The positive Astrologian thread!

[Cynfael]

People who are invested in AST and truly enjoy it should be candid about its opportunities.

Trying to convince others that it's fine because it's special, unique, complex, and just needs to be appreciated is not merely silly, but is counterproductive to promoting the Job. There's nothing particularly challenging about playing AST well, and no special reward for being amazing; you simply end up having to play at a higher skill level if you want to match the performance of someone with somewhat less skill, but with an inherently more powerful Job.

This thread was fine when it was "I enjoy AST because..," but lately it's full of this nonsense about AST having magical onion layers that conceal its true power....

[TatoRazzino]

Snip

Let's translate what you said: SCH/WHM is better because I can suck at it and get carried, or make up for my flaws with easier mechanics. That's pretty much the gist of almost every single complaint about AST. Thanks for saying it out loud.

[GideonHighmourn]

How far this thread has fallen. From being about celebrating the strengths and beautiful artwork that went into AST, to name calling, trolling, and chest-beating.

Lets put it back on topic (again), shall we?

Essential Dignity is really nice to have at low levels; I'm really surprised that SE gave it to AST at such a low level, when SCH/WHM don't get their emergency heals until much later in the game. Makes doing low-level dungeons as a healer really easy, and allows you to DPS longer without having to switch stances!

[Cynfael]

Let's translate what you said: SCH/WHM is better because I can suck at it and get carried, or make up for my flaws with easier mechanics. That's pretty much the gist of almost every single complaint about AST. Thanks for saying it out loud.

My, aren't we a snippy little thing? If you want to make it personal, go for it, but last I checked we were discussing game mechanics, not making baseless assumptions about how we play in-game.

If your position is so weak that you need to resort to such to continue your argument, perhaps you should ask yourself if you might be the one without a legitimate point to make.

[TatoRazzino]

I never had problems with the lower potency. Other people are. I love the job and I believe in its strength when played well. If 20/30 less potency in some spells give you guys such a hard time, by all means, stop playing the job and go to the "easier" ones, since they don't have any restrictive mechanics and no weaknesses. Leave AST for those who can, and want, to do it.

[Tyla_Esmeraude]

I never had problems with the lower potency. Other people are. I love the job and I believe in its strength when played well. If 20/30 less potency in some spells give you guys such a hard time, by all means, stop playing the job and go to the "easier" ones, since they don't have any restrictive mechanics and no weaknesses. Leave AST for those who can, and want, to do it.

So can you answer my question please?
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3204468


You should know that there has been ASTs who managed to complete the first floor but noticed the obvious weaknesses and even posted them on these forums. They aknowledged the problems with the job and were asked to switch. So should they stop playing the job because they acknowledged the weaknesses although they could play it "right", even if struggling and/or making their other healer struggle more? I dont' see the relation between a good player and making AST's weaknesses completely obsolete and nonexistant. Mayority of people agree that AST is not in its best state, are you gonna tell me that 99% of these healers that have main healed since 2.0 are just simply bad at playing even if part of these 99% are top raiders, including japanese players?

I'm genuinly interested in knowing how AST is better than SCH, since I don't play SCH and I have my own experience as AST, experiences from other ASTs and actual facts posted on the forums that point towards the opposite of your statements. Please elaborate further *in the other thread*.

Sorry for the derail guys :x I just thought I'd point them to my question since they are still around but missed it.

[TatoRazzino]

I can elaborate the reason why I think my AST will be more helpful in the AoE healing (that's what I said in the other thread) and in managing preys than my SCH.
AoE healing is a WHM field. They get the most powerful spells and they have lots of them (Cure III, Medica, Medica II, Assize and Asylum). SCH lacks spells in that department: they have Succor, which has 150 potency and shields, and Indomitability, being off-GCD and consuming 1 stack of Aetherflow. They can also turn Succor into a Medica if they use their Emergency Tactics cooldown, which is 30s. The struggle is as follows: if I use ET to turn Succor into a 300 potency AoE healing spell, I lose that cooldown to turn Adloquium into a big healing spell (600 potency, unless it crits) and if I use Indomitability, I lose one stack and can only do 2 more Lustrates until I get more stacks of Aetherflow. This is one of the SCH's weaknesses: since they can do much shielding and DPSing, they lack healing tools. [I'll continue]

[Cynfael]

I never had problems with the lower potency. Other people are. I love the job and I believe in its strength when played well. If 20/30 less potency in some spells give you guys such a hard time, by all means, stop playing the job and go to the "easier" ones, since they don't have any restrictive mechanics and no weaknesses. Leave AST for those who can, and want, to do it.

Again, potency is not AST's problem. Their biggest problem is that they bring very little to the table that other healer Jobs can't do better by design. This supposed skill ceiling at which the Job becomes on par with its peers doesn't exist; merely being adequate to clear content doesn't cut it when the other two Jobs are stronger and overall push better raid numbers given equivalent skill and group comp.

Now that I've issued constructive criticism, let me take a shot of kool-aid: the artwork and style of AST is one of the reasons I want to see the Job become competitive, because it's gorgeous in play and feels "fun" to me. The attention to detail like the dissolving motes of shadow following Gravity and Combust is amazing.

[Bovinity]

Again, potency is not AST's problem. Their biggest problem is that they bring very little to the table that other healer Jobs can't do better by design.

It's a shame that the job doesn't have a significantly different healing style or something.

I don't want to make comparisons to other games, but consider Resto Druid, Holy Paladin, Disc Priest...all wildly different. Even WHM and SCH are pretty different!

Meanwhile it's like AST wants to be a mini-WHM or something, which makes it very easy to compare the toolkits and see that one is just not bringing as much to the table.

[Geardagas]

AST is a whole lot of fun.

SCH and WHM are boring.

That's really all there is to it. Yes, the cards could be a ton more powerful, but who cares. I'm sticking with what's fun. If noone wants an AST, Ill switch jobs.

Oh and man are them space spells nice to look at. I still think malefic 2 is the best looking spell in the game.