Astrologian Speculations! How will it fit in?

[Arkenne]

Which is funny since given the job's lore it is based on Arcanima arts and all :v

[Ghishlain]

Slycer of BG posted this Famitsu translation today on the BG forums. The part specific to AST is quoted below:

Astrologian skills and battle technique

The additional action classes for astrologian are conjurer and thaumaturge. It's possible to switch between a pure healer and a barrier healer by using the respective Diurnal Sect and Nocturnal Sect stances. By using these two stances, the effects of many astrologian actions change.

>Aspect Benefic cures will be granted an additional regen effect with Diurnal Sect or a magic barrier which absorbs a certain amount of damage with Nocturnal Sect
>Ring of Fate will recover members within the field with Diurnal Sect or reduce damage taken with Nocturnal Sect

It might be easier to understand by calling Diurnal Sect the "white mage mode" and Nocturnal Sect the "scholar mode." As Yoshida mentioned in the live letter, it will be important to familiarize yourself with one of the types but also make sure you fully understand the other. Since this job is primarily a healer, it does have many basic healing techniques:

>Benefic: Equivalent to Cure, has an additional effect of granting an instant cast proc to Benefic II at a certain probability.
>Benefic II: Equivalent to Cure II
>Helios: Equivalent to Medica
>Ascend: Resuscitation with weakness
>Detriment: Equivalent to Esuna [[name doesn't really make sense, but that's what it says]]

In addition to all of the standard healing actions, it does have a new type of healing action [[presumably this is the instant heal, Dignity]] which recovers an increased amount of HP with the target at a lower HP percentage.

Furthermore, one of the other unique astrologian elements is known as Synastry. By specifying someone in advance, such as the main tank, when you cure another single player, the partner Synastry target will also be restored by 50% of the amount of HP recovered by the cured player.

Separate from the recovery techniques are the astrologian's card features. Starting at level 30, you can use Draw to bestow a variety of beneficial effects for a certain duration. There are no negative effects on the cards - they have different effects such as increasing the damage dealt by an ally, increasing an ally's attack speed, decreasing an ally's MP consumption, and reducing an ally's TP consumption.

For card-related actions, it's not all simply just drawing a card and using it. The Royal Road action consumes the drawn card to empower the next drawn card, such as giving it an area of effect. The Spread action allows you to keep a drawn card to be used at a more optimal time in the battle. If you really don't like the card you draw, you can also use Shuffle to re-draw a card. Although it seems like just luck at first, properly using these actions adds an element of player skill as well.

Although astrologian also has some basic single target, DoT, and AoE attack magic, we got the impression that its first and foremost focus is healing.

For buffs and debuffs, a buff called Light Speed allows you to cast without cast time but with decreased power for a fixed duration, an ability is available to restore MP, a new debuff action called Disable allows you to reduce the damage of the target's next action, and there is the powerful Celestial Statis reminiscent of a Stop style action.

Overall, as a main healer in many battles it will be fundamental to understand Diurnal Sect and leverage the benefits for Aspect Benefic. You'll also need to Draw cards at each recast and decide immediately whether to use, Shuffle, or Spread the card. Although it was a bit confusing at first to immediately start at level 60, it was easier to gradually learn by first ignoring Nocturnal Sect and focusing on Diurnal Sect. In any case, this will be a third healer job that's rewarding to play, packed with new elements.

Some of the formatting he put in his translation didn't directly copy over, so I'd recommend reading it off the original just to get the emphasis/bolds, etc

[LycorisSelunis]

The Disable action mentioned there sounds an awful lot like Supervirus. I feel I may actually end up leveling with more use of nocturnal over diurnal because I mained scholar before white mage personally (though I do have both at 50 and play either depending on mood)

This seems not to mention however if Helios gains stance benefit? Mentions benefic and also that ring of fate basically switches between the new asylum and the old sacred soil.

Also the beneifc proc here is stated to make the next benefic2 instant cast; not to make benefic2 available to cast. Been getting both translations of this ability proc. I was worried since making a spell AVAILABLE based on rng, is bad healing design. Keeping the rng only on the buffs is good but when you start locking out actual hp regeneration based on luck and chance, we have a problem.

[Blueyes]

Disable does sound interesting. For whatever reason it didn't cross my mind that instead of getting their own Swiftcast (which they do anyway) they could get their own version of Virus. It does raise a lot of questions such as how strong will it be and whether they will stack.

Also I did an edit to my earlier post about the Benefic II supposedly requiring a proc to be used. The document where that info came from has since removed that note so I'm now assuming that won't be the case.

There is one document that mentions Helios changing based on Sect, but most translated articles that I've seen like to only talk about Wheel of Fate. Would be nice to see some verification. I think the spell we see here is probably Helios. Based on the animation it looks like it's capable of applying a shield effect.

[LycorisSelunis]

Indeed of helios does not change that leaves them without aoe regen/shield capability, leaving those solely for whm and sch respectively.

edit- the more I look at these skills for the ast, the more it looks like they will be able to push out a lot of healing in a small window but it will be costly in MP. No idea how their mp recovery spell will work but I am guessing they are gonna want to use mp cost reduction card on themselves a lot during heavy healing phases.

[Blueyes]

So at this point I think we may know quite a bit about Astrologian's overall healing toolkit, at least on a surface level. Currently we have a list of 17 named actions. Then there is one unnamed action said to be used for the purpose of spreading buffs from one person to the rest of the party (which if it does not work with cards I see it as their version of Deployment Tactics for spreading their shield or regen effect). None of these actions are said to deal damage with the possible exception of Celestial Stasis, but I suspect that may only be a utility-based spell like Sleep. Once at level 60 White Mage and Scholar will have 9-10 damaging actions. While Astrologian doesn't have to have that many it will most likely fall within the same ballpark. If we were to add 9 on top of the 18 that have been noted that would put us at 27 actions. Current jobs have 22-23 (discounting Ninjutsu and pet actions) and will gain 5 with Heavensward. What remains of the actions we are yet aware of may largely consist of damaging spells. Hopefully an upcoming article will actually go into detail about some of them.

Edit: I actually forgot about how Astrologian seems to have fewer confirmed healing spells when compared to White Mage and Scholar, mostly in regards to AoE healing. Early reports mentioned a small AoE and a large AoE heal for Astrologian, but based on the latest information on Wheel of Fate that spell won't even have a healing component when used with Nocturnal Sect. That makes me wonder if Wheel of Fate is something entirely separate and there's still one AoE healing spell we haven't heard about yet.

[LycorisSelunis]

Somewhere I heard something about a reading of the 3.0 patch notes at E3 ( I think it was at the end of the last live letter they mentioned this) so That should include all the new spells/actions/everything for the new/existing jobs, right?

edit-I just realized the actual dates for E3, so it would be RIGHT before early access....down to the wire as it were.

[Nadirah]

Sounds like AST is getting Beacon of Light.

WoW Paladin spell. Transfers % of all healing done to target of beacon.

[Kaidus]

What cross-class skills do you think Astrologian will need?

[Kuwagami]

swiftcast, protect, stoneskin. The others are luxury, up to you to choose. Just like SCH