Astro in savage

[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.

[Vlady]

Astro buffs are fine.make them any stronger and the job becomes mandatory.

[GideonHighmourn]

Astro buffs are fine.make them any stronger and the job becomes mandatory.

I really wish people would stop throwing comments around like this; it adds nothing to the discussion. If you're going to make a comment like this, at least back it up with some sort of information, facts, or comparisons that are based on factual, accurate data.

AST buffs are largely just fluff; they really don't add anything substantial to a fight, especially since there's no real way to mitigate the RNG factor (besides Spread, which still relies on RNG drawing a card you want to use later). As the classes' core/unique mechanic, compared to SCH's faerie/aetherflow abilities or WHM's raw healing output, it's very lackluster, overcomplicated, and mostly irrelevant to any sort of real, applicable situation outside of a vacuum or sheet of paper.

Again, all of the buffs look lovely on paper, but when RNG is factored in during a scripted encounter, it falls short in actually delivering meaningful, reliable utility.

I love the idea of AST and the concept behind it, but it needs adjustments to be brought in line with SCH/WHM. Yes, it's fully capable of doing encounters, but so was WAR in 2.0; however, WAR was eventually balanced and tuned to be more in line with PLD. The same thing needs to happen with AST; even people currently clearing savage are saying that AST is more of a handicap/burden when compared to WHM/SCH, and those players are at the top of their game. What's going to happen when less-skilled players try to clear the same content with AST? They will run into more problems.

[Namiea]

I wanted to speak up and be yet another voice for the developers that supports the subject of AST needing a lot of work. Namely in MP management, "oh shoot" heals, card buffs being meaningful, both stances being meaningful, and shuffle not being able to draw the same card. There have been many great ideas and discussions in this very thread so, instead of re-stating everything, I liked all of the ideas here I thought would be an improvement in the right direction.

Thank you to all!

[Vlady]

I really wish people would stop throwing comments around like this; it adds nothing to the discussion. If you're going to make a comment like this, at least back it up with some sort of information, facts, or comparisons that are based on factual, accurate data.

AST buffs are largely just fluff; they really don't add anything substantial to a fight, especially since there's no real way to mitigate the RNG factor (besides Spread, which still relies on RNG drawing a card you want to use later). As the classes' core/unique mechanic, compared to SCH's faerie/aetherflow abilities or WHM's raw healing output, it's very lackluster, overcomplicated, and mostly irrelevant to any sort of real, applicable situation outside of a vacuum or sheet of paper.

Again, all of the buffs look lovely on paper, but when RNG is factored in during a scripted encounter, it falls short in actually delivering meaningful, reliable utility.

I love the idea of AST and the concept behind it, but it needs adjustments to be brought in line with SCH/WHM. Yes, it's fully capable of doing encounters, but so was WAR in 2.0; however, WAR was eventually balanced and tuned to be more in line with PLD. The same thing needs to happen with AST; even people currently clearing savage are saying that AST is more of a handicap/burden when compared to WHM/SCH, and those players are at the top of their game. What's going to happen when less-skilled players try to clear the same content with AST? They will run into more problems.

What discussion? People on astrologians have cleared all content at all levels and I hear complaint after complaint that is not warranted. Astrologians are versatile and powerful but yet people try to find straws to grasp at. All cards benefit the group in some manner regardless of range. The job is more complex because it requires you to coordinate with your dps to line up use of arrow and balance with their cooldowns for maximum effect. You have to pre prep the card you will know you need the most with draw and shuffle before the fight begins.

Despite it is easier to play on a computer then a Playstation 4 people still do it. Should you claim they are holding the static back and thus needs to either switch to a pc and if they dont be slammed for it? White Mage spells are only 4% ahead of astrologians in spell potency. Everyone who tries to argue with me presents the worst case scenario in regards that yes white mage heal slightly better then astrologians. Yes scholar provides more self dps then an astrologian. You yourself do not have the internal data of how well our cards when used properly improves the effectiveness of a group. Nocturnal is more powerful then you realize and this is still a new job that is gearing up. Cry wolf once the Alex savage runs are over and astrologians are not in the clearing. Synastry, lightspeed and Essential are very powerful abilities that do not make the astrologian weak. Just because we cannot burst heal on demand with the power of a white mage or self dps the level of scholar does not make or break an astrologian as a viable healer in all levels of the game.

There are 50 threads dedicated to how much people seem to hate astrologians at this point so 50+ threads of beating on a dead horse until SE themselves determine through their internal tests that Astrologian is a failure so adding to a discussion is sorta hypocritical after the 50th post of people wanting a job to be OP for the sake of OPness. You give them the strength of heals with a white mage or the offensive power of a scholar and well a new problem pops up. Astrologian is fine and provide what is needed for raiding.

[Phenidate]

Greetings,

• Astrologian's healing potency and cards effects

  Astrologian's healing potency and card effects were set with a party's total offensive and defensive capabilities in mind, as they can increase various effects of other party members using their cards.
  

Not sure why Astrologian has to sacrifice so much healing potency and burst healing because of the party buffs they can throw out - especially considering how bland and low power they are. WHM and SCH can both cast Eye for an Eye and Virus. SCH can maintain a haste buff similar to a AST's AoE Arrow for twice as long, every minute, reliably with no RNG or even player interaction required. The fairy just does it for you automatically if you want.

So SCH basically gets one of the more potent 8 man party buffs that AST can cast (not 5% for 15 seconds, but 3% for 30 seconds - the math works out to be slightly better over time even). How is their healing impacted for such a great reliable buff? Well lets see, they get a superior shield heal with a chance to proc a double shield, they get 3 Lustrates, which is far more than an Essential Dignity, and you can time aetherflows to pump out 6 in times of emergency, 9 if you dissipate. If a SCH is in need of even greater potency, they can even sacrifice the shield on Adloquium for ANOTHER 600 potency heal every 30 seconds.

What can AST do in an emergency? Well they can wait for their tank to be almost dead and then throw out a 1000 max potency heal. Bear in mind this falls into the benediction trap - where the tank may just keel over and die as your Essential Dignity goes off thanks to latency. Now you have a dead tank and an ED on cooldown. SCH and WHM don't need to wait until their tanks on deaths door to either heal them to full or throw 1800+ potency worth of healing their way.

So why is Astrologian limited to such a piss poor set of skills, which are basically like WHMs but weaker (lets be honest, who even uses the travesty that is Noct Sect right now?), without the emergency cooldowns and emergency heal output comparable to either sister class.
Because they have a 33% chance of drawing a offensive buff? An 11% chance of drawing an attack buff equivalent to SCHs every minute (minimum)? (AoE Royal Road into Balance or Arrow). A 16% chance of giving a 10% damage reduction for 15 seconds? 10% less damage hardly compares to being unable to burst out thousands in healing within a short period of time.

The numbers just don't add up. And it shows in game, pretty badly when you compare a WHM/SCH combo to a AST/SCH combo, or god forbid an AST/AST compared to a WHM/WHM or SCH/SCH combo. Whats that, card buffs don't stack? Oh dear.

If you really want to make AST sacrifice healing potency for buffs, then all cards should be fairly strong on their own - not situationally useful and requiring RNGesus to take the wheel if you ever want 'situational buffs' to line up with the right situation. You made AST give up 4 skills for this card system, and it's turned out to be a mediocre source of buffs at best, at best filling the place of other abilities like Fey Wind and Eye for an Eye. The only thing it has going for it is it stole BRD's functionality too.

Lets be honest about how Draw works for a second here. Most of the time AST wastes draws, shuffles and royal roads on doubles of cards they don't need, trying to get either a Balance or Arrow with the AoE buff in 8 mans or double duration in 4 mans if they want to optimize their buffs. They MIGHT toss a Ewer out if they or the other healer is low - but they aren't likely to waste time trying to royal road buff it. We can't see TP so making good use of Spire is nearly impossible without someone begging for it on the off chance there is no BRD or MCH and hoping you draw spire. Bole just gets thrown away unless the tank is actually taking damage when you happen to draw it - the spread is usually reserved for the arrow or balance needed for the 'optimal' combo - and lets not forget that if you have the AoE royal road up it's half as effective on the tank when you use it. If it takes you 4 draws to finally get a bole, guess what? A WHM or SCH could have cast Eye for an Eye before, and have it off cooldown by the time you get a single bole out.

Not every card drawn is going to turn the tides of battle. It's likely it's not even going to effect it in any noticeable way if you keep getting junk draws for minutes on end. Statistically speaking, you probably won't even see certain cards for minutes on end! Whats up with the way this game does card draws?

Note: NO, Lightspeed is NOT an emergency healing buff. It does NOT reduce the GCD, thus you are casting heals at the SAME rate you were before. Your heals go off instantly and then you wait for GCD - with zero boost to your heals per second. Compare this to Presence of Mind which reduces cast times and GCD, Divine Seal which boosts heals per second, or Lustrate that can be cast repeatedly off GCD. Lightspeeds only real use is reducing mana cost or letting you run around and heal - which is a VERY situational benefit when most content is built to allow for SCH and WHM 'stand and cast' healing too.

[GideonHighmourn]

Despite it is easier to play on a computer then a Playstation 4 people still do it. Should you claim they are holding the static back and thus needs to either switch to a pc and if they dont be slammed for it?

Again, your inability to provide any meaningful discussion is proven. What does playing on a PS4 vs PC have anything to do with AST balance?

It's been said over and over, yet you still don't seem to grasp the concept: Just because the content is passable with AST, doesn't mean the class is balanced. SCH/WHM offer far more to a group than AST can in terms of healing cool downs and meaningful/reliable utility.

No one is saying AST is a "failure" or a "bad class" like you seem to claim (in every thread you post in), but rather see it as having a lot more potential and room to grow.

[Yhisa]

sigh i see people still trying to make out AST is ok when it is not

1) I see players comparing potency of WHM to AST yes we have slightly weaker heals, and mp cost, but this is not the problem, the problem is AST have no Cooldowns to boost there own healing at all these r the cooldowns we got

-Synastry = this is like having a fairy but for 20 secs.....
- Essential Dignity = lustrate and Tetragrammaton
(compare to other healers this is far too little and this is the problem)

and this is all the cooldown we got...... no point adding Lightspeed (4x instant cast with still a 2.XX sec recast might as well not use it and just cast normally) and Collective Unconscious is just trash i use it as a gandalf skill for " u shall not pass" and Celestial Opposition is only good to extend our own buffs for 5sec more *cough* Sprint/Cards/Lightspeed/Luminiferous Aether/ Hots....... other then that our tool kit is not very good at all... even the cards... they not worth it... and for those people who saying u need to coordinate with ur dps ... yeah dont because of this

Half way through the fight u may have an extended Balance... u shout out who have cool downs majority of the dps will say NO they havent which means ur holding onto a card for no reason ... RNG does not help or help in any dps increase at all... and i know this because now i dont bother using the cards apart from Spire and Ewer and let the bard go gun hoe if we got casters just throw ewer on him so our casters deals more damage longer foe = more damage for casters

Cards r way way way way too situational and i will show u why

Ewer (very noticeable help for raid)
= Healers MP recovery
= Bard MP recover for Longer FoE
= Mech MP recover if u need TP/MP
= Dark MP management
= Summoner MP management if low
= Do not place on Blm it screws up there rotation

Spire (Same as Ewer)
= Warrior/ Dark TP management after long fights
= Ninja > Bard> Mech> Dragoon > Monk tp regen

Spear (Only noticeable on ninja but barely)
= when players have there cooldowns up best for start of fight but after it turn useless
= Ninja For mudra no other classes matter due to heavy cooldowns
= Useless in fight due to RNG u wont be able to line this up with player cooldowns so only throw it on ninja for garentee cooldown reduction on there mudra

Balance (Minor dps increase barely noticeable)
= Any dps who is using there Cooldowns Do Not randomly throw on players just to boost there standard combo
= double duration is best for this card rest of the RR is trash only AoE version is good when u start a pull


Arrow (too strong for Mnk/Ninja... everything else barely noticeable)
= Blm > Bard > Mech in this order
= Do Not give to Monk or Ninja they will burn TP too quickly and claims that it messes up there rotation due to too fast attacks

Bole (reduction helps but barely)
= Tanks.,. nothink else

As u can see cards r too situational and very minor increase u can play ast without using ur cards... and this is a problem

[Phenidate]

snip

And if you want the tl;dr, AST is getting shafted with weaker healing to give out buffs that other Jobs can give on demand, better in some cases, reliably in all cases. They also lose the ability to put out thousands of healing potency in seconds like the other jobs.

Cards are just too weak and too rng to justify the drastic loss in healing potential.