Astrologian Needs Changes

[TheWaywardWind]

I'll admit, I didn't read anything in this thread yet other than the title. I just wanted to drop in and say I just watched a video on youtube of an AST spamming Helios in Ravana Ex.

Continue with your discussion.

WOW SO IMPRESSIVE

SPAMMING AOE HEALS IS TOUGH

[Lorielle]

I'll admit, I didn't read anything in this thread yet other than the title. I just wanted to drop in and say I just watched a video on youtube of an AST solo healing Ravana Ex.

Continue with your discussion.

People also want to forget...How many times has this fight been done and memorized to no end to make very little mistakes possible? Progression isn't the same as Farming.

[SeraphicRadiance]

A large issue AST has the is complete lack of emergency skills, or rather, raw potency. It's similar to how SCHs at level 50 were. If everyone is playing without making mistakes, AST can do fine. The problem is, when things start to go REALLY wrong, AST has no real power to recover from it. AST is also currently the only healer with a cooldown that will actually CAUSE WIPES. Because they are just so powerful they have to have that 25% potency reduction.

Being able to apply a fairly respectable buff when literally the stars align is not enough to justify their impotency. You need consistency and reliability from someone in the healer slot, not be reliant upon RNG to bandage your class' shortcomings for 20-30 seconds. I love AST, but there are some serious faults and annoyances that are GUARANTEED to get them excluded from true raid content. They just don't earn their spot right now, even if you do have the skill to play them perfectly.

[Crevox]

Not only is the fight easy to heal, but it means nothing in terms of AST's power, utility, etc.

The fact of the matter remains that the other two jobs could've done it and had a much easier time, and if you actually watched the video, you'd know that they basically never used their cards. They spent the entire fight drawing and discarding cards until they got damage/haste setup with Royal Road, which again, is exactly what the job encourages you to do. They spent 90% of the fight being a weaker version of the other two healers for nothing in return.

[lynyan]

there's a few things they could do:

- change draw to allow you to draw 3 cards successively before going on cooldown. cards then can be used on party members/with RR+shuffle+spread in the order that they were drawn. this would allow you to actually use royal road strategically instead of it feeling like a massive waste outside of downtime, and also make the cards feel more significant because more could be active every 30 seconds. additionally, when draw goes on cooldown, it should refresh a percentage of MP, just like aetherflow does.
- shorten shuffle's cooldown to 1 minute. make it so shuffle can never give you any of the cards you've already drawn.
- remove the potency drop from lightspeed.
- make nocturnal sect not suck. make nocturnal field function more like galvanize and not shitty galvanize. increase the potency of diurnal regens.
- buff dignity because right now it is really not that great. it needs either a potency buff, a shortened cooldown, or both.
- make disable function like virus, don't allow the effects to stack, but allow them to be used when the other cannot be.
- make wheel of fortune/collective unconscious either not require you have to stand still and not act, or make the effects given by it actually worth losing the ability to act at all.
- shorten celestial opposition's cooldown and make it increase your healing output also.

all of this stuff + some of the other suggestions in this thread would probably alleviate most of the problems people have with astrologian right now and would make the job feel better and not as weak as it does right now.

[CarmenSandiego]

Astrologian is a really fun class to play, however there are so many things that could be done to balance it well with the other classes. Some of these have been said, but as the OP mentioned we're trying to hammer this home:

• Remove the potency reduction modifier from Lightspeed. Abilities still have a GCD so it's unnecessary. Particularly when compared to WHM Divine Seal which has a shorter cooldown and has no negative side affects. We have lower potency as it is, why further hinder us? Allowing us to become a very mobile healer is something fresh and individual, not overpowered.
• Allow for Collective Unconscious to not be cancelled upon moving.
• Shuffle should not allow you to draw the same card twice.
• Time Dilation should be able to cast on self
• As an AST we provide the Piety party buff, which means if we're paired with a SCH there is no MND buff. Switching sects should change between mind/piety buff.
• Extend the duration of the cards by 5 seconds
• Reduce the cooldown of Shuffle to 60 seconds
• Increase the AoE range of cards

[NorthernLadMSP]

snip

I agree with every improvement you have posted. In addition, they need to do something much more amazing with the level 60 skill (the name's escaping me now as I'm sleepy). It's a gorgeous spell that looks powerful, but all it does is give a 4 second stun that you can only use on trash.

[Hundred]

Don't know if its the players I see in df, but between getting my War to 60 and my Drk to 60, I kind of hope I dont have an AST, and when I start the trek for me PLD to 60, I'll probably feel the same way.
Tempted to pick up the class just to see what the fuck is going on, because I don't want Ill feelings towards my healers.

[shawnaus1986]

What's said is we might now see a buff for like 6 months............look how long it took to fix DRGs..... I mean I wish they would have made it's own healing class rather then trying to do this hybrid red mage feel!

[Alindra]

I'm only at level 54 AST so far (been leveling my AST and my SCH simultaniously), and it is definitely a lot more difficult to heal the dungeons I've been doing on AST than SCH.

Overall, I don't have a problem with the card mechanics, but I do think there could be a buff to most, if not all of them. Despite the OP singing praises about the Arrow Card...I've hardly noticed any effect when I use it on myself. Same could probably be said with most of the cards....

Tho I would say they could probably just leave the cards as is, and balance the potency/mana cost/cast time of the healing spells. And/or make it so Nocturnal Sect stacked with SCH abilities and Diurnal with WHM, or even just AST's playing in the same sect.

And boost their DPS. AST dps and healing potency are both so low that I don't even bother doing the cleric stance dance.