Astrologian is in a good position right now.

[NorthernLadMSP]

And this is exactly why no one takes you seriously.

You LITERALLY state in your first paragraph that AST needs no buffs. Then you proceed to talk about all the buffs that it needs.

Maybe you just don't know what buff means. A buff is an improvement. So, changing Collective and improving it (such as getting rid of the fact it roots you in place) would be a buff. Fixing Shuffle to not give you the same card you discarded - that's a buff. Allowing you to change sects in battle, yep, that's a buff too. Changing Opposition by adding something new (to "let the astrologian shine") would also be a buff.

[justinjarjar]

AST vs content = fine manageable
AST vs SCH/WHM = the fat kid in pe, has a chance but why would you.

Sorry Vlady but this exactly. Even the JP forum agrees that AST is underwhelming compared to the other jobs. There are defiantly some changes that are needed or are you the only player who has divine inspiration? Can you play them? Yes, should you play them? Of course it is a fun class, but currently if you are doing savage unless your group is very committed to AST you might think changing.

[Parawill]

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 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZkTySAHDI4
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 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWfPcG43yrA
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.

--

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.

Echoes a lot of points that most of us have already made and is exactly how I feel about Astrologians right now. =/

Thread Link

EDIT/INSERT: On a side note, have you guys heard of how wonderful A4 Savage is ? Autos crit for 10k, which means Astrologians need two Benefic IIs at iLvL 195~198 or an Essential Dignity at 40% for 700~775 potency (5.5k'ish Heal) with a Benefic II.

[Assirra]

stuff

I really disagree on the fluent part.
The whole card system feels really tacked on from some other class and the only thing that even makes it an actual part of the job is the lore.
It simply feels no part of our actual toolkip, just a random mechanic to fill spelslots.

[Akyio]

Have you? Cuz I don't see a lv 60 SCH or WHM on your char :X

57 SCH now, and i see A LOT of differences in dungeons already.

[DarkmoonVael]

So once again Vlady manages to write a claim, and then contradict himself within 2 sentences. Then after all the "it needs all these changing" the conclusion is its far from underpowered. So yeah....credibility.......

Also, still not in a position to be able to replace either a WHM or SCH for raids and bring the same level of healing or dps or support.

[Lastelli]

Vlady please stop embarrassing yourself with this "ast is fine" crusade.

[Cynfael]

I have to believe my earlier theory that Vlady is a subversive proponent of AST improvement who deliberately makes self-contradictory and absurd statements to provoke others into driving his agenda for him.

As difficult as that is to believe, it's even harder to believe that anyone writes stuff like this and means it.

[GideonHighmourn]

Vlady, you make many outrageous claims with no validation or proof, and contradict yourself from sentence to sentence. You still haven't proven how AST is adding 400DPS to DRGs or 150+ DPS to MCHs, by the way, which many of us are still waiting for a response on. You also make a point to complain about everyone else posting new topics about AST, but decided to make your own topic about AST rather than posting in one of the many there already are.

You say "AST is fine" and doesn't need buffs, but then you go into minor detail about (some of) the things that need to be buffed about AST ... ?

You also claim "AST is fine in all content" before you've even completed all content on AST. In fact, you're still struggling with A1S. AFAIK, no progression groups brought AST for A3S clears, which is already a major sign that the class isn't going to be viable for "all content". A1S and A2S were cleared by ASTs, however, many of them have already stated that AST was holding the group back and that going as WHM/SCH would have been significantly easier.

Also, Sect-Dancing was never a mechanic that AST actually used, as you continue to claim. It was talked about in development, but it didn't make it into any sort of public release (even previews). While it would give AST a slightly more unique spin and provide some gimmicky tools, it wouldn't solve any of the problems AST currently has with lack of cool downs or overall healing potency compared to WHM/SCH.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

Even in all the best possible scenarios for AST, they currently do not fit into the previous meta or create their own, new meta that can compete with the previous meta. This is why progression groups don't bring AST.

This is the point (or underlying problem) most people are trying to make about AST, even if they don't explicitly state it.

Yes, of course, when they use AST as if it were a WHM/SCH in the previous meta it's not going to perform properly or to the same level SCH/WHM can. Why do people do that? Because AST doesn't create it's own, new meta that can compete with the previous one. Which is why people don't take AST on progression. Which is why people complain.

AST lacks any of it's own, unique healing mechanics (outside of Synastry) or tools, which is why it's pigeon-holed into being a WHM jr or SCH jr.

[YuiSasaki]

57 SCH now, and i see A LOT of differences in dungeons already.

I leveled SCH some time ago, too, yet I havn't seen that much of differences, except that one can cleric stance longer, thx to selene, which in fact is quite a difference..hmhm. Guess you have a point, didnt mean to offend either,it's just that, as of late I've seen too many ppl posting w/o having leveled to class past 52 (or even past 50..). Guess one could say once bitten, twice shy P: