Your thoughts on Astrolgian so far?

[SaintK]

That guy is exagerrating. Yes, our potencies are weak, but three benefic 2s =/= one cure 1. Comon man, thats just ludicrous. Benefic 2 is only 30 less potency than cure 2. Hes right though, our healing is a STRUGGLE. Especially in pugs where you have to tell your dps to stand within a 15 yalm distance of each othre or they wont get hit by helios. Dignity is good, but i feel like it should be a 30 seconds cool down (why does our lustrate have to have a 40 second cooldown anyway? Scholars can essentially get a similiar spell three times in thirty seconds.). The cards are RNG beyond belief. I just love shuffling a spire into a spire and drawing a spire on the draw after that -_-. The abilities (all five of them) past 50 are garbage.

[fanservice]

Dignity is good, but i feel like it should be a 30 seconds cool down (why does our lustrate have to have a 40 second cooldown anyway? Scholars can essentially get a similiar spell three times in thirty seconds.). The cards are RNG beyond belief. I just love shuffling a spire into a spire and drawing a spire on the draw after that -_-. The abilities (all five of them) past 50 are garbage.

3 times a minute* with the possibility of dismissing the fairy for 3 more once every 3 minutes.

I have to admit, AST is functional, and the card buffs are strong, but the healing really is quite middle-of-the road. Their AOE healing is quite good though. Still beats SCH since they don't have to wait on CDs to do so with real potency (whispering dawn, indomitability, emergency tactics).

Not sure if AST is truly weak, or I'm forced to admit SCH is pretty much OP in every other regard that isn't AOE healing at this point. Even nerfed, lustrate ironically puts essential dignity to shame due to consistency (I estimate essential dignity to heal for 800 potency on a dangerously low target). Fire-and-forget AOE DOT dps, and their MP staying power is amazing as always between aetherflow, energy drain, and occasional free heals from fairy + lustrate.

[UOdhn]

-snip-

Yep, and meanwhile WHM gets assize for another 10% of their MP back every 90 seconds on top of shroud. All AST has is basically base shroud. We can use ewer on ourselves, but that's best placed on the BLM for extra fire casts. I dunno, AST seems weak in the MP-regen department (59 ast here, will see during the 60 dungeons).

[Xenos74]

I never had any issues with MP on AST until I started grinding the lvl 60 expert dungeons. Enemies seem to survive a ridiculous amount of time and it seems the tank is always randomly spiking. On anything more than 2 enemies, it's practically impossible for me to cleric stance and pop off a swiftcast Gravity +AoE stun without my tank dying or getting dangerously low. That's just trash enemies, the bosses stay alive even longer and with AoE dmg on top of the tank spikes, I can run through my MP extremely fast

I'm usually very good at using our "shroud" every 2mins but there's one or two bosses where I'll actually need to Ewer myself just to last till the end.

Anyways, I have the 170 globe and fairly decent i156 gear set that I'm stil, upgrading. I imagine my gear and the tanks in general will only improve vastly with time so perhaps these won't be issues anymore. Its just that those 2 instances are very demanding as a fresh 60 AST

[Aphel]

Snip

It'll get better as you fill out your gear while grinding Laws. My gear's all ilvl 160 + 4 pieces of Law including weapon and as long as the tanks don't chain pull it's quite alright. Some nasty mobs will hit your tank/party hard no matter how high your ilvl is I suspect.

In Fractal Continuum 2 mobs are extremely dangerous: A flying Naga creature (forgot its full name) that will AOE your party for huge damage. That Iron Knight creature that will swipe your tank/party for HUGE damage after it has overpowered itself. This swipe took an ilvl 160 Pally from 100% to 20%, though I didn't check if he was using CDs or not.

In Neverreap there's also 2 mobs: Stinging bees that hit for a crapload of damage if not killed in time. Those Elbst (lizards with sharp teeth) that debuffs your tank with Vuln.

Prepare your best wombo combo (RRed Bole + Regen + Aspected Helios + Time Dilation + Opposition on tank) in anticipation for these mobs.

Yes it is very rough for a fresh 60 AST but once you're geared out it'll be fine. In Neverreap, the last boss had 50% health left and a DPS dropped off the platform. Since he couldn't be resurrected, we had to make do with 3 people. The fight took so long that the live DPS was able to LB 1 twice. We ended victorious with me still having ~40% mp. It would have been absolutely impossible if I was a fresh AST.

[SaintK]

3 times a minute* with the possibility of dismissing the fairy for 3 more once every 3 minutes.
I have to admit, AST is functional, and the card buffs are strong, but the healing really is quite middle-of-the road. Their AOE healing is quite good though. Still beats SCH since they don't have to wait on CDs to do so with real potency....

People are overlooking what the main complaint is. Compared to the other heals AST is mediocre at best. You say scholar aoe healing is worse than AST. That simply is not true, it might have been true if AST was released pre heavensward. Succor is has a wider AOE iirc, and yes, your new aoe is 15 yalms but at least its instant and about the same as helios, AND you have a pet throwing a 300 auto pilot cure on the lowest party member, who can also whispering dawn AOE healing. How is AST aoe healing better than sch again? WHM with divine seal medica 2 is practically three times more potent than one helios.

[fanservice]

People are overlooking what the main complaint is. Compared to the other heals AST is mediocre at best. You say scholar aoe healing is worse than AST. That simply is not true, it might have been true if AST was released pre heavensward. Succor is has a wider AOE iirc, and yes, your new aoe is 15 yalms but at least its instant and about the same as helios, AND you have a pet throwing a 300 auto pilot cure on the lowest party member, who can also whispering dawn AOE healing. How is AST aoe healing better than sch again? WHM with divine seal medica 2 is practically three times more potent than one helios.

As much as I hate comparing things in a vacuum, I think I'm dangerously close to doing just that, but here goes:

Succor in itself is a poor AOE heal for actual damage recovery. It should be precasted once before major group damage, and once after. Any more than that, and you're literally wasting half of its MP cost.

Square now gave SCHs indomitability (400 potency instant cast AOE heal), and emergency tactics (converts shield effect of next spell to bonus healing, which is like turning your next succor into medica). Each of these abilities have a 30 second cooldown. Whispering dawn has a 1min cooldown, and also potent.

'Beats' may have been the wrong word, but what I meant was AST doesn't need to rely on a cooldown to AOE heal with the potency of a WHM.

[SaintK]

snip.

Even if Succor is only 150 potency its still more reliable than helios to hit each target. Emergency Tactics is a thirty second cooldown and lasts 15 seconds. Seems pretty consistent to me. Turns your succor into a medica equivalent, meanwhile your pet is auto curing every low party members. If you just shuffle whispering dawn and tactics you will never run out of a cooldown you need for aoe healing, or you could just succor twice because SCH have almost no mana problems compared to the other healers. On top of that you have idomitability which is literally better than medica. Your supposed to rely on your options on SCH, thats the point of the class. Saying that AST doesnt need to rely on cooldowns is obvious, that should be the case. AST aren't SCH. We dont even have half the options scholars have. So of course we don't have to rely on cooldowns. What would we use? Lightspeed?

[NorthernLadMSP]

I just got to 60 tonight and there's a few things that really irk me. While I love the job, the abilities are gorgeous, and it's fun to play, I cannot help but wonder why:

1. WHY is our only "buff" actually a nerf you place on yourself? Yes, I'm talking Lightspeed. This skill infuriates me.

2. Why, if the heals are lower potency (and they are, obviously requiring MORE heals to match the output of the other two healing jobs) did we get stuck with Shroud, aka Luminiferous Aether? If we are having to cast that many more heals than a WHM or SCH would, why would we not get something akin to Aetherflow?

3. I know it's "random," but why do I always end up getting the cards I don't want (yes I'm looking at you Spear)?

[Seenth]

Got up to 59 on AST, really enjoying it. Such beautiful animations and it's all around a lot of fun to play. I haven't made up mind about the healing potency yet or how I feel about it's place in regards to the other healers. In 4 man content, it seems sufficient, and I've had few problems healing through any of the dungeons, even when tanks decide to pull an extra set of mobs. I do feel like I have to work a little harder, but the cards seem to balance that out (even if they are pretty rngish). Some of the cooldowns just baffle me though. I'm not sure what about Collective Unconscious justifies AST having to stand still. It's not that great of a cool down. Maybe if it had a much higher potency, or added shields with each regen tick.