Astrologian Speculations! How will it fit in?

[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.

[Cellia]

Chanter could main heal but at first was definitely secondary, thats another story though. It had static buffs that could be turned on that boosted different stats. Depending on how it was spec'd it could have 3 or 4 static buffs up at once. It could boost attack, matk, pdef, mdef, run speed, and patk speed, matk speed. It was a beast in PvP solo or in group. So, I'm imagining the astrologian as something similar. Uses cards to boost stats. I think at most it will be able to hold 2 buffs up. If it has to keep popping them like how most cd's are in FF with stupid short up times I will definitely hate it. It needs long up times or actually solo healing will be ridiculous for light party's.

[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.

[Blueyes]

So we got a few new details about Astrologian which can be found in this post. Also a video with some very pretty animations, the last of which being my personal favorite. To watch the full live letter you can do so from this link with the Astrologian section starting at 2:52:40.

It's been confirmed that the effects of card draws include benefits such as enhanced attack power, haste, and damage reduction. There is an action which can be used to enhanced the effect of a card which the official translation calls Royal Road. The exact effect is described differently in the official translation than how it was explained during the live letter (setting the drawn card aside as opposed to putting it back into the deck) but in either case the result is modified effect. While perhaps it is unclear as to which card the Royal Road action would enhance, an example of such an enhancement would be changing a buff that would normally be single target into an AoE. Based on that example it's suggested that not all buffs are AoE by default.

One thing that has me a little bit concerned is the randomness of the card buffs. Having played Corsair in FFXI, randomness and luck played a big role in the mechanics of that job, but that only applied to the potency of effects. You had full control over which buffs you wanted to use which isn't going to be the case for Astrologian. Some of the randomness will be mitigated with the Shuffle and Spread actions, such as setting aside the defense buff in preparation for an forthcoming attack, though it is unclear how often those actions can be used. I do hope that Astrologian won't have to spend too much down time drawing for specific cards instead of using that time to deal damage. The damage buff could be substantial, but having the time to benefit from that buff as well would be nice.

And lastly, some observations and guesses about the actions shown off in the video.

1. Simple card draw, pulling the Fire (enhanced attack?) card.
2. Action that uses the drawn card, applying the associated buff to the AST.
3. Diurnal Sect/Nocturnal Sect stance activation?
4. AoE heal?
5. Offensive spell, inflicting heavy status.
6. Offensive spell. Possible AoE around target. Caster floats similar to a WHM casting Holy.
7. Possible self buff. AST Swiftcast?
8. Offensive ability, inflicting stun status.
9. Possible AoE heal. Shown casting instantly.

Oh also, a little more than an hour into the live letter we see a full party consisting of WAR, DRK, MNK, NIN, MCH, BLM, WHM, and AST with all six attribute modifiers in effect. Unless Dark Knight or Machinist add Piety it's probably coming from the Astrologian.

[Remilia_Nightfall]

Unless Dark Knight or Machinist add Piety it's probably coming from the Astrologian.

I would not be surprised about DRK adding piety tbh, as odd as it sounds. DRK heavily revolves around MP.