Astrologian Needs Changes

[NorthernLadMSP]

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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.

[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!

[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.

[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.

[Crevox]

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....

It's all relative. In general, the cards are sort of weak. If you're in an 8 man party and you give 1 of the 4 DPS a 15% arrow card (Royal Road boosted), overall, the party's DPS isn't going to change much.

However, compared to the other cards, this is still good, sadly.

[RoseM]

-Spear: Too gimmicky. There's no guarantee ever that whoever you throw it at will even use abilities, and they shouldn't go out of their way to USE abilities outside of proper timings just because the cooldowns are lower.

This is exactly what I was thinking and forgot to mention on my own posts! In quite a lot of the situation SPEAR doesn't help with anything. Even if they are fixed to affect buffs that are already on cooldown.

1. Remember on T13, when you were undergeared and going for a 1st clear, ALL of the tank defensive cooldowns needed to be timed for certain boss skills? Spear wouldn't help with anything.
2. Why would I use Saints of Shroud if my mana was full?
3. As a bard, I know my barrage/Hawk's Eye/ Blood for blood are always going to come off cooldown right before I apply my 4th (or 3rd? 5th?) sets of DOTS. Even if Spear helped them came off CD earlier by 8 secs, I would just hold them until I apply my dots to get the maximum usage of the buffs.

But meh,, I have already given up on this job, going back to WHM (unless they make significant buff to this job in the future). All the people saying AST is fine as it is, please just grab one into your Raid group and have fun in Alxendar Savage!

[Kogasan]

I say ewer should never be used on a BLM or smn because I feel that it would be wasting it. Ewer should only be used on a healing class. Smn and BLM both have ways to recover their own mp. So you say ewer should be used on a BLM or smn i think you are dead wrong op.

[Avin00]

a Friend of mine raids with SCH in high end content and has done so through all of coil up to T13, He's just replaced himself with an AST because parse for parse the party DPS increased by 500 with the AST there and not having the SCH. This isn't saying that the AST did 500 DPS but that party wide DPS was 500 higher on average over multiple runs. Yes AST healing potency is slightly lower than both WHM and SCH but in all end game content there is another healer in the party and that is the point. They are a little like the OT in a way, they don't need to have as much healing as the main healer their job is to strengthen the party. Stop looking at the individual and recognize that any buff to AST in serious content would likely mean there is no point in taking any other healer.

[Deheuty]

The most useless spell in Astrologian's arsenal, IMO, would be Collective Unconscious. Whoever thought a channelled spell for a healer is a good idea when BLM are complaining about the amount of movement in dodging mechanics is affecting their dps?

[MidnightTundra]

a Friend of mine raids with SCH in high end content and has done so through all of coil up to T13, He's just replaced himself with an AST because parse for parse the party DPS increased by 500 with the AST there and not having the SCH.

In order for this to even happen, your party would need expanded Balance on the entire fight (100% uptime) with a base party DPS of 10,000. This is impossible to do because AST has this thing called Cooldowns.

10,000 * 0.05(or 5%) = 500 btw. Expanded balance, which is your biggest increase in raid damage only lasts 15 seconds. Draw is every 30 seconds. You have a 5.6% chance to land your expanded royal road Balance combo within that minute you're waiting. Your friend just straight up lied to you.