Thoughts from a 60 AST & 60 WHM

[Arcana]

This might be an unpopular opinion but I think AST's heals should remain as they are, nor should they get a buff to emergency situations. To me, AST is much more of a support class than BRD or MCH and I think they should focus on that. Keep AST's healing as risky thing to take - make them worth the gamble in what they can bring that the others can't. We have 2 dedicated healers - if we're going to judge or balance AST in relation to them then it will NEVER be as viable due to the Sect stuff.

maybe we should get a out of card buff for Spell speed to compete with Selene. Spell Speed stat is too much important to be a RNG card and the big buff from SCH. I am ok with thehealing too, i asumed that AST are a 2nd position healers, but we need a big buff in our cards-spells as a reward.

[PetiteMalFleur]

snip.

I felt very much the same as you until I hit 60 and attempted actual raid content. I was completely devoted to the class. The idea behind the class is good but it wasn't balanced well. It's misleading because it does play a lot like a 50 whm with some very cool buffs that work great in 4 man content. It's when you take into consideration the buffs the other two jobs got at 51-60 that astrologian falls short. In a raid environment you'll find yourself using the cards to sustain yourself more than buffing the group. The raid buffs are too inconsistent to make ast a reliable choice to bring for progression and the self sustaining buffs ruin the fun of the class since they defeat the purpose of having an astrologian at all.

[Deheuty]

This might be an unpopular opinion but I think AST's heals should remain as they are, nor should they get a buff to emergency situations. To me, AST is much more of a support class than BRD or MCH and I think they should focus on that.

This is reasonable only if the instance or raid can be solo healed. Unlike DD/DPS, there are only two tanks and two healers. You cannot assign one to be a utility class if the boss mechanics require both to do their main classes well. For example, if a boss mechanic requires tank swapping - having the DRK be a 'utility' tank is nonsensical. Likewise for healers.

[TonberiScholar]

I'm pretty sure the MP difference between AST and WHM comes down to three things:

1. Lack of Freecure procs, and less MP-free heals in general. This is going kind of under the radar. WHM gets a sizeable amount of free single-target healing over the course of a long fight. Pre-50 this isn't as big a deal, since Essential Dignity's also a free single-target burst heal, but post 50 Essential Dignity has to compete with Tetragrammaton, Benediction, Assize and Asylum (all additional, MP-free sources of healing).

2. No way to boost the efficiency of their heals. They are, at base, cheaper/weaker, but the lack of Divine Seal/Fey Illumination hurts quite a bit. Their "panic mode" is basically spamming Benefic II, and that's hellaciously expensive.

3. Only having LA. Assize is an additional 10% of WHM MP back every 90 seconds, and AST doesn't have anything like that.

At least, the above things are what I'm seeing from watching 60 WHMs/ASTs heal stuff.

[NorthernLadMSP]

I now have Astro, White Mage and Scholar to 60. As much as I was so pumped for AST, after playing WHM and SCH at 60 in the new dungeons, I can tell you how far AST falls short. It's actually really disappointing considering I really wanted to make AST my main healer. But, in the end, that is not going to happen.

With WHM and SCH, I feel that they are so on point that I can really add some good DPS to dungeons and while doing a great healing job, all the while never going OOM. However, on AST, you pretty much just heal or throw a card out most of the time, as their MP pool coupled with their lower potency doesn't give a lot of wiggle room to add in a lot of DPS. Their spell effects are gorgeous and I love the idea of Astrologian and their weapon, but in the end, they need some major love from the devs.

[Selli]

I'm a WHM main myself and my AST isn't quite 60, but I do have some comments about the class.

Stoneskin II
Why isn't this cross-classable for AST/SCH yet? If you pug an 8-man and get AST/AST or SCH/AST, buffing takes forever. I dislike SCHing in dungeons simply because trying to Protect -> Stoneskin x4 -> Aldo -> Succor. People don't usually wait for that, you're lucky if you can get a Stoneskin and an Adlo on the tank before he runs off. Isn't that why Stoneskin II was created for; avoiding that really long prep time from the healer? There is no reason why the other two healing classes shouldn't have this skill.

Party Stat Buffs
AST only offers the PIE buff in parties, regardless of their Sect. This means that AST and SCH are fighting for spots in Alexander (and AST isn't doing very well because their shields aren't as good as a SCH's, especially their form of Adlo no doubling when crit), which is what the Sects were created for; avoiding a very situation like this. ._. The buff should change depending on the Sect or perhaps change to MND if there is a SCH/another AST present. Missing that ~26 MND from that buff on a healer is not really desired.

Lower Healing Potency
I can really feel it. Especially when my AST and WHM were both level 50. I feel like I have to spam Bene II on my tanks a lot more than I like. Even with AST's Regen + Medi II, I have to drop Cleric a lot to go back to spamming Bene II's on the tank.

I don't feel like this was the smartest idea, giving them lower potencies, it'd be fine if AST was a DPS (kind of similar to how some songs on a Bard lower their DPS), but for a healer to have weaker heals is not a good thing. Give them bad AoE, give them bad DoTs, but don't ruin their healing when that is their main focus. Or even just lower their poteancies after they use Draw and are holding a card in their hand that's counting down, something like that.

Spread
Why the bloody hell is this an in combat only skill? Lets pretending you're doing progression and your group keeps wiping very early into the fight. You're standing there waiting for CDs to come up and talking about what to do and you decide "hey, to help with this I could get us an AoE Spear when we pull". So you spam your Draw and get yourself an Arrow, you Royal Road it. And you spend the next 4 minutes spamming your Draws and Shuffles while waiting for the PLD's Hallowed Ground and you finally get a Spear... but you can't save it and the BLM is AFK using the restroom. It's the only card skill that is in combat, and it really doesn't need to be. Sure, and it makes sense for dungeons when your constantly attacking things, but not for raids when you have a bit of downtime before each pull.

Shuffle
You're in a 4-man dungeon. You have a War, a Nin, a Bard, and yourself. Things are getting AoE heavy. You Draw a card and get Ewer... you don't really need it so you Shuffle, hoping to get a Spire or an Arrow. Instead you get... Ewer... again. Why does this even happen? The point of Shuffling is to get a new card to help counter the heavy RNG with these cards and Shuffle really ruins the control you have if you can get the same card again.

[Izcroft]

All that and the fact that so many times when you get a card that is bad for the moment you have to throw it on the ground by RIGHT CLICKING IT OFF. Would appreciate it if there's a skill to do that so we can keybind it...

[Wintersandman]

Not to say one class is better than the other but Luminiferous Aether and Shroud of Saints have one big difference. You can get off 3 LA's in the course of a 6-7 minute fight vs 2 SS in the same duration.

[Risvertasashi]

Not to say one class is better than the other but Luminiferous Aether and Shroud of Saints have one big difference. You can get off 3 LA's in the course of a 6-7 minute fight vs 2 SS in the same duration.

How is that? Their cooldowns, durations, and potencies are exactly the same. The only difference is that LA doesn't have an enmity dump.

[Wintersandman]

How is that? Their cooldowns, durations, and potencies are exactly the same. The only difference is that LA doesn't have an enmity dump.

LA = 120s
SS = 180s

LA also does have an enmity dump.