The positive Astrologian thread!

[GideonHighmourn]

Getting a crit with Adlo is always good, but getting a crit with ET+Adlo can be good or can't do anything at all.

That is completely and patently incorrect; ET will always transform shields into a heal. Getting/not getting a crit doesn't make it not "do anything at all".

Unless ET+Adlo crits, it's weaker than Cure II/Benefic II, while costing more MP.

Just because it's weaker than Cure II/Benefic II, doesn't make it "useless" (as you seem to be implying) either. If you're going by that logic, everything AST has in terms of heals is "useless" compared to their WHM/SCH counterparts.

Again, there's a fundamental difference between the "RNG" of a crit and the "RNG" of Draw that you seem to misunderstand; this was my main point, which you seem to have mostly missed. The point was not to debate the potency/efficiency of ET+Adlo. You can't call ET "unreliable when it doesn't crit (RNG)" the same way people call Draw unreliable due to RNG.

Draw relies on RNG for it's functionality. Crits just change the efficiency/potency of a skill and don't make the skill useless/useful in it's absence/presence.

Also, I don't typically use ET for Adlo, but rather for Succor. I can't really speak for other people, but I don't think many people use ET for Adlo outside of 4-man instances, or very rare cases in 8-mans.

[TatoRazzino]

That is completely and patently incorrect; ET will always transform shields into a heal. Getting/not getting a crit doesn't make it not "do anything at all".

You misread me. I said that getting a crit with ET+Adlo can be a waste, because of overhealing. I never said that the conversion is dependable on it getting a crit or not. My point is: SCH doesn't have any big heals. ET is a cooldown that transforms the two shielding spells SCH has in weaker or more costly versions of spells WHM and AST already have. That's not a problem, mind me; SCH is not supposed to do that. However, the post I originally replied to was arranging healing cooldowns and put ET there as if it was an addition to SCH that made it do more than AST, when that's not the case at all; ET is a cooldown that fills a gap and allows SCH to have a big healing spell every 30s without consuming stacks.

[Ariel_Valmont]

These aren't even in the same category. Assize is phenomenal, Indom is very good. Celestial Opp is pretty, but pretty worthless.

Fairly certain I pointed that out in the text below what you quoted, I grouped them together because they are all instant cast, and it shows that if they added a heal to it or some kind of effect that works with the sects, it could be on the level as those other 2 abilities, as it is, it is not worthless, it has uses, and can be used in a pinch to add time on to your hots in diurnal stance and allow you to cast a bigger heal, instead of refreshing the hots.

[NorthernLadMSP]

Fairly certain I pointed that out in the text below what you quoted, I grouped them together because they are all instant cast, and it shows that if they added a heal to it or some kind of effect that works with the sects, it could be on the level as those other 2 abilities, as it is, it is not worthless, it has uses, and can be used in a pinch to add time on to your hots in diurnal stance and allow you to cast a bigger heal, instead of refreshing the hots.

Yes, you're right, it has uses (albeit very minor). However, for our ultimate level 60 spell, a 4-second stun on trash only and a whopping 5 seconds extra on buffs, I consider it completely lackluster compared to a lot of other abilities the other healers get.

Do I use it? Yes. Is it amazing? Not by any stretch of the imagination.

[Ariel_Valmont]

Getting locked into a bad card cast is not fun I've noticed as my skill has improved that situation doesn't happen very often. I can see your point on certain cards being desirable, at certain times. But again this too depends on party make up at the time. Of course we want to wait for balance to fall off ( or as close as possible) but I would gladly put the spear on our groups ninja, it has a noticeable effect on his dps. And I would also gladly ewer myself, as for now I'm usually soloing up 4-5 adds, (that's the goal anyway, I make mistakes like anyone else) but then again maybe I'll gamble and set up the royal road, like you said, that's one of the great parts of this job, and I for one don't want to see the randomness taken out because some people think the cards need to be on demand, there is a better solution than that.

[Guilty_King]

It's not that we hate the class, I love the AST class. AST is weak.

There is nothing negative about pointing out class flaws. You can have positive threads about a class not doing good at all.

[Ariel_Valmont]

It's not that we hate the class, I love the AST class. AST is weak.

There is nothing negative about pointing out class flaws. You can have positive threads about a class not doing good at all.

Criticisms, in general are negative, even though they can be constructive. I wanted a condensed place for what people love about the job, so those things have a chance of not getting changed. A lot of people have a lot of misconceptions about AST at the moment, and that's due to misinformation, and running in to bad players. Can astrologians use a bit of love, probably, are they weak and in need of a complete redesign, no.

Prime example, I was in a Thok ast Thok (extreme) farm party the other day, our other healer a WHM, was flabbergasted after our first clear, he said he would have been doing that fight as an Astrologian, but the groups he encountered told him that AST was unable to do that fight and he should play as a different healer if he wanted to do that. I was glad that I was able to show him it is easily doable.

[Cynfael]

Criticisms, in general are negative, even though they can be constructive. I wanted a condensed place for what people love about the job, so those things have a chance of not getting changed. A lot of people have a lot of misconceptions about AST at the moment, and that's due to misinformation, and running in to bad players. Can astrologians use a bit of love, probably, are they weak and in need of a complete redesign, no.

Prime example, I was in a Thok ast Thok (extreme) farm party the other day, our other healer a WHM, was flabbergasted after our first clear, he said he would have been doing that fight as an Astrologian, but the groups he encountered told him that AST was unable to do that fight and he should play as a different healer if he wanted to do that. I was glad that I was able to show him it is easily doable.

Your goal in setting up the thread was definitely a positive one, and it flabbergasts me as well that anyone would think that AST can't do something like Ravana EX. Seriously....

Anyway, where criticism was bound to enter this thread was in response to the people who started using it as a safe haven for making outrageous claims of AST's supposed hidden power and complexity. It's fine for people to laud aspects of the Job that they enjoy, but it's really hard for those of us concerned with seeing that AST be made truly competitive not to comment when others attempt to spread misinformation unchallenged (e.g. "AST is just as powerful as SCH/WHM, people just need to learn it play it better" etc.). No, the Job is not close to brokenly bad, but it's not really up there with its peers, either, which means it will consistently get the short stick as time goes on until this disparity is better addressed.

[Assirra]

Well might as well remove this thread since it turned into another criticism thread.

[Ghishlain]

Well might as well remove this thread since it turned into another criticism thread.

I've been an active participant in the discussion of this thread for the last few pages. I don't see a reason to close down the thread because it hasn't been "yay, AST is awesome!", but at the same time there hasn't been any raw negativity either. It's been a fairly civil discussion regarding specific facts and opinions of AST. Most people who are passionately discussing AST-buffs do in fact enjoy AST, but they see some flaws that could use some obvious changes to make AST more competitive. I know I personally enjoy the job as a whole - AST is extremely engaging, challenging, and fun. I just wish the reward ratio was better for the amount of work I have to do.

To use another fighting game example - there will always be low tier and high tier characters. But a mark of good balance is when those low tier characters, despite being low tier, are still competitive in nature.

While the AST kit is functional, it would be doing it a disservice to say its competitive when compared to the items WHM and SCH bring to the table. The goal is to not bring AST to God-like levels that some pro-AST players believe the intent is, but to bring it up enough so that any combination of healers will function for any progression group looking at high end play. At that point, you leave it to the players to decide how they want to shape their group.

At this juncture we have seen about five to six A3S clears (the current highest cleared content) and unfortunately, none of them have seen an AST as far as I can see (though every other job / class in the game has had representation). This is indicative of ASTs competitiveness in the high-end progression scene and should indicate to S-E that a few small changes are required for AST.

To use a more specific example, let's consider a post from everyone's favorite poster on the forum:

I do not understand your issue? I double astro heal A1-A4 without issue all the time. Also have enough mana to keep my 3 dots up along with the utility of our cards which from my own experiences is another 150-170 dps unless you get a unlucky spreak and pull nothing but bole. I easily contribute 200-300 dps from my dots and a malefic cast every now and then along with arrow/balance/spear on my brother who plays a machinist he normally clocks another 150-160 dps through an entire run which is on par with scholar personal dps.

On SCH
I've clocked 520 personal DPS on Oppressor with Selene out and an i180 weapon in A1
I've clocked 800+ personal DPS in A2 using Selene and an i180 weapon
I've clocked about 420 DPS in A3 using Eos w/ 52% Overheal (which basically means I can afford to use Selene and be YAY, more buffs!) and an i180 weapon
^ All examples with me paired with a DF'd healing partner

If the best AST can bring to the table is 460 DPS which includes their buffs (and we seriously don't know how accurate that 150-160 additional DPS via buffs may actually be) and I can basically do that as a SCH alone and still continue to buff my party with Selene (who, if you look back at the last few pages of discussion, we've theorized can be between 90-180 group DPS), what does that speak of the dichotomy between AST and SCH?

Again, I will re-iterate. The "please-buff"-AST isn't looking for buffs to make AST God-like, they're looking for buffs to make them competitive with their WHM and SCH counterparts. Bonus points to S-E if they can continue to make AST healing even more unique too.