Your thoughts on Astrolgian so far?

[MidnightTundra]

ASTs healing is fine. The point of the class isn't to have the healing output of a WHM. The point of AST is to grant Significant buffs to allies at the cost of having pitiful healing cooldowns (If i can even call it that) and our buffing system being entirely RNG. The draw mechanic is awesome but at the moment, a SCH with selene out is much better than an AST at providing a party wide damage boost. Coupled with the fact that SCHs personal DPS completely dumpsters ASTs, I feel like AST is easily the weakest of the 3 healers.

- AST needs stronger mana sustain. You can't give a class weaker heals and healing cooldowns that decrease your potency and efficiency along with the worst mana sustain. That's just a slap in the face to people who were really excited about the class.

- AST either needs stronger DPS skills or the buffing system needs to be stronger. As of now, SCH is just outright better in both buffing the party (DPS wise) and in personal DPS. I feel like all of the cards simply need duration increases along with Draw coming down to a 25s cooldown. Shuffle should be 60s and Spread should be 30s. Stella should be a DoT, similar to miasma. Miasma and Stella share the same cast time, MP cost and effects... except one is 300 Potency and is affected by the SS buff and one is 100 potency.

- Light Speed is niche as all hell, it should be -10% potency not -25%, Collective Unconscious is on a 90s cooldown when they want me to give up my mobility and my ability to casts spells to keep the effect. I thought Celestial Opposition was awesome... then I found out it only extends my assigned buffs and not everyone's buffs. It's a 2min and 30s cooldown... please. Time Dilation is great but we should be able to use it on ourselves too. Synastry is awesome but it should transfer additional effects of abilities and spells.

This class is beautiful and it's cool as hell but its just lacking the oomph that WHM and SCH have in their respective roles. Even with all that said, I still love this class. I feel like it has so much potential but it's held back by developers that are incredibly afraid of power creep (for good reason too).

[Kerrigen]

It's baffling that each of the AST skills comes with a significant drawback considering how weak its healing throughput is. I agree that it should at the very least be MP efficient, which it isn't at all in relatively high damage situations.

- Draw is on too long a CD for what it brings to the table, or the Card effects are too weak. In a raid situation, 30s is a long time. We're trading throughput for buffs but the buffs themselves aren't that potent / frequent.
- Not being able to Spread outside of battle is completely arbitrary. I get that it's to prevent you from "choosing" and storing a card before starting a battle but there's already a way to do that for content that matters, it just makes it extra annoying.
- I could understand not being able to switch Sects during battle if we had actual healing or mitigation CDs that work. As it stands I don't think it's justified and it could even add an extra layer of steategy.
- Luminiferous Aether should scale with PIE, otherwise it'll be far too weak 2 years from now when we have close to 20k MP. Both WHM and SCH have MP recovering actions that scale with PIE, AST doesn't (outside of maybe preventing decay with Ewer but then you're not buffing someone else so what's the point?).
- I don't see how Lightspeed warrants such a huge potency penalty considering how situational it already is. You're just losing throughput for no good reason when you use it. It's OK to cast stoneskin on people in between pulls, I guess?
- Synastry is nice on paper, but too restrictive for what it brings to the table (only works with Benefic/II basically).
- Time Dilation is nice, but it wouldn't be game-breaking if we could use it on ourselves considering our CDs aren't potent to begin with.
- Collective Unconcious is almost insulting in its current incarnation. With how restrictive it is, its effect should be much more potent, say 3 times more potent. When you're using it you're not doing anything else for up to 18s AND standing still, come on.
- an extra 5-10s on Celestial Opposition wouldn't hurt in regard to its CD and the fact that it's a lv60 skill. 5s is like 2 GCDs.

I don't think having lower potency heals is AST's main issue to be honest; it's that outside of spamming baseline heals all day you're powerless on the healing front with the weak CDs it has. They offer very little synergy to your healing actions. It's currently not very flexible, as if they were so scared that it'd be overpowered they felt the need to gimp every skill they created for it [or it hasn't been playtested in real conditions].

Sorry if that comes off as a rant, it really isn't and AST is still fun to play. But I definitely think it's undercooked and need mostly minor, sometimes major (Collective Unconcious) adjustments to be fully functional in a raid environment. It's not that it cannot do content, it's that I currently don't see the draw in bringing it over any of the other healers.

Edit: post above mine really captures my feeling, I'm glad I'm not alone.

[Zoralink]

- Synastry is nice on paper, but too restrictive for what it brings to the table (only works with Benefic/II basically).

I'm with you besides this. Synastry is extremely powerful in diurnal stance, pop an aspected helios on the party and an aspected benefit on the synastry target, then throw out your benefic IIs if need be. That's a lot of raw healing (And a lot of enmity) and can be used as a pseudo "oh shit" button in lieu of any other option.

Doesn't really help noct stance though.

Personally I think Synastry should just be a permanent buff, but only something like 30% potency is transferred. It's bizarre to me how long its cooldown is for what it is.

[SuzakuCMX]

It's bizarre to me how long its cooldown is for what it is.

That applies to almost all AST's CDs.

[Zoralink]

That applies to almost all AST's CDs.

Ha, fair enough.

[Kerrigen]

Yeah Synastry is a good CD that I use all the time if only to save MP, it's just really restrictive/picky in regards to what is a heal and what isn't (like it wouldn't kill anyone to have it work with Essential Dignity, but nope, Dignity is an action, not a spell) considering its long CD. Having it as a permanent buff would be awesome, yeah (and probably a bit OP).

I just don't get why there must be a catch to every AST skill.

[Zoralink]

Having it as a permanent buff would be awesome, yeah (and probably a bit OP).

I honestly don't think so, I think it would be just what AST needs. To use everyone's favorite example, Synastry is a carbon copy of Beacon of Light from WoW (Except Beacon isn't a cooldown and is just a base buff), and Nocturnal Stance actually reminds me a lot of holy paladin, which is what uses Beacon of Light. Hell, they can actually get a second beacon that they can throw out. If it remained at 50% in terms of FFXIV (Since FFXIV generally has lighter healing requirements) I think it might be a little broken, but slightly lower the percentage transferred and it would give AST some flavor for its heals as well as increase their actual healing capabilities.


Perhaps have it be a permanent buff in Noct at 30% percentage transferred, and retain its cooldown status (At something like a minute and a half) for Diurnal at 50% since Diurnal can make much more effective use of it. Noct being unable to heal multiple targets effectively is another one of its major issues, since AST can't really mimic a fairy. Making synastry a perma-buff would do that with its own unique spin.

[Divine_Ultima]

After getting Ast to 60, I agree with most of the grievances that people have with the job. My main issue is the length of the cd's. Why are they so long? Especially celestial opposition, why is the most beautiful spell with a weak mitigation effect on a 150sec CD?

[Parawill]

I'd like to rescind several of my negatives as after doing some more Full Party content (8 members). 'Cause my goodness, Astrologians aren't your typical kind of healer.

[1] Unreliable Buffs
Spread is our only means of holding onto important cards for key situations, but RNG can say otherwise. I've pulled 15 Spires in a row once with a full caster party. I think the tank was happy, but everyone else wasn't too happy.

Buffs are a bonus. They're not to be relied on due to its RNG nature, but you must keep a tab on using it every 30 seconds. If you're getting too many Spears, use it for yourself for a shortened Luminous Aether and for your next draw. Sometimes it sucks to hold onto it, but at times its worth it. This solves both mana issues and speeds up drawing.

In addition, when you don't get things you need (or think you need), always ask your group and pay attention to your member's rotation. Though it's a bit more difficult without voice chat, I do try and study each player's play style and buffs to maximize buff effects and/or try to make some use of it.

[2] Lack of Boosting Heals & Catching Up in Healing
Essential Dignity is our only catch-up heal. Essentially it's our Benediction because that's literally the only emergency button we have. We have no Divine Seal, Fey Illumination, Rouse, Emergency Tactics, Assize, Asylum, Tetragramation... We don't have any of that. So if someone takes one too many RNG crits or eats too many avoidable damage, healing becomes heal. Synastry comes in handy at times, but it's on a two minute cooldown, a cooldown way too high for the amount of mistakes that can happen per 10 seconds.

Sucks, but this is where strategic healing comes in. Diurnal Sect is really godly at this when combined with Synasty as the regens are the only other heal we have that's out of our GCDs thanks to its HoT effect. Nocturnal is so-so, and is only really needed when that 10% Sacred Soil or bubbles are required.

[3] Aspected Helios
15 yalms. Not a Medica II.

As much as I want the yalm range of Medica II, we just have to deal with it. I'm a bit iffy about either increasing its range or potency, but it does cost around 200 less mana for the same HoT. Plus, you can extend it with Celestial Opposition in areas where you have no good buffs to extend.

[4] Collective Unconscious

Diurnal Sect is fun for those pause -> ultimate skill -> pause -> phase change/resume. I've yet to use Nocturnal Sect Collective Unconcious too frequently, but the nice 3 second buff it has lets you just mitigate something then leave the stance.

Sadly the skill is very situational, but whatever.

[5] Expensive mana per HP.

Make use of Spear and Ewer on yourself. There are many times where that extra fire on a Black Mage wont be as useful as those extra heals on yourself. Spear is also very amazing with Luminous Aether, and I try to fish out a Spear before using it. In addition, waiting out for optimal times to maximize Essential Dignity is fantastic. 8k heals pls.

EDIT: The difference between any form of Balance or Arrow used during a DPS check is night and day when compared to no buffs. Oh my goodness, things melt so freaking fast.

EDIT 2: Please fix Celestial Opposition. I hate my food going from greater than 30 seconds to 30 seconds. Such an annoying bug.

[loreleidiangelo]

that's good to know, but even at 790 potency dirunal aspect is an efficient and useful skill for softening damage on a tank while nocturne not efficient or as effective at burst healing as benefic II.

I don't understand what you mean by this. Benefic II actually heals for MORE under Nocturnal Sect than it does under Diurnal, and it takes a full 9 seconds for a Diurnal Aspected Benefic to reach the potency of a Nocturnal Aspected Benefic because a huge chunk of it's potency comes from the HoT effect. After 9 seconds it will trump Nocturnal Aspected Benefic in potency, yes, but there are times when a front-loaded heal that adds to a player's total eHP is far more effective than raw HPS.

Seriously, I keep seeing ASTs saying they play in nothing but Diurnal...am I the only one who finds Nocturnal more useful/valuable?