Astrologian "BUFFS"

[Taranok]

Lightspeed as an "emergency healing tool" is mainly for allowing you to cast Benefic II/Aspected Helios at less cost. The being instant-cast/faster-cast is less for "emergency" and more for movement.

The Ewer change combined with the Lightspeed cost reduction should help sustainability issues, but AST still has a bit of a throughput issue. Lightspeed helps in letting you use your bigger heals more often (and being more reliable of a cost reduction than the old Ewer), but I'm not quite sure if it's going to be enough yet.

I agree. Though I'd say that if you need to move and heal, Lightspeed is undoubtedly the best ability in the game for it now, no question. It will come in handy for swift liberation, as an example. But the class still doesn't have an actual catchup tool. It can be more wasteful with benefic IIs, but that won't save it from a WHM that has a stronger regen, better actual healing throughput, divine seal, presence of mind, assize, and everything else that makes them a substantially better healer by raw throughput.

Even the Scholar has more throughput because the Fairy is just ridiculous for that, even though their AoE healing is arguably worse (or better depending on what you are after).

Until the AST gets its throughput fixed, it will always be a bad healer by comparison to the WHM/Scholar.

[Muahbec]

They solved our mp problems. That's all.
no change on CO at all.
CU change is shit.
no change on how much we heal at all.
no healing buff at all.
no raid utility at all, just a bunch of helios/aspected helios spam.

SE, please, close the servers, take a look at the forum and take some of your players ideas, rework, remake, destroy and rebuild AST.
open the servers again.

[Emonik]

Okay, maybe I didn't explain myself as well as I thought.

Cure is 400 potency, with Noct Sect it raises that by 5%.

I was merely joking at the fact there are ways to get more % healing out of AST to lighten the ever depressing threads complaining about Square Enix.

Joking is right! Cure in NoctSect = 0.95pot/mana Benefic I in NoctSect = 1.1pot/mana

[GideonHighmourn]

Joking is right! Cure in NoctSect = 0.95pot/mana Benefic I in NoctSect = 1.1pot/mana

It also doesn't proc Enhanced Benefic II; not that it does much anyways.

[Lastelli]

These are welcome fixes. Lightspeed is now worth using almost everytime it's available and a stronger CU is of course nice. 200 potency/tick is not bad at all and is a nice compensation for the inability to move and cast. I feel like the bubble should be a little bigger tho. However some problems still need to be addressed, namely the whole nocturnal sect and CO. Noct CU should be a 15% damage reduction at the very least to compensate for a weaker version of Virus (Disable), no E4E and the "scarecrow effect" or completely reworked. I really like the idea of increasing the shields' potency the more they are active on players up to a max value as suggested by someone here. AST is still a sub par healer and a not good enough buffer yet, but some steps in the right direction have been made. Also, please fix Shuffle AND Spread. If I use shuffle I don't want to draw the same card and if I have a card in my spread it makes no sense drawing the same card again.

[Roxas_Andrade]

I still have to play with these new features, but I don't think the buffs were that bad.

Sure we didn't have any changes on Celestial Opposition, as announced, but all people complaining about 'AST has to be in pair with WHM/SCH' don't consider that the card system is unique.
Whm doesn't have a mitigation skill (I'm considering SS as a shield, and it's cross class anyway). They don't have a support skill on their own to use on other players, they haven't how to directly improve dps.
SCH has Virus, which is better than Disable, but can't be used by anyone in a long time (if you have 4 members in a group capable of using Virus, 2 or 3 of them won't even use it while Disable can be used on CoolDown by any AST). Sch has better options on support with E4aE/Deploy and Fey Wind, bus AST has a defensive buff that doesn't depend on RNG to activate (only to draw) and has a haste skill that's better, although you depend on RNG for drawing and spreading it too.

Also any WHM/SCH has a tool to refresh mp/tp to self but not to other players. As long as AST use their buffs on cooldown, their contribution to mitigation, dps, makes things faster and still heal decently makes them unique.

[Ananolf]

The Japanese Forums have some real google translate gems:

I do not know have been made ​​how development, but
it is assumed that there is a team for each job even in the battle team.
Then of course, always some people who was responsible for the astrologer,
word towards its people. Astrology is sooo fun! I think that it is a very attractive job! But ... I am using while always feel guilty ... because my own white also not been to school even 60, but I do not because so and so in comparison, because "Astrology is weak." There is entrenched too have ... You have expect it in this fix is dispelled, apparently it seems unreasonable. We continue to use in the future because I love astrologer, but it proudly and looking forward to the day that you can participate in the end content.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...3%83%AC/page74

Edit: I love this:

The fate of the wheel: there is no longer words. I want to say ... and, but says once. 　　　　　People who are using the wheel of fate in Dyer null sect I think not. Except when you want to disconnect the hand. 　　　　　Do you know why? 　　　　　① range is too narrow. ②AOE is inevitably erased immediately effect too much.　 　　　　　In ③ range damage only use scene that, but around will recover I think tank will fall in AA other. 　　　　　Status quo ④ using Helios better to draw and attacks are totally safe and useful. And to have been in various and fun, it is sad. To believe had ....

[Lastelli]

[...]

But cards depend too much on RNG. We don't really need statisticians or complicated reasoning about expected utility to see that having random buffs with similar utility to skills that schs have with certainty is just not enough. Consider an expanded arrow for instance, which is one of the best things that can happen to an ast. That's a 5% haste to the party for 15 seconds, but you need 2 cards for that so you will be able to have an expanded arrow once in a minute if you are extremely lucky. Then consider Fey Wind: it's a 3% haste to the party with certainty every minute for 30 seconds. It's stronger than and expanded arrow even if an ast keeps drawing the perfect combination of cards for all the duration of the encounter and it doesn't even depend on RNG. Sure, you can use CO and time dilation to gain a few seconds...but do we really need that much work, luck and different skills to be on par with selene in boosting the party's dps?

[Roxas_Andrade]

but do we really need that much work, luck and different skills to be on par with selene in boosting the party's dps?

But my point is: you can have this perfect RR/arrow draw once in the battle and it will be wonderful, but if you draw bole, you sure have a good use to it. If you draw balance, you have a good use to this, if you draw ewer, you have good use to this...
You can use every single buff you get in any situation. And despite some buffs are copy from other jobs, other buffs are unique and and all of them are useful. Healing power is essential for a healer, but AST can help in some things that other healers can't...

[Galadrium]

... if I have a card in my spread it makes no sense drawing the same card again.

I disagree, I've enjoyed at times being able to throw a balance card each on 2 different DPS.