Why people says AST is bad?

[h0tNstilettos]

You serious?
Never EVER going Nocturnal again. EVER.
I've been gimping myself for days.

This is the rule for stances:

If WHM go Diurnal or Nocturnal per fight basis.
If SCH go Diurnal.
If solo, Diurnal in most cases. Nocturnal is per fight basis.

Not this:

If WHM go Nocturnal.
If SCH go Diurnal.
If solo, Diurnal in most cases. Nocturnal is per fight basis.

[Mhikail]

This is the rule for stances:

If WHM go Diurnal or Nocturnal per fight basis.
If SCH go Diurnal.
If solo, Diurnal in most cases. Nocturnal is per fight basis.

Not this:

If WHM go Nocturnal.
If SCH go Diurnal.
If solo, Diurnal in most cases. Nocturnal is per fight basis.

I use Diurnal for everything.
The shields is took damn weak when you have Regen Heli and Bene and shield Regen. It dies in a milisecond and the MP given for a shield is not worth it.
You already have to manage your MP to the tee. Also, they give us a weaker Sacred Soil that barely does diddly doo da. Hell, once in a blue moon you see SCH use SS.
It just tops so much more. Let me know if you find a real good use to Noct because I'm not seeing it.

[Sanguisio]

Its also annoying that AST shields dont stack with SCHs.

[Dante_V]

I don't think it's bad at all. I've played with some amazing AST so far who have been very competent. I agree there are some tweaks to be made but overall most of the people don't seem to understand how to play the class effectively but the ones who do are pretty amazing. I still don't understand why people are spamming lightspeed and gravity for dps tho. It's an MP drain and a potency loss.

All that aside I think AST will get a buff at some point. It doesn't need a huge one just some genral tweaks. It's more than capable for raiding and my current static has a AST atm. I feel that they are better complimented with a WHM or SCH though as opposed to two AST in opposing sects.

[chumsy]

AST are bad because:
Cant heal as good as WHM/SCH
buffs too weak/situational/short
Have MP issues
AST/AST combo seems not viable because Card buffs don't stack
lack of emergency heal skills

In before everyone realizes when Alexander raid (hard mode) comes out

[Krixus]

AST are bad because:
Cant heal as good as WHM/SCH
buffs too weak/situational/short
Have MP issues
AST/AST combo seems not viable because Card buffs don't stack
lack of emergency heal skills

In before everyone realizes when Alexander raid (hard mode) comes out

AST are good because:
Heal almost on par with WHM/SCH
Buffs that no other healer has access to, can push through dps checks holding a strong card + buff
No mp issues because can shorten lumin. (refresh), and use ewer on yourself if needed.
AST/AST combo is even viable, because while you cannot stack buffs, you can have both astro's use a buffed single target card on their strongest dps.
Has a 40 second emergency heal that has higher potency than lustrate when used on a target with low hp, then follow with an instant aspected benefic.

[TheWaywardWind]

AST are good because:
Heal almost on par with WHM/SCH
Buffs that no other healer has access to, can push through dps checks holding a strong card + buff
No mp issues because can shorten lumin. (refresh), and use ewer on yourself if needed.
AST/AST combo is even viable, because while you cannot stack buffs, you can have both astro's use a buffed single target card on their strongest dps.
Has a 40 second emergency heal that has higher potency than lustrate when used on a target with low hp, then follow with an instant aspected benefic.

1. No, no no no. White Mage has Divine Seal, Scholar has a fairy and Indomitability to increase their potency. Astro has absolutely nothing.

2. "Buffs no other healer has access to." Well, this is wrong, because Scholar's can bring a haste buff, but besides that, Scholar brings plenty to the table that Astrologian doesn't. I'll take Selene's haste buff over an Astro struggling to find the right cards for one any day of the week.

3. So your goal to fixing the MP issues is to...waste the cards on yourself? I thought the whole point of Astro was that you were supposed to be buffing OTHER people? When you use the cards on yourself, you're wasting very valuable potential in damage increase buffs because you need to aid your gimped class with buffs meant for OTHERS. For ever Ewer you waste on yourself trying to get your MP up, an Arrow or Balance could be used elsewhere to improve damage. It all tumbles down so quickly that it isn't worth it.

4. AST/AST is not viable in the slightest, LOL. WHM does Diurnal better, SCH does Nocturnal better. There is literally no reason to bring two ASTs to the table EVER.

5. Woooow, awesome! Hey, you know who else gets an emergency button? Scholar AND White Mage. And guess which one is better, Scholar's emergency button they can use three times in one minute (six if we include dissipation) + White Mage's two emergency buttons (one heals everything instantly! and the other is amazingly strong) or ASTs crappy Essential Dignity that you actually have to wait UNTIL the tank is near dead to be used effectively?

Yeah, nah. AST falls short of the mark. You are not going to see any top tier raid team with an AST. Sorry.

[Yumi_umi]

Ah tht video was a good watch but a whm/sch can easily do that in rav ex.
They used the extra dps to make phases shorter = less damage
The tank was on their game as they split the buster among party before returning to the tanking spot.
Its good to know tho that ast can solo heal in good parties.
My point was the solo heal capabilities but ppl provided vids so that answers that lol

Also u can't really "fail" a thread unless u talk about something that is completely different from op topic.

[Khyan]

"*Time Dilation – Extends the duration of any beneficial effects you have cast on your target by 15 seconds. Aspected effects, Cards, and Synastry are all affected. 90 second recast, cannot be cast on self."

I just seen this from a guide. Use Time Dilation for Synastry is completely useless. You can't extend the duration on both synastry buff. IF your Synastry buff reach 0 second, it remove automatically the other synastry buff, no matter how seconds it remains.

Celestial Opposition is the only skill that can extend the duration of Synastry on both you and the target.

[Crevox]

Also, the current status of Spear is that it's bugged: it's supposed to reduce the remaining duration of ACTIVE cooldowns in addition to reducing the cooldowns of abilities used while under its effects, which will take it from being the worst card in the deck to the best.

This is false and it is not a bug, sadly.

Yes, I know it's in the "accepted bugs" portion of the forum, but that does not mean they confirm that it's a bug. All that means is that the community team, or whoever reads the bug report forum, has accepted it as a valid bug report and it will take it to the development team. Whether or not it's actually a bug will be confirmed there, but proper procedure was done on the forum for the bug to be "accepted" for investigation, so it was moved to the accepted bugs section.