Astro in savage

[Spoekes]

It actually worked out perfectly. There are parts where I was solo healing (well, could say I copied the other AST's video), sch could dps and I was the only shielder. Jagd doll comes, I get Fey Illumination and we were healing different tanks. SCH doesn't have a Benefic 2 powerhouse, so a 7k buffed benefic 2 is just really awesome. If anything my only pet peeve was that I did 26 dps the whole encounter. Only braved myself to use gravity 2-3 times the first few pulls. The difference is crazy, 4.3k becomes 4.8k that's just amazing and will scale more with gear. The shields also do save you from some oh shit situation, it's like a somewhat extra lustrate cause in total it's over 3k unbuffed. Also, essential dignity is buffed with noct as well.

At some point with conva and stuff I remember critting for 16k.. that's really massive.

Here's our clear video, we did have some oh shit moments with the tank..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwerbtDeBFw

IMO, the vid does not do good service showing off the strength of Noct Stance.
If anything, it shows Noct AST is able to heal it and the 5% buff is usefull.

However, the times you actually used the aspected spells (THE trademark of the sect) can be counted with one hand and I'm not even joking.

[RoseM]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwerbtDeBFw

I am a WHM on A3S, my heal-partner is a SCH. Let me show you how we did A2S:

There are parts where I was solo healing. Jagd doll comes, I get Fey Illumination and we were healing different tanks.

I pretty much solo-healed everything until 4 dolls came up. Our scholar used Selene during the whole fight for party DPS.
Your mana completely drained after 7:10, and again at 10:30, your SCH and BRD were basically carrying you. As comparison, I would be at 70%+ mana with Shroud on CD at 7:10ish. And I would be solo-healing at 10:30 (once there were only 2 widows left)with 30%+ mana left so SCH could help burn down the widows faster.

I did 26 dps the whole encounter

I did 100+ dps the whole encounter if I remember it correct, my SCH partner did 450ish? and assume Selene boost party DPS by 1%, then she did 8k X 1% = 80+ dps. Our bard only sang Ballad once for 10sec (both healers were at 90%+ mana that time, he was doing Ballad only because we were holding back on DPS and he had nothing else to do) Foe throughout the fight.

[Dyvid]

So the biggest issue I've seen are buffs are too weak for dps'ing, Nocturnal Sect, while good for the 5% healing boost, is lacking for aspected department, and mana resources causing us to use cards on ourselves rather than party. I was wondering if maybe AST should just be a HoT type caster, change the aspected heals to be always regen and change the aspected effect to something else.

Diurnal Sect = 10% damage reduction buff. Doesn't Stack. Added effect is 5% healing to all spells
Nocturnal Sect = 5% damage redirected back to the attacker similar to SMN Radiant Shields Doesn't Stack. Added effect is 5% attack spells speed.

Another key complaint was how random the cards can be and always drawing Defense style cards when you want offense. This could be taken two way, to either divide up the cards into two group or increase the number of offense buff. I went with the lader though either works. Another complaint I saw from the other healers is there isn't any cards that buff them. This is very true and I thought about this along with the changes. Lastly I'm not sure why SE hasn't fixed Spear to include abilities on cool down but maybe they can't. If this is indeed the case they need to change it to help with offense abilities.

Diurnal Sect Card Set
Bole Card = Barrier that equal __% of players HP. Stacks with Galvanized
Ewer Card = Restore MP and TP
Spire Card = Increase healing potency

Nocturnal Sect Card Set
Spear Card = Enhances target players abilities
Balance Card = Increases target player damage dealt
Arrow Card = Increases target player attack speed

As for our abilities they too need some minor buffs and changes to make them more user friendly

Collective Unconscious - Regen with 250 potency and restores 10% mana. Diurnal Sect adds 10% damage reduction in the barrier. Nocturnal Sect adds a DoT like effect similar to Shadow Flare. Again the changes might sound extreme but considering we can't do anything while the barrier is up, it needs to be strong.

Gravity - Adds slow effect for 20s giving it more utility than just a straight nuke.

Royal Road - It would be nice to save the effect in same way like spread.

Celestial Opposition - Change from stun to stop. Sounds dumb but the reason is so it doesn't share the same diminishing returns as stun/slow/silence and leaves it as a unique ability to help save people when needed. Also change effect duration buff from 5 to 15s since the cooldown is so long.

Obviously these are just ideas and not written in stone. I don't expect SE to make most of these changes if any at all but hopefully it gives them ideas on the direction they can go. The biggest issues the job has is Nocturnal aspected needs a boost, spear card is still junk, mana restore compared to other healers, and general weak offense buffs.

[Richiealvian]

I am a WHM on A3S, my heal-partner is a SCH. Let me show you how we did A2S:

I pretty much solo-healed everything until 4 dolls came up. Our scholar used Selene during the whole fight for party DPS.
Your mana completely drained after 7:10, and again at 10:30, your SCH and BRD were basically carrying you. As comparison, I would be at 70%+ mana with Shroud on CD at 7:10ish. And I would be solo-healing at 10:30 (once there were only 2 widows left)with 30%+ mana left so SCH could help burn down the widows faster.


I did 100+ dps the whole encounter if I remember it correct, my SCH partner did 450ish? and assume Selene boost party DPS by 1%, then she did 8k X 1% = 80+ dps. Our bard only sang Ballad once for 10sec (both healers were at 90%+ mana that time, he was doing Ballad only because we were holding back on DPS and he had nothing else to do) Foe throughout the fight.

I'm not the best out there, I'm sure there is just a lot that can be done to maximize my impact on that fight. My MP management, for one, can be improved still. I can also DPS more during the times my MP was entirely full.

I mean, if you're comparing the two it's just that they're not the same type of job. I'm of the opinion that I would appreciate a buff, but I don't think it's bad to the point of needing a buff.
Our SCH did 580 dps that run. I drew twice worth of AOE balance and spire enough to warrant tp not being an issue.

[Reiryuu]

I've been leveling AST and I do enjoy it, but I definitely feel like it is far less powerful than my WHM and even scholar (which I don't play very much because I just don't like it too much.)

I feel there are a couple problems with AST mainly:

30-50 you get SO many abilities that deal with the card system that you miss out on some key quality of life stuff that's nice to do when you don't need to heal... I mean... seriously I don't get an upgrade to my level 1 Malefic spell until 54?! Have you tried soloing Leves on AST before 54? It sucks... My AST is only 53, so I can only pray it gets better.

Gravity has the same mana cost, downsides due to enemy numbers as Holy, but it has 100 less potency and heavy instead of the much more useful stun for WHM.

ALL of the AST's main abilities are on long cooldowns so they can't really be used that often giving AST more "cooldowns" than WHM or SCH and not as many ready-to-use abilities for group play. And most of the time you have to use 3 to four of these abilities to get the desired result to actually make a difference and by then, most fights are over and you feel like you haven't done anything.

Consider it:
Draw (30 secs)
Didn't get what I wanted? Shuffle (60 secs)
Still not good, but useful for Royal Road? Burn a cooldown (but I still have to wait for Draw to come back up before I can actually do anything)
Finally got what I want... but the fight is over... Spread, I'll use it on the boss...

All of this for a potential 15sec buff one one person, 15 second buff on the whole party at half effectiveness, or 30sec buff one one person. It seems like such a waste compared to what the other jobs get instead...
WHM gets Divine Seal, Regen, HOLY(!) and Medica II
SCH gets Adloquieum, Leeches (finally), Sacred Soil and Succor.

How do I propose changes? For one, I feel Malefic II should be a much lower level skill.

For two... Noctournal Sect just feels so underwhelming... it really needs some love.

The card system really needs some more loving. Even allowing an extra draw once you burn royal road could be a huge help. Burn royal road, get an extra card while draw is still on cooldown at least so you have the potential to do something with the system besides wait on the cooldowns.

It feels like AST has been "balanced" in the sense that you always get the card you want on draw and the best card is up on the whole party at the same time even though that's not really possible.

And, if I can ask an honest question: What is the point of even having Diurnal and Noctournal sect when they only affect 3 abilities? There seems like so much potential for the sects to affect other spells and even the cards that's wasted.

[Rahaya]

Considering I currently solo heal Faust to 50-40% on my AST with plenty of MP leftover (and no cards), I'm not entirely sure it's the class to blame there. AST needs some buffs, but no, it's not terrible.

[Xenohart]

Considering I currently solo heal Faust to 50-40% on my AST with plenty of MP leftover (and no cards), I'm not entirely sure it's the class to blame there. AST needs some buffs, but no, it's not terrible.

The only thing terrible was using this as an example of why AST isn't terrible.

[Darkseth]

The problem is not the first half, its more the 2nd one.
And you can't possibly compare that, since you probably dont run 2 warriors, that sometimes feel like paper
With a PLD and/or DRK instead double warrior, that might look different.
But it wont change the fact, that as WHM its much easier. And that was my point. Not "ast is bad, i cant heal anything", its "ast is bad, because it has a more difficult time than whm/sch".

Like i said. Warrior could tank T5 in 2.0 also, but it was still bad.

Ast just brings pretty much zero benefit at the moment to the Raid. Even worse, in most cases, it gets worse with overall dps, and safety. And that is something, that shouldn't be.

[Noira]

AST isn't terrible though.

Also everyone does know Astro has a perma potency buff in the form of Noc stance ? 5% is nothing to scoff at.

I prefer Noc over Regen stance because there are tons of fights where I need to heal big and that 5% is very helpful.

Also Ewer is a god send now and was an indirect buff to Noc as light speed was. ( why you would use light speed in regen stance Idk I never bothered with it)

[Alahra]

( why you would use light speed in regen stance Idk I never bothered with it)

You would use it for the same reasons in both stances, really. You don't typically want to spam Aspected Helios, as you don't want to overwrite the regen effects in Diurnal and you don't want to overwrite the shields on your party in Nocturnal. You want to use Benefic/Helios when Lightspeed is up, so whether you have regens or shields is irrelevant to its use.