Astrologian Hate!?

[Anyendryyl]

Me as well. I love the job, I play it as often as I can. I've even been spending my Eso tomes on the AST gear. However, I'm getting tired of people that supposedly love the job literally fighting to keep it as is. I'm sorry, but if these people loved the job as much as they claim, they would be fighting FOR astrologian to be great, not fighting against it.

LOL, I never once said I wanted to keep it as is. I'm all for uping it's power. But not in the form of "better heals" I actually have no clue how to fix it. Maybe make lumiferous last 30-45 seconds and increase it's CD. Let me move/place CU. Maybe add a LITTLE power to aspected helios. I don't know, but they can't give me the same heals as a whm/sch or else we'll replace them with the same heals+buffs.

[Soyre_Monre]

LOL, I never once said I wanted to keep it as is. I'm all for uping it's power. But not in the form of "better heals" I actually have no clue how to fix it. Maybe make lumiferous last 30-45 seconds and increase it's CD. Let me move/place CU. Maybe add a LITTLE power to aspected helios. I don't know, but they can't give me the same heals as a whm/sch or else we'll replace them with the same heals+buffs.

You forgot the heavy and consistent DPS that SCH can output at a low mp cost and this with the fairy that help your co-healer. The low utility of AST cards doesn't replace in any way scholar's own dps.

[Anyendryyl]

You forgot the heavy and consistent DPS that SCH can output at a low mp cost and this with the fairy that help your co-healer. The low utility of AST cards doesn't replace in any way scholar's own dps.

This I concede. Without proper MP management skills...RELIABLE ones at that, I don't dps nearly as much as a whm or sch.

[GideonHighmourn]

This I concede. Without proper MP management skills...RELIABLE ones at that, I don't dps nearly as much as a whm or sch.

This is one of the reasons many progression groups are excluding AST from their composition at the moment.

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; their "utility" is minimal and also relies on RNG, which makes it highly unreliable. Progression groups rely on having X ability available at Y time, so that you can overcome mechanics; however, this isn't always a guarantee with 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 and perpetuate that "AST is bad".

Again, AST isn't inherently bad; yes, it can complete content, albeit with more effort. However, it's AST vs SCH/WHM, not AST vs Content at this point, and compared to SCH/WHM, AST really falls behind, not only in terms of safety but actual DPS contribution.

[Anatha]

LOL, I never once said I wanted to keep it as is. I'm all for uping it's power. But not in the form of "better heals" I actually have no clue how to fix it. Maybe make lumiferous last 30-45 seconds and increase it's CD. Let me move/place CU. Maybe add a LITTLE power to aspected helios. I don't know, but they can't give me the same heals as a whm/sch or else we'll replace them with the same heals+buffs.

This logic is why AST doesn't have a place in progression.

Because they can't replace what WHM/SCH brings to the table.

AST needs to be able to replace one or the other, and the design of the class implies it should be able to take either role, the PROBLEM is that it's very hard to balance this so that AST/AST isn't the best way to go.

It needs to be equally viable to take AST/WHM, AST/SCH, as it is to take WHM/SCH, and it AST/AST needs to be undesirable in some way.

[Vlady]

This logic is why AST doesn't have a place in progression.

Because they can't replace what WHM/SCH brings to the table.

AST needs to be able to replace one or the other, and the design of the class implies it should be able to take either role, the PROBLEM is that it's very hard to balance this so that AST/AST isn't the best way to go.

It needs to be equally viable to take AST/WHM, AST/SCH, as it is to take WHM/SCH, and it AST/AST needs to be undesirable in some way.

Letting us stance dance in combat and fixing our two broken cooldowns would pretty much solve 99% of astro issues.

[Anatha]

Letting us stance dance in combat and fixing our two broken cooldowns would pretty much solve 99% of astro issues.

I'd prefer you put me on ignore, and refrain from responding to my posts. I don't have the inclination to deal with trolls.

[Risvertasashi]

This logic is why AST doesn't have a place in progression.

Because they can't replace what WHM/SCH brings to the table.

But if they can fully replace one of those, that job becomes shunned. Even if AST/AST doesn't become a thing, if AST is (for example) WHM + buff cards... why bring WHM?

So, it can't bring what WHM or SCH brings to the table, unless you want to see one of those jobs shunned (although... judging from how the tank forums are acting about war, I do think quite a few on the forums would take pleasure in it).

[SuzakuCMX]

So, it can't bring what WHM or SCH brings to the table, unless you want to see one of those jobs shunned (although... judging from how the tank forums are acting about war, I do think quite a few on the forums would take pleasure in it).

Yeah, which is why SE backed themselves into a corner with an incredibly hard to tune class. They undertuned both its healing and its buffing because they were afraid of replacing WHM or SCH entirely and now it's not even good for farm content because it can't reliably make a clear easier via DPS buffing.

This is further worsened by the fact that they flattened the differences between healers by giving WHM more oGCD heals and MP Management options and SCH more burst heals and AoE heal options while lowering the fairy's contribution. The differences between SCH and WHM in terms of healing are marginal and SCH just has an edge in accuracy-less DPS.

And then they threw AST into the mix who can be a worse version of either healer without any of the oGCD skills and worse potencies on every measure and inconsistent marginal buffs.

That's why my hope is they'll make cards better, rather than simply giving AST more healing output.

Giving them more healing output is actually the safer option since their card buffs are generally weak and unreliable. If they had similar healing outputs to the other healers without access to the oGCD abilities they would be able to complete content more easily without totally replacing WHM/SCH since they are still required for progression content due to safety nets and DPS ability, while you could bring an AST to get the sameish healing but a smidge of a chance at meaningful DPS increases through cards (though the cards are way too unreliable right now to bring an AST solely for those).

If they buffed cards, AST is either still not as good as healing to make those who are hungry for world-first bring AST and therefore relegated to 4th tier clears/farm content, or their buffs are powerful enough that they can replace SCH as a DPS increase and leave the bulk of healing to the WHM OR even worse IMO, they replace WHM entirely because SCH + AST DPS is greater than any benefit WHM can provide.

The main problem is that, because of RR AoE, any DPS buff you can give out as an AST is extremely multiplicative with gear scaling vs. AST being able to DPS on their own vs. SCH both being able to DPS on their own AND getting to buff DPS via Selene (however slight it is). AST cards + AST DPS have to exceed SCH DPS + Selene raid DPS if they don't change AST's healing potencies. They currently don't due to unreliability of the buffs and weak MP management meaning they can't actually use their DPS skills most of the time.

It's a very fine line to walk which is why they are taking so long to buff AST after the minor changes in the hotfixes.

[Risvertasashi]

Yeah, which is why SE backed themselves into a corner with an incredibly hard to tune class. They undertuned both its healing and its buffing because they were afraid of replacing WHM or SCH entirely and now it's not even good for farm content because it can't reliably make a clear easier via DPS buffing.

That's why my hope is they'll make cards better, rather than simply giving AST more healing output.