Astrologian Speculations! How will it fit in?

[Cynfael]

Info.

Thanks for sharing! Was a fun read.

[Ghishlain]

~Snip~

Thanks for the link. If AST is indeed a HoT healer as is indicated on the article, I will most likely swap to AST just because it reminds me of my WoW Resto Druid days. Less than a month away to make final judgement~

[Hysterior]

the 10% damage debuff card is not great, especially when paired with lower healing...
Since RNJesus hates me, this sounds scary


EDIT / More info

Of all the new jobs, the Astrologian was the star of the show for me. It’s a job that specialises in healing, and it has a very interesting utility. First, Astrologians have two different stances: Diurnal Sect and Nocturnal Sect. The former adds healing regen, whereas the latter adds an absorption barrier to many of their abilities. It basically gives them the versatility of both a White Mage and a Scholar, but they don’t have the same throughput; it’s balanced.

Second up is their card system. An Astrologian can at any point draw a card - out of six possible - each with a unique effect:

10% increased attack speed
10% increased attack damage
20% TP reduction costs
20% MP reduction costs
20% ability recast time reduction
10% increased damage taken

You’ll notice that the last example explicitly says “damage taken”. During my playtest, this surprisingly could only be cast on allies. When I asked the QA staff present, they promised me that this was intended; essentially, it’s a bad card, one that’s designed to balance out the RNG nature of the draw system. The logical man inside of me however wouldn’t be surprised if this was just mistranslation from the Japanese client, and it in fact reduces damage taken.

But to be quite honest, I really like the idea of having a dud card.

The cards’ uses can be furthered with three other abilities. Shuffle will draw you another card on the spot, with a hefty cooldown, and it’s also possible you’ll just draw the same card. If you like a card you’ve drawn, but don’t want to expend it, you can cast Spread to put it aside for later. There, it’ll remain indefinitely until you use it - great for prepping before a big fight. Finally, you have Royal Road: an ability which puts your drawn card back in the deck, but boosts the power of the next card you draw. Boosted effects include an increased 150% potency (effects card 1 and 2), increased buff duration (effects card 3 and 4), or turning the card’s effect into an AoE for party members (effects card 5 and 6). With the latter boost, the power of the card's effect is halved to compensate for a party wide buff.

from: http://www.pcgamesn.com/final-fantas...iv-heavensward

[LycorisSelunis]

I like the idea of a 'dud card' because it pretty much makes perfect fuel for Royal Road. Unless you get really screwed and draw it again....

That being said the implication I got from the hots is that it might be a hot version of adlo- a heal with a hot tacked into it. Would love that ^^

I also played a lot of healers in WoW and druid was definitely my main, though the shaman/holy priest/monk all had hot elements in their kits too, just something I have always liked. I have both healers in this game, and like them both for different reasons (oddly enough I hated disc priest in wow but love scholar Eos FTW) and I plan to get all 3 healers to 60 as well. Just a question of what order to do it in....

[Ghishlain]

I'm curious to see the deck "composition". Like, is it one copy of all six cards? Two / three copies of all six cards for a total of 12/18 card deck? I'm also wondering if you use "Spread" on a card if it'll permanently remove the card from your deck until the card is used.

This is important to me because it'll affect how AST is played. For example, if it's a six card deck (one copy of every card) and "Spread" permanently removes the card from your deck until consumed, then it's possible to "remove" the dud card indefinitely, but then leave your deck draws completely up to RNG. Alternatively, save a good card and making it a higher chance to draw the dud card (20% versus 17%) when activating other card drawing abilities. Likewise, the tactics and probabilities get changed even further if there are "bigger decks with multiple copies", let alone if there can be multiple quantities for each card and the quantities of each copy are different (like say 4 + 4 + 2 + 5 + 3 + 1 for a total of 19 cards, etc).

The nuances are interesting and I'm looking forward to seeing how AST develops as more information is given / found.

- I plan to get all 3 healers to 60 as well. Just a question of what order to do it in....

I'm personally going to be taking my main (in this case, WHM) up to 60 while doing MSQ and making sure to use LLDR every day on AST to get it up to snuff at a decent rate (this is assuming leveling remains the same). This feels more efficient for my own time constraints and you may find something similar to that.

[Arcana]

I am really worried because he said too that buff effects doesnt affecto to the caster (AST). If we have low healing potency and we cannot self-buff us maybe this is not the class i was waiting after all Ill wait these weeks to check it myself <3

[LycorisSelunis]

I was gonna do similar with low lvl roulette as well, and also when playing with lower level friends. Though the buffs not affecting self is kinda sad

The way 'spread' read to me was that you put that card aside to activate later, meaning you would have to use it so idk if you could use it to remove your dud cards. Good point about the 'copies' though, that's food for thought.

[Roxas_Andrade]

If you notice, the stun effect doesn't appear until she uses the AoE spell. There's likely no animation for when it gets activated by the AoE spell, but after she used the debuff, the enemy wasn't stunned. It was only stunned after she used the AoE spell. That's why I see the AoE spell as the activation ability.

Or the spell cast by the AST was Paralyze. That's why it didn't had an instant effect and that's why it didn't require activation. it just 'ticked'.

[Jacost]

Some more stuff from a Redditor who got hands-on (and wrote that very article):

They get their own type of Swiftcast ability (can't remember the name), but instead of being spent on one ability, it offers passive haste for a short duration.

They get a Cleric Stance so DPS'ing for solo content is at least bearable. They're DPS abilities look awesome, but at the end of the day aren't all that impressive statistically.

One ability I forgot to mention is the ability to put a buff on an ally, and whenever you do healing, they receive 50% of it. Pretty neat to keep an off-tank alive.

They have three main heals - a single target one, a small AoE and a large AoE. Depending on what stance you're in (Diurnal and Nocturnal), you'll apply additional regen or absorption effects when casting spells.

I cannot remember the cooldown of the Beacon of Light like ability, but I'm pretty sure it's in the 1-2 minutes bracket.

...those are the big spam-able heals. There's more, that do very niche things.

He'll be doing an AMA later as well.

[Blueyes]

You’ll notice that the last example explicitly says “damage taken”. During my playtest, this surprisingly could only be cast on allies. When I asked the QA staff present, they promised me that this was intended; essentially, it’s a bad card, one that’s designed to balance out the RNG nature of the draw system. The logical man inside of me however wouldn’t be surprised if this was just mistranslation from the Japanese client, and it in fact reduces damage taken.

This is a good thing to point out as it is entirely possible. If you remember, during the official Q&A it was mentioned that one of the card effects would be damage reduction which is unaccounted for based on the list provided.