Astrologian misconceptions

[Ghishlain]

There's a huge difference in stating that the healing style from each sect can be explained by saying that one is closer or is like WHM or SCH. This is a term of comparison, it's like explaining Ninja by saying that the combo system is more like a Dragoon or closer to a Dragoon. There are similarities, of course. But every job has similarities on how their actions work. And it's ok to make some analogies when explaining stuff. However, this is not what people do.

They assumed that AST would function exactly like a SCH or WHM depending on the sect, and got disappointed when it didn't. This is not what the devs stated that AST would do when they compared the style. Of course, they can have their share of blame for not making their point a bit clearer, but I honestly believe they couldn't have anticipated that their player base would be so dumb to assume that WHM or SCH were roles instead jobs filling the roles. This difference is overlooked, and messes up all the game.

I'll give you an example: I queued for trial roulette and got Cape Westwind. I was AST, as usual, and I got paired with a WHM. Since Cape Westwind is burned pretty fast and doesn't have anything that requires shielding, I activated Diurnal Sect to get the speed buff which would allow me to burn things faster. The WHM started spamming the chat saying that I should go Nocturnal because I had to be a SCH. How in the name of hell can I be a SCH while playing AST? SCH is not a ROLE; healer is a role, off-healer can be considered a role, but SCH is a JOB. This blinds people completely and makes them stupid. And this is not what the devs implied when they made an analogy between JOBS.

So, I disagree completely when you say that it's hard to not jump on that train, because it's not an analogy train, it's a train that ignores not only this game but other games (like WoW) completely. Just look at the healing toolkits of the classes and specs in WoW. There are lots of similar/identical spells and maybe one or two exclusive spells, and the uniqueness comes from their interactions and subtle mechanics. I wonder how that game would function if its player base was locked behind a mindset that divided everything in two options: Disc Priest or Holy Priest.

For me, unfortunately the similarities for Diurnal AST versus WHM are a little too close for my own liking, and perhaps that's because I play healing far too much in this game.


I played WoW during the Burning Crusade era and each healer type felt unique enough and different enough, for example:

Holy Priest - Massive power heals
Disc Priest - Shield-based mitigation healing
Resto Shamen - AoE Heals
Holy Paladin - Fast and quick heals
Resto Druid - Healing over time


Likewise, you can pretty much breakdown all the melee DPS in this game in a similar fashion

Ninja - High attack speed melee DPS with small spikes or support abilities via Ninjutsu and enmity control
Monk - High attack speed sustained melee DPS with light support healing ability (Chakra) and rotating combo based on the current stance / part of the combo their on
Dragoon - Heavy spike melee DPS using a large number of oGCDs to spike their damage, requires maintenance of a buff to continue usage of a 4-part combo


If you start to breakdown parts of the AST kit with the WHM kit (and even parts of the SCH kit), the numbers are too close and nuances don't feel different enough.

Aspected Benefic (Di) is Regen with 20 less potency, a bit more MP, and offers more potency over time than Regen
Disable is a Supervirus with less potency, duration, and recast
Aspected Helios (Di) is Medica II with 10 less potency per tick, less MP, and less range
Collective Unconciousness provides the mitigation of Sacred Soil and the healing of Asylum at the cost of channeling
Luminious Aether is Shroud of Saints except you aren't halving your enmity, you're reducing your enmity generation
Aspected Benefic (No) provides slightly more reliable shielding at less MP than Adlo
Aspected Helios (No) is exactly like Succor (without Sect bonus)
Combust is the exact same as Bio
Combust II is a slightly more powerful Bio II
Gravity is Holy without the Stun and less MP
Malefic II is approximately Stone III which is approximately Broil
Stella is like Stone

If you look at almost every single ability and spell in the AST kit that isn't related to their cards, it has some similarity to some other healer which leaves me feeling... disappointed, perhaps is the best way to describe it. Synastry serves a completely different purpose than Divine Seal, Lightspeed serves a completely different niche than Pressence of Mind, and Celestial Opposition and Time Dilation are both unique enough and thematically well thought out to be good with the AST kit but when I look at the rest, I kinda frown.

Perhaps I'm being too critical of the kit and biased and I won't disagree with that if you want to bring it up. I took AST through A1S and loved it much more than trying it with SCH when I was partied with a WHM and I enjoyed piecing together what to use when for A3S.

I do agree that players shouldn't look at the kits as "Be a WHM" or "Be a SCH" but the kits are too similar to not make that comparison either, unlike how the DPS are in this game. If someone blabbed at you for not being a Noct AST, then that's just true ignorance on their part. Like you, I pick my Sect depending on the fight and have preferences as well (Diurnal in A1S even when paired with the WHM because the amount of HoT you two can bring out is massive and preference to Noct in A3N and A4N).

Pardon the wall of text too, I just wanted to get that off my chest. I've been re-evaluating how I've been playing AST the past few weeks and been hitting a brick wall that I can't seem to make it work as well as I can as SCH and WHM and it's driving me nuts. It's funny too because out of the three healer kits, I dislike the SCH one the most despite how powerful it is. Actually when I think about it, that's probably why I can make it work, because the SCH kit just meshes that well.

*Walks back off to the drawing board*