Astrologian misconceptions

[technole]

It's really the player base and people's experiences with not so good AST players leading to it. So you have bias out there, even shutting out the AST role in party finders. I about laugh at these for Thordan and savage clears. These people who want clears are struggling to get players, yet they have no experience with what a good one will do. While many of us ASTs are clearing this content with no problem on a regular basis. Their loss? You bet.

Even YoshiP said it himself in his recent 4gamer interview last week the difference between a subpar and an excellent one is night and day. I couldn't agree more. He had nodded to considering some of the quality of life changes people are requesting like our high aggro generation and re-drawing same cards after shuffle. Our job isn't perfect, but certainly it's more than capable in end-game raiding.

One can even argue that AST/SCH is a better combo in A1S because you have the luxury of going in with the pull with a full spread balance before the split adding more DPS to the raid and if you draw up more DPS buffs before the split you are making the fight easier to clear and maybe help save a jump if you got the DPS. Not to mention our cooldowns like disable, synastry, and light speed work extremely well for all of the healing mechanics.

Back to the subpar player comment, two days ago I was tanking an A4 normal on my Dark Knight and we had 2 ASTs, shockingly both went Diurnal. Both struggled so much for obvious reasons, that I practically blew every cooldown in my book to live. I just don't get it considering Noct AST is so good in A4 you can eat every ball with an instant shield and practically take almost no damage. It was so bad to watch. Must be that thought in their head that Noct is "bad".

[Ghishlain]

Back to the subpar player comment, two days ago I was tanking an A4 normal on my Dark Knight and we had 2 ASTs, shockingly both went Diurnal. Both struggled so much for obvious reasons, that I practically blew every cooldown in my book to live. I just don't get it considering Noct AST is so good in A4 you can eat every ball with an instant shield and practically take almost no damage. It was so bad to watch. Must be that thought in their head that Noct is "bad".

It's a shame Noct Sect being good for a fight is the exception and not the rule. While I like Noct Sect, I also understand Diurnal is much better efficiency-wise outside of a select few instances. A4 is one of those fights where I will default Noct unless I'm paired with a SCH.

I do agree with the comments about AST requiring a higher train of thought to play well versus WHM or SCH. AST requires fundamental knowledge of how every job in the game plays (and any new job introduced / existing job modified with an expansion) to make calculated decisions about how best to use cards. It's also probably the one job in the game where anyone can make an argument to include a parsing tool because you want to be giving your DPS enhancing cards to the party member with the best DPS, even if it seems counter intuitive to the actual use of the card and/or party composition (ie, giving Balance to BRD/MCH in a BRD/MCH + Melee DPS party because said BRD/MCH is parsing higher than everyone else when they normally shouldn't be if you assume equal gear + skill level). There's a lot of variable ASTs have to consider that WHM or SCH normally can mostly ignore.

[technole]

Its so true though.... I was denied several static opportunities because i had the gall to say that I'd rather play Astrologeon (although i have whm equally geared). However I have solo healed Thordan ex with astrologeon soooo they cant be all that bad? right?

Could be the raid leader, or the scholar had no experience with AST raiding. So they go with what they were comfortable with, and if it's a replacement sometimes they just want a plug-and-go mentality. Which is the wrong way to think, as you want player skill. Do you want a WHM that probably has issues maintaining MP than an AST that is proven even though their toolkit apparently has it "better"? It doesn't matter though, when you have videos of clears in current content, they can't defend their stance.

Felt like I needed to step in here..Just because someone can Solo Heal something doesn't necessarily mean the job is OK. This comes down to play skill than it does the job itself let alone how well your team performs and help you, and how well you know the mechanics. However, AST IS in a better position, but it's still just the job to go to AFTER you know what's coming than it is AS you're going.

Water must be getting salty again. It really is down to player skill over the composition. If it was White Mage it wouldn't have been debated. Our A4S server first was months ago and it was AST/SCH.