Thoughts from a 60 AST & 60 WHM

[Alahra]

I agree with all of this as well, except that would make Ewer/Spire useless at the beginning of a fight which is more or less the same as it is now (IE: totally useless to use in a lot of situations).

That's a fair point, though Goad at least can be useful early in a pull on a tank or something. The resource management only has an affect in longer encounters either way, but they're probably set on keeping them as resource tools. It would be nice if they did something else small in addition to their resource adjustment (something like a small critical hit buff for Spire, perhaps, or a minor HP regen for Ewer). That way if the resources aren't needed, they can still have at least a small benefit (in the event that you already have RR and Shuffle into one).

And yes, Nocturnal needs adjustments as does Celestial Opposition. I'd like to see Collective Unconscious lose one of either the movement lock or casting lock, but in Diurnal at least I have occasionally found it useful for a mana-free period of healing.

[Rewind]

I am aware. I am just wondering why everyone is focusing on drastic changes to the card mechanic when the largest issue is that AST cannot heal as well as it needs to be able to to complete end-game content satisfactorily, and that they have a lot of post-50 abilities that feel weak to use and Noct Stance is universally worse than Diurnal. Whenever I stated that, people jump on and start saying that if cards are changed AST will be fine.

I don't think anyone is saying the cards are the sole problem.

Healing in Diurnal stance is fine - As stated before Diurnal stance is about sustaining the raid rather than specifically predicting damage (SCH) or reacting to damage (WHM).
Healing in Nocturnal stance needs to be addressed - I'm not sure what exact buff it needs. Maybe it is a pure potency increase on all spells but at the same time I think it should be reworked completely - Maybe some channelling high potency spells like a healing chain between players.

Also DPS does need to be slightly addressed to make AST viable in 4 mans (as there are people that don't raid). Gravity should put up a 4 second reduced mob attack damage, and 2 and then 1 second just as holy works but as an alternative to stun.

[Nadirah]

Hit 60 SCH.

Holy *shit* the difference in ex roulette...

*sigh* So much easier to heal as SCH...

[MidnightTundra]

Hit 60 SCH.

Holy *shit* the difference in ex roulette...

*sigh* So much easier to heal as SCH...

Bane and Fairy just makes it fly by doesn't it?

[Nihility]

as a 60ast and 60sch i can safely say scholar absolutely blows astrologian away.

I've done both manipulator and ravana ex in both astro stances with a WHM partner and surprisingly diurnal produces better results. It's a better self buff and the HoT stacking is a lot better than super inefficient shields
Also, Synastry is a heck of a good skill. It makes things that can be kind of sketchy a breeze

Scholar though... the situations never get sketchy to begin with. Everything is taken care of and dealt with before it ever even gets scary

It's just night and day, so much stronger in every way you can't even really compare


My WHM isn't 60 yet but so far it's the better comparison to astrologian
astrologian feels like a weak WHM that is slightly more nimble and has to choose between HoT or shield instead of just having regen and fast stoneskin
and instead of having really serious damage output, it has potentially pretty strong but wholly unreliable gambling buffs

[Nanohamaho]

After playing 60 AST through the primals and some of alex hm, then reading the majority of this thread, I'm starting to feel like I'm in agreement with AST needing a buff. My personal experience has just mostly been the case of feeling like a less potent whm with cards, but when the ship starts sinking there's not much I can do to keep it afloat.

Now how do we go about bitching in a way that will get us a buff like bard/mch ?

[Deheuty]

I think some people missed the point that while a BRD regenerates TP/MP, an AST *reduces* TP/MP use. It is often the case that players who are low in TP/MP will ask for its regen and not when it is near full. So in this aspect, the AST's buffs are not for emergencies when a player's TP/MP is low.

[Vill_Castiglioni]

People keep saying "SCH/WHM are so much stronger and easier to play than AST." People are forgetting that the 3 new jobs are complex and supposed to be played by advanced players in a high skilled manner. That's the whole point of the class, entirely.

Still, people are complainng about mp management being rough. It's really the same as WHM if you're playing the class right. No one here who is saying they're having trouble with management sounds like they're taking the steps to keep their mana pool up. You basically have to use all the skills at your disposal, and not just pop the Shroud equivelant. It's just not as simple, and that's what everyone has to come to terms with. I've been working with a high crit/ss build and it's so far been great for me. The only reason I've ever messed up while healing is because I made a mistake and accidently hit cleric stance twice, and couldn't heal properly for that moment.

Otherwise yes, excessive mistakes of other players are hard to deal with. Low dps of those other players is hard to deal with. But it's always difficult to deal with other players who aren't quite on the level you'd like them to be, but it is totally doable. I've still kept up and cleared content with people messing up constantly and taking stupid dmg. Even if every other player hits a mine once in Fractal have I been able to bring things back to order, and if I'm oom It's at the END of a fight. What does it matter if I'm depleted at the very end? The exhilaration is fantastic as AST, rather than lazy heavy heals as WHM and the extra support from a fairy. Don't get me wrong though, I absolutely love every healing class. Each one is fantastic.

Now my real problem atm? I see no BRDs/MCHs even thinking about or paying attention to their healers mana. I have not been sung one song in the past 3 weeks. What's up with that? My FC leader went MCH and even last night, didn't "promote" till the last 5 sec of a fight when we were fine and I still had 3k mp.

[Deheuty]

People keep saying "SCH/WHM are so much stronger and easier to play than AST." People are forgetting that the 3 new jobs are complex and supposed to be played by advanced players in a high skilled manner. That's the whole point of the class, entirely.

Still, people are complainng about mp management being rough. It's really the same as WHM if you're playing the class right.

I have played both WHM and AST using the SAME gear (except the MH) in the SAME instance and AST healing is still subpar. If I wasn't interested in AST, why would I level it to 60? Factual-wise, AST's healing has lower healing potency than WHM. Healing potency affects mana management - if AST requires more healing spells to be cast to heal the same amount of HP compared to WHM, AST will use more mana than WHM. Hence, AST's mana management is going to be more problematic than a WHM's - which part of this logic do you not get?

To state here that WHM's mana management is the same as AST is just plain factually wrong - it is not a perception, it is factually wrong. Learn to accept this.

[Cynfael]

AST's comparative lack of CDs that increase healing efficiency is a glaring oversight IMO.

Additionally, if you find yourself frequently blowing cards to cast Spear and Ewer on yourself (as I hear many people around here do) that's a little sad because it mostly negates the group benefit of the entire card mechanic. The Job should be able to sustain itself adequately without having to patch up its MP issues by hoarding cards for itself.