Astrologian Speculations! How will it fit in?

[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

[TeaTimeBear]

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