The positive Astrologian thread!

[Galadrium]

The Ewer card description was changed when it is applied to the Dark Knight. Anyone know yet what exactly was changed?

[GideonHighmourn]

So, Tato, just to get this straight ... You want people to stop giving their opinion on why AST isn't fine, while you give your opinion on AST being fine? And you're also basing your argument that "AST is fine" around your specific raid group's DPS/healer being deficient at properly playing the meta to clear content?

Right ...

You're so quick to tell other people to "git gud" or "l2p" but you admit your own raid group isn't "git gud" since your WHM is incapable of solo-healing enough for you to properly use SCH. That doesn't mean "AST is fine" compared to WHM/SCH meta.

[TatoRazzino]

Snip

You totally misread me, dude. I'll make myself clear: I don't think there is any reason for jobs to be "competitive". What does that even mean? There's no reason for different jobs to perform the same with the same strategies. The healing strategy "1 solo healing/1 dpsing" is always going to work better with WHM/SCH; there's no reason to make AST competitive in that field. If your group wants to do that, then go WHM/SCH. There's no reason to buff any job just because it doesn't fit in a specific strategy.

[VanEinstein]

You totally misread me, dude. I'll make myself clear: I don't think there is any reason for jobs to be "competitive". What does that even mean?

Take a moment to consider the wealth of other mmorpg's on the market, and how many classes some of them have. In fact, let's look at World of Warcraft, because it's the closest example I can think of. Boo and hiss all you like if that's your gut reaction, but hold your horses. When you reach a point where the number of classes of a given "role" or "job" in raid content exceeds the minimum demanded, everyone starts to look at what they believe the most effective selection is, not that which is merely adequate, unless their approach is of a more casual nature. Of course not that WoW suffers this issue quite so much due to larger raid sizes, but it was still an isue (at least up to the introduction of variable size raiding perhaps - I don't know, I wasn't there for that). Anyhow, let's say for example you had chosen to play a particular job at a time when it was at its weakest. WoW has always had those cycles - one as king of the hill, one sitting down at the bottom crying itself to sleep, and the rest all somewhere between. It's not easy to balance so many classes.

Oh, even better yet, forget WoW. Here's one that should be a lot closer to home for a great many here. Final Fantasy XI (w/ a whopping 22 jobs). I played that game on and off all throughout its lifespan so far, and it's painfully obvious that Square has had a hard time keeping all of the jobs relevant. Red Mage was my baby, but its glory days have long been over, and even with the new toys they have given it, its desirability is nothing like it used to be. Geomancer, one of the newer jobs, has had to receive continual adjustment to make it desirable (I still don't know if it's there yet, it's been at least 6 months since I played last), because Square made the mistake of creating the insanely powerful Empyrean Weapon that made a 4 song bard irreplaceable.

Being competitive is all about being valued equally, and when a class (in this case job) is not, you see them being left out in favor of what people discover works -best- , specifically during progression where it's most important for those with a drive to succeed at the earliest possible attempt. This isn't anything new to 14 either. The DPS were victims of such scrutiny in coil.

[TatoRazzino]

And by "metas" I don't mean the sole party composition, I mean everything. Raiders know that anything inside a raid group can make a difference between higher and lower numbers. During my T13 (pre-DF) progression, my group couldn't pass adds, no matter what we did; then, we tried something different: the OT would bring adds closer to cut some of the DPS moving around. That did the trick. Anything inside a raid can be reworked for better results. With WHM/SCH, it's easier to figure out these tiny details that make DPS go higher because we've done it 13 times over the past 2 years. The reason the other two new jobs require less group effort is obvious: tanking/dpsing playstyles usually don't affect the whole group, but healing does. It's more comfortable for a SCH to just go into Cleric and for a WHM to just bend themselves backwards to solo heal. With AST, WHMs have breathing room to DPS and, obviously, SCHs can't just hop into Cleric and forget everything.

[TatoRazzino]

I'm doing over 540 dps on Faust as SCH, and I only DPS for half of the fight, because my WHM partner can't handle solo healing Faust. During Oppressors, my WHM uses Cleric Stance everytime he sees me casting any healing spell. It's stressful, because SCHs don't have half of the AoE potency a WHM has. I'm not the best SCH, I know that, but I can't solo heal AND DPS AND support AND shield while my WHM is slacking. He can't even heal himself when he gets prey. His "healing" style doesn't allow any room for a SCH in the party. If he wants to DPS, then I'll let him. AST will make it easier for both of us.

[Bovinity]

I'm doing over 540 dps on Faust as SCH, and I only DPS for half of the fight, because my WHM partner can't handle solo healing Faust. During Oppressors, my WHM uses Cleric Stance everytime he sees me casting any healing spell. It's stressful, because SCHs don't have half of the AoE potency a WHM has. I'm not the best SCH, I know that, but I can't solo heal AND DPS AND support AND shield while my WHM is slacking. He can't even heal himself when he gets prey. His "healing" style doesn't allow any room for a SCH in the party. If he wants to DPS, then I'll let him. AST will make it easier for both of us.

That has nothing to do with "the meta" or why AST is/isn't better or on-par with other healers. You're just telling us that your WHM is playing poorly and needs you to make up for his slack.

You may as well play two WHM at that point.

[Parawill]

I think Tato's situation is something that we actually need to experience ourselves. I'm quite interested in Tato's raid group's WHM healing style and what they're doing. If you could elaborate, Tato, that would be nice

[TatoRazzino]

I think Tato's situation is something that we actually need to experience ourselves. I'm quite interested in Tato's raid group's WHM healing style and what they're doing. If you could elaborate, Tato, that would be nice

I can. Basically, my WHM loves his new DPS skills and wants to use them as much as possible. WHM is quite powerful now, with three DoTs (200/250/290 potency), two off GCD skills (150/300 potency) and a new main burst spell (210 potency). I, as AST, can apply three DoTs as well (200/240/450 potency) and use a 200 burst. Since no one needs to solo heal with AST there, we both can DPS now and then and have fun. The cards will provide utility and we can split DPS in too and, with a little work, we can reach the numbers a SCH can reach on his own. If he was solo healing, I believe SCH would be better, but he's not; he can, but he doesn't want to. He got new toys in the expansion, let him play with them, you know?

[GideonHighmourn]

What does that even mean? There's no reason for different jobs to perform the same with the same strategies.

And this is what you misunderstand. No one is asking for AST to perform exactly the same function in the previous meta that WHM/SCH would have. They're asking for them to be able to match/compete with their own meta. Currently, AST doesn't compete in the previous meta or create their own, new meta which can compete with the previous one. This is what leads to AST not being taken in progression groups.