Serious feedback on Astrologian after clearing A1 Savage.

[Yoshiyuki]

I am so in love with this job that it hurts. It hurts me more that my raid leader all but asked me to change to white mage after clearing A1 Savage earlier tonight.

edit - wow, I didn't think this thread would take off so much. Thank you for all the support.

A1 - AST is not suited for this fight. It's a traditional 2.0 boss encounter with tank busters and the like. WHM/SCH is a clear contender here.

A2 - I feel that we're quite good here. I used Nocturnal Sect because Eos was my healing partner for most of the fight instead of my actual co-healer. Diurnal Sect's regens kept getting me in trouble when the tanks went to pull new spawns. There was no AoE healing needed, either. The healing potency bonus was nice too. My cards were invaluable support to the whole raid. The Arrow card was the devil for this fight because of TP starvation, so it became good Royal Road fodder. Mana was also an issue. Pacing and stamina are key as the main healer.

A3 -
After powerleveling my white mage from 52 to 60 in a few days, I have only been using it for Alex Savage. I feel that my raid would only grumble if I tried going in as my main job. I am trying to do what is best for the group, but I feel my resentment growing more and more each pull. We are consistently getting to later phases in A3 while I'm healing on auto-pilot and staring blankly at the screen. Healing these three turns is trivial compared to how much I had to sweat on astrologian. I likely won't have a clear video for A3 and A4 on my main job until after the imminent buffs (3.1?). By then, the circumstances will necessitate a new post.

Final update (8/1) -
When I made my OP, it was right after being asked to change back to white mage. I didn't think everything through. It's clear that we've all exhausted why we are not efficient healers for content, progression or otherwise. I'd like to point out what I feel would help the job stand out from white mage and scholar. I don't want our job to become a shadow of the other two healers by way of homogenization. That would be a nightmare. My OP points out what's currently "wrong" or lacking with astrologian as of 3.05. This will outline where I'd like to see our job go in the future. I have included this toward the end before my tl;dr.

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Original post:

I don't post on these forums. They are a general cesspool of rage and childish bickering. I looked under the Support and Information in the game, and it asked me to relay my FFXIV-related feedback here. That is what I am doing. I have no desire to participate in this discussion, so do with this thread as you will.

First off, I fully acknowledge that AST has numerous weaknesses. The one glaring weakness we have is not being able to change sects during combat. I have very little to say about this until the end of my post. What I love most about this job is that, despite our weaknesses, there are places where we truly shine, such as healing in a pinch and the illusion of supporting our party. I enjoy that we have numerous tools and that it takes a lot of skill to master the job. But, despite lower MP costs across the board, our heals are weaker than a white mage's. Our shields are not as potent or reliable as a scholar's. Our level 60 ability is lackluster compared to the other jobs' capstone abilities. Collective Unconscious is in an awkward stage where it is the most powerful AoE heal in the game at the expense of leaving the caster vulnerable to avoidable AoE indicators and falling behind on single-target heals. Lightspeed got some help with the latest patch, but the 25% MP reduction falls flat once you use the ability for higher healing throughput (a concept the astrologian fails at on all levels--I will address this more later). Time Dilation not being able to be used on the astrologian themselves is another crippling blow. We could sit here all night debating our downfalls, as the community so enjoys doing. I wish that didn't bother me. It does. Too much.

When it comes down to progression, all that matters are raw numbers because of the game's tight DPS checks. Our numbers do not stack up compared to a WHM/SCH composition. The devs have not balanced us around being able to meet those numbers of heals per second with damage per second, as is expected of us. That is why we are constantly made fun of and it's sucking my enjoyment out of the game.

So now I'll talk about the cards.

I will admit, for our A1 progression, I never once "hoped" to receive a card to help me in a tight situation. Doing so would have made me rage when I would inevitably be disappointed at not receiving X card. The only time I got frustrated was pre-pull while trying to draw an Arrow or Balance to Spread it, and then Royal Road a Spire or Ewer for the DPS increase (again, more on this later). This took up to five minutes to prepare sometimes due to RNG. During the pulls, I worked with what I had and made quick judgments to make each card count. The recent changes to Ewer helped us in the MP department--more so, using Celestial Opposition paired with Luminiferous Aether and an Extended Ewer is amazing for refresh. It truly makes me happy when a DPS or warrior is overjoyed when I give them a Balance or Arrow card. The Bole has helped me save precious mana during our A1 clear. We have cards to handle nearly every situation except the most important one: this game's DPS meta.

The cards at this stage do not and cannot increase the party's DPS consistently enough in order to make up for the scholar and/or astrologian not DPSing as much. The astrologian's healing output is not strong enough to allow a DPS scholar to shine, either. This is the game's meta. In bleeding edge progression, it's either follow the meta or find some other game to play. The astrologian has not been balanced around allowing the scholar to perform optimally, instead forcing both healers to support each other to make up for the AST's weaknesses. Sadly, this is not the meta, and the astrologian has been the brunt of ridicule as a result. If the devs truly designed us to replace either a white mage or a scholar, I just don't see it. We have certain abilities to make up for the lack of either job, certainly. We are not balanced around filling either role in accordance with the endgame progression and farming meta.

I've played as a healer and bard in FFXI running endgame raids with plenty of server firsts under my belt. Healing and support are my specialties. Putting them both in one job is amazing for someone like me. And yet, despite my best efforts, I cannot put out the raw healing and/or DPS needed to let my co-healer do his thing. MP becomes an issue if I try to help DPS on top of my healing duties and we end up wiping to enrage anyway, because my DPS will not make up for the loss of our machinist's turret. It's wonderful that we have Bio II and Bio equivalents, but they cost too much MP to use reliably. I cannot "hope" for more Ewer cards to use on myself, because that's fewer DPS cards going out, further hindering our efforts to push past tight enrage timers. If I hadn't spent precious time preparing that Expanded Arrow right before our pull, it is highly likely we would have wiped to the enrage at the end.

If the cards are how we shine, then they need to change. If the RNG must stay, then the cards themselves need to be buffed. Remember when paladins were all we wanted for Binding Coil progression? Because their cooldowns, unlike a warrior's, did not scale with gear. They mitigated a general set amount each time. Reliable, right? Our cards face the same issues--that they scale with gear, and will become infinitely better as we reach higher item levels, but that won't help us at all right now. Also, more importantly: why are the devs afraid of giving us abilities like Divine Seal? Because our spells cost less and that ought to make up for the differences? During progression, there will be times when all I can do is spam Benefic II and pray that my target doesn't die. I can use Synastry, Lightspeed, mind potions and Essential Dignity as needed down to the very second they're off cooldown, but they do not help with my MP, nor do they help me fulfill the role of main healer. The second I even think about using Collective Unconscious to ease my MP pool and let the regen do its thing, my main tank is dying, and my co-healer is forced to break his DPS to heal in my stead--completely counter-intuitive. The only time this ability is useful and risk-free is during times when the boss leaves the field and it's time to heal up, notably during primal fights. During that time, you might as well use Aspected Helios and let the regens tick.

What else needs to change

Identity issues:
Astrologians are a weird hybrid of the two healers right now, much like how scholar in FFXI originally was. We have no real specialty because we try to be too many things at once. Our aesthetic with astrology, divination, fate and time magic also needs to define our kit to make us stand out. Baseline abilities like Benefic, Exalted Detriment, Ascend, and Combust/Malefic spells are fine to keep some familiarity. Our unique abilities like Synastry, Essential Dignity, Collective Unconscious (to an extent), Celestial Opposition and our Aspected spells need to come into their own even more. Gravity is a poor excuse for an AoE DPS ability with no added benefits (stun? heavy? malady? slow? damage down?). In dungeons, white mages can have their HoTs ticking with Assize to provide high DPS. Scholars have their pet healing while they DoT up mobs. Whereas we can either spam our DoTs on individual targets without a Bane equivalent (clunky) and spam Gravity with high mana costs (also clunky) while the tank dips low. Essential Dignity gets them back up and then we're out of tools for this playstyle, unlike the other two healers.

Smaller annoyances:
The MND party buff. Not having it without a white mage in the group seriously cripples both healing and the healers' DPS. Helios/Aspected Helios having shorter ranges than their counterparts. Disable being taken up by auto-attacks and being too weak (10% is not enough). Mana consumption still too high.

Specialties:
Make our specialty be mobile, fast healing with our astrology/fate/divination gimmicks in mind. If the devs won't give us anything like Divine Seal, then Essential Dignity needs to be our crutch to increase healing throughput. It has the word 'essential' in it for a reason. I've heard a few people saying that ED should proc (coming back off cooldown) after using a card. Either that or make the cooldown drastically shorter. Give us more flexibility to heal multiple targets as well. Synastry is an amazing ability but its cooldown is too long. Time Dilation not working with it is also another annoyance. Lightspeed's cooldown should also be much shorter to allow us to use Helios/Aspected Helios quickly for less mana. Right now it's our only (bad) Divine Seal replacement. Once we use a card, or spend a little time preparing a Royal Road combo, we should be able to immediately make up for any time lost and then some.

Cards:
Buff them! If we have to keep the RNG, give us something to let us control our draws occasionally. Shuffle being on a much shorter cooldown would be a fair compromise. Draw itself would also benefit from a shorter cooldown. Shorter cooldowns across the board for all of our abilities is the main sentiment I'm echoing here.

Diurnal and Nocturnal Sect:
Let us change stances in combat like every other job in the game. Please. The changes to our abilities based on either stance need to be buffed or changed to give us more healing and/or support utility. Nocturnal Sect needs to make us stand apart from scholars. Splashing shields that become eHP healed after triggering a conditional or SOMETHING to make us into our own thing. Right now the two sects are boring replicas of the ninja's Kiss stances. Collective Unconscious has so much potential between the two sects. I'd be happy with it being a channeled ability if we could move it with us. We don't have traited Virus for raidwide damage. It's only logical to let Nocturnal's CU mitigate more damage, and for Diurnal's to heal for more in a shorter window.

tl;dr: the astrologian is not balanced to fulfill the role of a scholar (DPS healer with powerful mitigation) or white mage (raw heals and reliability). The cards fall flat in the way of making up for the loss of a healer's DPS during progression. Our heals are still too weak and are not offset by our lower mana costs. If we're meant to be our own thing (a fast-casting support healer like Red Mage became in FFXI for example), then we need to be that, but we also have to be powerful enough to fit within the game's meta of one main healer + one DPS/support healer to fulfill either role or just one. It would be overpowered if we could "become" a white mage by changing into Diurnal Sect or a scholar in Nocturnal Sect. I get that. But something has to be done. Ultimately, the job suffers from the playerbase's expectations and does not fall-in with the game's meta. I love this job to death and I want to see it shine instead of torn apart by everyone around me.

[FoxyAreku]

I don't post on these forums. They are a general cesspool of rage and childish bickering. I looked under the Support and Information in the game, and it asked me to relay my FFXIV-related feedback here. That is what I am doing. I have no desire to participate in this discussion, so do with this thread as you will.

Maaan. You make a lot of great points and I wish I could discuss it with you but you're not even gonna reply

Guess I'll just say I love astro and hope it gets buffed soon.

[heynowjose]

Honestly great post.
The more I play my astro the more I feel like square wants two things: for us to be healers but also to be healers who support.
Thing is we cant be both because we end up with what we have or an OP healer. So if the cards are our gimmick and what we bring to the party, ie: support, then that's what we need to be. We need to get cards buffed so that the RNG is worth the risk of inconsistency. A fact I actually like about astro, I love the rng aspect it makes the class very reactive.
Or, we need our healing increased and our buffs left untouched. In that case we'd be healers who can occasionally offer a slight buff to the party.
Whatever square decides they just need to make up their mind. We can't have it both ways it's gotta be one or the other or we'll always be subpar healers or OP supporters.

[Khyan]

I don't even need to down A1 with AST to know this. I switched AST to SCH after beating primals EX. AST is pretty broken and almost useless on raids savage.
You wasting your party time playing AST when you can do things better with other healers jobs.

When there are nothing to heal, other healer classes may take the opportunity to DPS while you just draw and have a chance to have a buff card completely rng having little chance to increase the dps of your party.

I play ast on easy content/primals ex sometimes but I will never play with this job on savage for the moment.

I don't even think AST is made to be played with a scholar, since they share the same Piety bonus for the entire party. But even with a white mage he can't replace a good scholar.

[Onikimaru]

The thing the team needs to realize is that they need to stop making every job/class exactly like the other and do something different. High skill caps etc, that way not everybody will be extremely OP nor will it be unbalanced. And if you are making it the same as the other jobs it needs to be just as reliable, same mechanics and abilities as other jobs. They need to be almost on par with the other jobs.
Thank you for your post yoshi, this feedback is nothing more than exceptional and i hope the developers look into this. Even at a lower level i can already see some of the problems AST has, it feels like a scholar without the pet to be honest.

[reality_check]

Some good feedback here -- but I don't agree that this game is meta or find another game. There are lots of unorthodox groups clearing things and have been since the beginning of 2.0.

[Rajeme]

Liked. I totally agree with most of your points. In fact, most of those weaknesses have been addressed even before alex savage and even alex out.

My point really is quite similar to your: If SE wants us rely on cards more, if they don't want to raise potency for the sake of balance, they will need to revamp the card system to make it many times stronger. Why?

Card system needs to be able to offset the fundamental RNG factor and at the same time make up for the lack of potency. That means they will need to be pretty darn powerful, literally game-changer. Currently, even with all those changes, I still feel it not nearly strong enough to compensate for other lacking aspects.

[Hagen]

AST displays quite well why we can't have a full support class. If it is too weak, like it is now, it is sub-optimal and no one will use. But if they buff cards to be way stronger, AST will became the staple healer spot on party on everything. I think that the balance is very hard so that is why SE is taking buff on new classes so slow and careful.

[Mhikail]

Whatever square decides they just need to make up their mind. We can't have it both ways it's gotta be one or the other or we'll always be subpar healers or OP supporters.

I know.
I was excited to have a 'support' healer but from this post, and how things been going since release...It's not looking so good.
It's gotten better thanks to the buffs we got the other day but we're still lacking.
Hopefully, SE can really buckle down on what needs to be looked into since Savage is out.
Kinda breaks my heart a bit since I've waited for the job for months, only for it be lackluster
and people seem to not want us anymore. We're getting baby steps in right now so let's hope SE can do something.

PS. Please fix Nocturnal Stance. That is one skill that is absolutely USELESS.

[SarcasmMisser]

You are dead on the money on many points, one that this place is a cesspool that is 95% of the time only entertaining to read the weird things possibly mentally ill people get angry about. Rarely you get a decent post that deserves a decent reply and this is one of them.

I have seen sch/ast clears, and more importantly the numbers and it lines up with what you feel perfectly; it is not a composition that allows much healer DPS. I feel that it's an entirely different meta, one where not only the AST has a different role from the whm, but the SCH as well which means fitting in an AST is a team effort. The SCH tends to provide the majority of the heals, at the consequence of DPS while the AST supplies a lesser amount of healing and barely any DPS themselves but DPS through support/buffs. There are 2 problems with this.

One is that the gains from the buff is a wash at best, which means at best it's balanced, most of the time it's weaker. There's RNG, while you have consistent gains from WHM/SCH through the impressive DPS contributions they provide while doing very high healing output. Waiting for a balance card just to justify the AST before pull is frustrating, I've seen the RNG force a wait longer than X potion CDs..

Two is that no one wants to spend time learning a new meta as a group when the priority is to clear as quickly as possible. It's not just on the person who wants to play AST, but the SCH to want to learn to be the primary healer and most SCH out there enjoy the DPS meta way more. I think if the choices between the two styles was more balanced over time people will adopt it.