The positive Astrologian thread!

[kiraan]

Snip.

Did you just say that Aspected Benefic shields for around 150 less HP than Adlo but SCH is not shielding more than AST ? But the big thing is, thats not even the main problem of AST vs SCH or AST vs WHM.

To get back on track with the topic, i like the concept of the class and i'm waiting to see if SE reinforce the card aspect to take care of the shortcomings that we can experience at the moment.

[Aurum]

Snip.

I can't speak for everyone else, but for me, it's not the shields that are the problem, it's that even though we can shield almost as well as a scholar, we aren't given all the other healing capabilities a scholar has, aka the fairy and all the various aetherflow abilities, which is really what makes scholar viable. If I wanted to play scholar without aetherflow and without the free healing the fairy adds and with less dps, I'd be playing scholar without the free healing, the aetherflow, and I'd dps less often.

And no, I'm not saying AST should get a fairy and aetherflow and whatnot. What I am saying that I don't want to be a thrift-store scholar; I want to be an Astrologian.

[TatoRazzino]

And please, SCH players need to stop talking about Selene as if that fairy did anything amazing and OP to the group; she adds like 30 dps to some jobs, while she does almost nothing nothing to jobs like SMN and can drain the TP of other jobs. People are talking about WHM and SCH as if they didn't have any downsides, which it's not true. They act like there are no cooldowns, no losses and no restrictive mechanics to anything. Like, SCHs only get 3 Aetherflow stacks per minute, which means they get to choose which skills to use; you can't just blast 3 Lustrates and then pretend you don't lose almost ALL your AoE healing potency. Emergency Tactics is nice, but it only makes your Succor equivalent to Helios/Medica, which AST/WHM have all the time; and on Adlo, it makes the potency reach 600, which is lower than Benefic II/Cure II; it can go up, but it depends on RNG – and if RNG is bad for AST, it's bad for SCH, so you can't depend on it to make your case against AST.

[TatoRazzino]

Did you just say that Aspected Benefic shields for around 150 less HP than Adlo but SCH is not shielding more than AST ?

I may have phrased that badly. My point is: 150 extra shielding will not save your target from death, it will only delay it. And AST has means to heal big when needed, with Benefic II, which is a skill that SCHs lack. Lustrate is nice, but it has less potency and it's not available all the time, since you need to be smart to not overuse it and drain your Aetherflow stacks. People are stressing over aspects that are easily fixed with playing the job right.

[kiraan]

I may have phrased that badly. My point is: 150 extra shielding will not save your target from death, it will only delay it. And AST has means to heal big when needed, with Benefic II, which is a skill that SCHs lack. Lustrate is nice, but it has less potency and it's not available all the time, since you need to be smart to not overuse it and drain your Aetherflow stacks. People are stressing over aspects that are easily fixed with playing the job right.

Don't forget that SCH has Emergency tactis that can be use either on ST healing or group healing that still get the crit bonus multiplier on a 30sec CD. Plus SCH can recover MP pretty easily even if you were to spam heal.

Its cool that people enjoy AST, i do too, but saying that SE don't need to take a serious look at their abilities and spells is just ridiculous.

[TatoRazzino]

[...] even though we can shield almost as well as a scholar, we aren't given all the other healing capabilities a scholar has, aka the fairy and all the various aetherflow abilities, which is really what makes scholar viable.

SCH got Indomitability, which makes up for their lack of an AoE healing burst. It's 400 potency, but it has a 30s cooldown and it eats an Aetherflow stack. AST can make it up with a Swiftcast/Lightspeed Helios, which will heal the same as WHM's Assize. If you use Indomitabilty once, you lose the ability to cast one Lustrate, which is the only big reliable heal SCH has; AST has Benefic II all the time. Emergency Tactics has a 30s cd, and turns Adlo in a weaker heal than Benefic II unless it crits, which is RNG based. Fairies are nerfed, and the long cast time and positioning makes it less reliable than a big heal. The so-called SCH big healing things are all either RNG or cooldown based and are not always available.

[Aurum]

Snip

Yes, it's true that aetherflow has a cost, but that being said, SCH gets 3 more aetherflows a minute than AST does, so saying it's not that great is like telling a person without a car that "yes, I have a car, but it just gets me from point A to point B. It's nothing special". Yes, maybe you're not riding around in a ferrari, but that's not what the person who has to walk to work every day cares about.

And as far as the RNG element goes, if you wanted to level the RNG playing field between SCH and AST, you'd have to do this: take all of your aetherflow skills, roll them into a ball, and put them on one button. You can only press that button every 20 seconds, and when you do, it randomly activates a skill that consumes aetherflow. Oh, you wanted to lustrate that tank? Too bad, you get Sacred Soil.

[TatoRazzino]

The bonus multiplier from Emergency Tactics is only applied to Adlo. ET with Succor turns it into a Medica/Helios, which WHM/AST have all the time. And again: to get a heal out of Adlo that passes Benefic II, you need to get a crit at that specific moment. And, like I said, RNG is bad, according to people bashing on AST. I'm not saying that SCH is bad. I love it. I have it at 60. It was my main in 2.x, but people are treating it as if you could do everything at the same time without any problems or setbacks or hindering mechanics. That's just not true. I was doing A1 savage tonight as SCH and there were several times in which I was playing AST instead, because I needed some healing tools like Synastry and a more dependable AoE healing spell like Helios.

[TatoRazzino]

snip

I don't want to level the RNG playing field, I'm saying that RNG is not a bad thing. SCHs use it too, and a lot. And it works out for them. The point of the cards was never to make a party pass a DPS check they couldn't pass without them or save a tank from a blow he wouldn't survive without them. That's not the core concept of the job. It would be like saying that SCH was crap for not being able to land critical Adlos at specific moments to shield tanks from busters they wouldn't survive with a normal Adlo. ASTs have very nice healing tools and are reliable at the healing end when played properly; the cards are a bonus and add utility to long runs. You have a 4/6 chance to draw cards that are useful all the time to almost all groups and you get tools to manage the ones you don't want. You're not gonna see DPS numbers go sky high, but that was NEVER the point. Stop saying that RNG to cards is a problem, because it isn't.

[Vlady]

True astro has access to helios at all times but as long a boss mechanics are based around tired patterns then the scholar has access to those abilities when it is most required in the raid which matters most off all.