Astrologian 5.0 Discussion

[Shurrikhan]

I ended up in the Qitarna Revel yesterday with a DRK who decided to do max pulls, at top speed.
Having Tanked it before I knew that there were some pretty savage pulls in there, and I was worried for my MP, but I didn't have any issues. With reserved use of Aspected heals, and proper Synastry, Benefic and Lightspeed use, it's actually quite easy to heal.

As I've previously said, before ShB, I basically never needed to use Synastry, and Lightspeed was used purely for Gravity spam.
Now I actually need to use my full toolkit, and it feels good.

Isn't this more a symptom of just being a bit undertuned or in a below average party than anything else?

When spamming Revel to level up (was spending rested exp on DPS jobs), I needed scarcely a GCD or two of healing per wall-to-wall pull after pre-pull Regen. That your Lightspeed is now better spent healing is more a matter of just your party dps (yours included) being too low to kill mobs before all CDs are depleted. Newly "needing to use [your] full toolkit" is by no means a wide and wholly intentionally or paradigmatic change -- it's just a result of numeric breakpoints.

In some ways, I wish I could have that healer-toolkit stuff you're talking about, but as a WHM nothing has changed since SB (save perhaps getting a little bit easier to keep the party alive with even fewer globals of healing), so I suspect my job may be slightly overtuned and/or yours undertuned (or your parties somehow consistently worse) and had yours the efficacy of mine, Lightspeed would still be Gravity-buff and Synastry would still just be a global-saver.

[HyoMinPark]

Isn't this more a symptom of just being a bit undertuned or in a below average party than anything else?

When spamming Revel to level up (was spending rested exp on DPS jobs), I needed scarcely a GCD or two of healing per wall-to-wall pull after pre-pull Regen. That your Lightspeed is now better spent healing is more a matter of just your party dps (yours included) being too low to kill mobs before all CDs are depleted. Newly "needing to use [your] full toolkit" is by no means a wide and wholly intentionally or paradigmatic change -- it's just a result of numeric breakpoints.

In some ways, I wish I could have that healer-toolkit stuff you're talking about, but as a WHM nothing has changed since SB (save perhaps getting a little bit easier to keep the party alive with even fewer globals of healing), so I suspect my job may be slightly overtuned and/or yours undertuned (or your parties somehow consistently worse) and had yours the efficacy of mine, Lightspeed would still be Gravity-buff and Synastry would still just be a global-saver.

Honestly, AST has to work a lot harder to heal dungeons compared to the other two healers. I’m now leveling WHM, and I spend more time Holying than anything else (so basically like it was in SB, except now my GCDs are Solace > Cure II once my oGCDs are burned). Leveling AST, and I had to use more GCD heals compared to the other two because it felt as if the job just couldn’t keep up with the damage. COpp losing its stun also didn’t help, because I used it in the past to give a brief respite during the larger pulls for the tank (and to allow for some LS+Gravity spamming). COpp’s regen is weak for its CD, and CU barely warrants hotbar space at this point when you compare it to Sacred Soil and Asylum.

Lightspeed is also now saved (optimally) for Divination/Sleeve Draw windows, meaning that you can no longer use it for periods of heavy movement, MP conservation, or when you really need to get those heals off fast, which removes a lot of the versatility from the skill. Not using it during a Divination window means that you end up hurting your party members by being unable to throw out enough buffs during the time period due to having to double weave Draw and Minor Arcana between GCDs to Play Lords/Ladies while Divination is active.

There was also no real need to up Synastry’s cooldown from 90s to 120s. It does literally the same thing, and while good in dungeons, was pretty niche in some of the high-end content since you want to optimize around not using as many GCD heals (and it doesn’t benefit from oGCDs).

Horoscope should also function like WHM’s Plenary Indulgence, where a single GCD heal can proc the heal. While I watched a review on ShB AST that says it is good to top off tanks during pulls because of its short CD (and I agree and see the usefulness there), it also comes with overhealing the rest of the party more times than not (from my experiences). Overall, though, it feels less smooth to use compared to WHM’s Plenary, and I’m not terribly fond that I have to weave in a second Horoscope press to activate a 400 potency heal.

[Boomsmash]

Probably the fact they reduced potencies on some heals and removed the healing bonuses from the sects. What do those sects even do, now? I think they affect... Aspected Benefic and Helios? Pathetic.

Hey SE, if you need an idea for how to differentiate AST, I'll give you one for free: Evade/Parry. If they're so steeped in predicting the future then letting folks anticipate and dodge attacks fits perfect.