Astrologian Speculations! How will it fit in?

[Blueyes]

So a new blog entry was posted with that included an image of Astrologian along with 24 action icons on the hotbar.



I'm not sure how much information can be taken from the above image, but someone did point out that there are three actions with an MP cost in the four digit numbers. One of which appears to cost just over 2000 MP. Though that might not be that strange considering the MP cost of Black Mage spells are a little over triple what they are at level 50 (when idle). The most expensive spell on the list is probably Ascend with the other two likely being AoE heals.

Also I don't think all Astrologian actions are shown in that picture. Assuming they have close to the same number of total actions as the exciting jobs, by level 60 they should have a few on a third hotbar.

Actually I'm pretty sure all actions being shown on each job's hotbar are displayed in the same order they are learned. Using White Mage as a point of comparison, their first few spells go Stone, Cure, Aero, Cleric Stance, Protect, Medica, and Raise. If you go across the first hotbar for Astrologian the icons and associated MP costs seem to follow that pattern with the 7th action on the list being the most expensive.

Insert speculation that could easily be inaccurate:

Row 1:
Offensive Spell
Benedic
Offensive Spell
Draw
Lightspeed
Helios
Ascend
MP Restore?
Detriment
???
???
Dirunal Sect

Row 2:
Nocturnal Sect
Benedic II
Shuffle
Disable
Spread
Wheel of Fate
Royal Road
???
???
Synastry
???
???

I still speculate that there is another AoE heal aside from Helios and Wheel of Fate considering the way the latter of the two has more recently been described as an Asylum/Sacred Soil type ability, but until a source explicitly states that there is another AoE heal spell I'll assume it's just those two.

[LycorisSelunis]

I think the 4th one with no mp cost might be the diurnal/nocturnal icon

[Blueyes]

I think the 4th one with no mp cost might be the diurnal/nocturnal icon

I'm actually more suspicious of that one being Draw. I'm of the opinion that card use should be a central part of the job that we see used as early as the first dungeon and thus learned early on, similar to Summon. (Going off the assumption that the actions are in order.) When I look at the fourth icon in particular it looks like a plain, unassuming icon that I can imagine changing to something more vibrant and colorful to represent the drawn card similar to the icon for Ninjutsu.

Most of the other icons look too stylized, in my opinion, to be a representation of the Draw action with the exception of one of the darkened icons. There are four darkened icons, one of which appears to be the action being used (Lightspeed) and I am assuming the other three are the three actions that can only be used after a card has been drawn. (Shuffle, Spread, and Royal Road.) Through process of elimination I most suspect the fourth icon to be the Draw action.

[LycorisSelunis]

Well I think I recall hearing draw was a lvl 30 action but That makes good sense. Though the 3rd 5th icon in to top row looks a lot like they have a card, so yeah probably some of thse other draw-related spells. These icons too small T^T

Only thing is though I can't see why you'd have 2 icons for sect and not one. I mean, can you even be in neither?! Would make more sense like a toggle switch.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Only thing is though I can't see why you'd have 2 icons for sect and not one. I mean, can you even be in neither?! Would make more sense like a toggle switch.

Same logic with paladin's Sword Oath and Shield Oath :P

[LycorisSelunis]

Same logic with paladin's Sword Oath and Shield Oath :P

You don't learn those very early, and you learn them at different levels so level syncing affects that. Possible then that astro works similarly you think? Perhaps unable to use nocturnal sect at certain level sync? The thought hadn't occurred to me before now I am curious!

Friday.........cannot wait till Friday to play this.....

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Thing is that the new jobs don't start at level 1, they start at 30 instead.

Y: So there will be some updates to the battle system. Three new jobs: dark knight, astrologian, machinist. They will all be leveled starting at 30. When you enter Ishgard there’s a place where you can receive the first job quests. But, feel free to do some of the story before zerg leveling the new jobs. You have plenty of time. *

So there's the possibility you'll have both stances at level 30.

As for the stances, they provide additional effects on certain spells, rather than affecting it's potency. Whether you cast a healing spell with either stances or no stances, the initial healing will be the same. So it is very possible you can't use a specific stance (or both) when level synced, but it shouldn't cause too much inconvenience. I mean, if you're level synced down to a point you can't use stances, nothing will truck your party that hard. The potency of each spell and the finer details of the effects from the stances are still unknown. According to some document** they're comparable with Cure and Cure II

* https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...eview?sle=true
** https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...lI1VGvrnl0/pub

[UOdhn]

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

I would probably grab Surecast in there as well. It's useful in its own way.

[Blueyes]

A look at Astrologian gameplay! The video is in German so I don't know what's being said, but we get to see some actions in use that we haven't seen before. Looks like it was actually uploaded a few days ago, but it hasn't been shown in this thread yet.

One thing I notice is that the action that's been speculated to be Lightspeed (the one shown in the blog image) may actually be something entirely different. In that video we see it used early on, but the next spell that followed still had a cast time. That would suggest that the two actions that followed the use of that action in the preview video (speculated to be Disable and Celestial Stasis) are instant cast by default.

I'm actually having trouble figuring out what's instant and what isn't. Like in the beginning we see a DoT attack go off instantly, but then later we see it used again with a cast time. Or an ability would be used followed by two instant actions, but then later that same ability is used again followed by spells with a cast time. There are like two or three different spells shown both with and without a cast time at different points in the video and I can't pin down a correlation in ability use that causes those effects unless there's more than one instant proc effect going on. (Initial "star" attack proc > instant DoT attack.)

Editing this a lot as I make more observations. Taking a guess that what we see at 4:47 is Lightspeed.

[TeaTimeBear]

So going off the post Ghishlain posted from BG, will AST main focus be heals/support in raids?