignity has been replaced with an earlier Minor Arcana, which can itself be affected by Royal Road in its damage and healing; Draw given at level 15 and Minor Arcana at level 25. All other card skills moved up 5 levels each. Minor Arcana can now be affected by Royal Road, becoming a HoT/DoT of double total potency when affected by Extend, or otherwise just being doubled or split (see Enhanced/Expanded changes below).
• Lightspeed, Synestry, Celestial Opposition, and Collective Unconscious have all been funneled into Tilt the Heavens, a two-charge 1-minute CD for which effect varies, entirely, with the card consumed.
  In this way, AST cannot simultaneously have both the best solo healing kit and vast rDPS support. But, because of this, it has zero need to give up the power of its support features.

• Complete and utter ease and flexibility over commanding AST's Cards kit -- partly through balancing adjustments, partly through QoL changes.

• No CD on Spread. Draw continues recharging in the background; by the time one card falls off, the next is ready to be drawn.
• Royal Road now works like Spread, showing the loaded effect in the hotbar slot and requiring that you hit the effect again before applying it to your next clicked card (be it from Draw or Spread hotkey). Thus you need never click it off to salvage a Card; just save it for a better fit.
• Bole, Arrow, and Ewer turn into Lady. Spear, Balance, and Spire turn into Lord. Always. Lady and Lord can both be used for healing or damage, though each has an Additional Effect benefit for one or the other. (Lady has "Additional Effect: Essential Dignity - Healing or damage is increased based on targets missing %HP" whereas Lord has "Additional Effect: Heaven's Mandate - Healing or damage is present based on the greater number of your beneficial effects on your target ally or afflicting your target enemy.)
• Expanded and Enhanced now theoretically balanced. Enhanced now doubles the card's potency. Expanded now doubles the original effect's potency and duration and splits them over all affected targets, thus arriving at a minimum of 50% potency and 50% duration (25% total effect) to each of 8 receiving players (including self). It still synergizes best with TtH:Spear (Celestial Opposition) and with AoE Lord heals if allies are above half HP, but otherwise you should just apply Cards to whomever can best use them.
• No limits on number of card effects present. When a new application of a Card effect overlaps with another of the same name, the stronger (the one with greatest %potency times %remaining_duration) absorbs the weaker at its duration times its strength relative to the stronger. For instance, if Expanded Arrow were cast atop Enhanced Arrow with 15 seconds remaining (200% of 15 = 30 nominal seconds), then the 15 seconds of duration of Expanded Arrow (50% of 15 = 7.5 nominal seconds) would be applied towards Enhanced Arrow at 50%/200% ratio, resulting in 4 seconds more Enhanced Arrow.
• Bole now also raises (Magic) Defense by a flat amount, making it worthwhile on non-tanks, given that Defense nominally scales in a linear fashion with eHP.
• Spear now affects cooling speeds. (Let's say its Enhanced variant doubles cooling speeds. If that were to be extended by CO from 20 seconds to 30, that would net a Bard two extra Empyreal Arrows, 2 extra Bloodletters, half a Sidewinder, a third of a Barrage and Raging Strikes, and a sixth of a Battle Voice. For free. That's... pretty damn good.)
• Balance now affects Critical Strike chance and bonus, thus also affecting healing. This is no pathetic Spear of old, though. We're talking Crits in excess of 200% damage, and some 20% increased Crit rate from its Enhanced variant. Arrow might be slightly stronger on a BLM just due to the nature of BLM but MNK-Balance outside of RoF can definitely give it a run for its money. Meanwhile, virtually everyone now has a Crit mechanic of some kind and Crit has been retuned to have more linear, rather than exponential, value growth, giving this more even value. Bard and Monks still like it best, though.
• Spire now greatly decreases MP costs. Meanwhile, physical classes also actually have to use their MP, just as casters do, in both single-target and AoE combat, though their "MP management" does not require them to hit Lucid Dreaming once every two minutes. The lower your MP, unless a Black Mage, the less damage you deal (75% damage at 0% MP), but the less your actions cost (50% MP cost at 0% MP), making it night impossible to fully MP-starve oneself, but making MP valuable. Spire is therefore the best card to use before going ham on AoE, while Ewer is quite strong in its own right. Ranged class's Refresh skill has been nerfed as not to give even further absurd value.
• Oh, and Sleeve Draw's down a one-minute CD, ofc, for more Card madness. That and/or maybe Minor Arcana refunds 10 seconds on Draw.

So, what's the general idea? You no longer have by far and away the best simultaneous output in the game (the ability to solo-heal better than either WHM or SCH, if skillful enough, while still bringing AoE Balance after AoE Balance, and as guaranteed a spot for speedruns as a SCH), but you do have by far and away the greatest diversity of outputs and the most interesting kit. Super easy to control card system with buffed Draw, Spread, and Redraw in turn allows you to carry a huge variety of massive CD effects without offering all that entirely for free atop the massive rDPS and utility advantage you already bring to the table.

Want to spirit link your team to cheese a mechanic? Tilt the Heavens: Bole. Want each person's excess MP generation or healing to overflow to another player while each crit your party makes gives someone nearby increasingly further Crit chance until they too Crit? Tilt the Heavens: Ewer. An even cooler Synestry per 60 seconds to simultaneously buff and heal two allies, or cause card effects on an ally to also be applied to self or cause damage dealt to an enemy to also heal you or an allied target? Tilt the Heavens: Balance. Riding a tremendous high of card effects? Extend them all further with Tilt the Heavens: Spear (Celestial Opposition). Technically, each of those awesome CDs are costing you a direct use of Cards onto your team, true, but you're still getting absurd power out of your cards, and that's what AST wants.

Utility? I am s/he.

[Suishouhime]

So just to be clear, as you seem to have taken what I've said in a far more negative way than what I probably intended.

I did indeed. I've seen a lot of people who do believe those things word their opinions similarly, so I misunderstood. Thanks for the clarification, and I also apologise for what I now know is an overly aggressive response from me.

[SkyEdge1]

I did indeed. I've seen a lot of people who do believe those things word their opinions similarly, so I misunderstood. Thanks for the clarification, and I also apologise for what I now know is an ovely aggressive response from me.

No worries, I was not very clear in my wording so I'm just as blame worthy. Besides that given some of the other responses, yours was measured in comparison. Anyways here's hoping for some more info during E3 PLL, at the bare minimum a "yes we are looking at all the feedback" from the dev team.

[Maltothoris]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9udCnUboGE

Based on this video with mr happy showing dungeon footage with all three of the healers, watching that segment of astro in that dungeon was painful. The regen nerf on CU, hardly any use of CO(well cause its not a weaker helios in di sect and a weaker aspected helios in noct sect), the fact divination is on a 3 min cd so you'll almost always have it after the opener, that they have no other way to get mp other than lucid or lightspeed and whoever was playing wasn't doing the most spectacular job of showing it off. So I'll admit that video didn't show the best that it probably was at lvl 74 but still, it's not inspiring.

[MintnHoney]

mr happy

Bringing up Mr. Happy, he has gone on record during a group discussion (found on his channel) saying that he believes the AST changes are great (apparently except for Divination, which he believes we need more interaction with). I feel that our hurdle is only that much higher if influencers are agreeable to the changes.

I wonder, has anyone also submitted suggestions in game via the Leave a Suggestion option in the menu? I feel like civil "bombardment" is required if they're ever going to take a step back, re-examine the situation, and at least release a statement.

[RyuDragnier]

Spear remains undertuned. Spire is useless. Cards on the whole should be reconsidered for balance without destroying their uniqueness. I also have conflicted feelings about Balance being the strongest offensive card but granting zero advantage to healers, unlike the other cards. I find cards the most fun in aggressive dungeon speed-runs because there are far more numerous viable ways to make use of them, but they are obviously the most rewarding in 8-mans (where they feel rather constrained). That discrepancy leaves a bit to be desired.

I was actually just talking with my AST friend about this. We agreed that AST should have kept a lot of their current cards, but instead of being a direct damage buffer with Balance, instead become indirect like Spear and Arrow. A Crit buff is only effective if you actually Crit. Skill/Spell Speed buffs are only a buff if you don't clip or are a caster, and even then it's barely a few more GCDs pushed in. Change Spire to a Direct Hit Buff, and Balance into a True North type buff. You've nerfed a bit of its DPS utility while still giving it a way to effectively buff your DPS output, albeit randomly and not as much as before. This effectively keeps its identity, while making it less desirable due to no longer having that pure DPS boost.

[Mortex]

People forget that arrow is still the strongest dps card from Astro. People did the math but that doesn’t mean that every one likes arrow. But like I said still stronger then balance.

[Mortex]

Here the math. Expanded balance is straight up 5% extra dps.
Expanded arrow is 5% reduced GCDs and auto-attacks, which translates to 1/0.95 = 5.3% extra dps in regards to GCDs and auto-attacks only.
Expanded spear is 5% extra crit rate. Assuming the worst case scenario at 364 base crit, we're comparing (1*0.95+1.4*0.05) to (1*0.9 + 1.4*0.1), which is 1.96% increased damage on average. However, spear only lasts 20 seconds. So to compare them, spear (1.96%*20 = 39.2) is worth less than a third of a balance (5%*30 = 150). Again, this is only if everyone in your party has no crit bonuses. With higher crit, the better spear becomes.