Astrologian 5.0 Discussion

[Mansion]

And Sleeve draw... Who has time to keep drawing cards in raids when you need to keep healing.

We don't know healing requirements yet, but as of today, Draw, Redraw, Royal Road, Sleeve Draw, Draw can all be used in succession with no DPS nor healing loss.
We have 1.5sec Malefic as a solution to easily weave Draws. That's not a problem at all.

[Sanghelios]

Anyone else feeling that it feels not worth anymore to give a card to a party member due to low reward and potentially high amount of button pressing required to achieve it? What i mean is, i would have to press at least two buttons (Draw & Play) for a optimal outcome for a normal card, 3 buttons for a king/lady (Draw&Minor&Play) and that would just be the case when i am drawing the right cards right ahead. In a more average scenario, i would have to press 1-3 additional buttons for redraws, totaling it at ~6 buttons in worst case. Either way, i found this to be way to much button pressing for just a 15s buff that i have to redo every 30s. Not to mention those 15s arent really 15s too, because you wont line up your card exactly with the target starting their cast, so you are actually more likely looking at a 12-13s buff with your cards. Sorry to say that, but this just doesnt feel worthy anymore and more like a complete joke.

You surely had to press plenty buttons in 4.x too, although at that time the resut was absolutely satisfying and felt worthy.

[Melikka]

Anyone else feeling that it feels not worth anymore to give a card to a party member due to low reward and potentially high amount of button pressing required to achieve it? What i mean is, i would have to press at least two buttons (Draw & Play) for a optimal outcome for a normal card, 3 buttons for a king/lady (Draw&Minor&Play) and that would just be the case when i am drawing the right cards right ahead. In a more average scenario, i would have to press 1-3 additional buttons for redraws, totaling it at ~6 buttons in worst case. Either way, i found this to be way to much button pressing for just a 15s buff that i have to redo every 30s. Not to mention those 15s arent really 15s too, because you wont line up your card exactly with the target starting their cast, so you are actually more likely looking at a 12-13s buff with your cards. Sorry to say that, but this just doesnt feel worthy anymore and more like a complete joke.

You surely had to press plenty buttons in 4.x too, although at that time the resut was absolutely satisfying and felt worthy.

YES!
I usually only draw like... at the start and then don't bother anymore, because why? What's it for? Random Number% DPS up... so? Mobs aren't dying faster to that and I can only play Bingo every three minutes anyway.

I am actually, after playing some dungeons, at the point where I think I am giving up on Astro for now. I'll give the other classes a try, but... really I don't see myself healing this Expa, unless I want an Insta Q (Adventure in Need is Healer everywhere at the moment it seems)

[Sanghelios]

YES!
I usually only draw like... at the start and then don't bother anymore, because why? What's it for? Random Number% DPS up... so? Mobs aren't dying faster to that and I can only play Bingo every three minutes anyway.

I am actually, after playing some dungeons, at the point where I think I am giving up on Astro for now. I'll give the other classes a try, but... really I don't see myself healing this Expa, unless I want an Insta Q (Adventure in Need is Healer everywhere at the moment it seems)

I actually forgot Sleeve Draw too, wich just adds more button pressing. Ive done my first lvl71 Run just now and during the last boss it just felt that there is WAY to much button pressing going on just to handle the cards. And when Sleeve Draw comes up its just a overwhelming hassle for a potentional ~0.05% increased clear time. That then leaves me thinking, not only did they fail do "fix" the healers, but also made them absolute not fun to play while also failing their goal to simplify this aspect of the game.

[RulerOfPotaoes]

I know I've said it once before release but... Divination needs to have its cooldown lowered and potency slightly buffed. Wasn't spread Balance like 5% AoE 20 sec duration + could be extended?

In dungeon bosses alone i can only manage to use it once before the boss dies.. i like the concept of the Seals but the pay off is just not There.... I mean even SMN now has a AoE 5% damage buff and on a shorter cooldown if im correct.

[PotatoGirl]

They did my baby C.O dirty. What is this 120sec CD baby aoe heal nonsense? At least keep the stun on it :l

[Elamys]

I know I've said it once before release but... Divination needs to have its cooldown lowered and potency slightly buffed. Wasn't spread Balance like 5% AoE 20 sec duration + could be extended?

In dungeon bosses alone i can only manage to use it once before the boss dies.. i like the concept of the Seals but the pay off is just not There.... I mean even SMN now has a AoE 5% damage buff and on a shorter cooldown if im correct.

Divination does feel underwhelming as it is now. It needs to be a higher potency and/or a shorter cooldown, being as it's essentially AST's keystone ability I should be able to use it more than once on a boss fight, MAYBE twice if the DPS is slow.

But honestly ideally I would like to see the "fantasy" of the unique card effects brought to Divination somehow (probably too big a rework...). Divination means making sense of the signs you see and interpreting the outcome, so it's weird that it's just the same as the cards with another damage boost. I honestly have no idea how you'd effectively go about it but something like if you have idk at least 1 lunar seal in your spread you decrease the party's damage taken as well as the damage boost could be neat.

[416to305]

I'm so disappointed, AST is so fricken boring now. I'm only at level 71 so I get that it might change but man, I'm finding myself just not even using cards and forgetting about them as they seem to underwhelming. And then it drives me fricken crazy how the person you use a card on has to be engaged in battle as well! Just did a dungeon, and the tank would attack the boss, I'd use a card on someone only to see it didn't even take effect because even though myself and the tank had engaged the boss, that person hadn't, so the card got burned. Debating on switching to WHM but I dunno I love AST I just don't know if I can keep playing it as it's just so borrrrring.

[ParadoxHealer]

Talk about fishing. I did NOT fish for balance. With this dumbed down AST, you do end up fishing for the stupid seal because it seems to be the only strategy you have. The lack of the time-mage component and the class itself now feels sludgy and sad. I get that no class is perfect but AST was fun and challenging. Now, it just feels delayed by the card draws, with no strategy, and like I am limiting the group wasting my time with cards.

[LilithRose]

I was fully sceptical about healers being ruined in this expansion. I said I had some doubts on the systems to replace the old current ones.. but that it could certainly be fun and that I'd have to try it out before making any verdict.
Now... I just got out of my first dungeon as Astrologian, and it truly makes me sad to the point I might just quit healing.

It's like the class was made by 2 designers clashing with ideas.

We have the draw/play which works as intended.
The attack buff only is sad.
Aand with no mana buff in there and the MP gauge being rather poorly balanced we get Mana shot in no time.

Now even considering all of this, and trying to take it as is. It just doesn't work, it's clear that with not having to formulate card combo's you can just keep casting these attack buffs nice and quickly. And then there's the sleeve draw which is clearly designed to make things nice and fast. So I was like "Okay, this could be fun."

But when you realize that... after "Divination," you have to wait 3 minutes for the next. So any "luck" in your rng doesn't equate to getting a better play.
Added to that, once you've cast 3 buffs you have to be careful to keep casting the ones from the same symbol or you'll ruin your next party buff, slowing things to a crawl! Making Sleeve Draw practically useless, because you'd imagine a skill like that is designed to get you back in the action.

You know... with all of this said, I feel the only way this new system could work and keeping Astrologian users happy for keeping a keen eye on their cards is by taking Divination to the global cooldown so that hard work gets paid off with more party buffs and we can continue to cycle through.

But the lack of variation of buffs just kills my spirit... would it have hurt to put in some variation? If that Spire/TP Up gave you that much trouble to come up with something original, couldn't you have just turned it into Direct Hit? Or give us something in return for taking away our mp restoration buff?

I've been an Astrologian for a long time, but I might just drop Astrologian all together from these changes because it truly is a sad state from what once was a really fun class to play.