Serious feedback on Astrologian after clearing A1 Savage.

[Altijacek]

OP I mainly agree with you, but just so you know, I hope the responses in here changed your attitude towards the forum if only a bit. Sure it can be silly, but sometimes you'll get serious and thought out responses. Therefore, I encourage you to continue posting thoughts. Nothing bad can come of it except maybe silly trolling, but a lot of good can come out of it.

[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.

[Laerune]

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.

But AST isnt a full support class, its a healer. If there was a 5th/9th spot for a support class like AST then nobody would have complained. Support classes are supposed to be worse in healing/tank/dpsing, their job is to help the other roles preform better. AST is a healer and the reason why people are complaining is, because its failing to do its job, compared to the other two healers.

Imagine AST as the 9th member, helping with heals, doing some dps and using the cards to buff other players. Nobody would come here and complain about the class, because its doing what it was meant to do, supporting the others in doing their job well. As it is right now, AST is a semi support/healer stuck in a full healer role. Aslong as this is happening, people trying to clear the harder content will always take a WHM and SCH over a AST.

[Taban]

It's funny how similar ast and bard/mch threads are. Half the people saying that the dps/hps are what's most important and the other half saying that if those classes were on par with other classes their buffs would make them OP.

[Daralii]

It's funny how similar ast and bard/mch threads are. Half the people saying that the dps/hps are what's most important and the other half saying that if those classes were on par with other classes their buffs would make them OP.

I'd say the main difference is that we actually see bards and machinists getting into savage content and doing very well, versus astrologians sometimes going in and being asked to switch jobs after the first boss. Maybe it's just that people need to git gud, but I'm largely willing to trust the opinion of someone that's done savage Oppressors.

[Canadane]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/forums/659

You may want to try posting here, instead of General Discussion, if you have not already.
While it's not as active as GD, you'll probably find people more willing to discuss the subject with you in a serious way, as it seems you're not a fan of the way people are here!
If you're secretly hoping a community rep sees this to pass on to the developers, they do in fact read the sub-forums too!

[Lycinder]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/forums/659

You may want to try posting here, instead of General Discussion, if you have not already.

Actually these points have been echoed there by numerous people and right now it does just feel like a big echo chamber of a subforum, Machinist and Bard oft had "We need serious buffs." being brought into General Discussion for visibility and it seems like it works a lot better.

Anyway back to the main topic - I was greatly disappointed when the buffs were just small card mechanic buffs, I was planning on entering savage as an Astrologian but ended up bottling it and instead asked our summoner to go scholar while I level up Dragoon (we have bard + Machinist so Disembowel is gonna help up our dps) I really love playing Astrologian and it is so fun, I even defended it back when it first came out thinking it just needed a little ironing out and would work well but in the end things happen.

[Mwynn]

It's true that Scholar / White Mage outshines Astrologian in every aspect when it comes to Healing / Buffing.

You'll notice this first in Fractal / Neverreap, you can hardly keep the Tank alive. Most of the time you just Mass Spam Benefic and the Benefic II Procc doesn't change the fact it's still consuming MP (Unlike WHM's Cure II Zero MP Procc, which would do better and I gladly would take it)
When it comes to Damage Migitation, Disable is not much of an use since it just a DMG Decrease for the next Attack unlike Virus. I did play in Nocturne Stance often, you can imagine how that resulted... Out of Mana because of Shield Spamming, Tank dropped always below 50% HP so using Diurnal Stance is the way to go for now.

For Collective Unconscious, it's good as it is now, I use Aspected Benefic --> Aspected Helios and then Collective Unconscious. While doing nothing in that time, you can actually save MP by that. Sadly Nocturne Stance has no use for it, 80% of the Players won't bother to listen when you tell them to stay in the Bubble... and the risk of getting hit yourself is higher.

I love it they changed Spread, I can save a Card right before any Pull occurs, which is mostly Ewer or Bole/Balance. You can truly affect the outcome of the Battle with this.
There is a Skill I never make use of, except when I jump into T5, it's called Stella, I highly doubt someone is using this except for the Knight in Twintanias Last Phase to slow it down. It basically has no use except throwing some little Damage on a Mob and put Heavy on it.

This Job has Potential but I guess it'll take time for SE to make them shine.

[EinherjarLucian]

Thanks for the great post, OP!

I play SCH as my main role, but I'm excited to see AST join the healing team and I've enjoyed playing around with AST up to 53 so far. I especially like that the AST can fill in either healing role, in that they can be either the "WHM" or the "SCH" depending on situation. I've always believed that the healing team in an 8-man is best off when you have one WHM and one SCH, as they complement each other. Having an AST on board means you get to have the same synergy available, with the bonus of having the AST around to make someone in the party temporarily better.

Perhaps the AST should get a healing potency buff when he draws and uses a card, possibly subject to the modifiers granted by Royal Road? This would help bring the AST a bit more on par with the other "primary" healer jobs, while incentivizing him to use his main gimmick, the cards themselves.

Another thing that would help would be to give Nocturnal Aspected Benific the same effect as Galvanize: if Aspected Benific crits, the shield value is 2x the healed amount. I found that Diurnal Sect always "feels" better, more reliable, especially for the tank; the regen effect doesn't wear off based on damage received; it ticks for its full duration regardless of how much damage you take. The barrier, on the other hand, will break almost right away with even the slightest damage. More than anything, Nocturnal Aspected Benefic should be buffed.

[Tyla_Esmeraude]

Couldn't have said it better myself. I agree with your whole post. I tried Savage A1 today with my static (AST/SCH combo) and my AST just gave us headaches, I tried, I really tried my best but it wasn't enough. I switched to WHM because I was just wasting everyone's time and no surprise... it was a breeze.

I want to play AST on end-game full time, it is a unique and fun job, I just love buffing people with the cards and the faster heals (I'm a former main RDM and COR in FFXI so no surprise). I don't want to rely on one single job (WHM, that has been boring me lately) to get things done.