I've leveled Astro to 60, and completed the last current dungeon. My Thoughts.

[SakiKojiro]

Astrologian is my new main, but it has some problems.

DPS is on the low side comparably to other healers, it seems. I could be wrong because I don't have a parser, but it really feels that way. I'll note that this isn't a huge problem overall. It's still plenty enough to solo, and adds an alright amount to party wide dps should it be needed.

Collective Unconscious - Why. Seriously, why? So, the 150 potency regen style isn't *awful* because it can stack with other things to be *alright* and nothing more. 50 potency more than the whm version for good reason. The 10% damage reduction that we have to channel? Absolute garbage. Sacred soil is already rarely used, and you give us a worse version of it? The only time this is EVER useful is during the phase change on certain bosses. Even then the effect is negligible, considering you can't be healing during this time.

Most of the cards feel good to use, by themselves. Royal road for extra potency or extra up time, whats to hate? but then we get to the 50% potency reduction and AoE...This is only really useful for 8 man parties, and only in extremely narrow circumstances. For example, Bole becomes a 5% damage reduction AoE, so that coupled with CU can be a 15% damage reduction. Which is cool for extremely choice rare mechanics and phase changes... Balance is super useful, because 5% on every party member is great! Spear and Arrow work similarly. AoE spire is only good if you lack mages, AoE Ewer is only useful if you lack Physical dpses. Both are better off being enhanced or used raw in a balanced party.

Celestial Opposition feels awful, but its not on global cooldown so, no cost free stun that increases the duration of my own buffs. Eh, There's no reason not to use it, so this skill gets a pass. I'd honestly prefer the stun part be removed and the ability get some other party utility, Maybe 10 second increase instead of 5? Buff spreading? I dunno, something.


Edit: To be clear, if I had it my way, the classes "utility support" abilities would be much stronger, and the actual healing of this class would be much lower, but that's just personal preference.


I'm open to feedback.

[Vlady]

Hmm. It least you did not ask to be able to heal on par with white mage. Buffs are lack luster when scholar personal dps is shown to contribute as much as you buffing.

[SakiKojiro]

Yeah, I never expected to be able to heal on par with White Mage. White mage should still be the supreme healer in terms of raw potencies. Problem is situational+RNG=Unreliable. This job NEEDS better buffs and utility or the lack of reliability will make it unused as anything but a wanna-be White Mage, and why wouldn't you just get a White Mage for that?


Lower Heal potencies a little bit, Give more utility and fix these skills. That's my solution.



P.S. Make spread use-able out of combat. That rule is stupid.

[Risvertasashi]

Hmm. It least you did not ask to be able to heal on par with white mage. Buffs are lack luster when scholar personal dps is shown to contribute as much as you buffing.

With the removal of accuracy on healer gear, there may be potential for AST to be preferred in some content.

[Ayrie]

Potencies are fine. -5 or 10% may not seem like w big deal, but it is. Especially lacking throughput stims like divine seal or Eos or lustrate. Toss presence of mind in there, too.

So the potencies are fine. We\\'re close at idle, but both other classes can pull away almost at will.

The cards need help. They need to bring as much as whm cooldowns or sch pets. Right now, they\\'re decent. They\\'re fun. They\\'re also wanting.

Simple functional things would be a GREAT stop-gap... Like royal road reducing or eliminating the cooldown on draw in exchange for its own cooldown. Right now royal road is worthless in combat, wasting a full card effect for something that doesn\\'t give a huge boost (more than double) leaves you using it only when your Bole shuffles into Bole and the tank isn\\'t taking big damage.

The cards may need a little work, but it doesn\\'t feel terrible, just mostly feel like its not there enough. Especially when it is our offensive contribution.

[SakiKojiro]

Yeah, Ayrie you're correct. I find myself using Royal Road to enhance cards in combat less and less as I become more efficient at the job. If the effectiveness of the card is not at LEAST doubled, then why would you give up a card? your efficiency goes down. Only useful before the fight starts, during phase shifts, or if your pally happened to pop invulnerability right as you drew bole.

[Kietsu]

Extended Royal Road actually does double the effectiveness of the card by doubling its duration.
Expanded Royal Road technically doubles the effectiveness of the card (0.5 x 4) but only certain cards truly benefit the whole party. In 8 man situations this becomes up to 4x effectiveness and becomes far and away the only Royal Road you should aim for.
Enhanced Royal Road is the worst culprit, with an effectiveness fixed at 1.5x the normal effect.

[GideonHighmourn]

Extended Royal Road actually does double the effectiveness of the card by doubling its duration.
Expanded Royal Road technically doubles the effectiveness of the card (0.5 x 4) but only certain cards truly benefit the whole party. In 8 man situations this becomes up to 4x effectiveness and becomes far and away the only Royal Road you should aim for.
Enhanced Royal Road is the worst culprit, with an effectiveness fixed at 1.5x the normal effect.

Except you sacrifice a draw in order to do any of those things, effectively halving the up time of your buffs.

[Vlady]

The cards do need better buffs. Even with lack of accuracy for now it least scholar dps out does dmg boost from cards. Sadly I don't see much happening for now. Give us a aether flow like buff that let's us pull three cards any time with one minute cool down like lustrate along with normal draw. Being able to churn out multiple small buffs at once would help quite a bit.

[SakiKojiro]

Thinking about it, Spread is also a very odd skill. I can only really see it being useful before a fight starts, but that stupid "only use-able in combat" rule makes it impossible to prep unless you use it fighting trash mobs. None of the cards really feel game-changing enough to want to hold onto one at the cost of waiting for the draw cooldown. I would also prefer it consume Royal Road right as you spread it, so you can simply hold onto an enhanced card. However, as we've discussed Royal Road isn't very useful in most situations, anyways, so having the buff up at all is strange.


Also, Vlady....Cards don't stack. So if you're using the aoe royal road, I've got bad news for you.