Astrologian Speculations! How will it fit in?

[Menae]

That's the thing. Look at WoW. Look at Mythic raids. You can only bring 20 people to a Mythic raid. There are 11 classes and 34 specs that you can be. Some people get left out. But that doesn't change the fact that nobody has ever been "HURR NEVER BRINGING X CLASS" since the class/ability revamp in Burning Crusade. Some specs are stronger than others, sure. Resto Druid had a rough spot in early Mists of Pandaria where it wasn't nearly as good as any other healer, but it was still brought to plenty of content, because unless a class is SEVERELY weaker than another, people generally don't care.

People at the bleeding edge care a lot and will absolutely stack good classes/specs in WoW or any other game. It's less likely that groups will stack as much in FFXIV because of the LB penalty, but some will certainly be inclined to PREFER classes over one another, and that attitude can and will bleed down into the prejudices of less talented free companies. I'm not arguing that it'll kill game balance or anything, but it can affect what FCs are looking for. You might have to parse slightly better as one class to make it in. As Brightshadow alluded to, this is less prevalent for healers (and parsing as a healer isn't really a thing anyway), but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Also, to rebut: the "fact" that nobody has ever been "HURR NEVER BRINGING X CLASS" in WoW has abso-freaking-lutely not been a fact. People say it all the time; it's usually for poorly performing melee specs. Come to think of it, that was during and before BC too. WoW's never been very good about melee.

[MirielleLavandre]

My one concern, and maybe not even a concern, is that AST will bring more to the table than either healer. They need to make AST strong enough to solo heal 4 mans, and also to function as the 2nd part of a raid healing team. However, in the benchmark we see them using 1 card to give what seems like a fire based damage buff to the whole party. If they can even increase this buff or make it stronger by waiting and drawing a 2nd card, then I guess I'd wonder who would want to bring anything other than an AST? Healing 'well enough' to do 4 man dungeons, and also providing a damage buff and/or other buffs? Being able to switch out between shields/raw heals depending on need? It seems AST could be everything both heal classes are (of course, not to the same degree, but enough to get by) with extra buffs thrown in. At initial launch, it almost seems too good to be true ^^

[LycorisSelunis]

If my other mmo experience is true, they will likely range from grossly OP or a bit OP at launch, then get nerfed a tiiiiny bit next patch, then get nerfed to the ground second patch, and balance out sometime after that although the general consensus of the class will be a mix of the game's populous either remembering it being op or crying that it was nerfed to unplayable. Although I hope for a good balanced new job to have fun with, I rarely expect such things right off the bat, it would be too perfect.

They made a great deal mentioning how stance changing will be limited and how you would want to use one stance to complement your cohealer but I am still wondering just HOW limited it will be, for 4 man content. Can you switch between trash and bosses? change mid boss for a certain phase? do you queue as one stance and get locked into it? I rather doubt the last one but hey it's a thought.

I should probably not post at wee hours of the morning.

[Nihility]

Hopefully all is revealed in a couple days but as it currently stands it seems like

astrologian will have a basic small heal, burst heal, aoe heal, cleanse, raise setup like the other healers and the stance change just switches it between white mage and scholar style healing
Their utility and emergency healing like benediction, regen, lustrate, fairy healing, etc is a complete mystery and will likely be the thing that makes them stand apart from the others. Heck, the utility skills might be the thing that fluctuates with the stance even. Could very well have a simple cure/cure2/medica loadout and a set of utility skills that read like "create a barrier absorbing X damage OR heal X damage per second for 20s"

for the cards I'm thinking it will either be a 6 cards/6stats/6 elements thing and be like like the elemental staves in FFXI earth card gives a vit buff and damage reduction, ice gives int and magic damage boost, fire gives str and attack boost, thunder gives dex and crit chance boost, etc etc
Or they actually have 6 unique spells that require the corresponding card to use and a draw a card skill on a timer that lets them stock up cards
If it actually is set effects from a single card or combination of 2 cards your looking at a random pick from 42 different effects, kind of silly if you ask me

I would wager they have some non-random utility as well. Time mage effects like haste/slow/blink don't seem too far fetched either
Selene effectively has AoE haste in every sense but the name yet no one makes the association

their offensive spells appear to be ice and thunder based which i guess is pretty cool.

[Ondori]

Will know on Thursday, but from what they said so far is that if Astro is used correctly it will be a very potent healer. I see it like this: u can stance change but the CD is a long time, so if you know the fight layout you can time your stances and card rolls to benefit your party the most. I think they will balance out over time, but maybe Astro will balance well with both current healers.

[TheMunimai]

So.. what are we thinking in terms of DPS skills?

Astrologians - linked to the stars - think its too much of a push to think we will get Comet as a spell?

[spelley]

My guess is that Astrologian will swap between WHM/SCH healing-styles, utility skills changing depending on stance and/or cards and that they will have less consistent/reliable DPS-skills that do good damage but are more MP/time intensive than either. Shields probably won't stack and will be somewhat weaker or more "unreliable"/depend on the card mechanics. This would mean that Astro "fits in" better but does not replace either as the other two have more specialized healing abilities.

I also feel that DRK will be different, in that *it* will occupy the extreme "damage-tank" end of the spectrum, with WAR sitting in the middle (with more mitigation) between DRK and PLD.

MCH will probably be less AoE centric amongst the ranged DPS, and will be better for focusing on 1-2 enemies compared to BRD/BLM, probably occupying a damage spectrum between the two and focusing on 1-3 enemies. Could also go all-out and make them the "physical AOE" expert, usurping BRD for that.

[Sanguisio]

While reading this I just thought of a skill for SCHs which some may hate but would be cool.

Cover but consumes MP instead of HP.

[VanilleFang]

Added new link for new video released.

[VanilleFang]

Also added live letter info.