Tips and advice for a new lv60 Astro?

[Thomastm]

This is my first time trying to main a healer in an mmo. Just trying to get used to the ropes, any necessary macros or things I should know before trying harder fights like Sephirot.

I've never played a shield type healer before and everytime I'm with a Whm it seems a bit unnatural. Been practicing Lost city of Mhach and trying to put shields up before the boss does big AoE's and it's been working well.

I'm playing on Ps4 also, so if anyone else is a healer on Ps4 I would be interested in hearing your set ups

thanks guys

[Watachy]

As an Nocturnal AST main here are some little advices:

- First, you don't need any macro as an AST
- If you're paired with a SCH, even if your shields are stronger, move to Diurnal to get more heal potency
- Crit is life, crit is love :3
- Thing is, if you're playing Nocturnal: you have to know what gonna happen to put your barrier in time and mitigate damages or provide your party from wipes
- Keep your Celestial Opposition for your Luminous Aether or the party buff increase
- Basically the card buff/stuff just need practice and you're gonna get used to it
- (troll) Use Collective Unconcious everytime it's up because the animation is gorgeous

I wasn't a main healer either (basically the dude playing assassins/rapid DPS) and mooved to AST 10 months ago or something and it's so fun ! The only thing you need to be a better healer is practice !

[Konungarike]

The only macro I have on AST is a Cleric Stance one that switches from healing crossbar to DPS and vice verca whenever I hit it. Lifesaver, that. Playing a shielding healer means you have to know the fight to an extent in order to play to your potential. I usually play the fight as DPS or Diurnal AST until I feel I know it well enough to go Nocturnal or SCH.

[Valmaxian]

1. Don't treat either Synastry or Lightspeed as emergency buttons - use them. Use them a lot. They save you mana, and make your heals stronger.
2. If you're not using Draw right now, you should be! Use Draw even if you have a Spread/RR combo ready to go - you might get a good card and save yourself the Spread card.
3. Practice the order/timing in which you use HoTs + card buffs + CDs followed by Celestial Opposition to maximize the duration of your abilities.
4. Really take the time to learn the ranges of your AoE heals/buffs. Where your place yourself could mean the difference between including your entire party, or missing one or more.
5. (troll) ALWAYS use Astral Stasis when its available, even if your melee DPS is about to kill the boss.
6. 3+ = Gravity, 2 or less DoTs + Malefic II. Stella only as an opener when soloing.
7. Have fun - AST is an incredibly active job - it should feel busy, but fluid (in my opinion).

[Valmaxian]

Oh, and no macros needed! <3

[RubyScarlett]

I'm going to go against the grain here and say that I find 1 macro helpful for Astro, especially playing on a PS4.

Discard Card Drawn
/statusoff "Bole Drawn"
/statusoff "Balance Drawn"
/statusoff "Arrow Drawn"
/statusoff "Spear Drawn"
/statusoff "Spire Drawn"
/statusoff "Ewer Drawn"

Essentially what this macro does is discard the card that you have drawn and puts draw back on cooldown, instead of waiting for the drawn card to time out. You can also do this by manually clicking on the status bar, but like I said, on PS4, that's a pain. I mostly use this before a fight when I'm trying to bait an expanded/enhanced balance before we queue up. Not optimal when you're already in a fight, as you should really be trying to use the cards that you're dealt to the best of your ability.

[ChiiSoSeriouz]

I'm going to go against the grain here and say that I find 1 macro helpful for Astro, especially playing on a PS4.

Discard Card Drawn
/statusoff "Bole Drawn"
/statusoff "Balance Drawn"
/statusoff "Arrow Drawn"
/statusoff "Spear Drawn"
/statusoff "Spire Drawn"
/statusoff "Ewer Drawn"

This is a really good macro to have, however i recommend removing the balance status off, as theres never a situation where you would want to discard it.To prevent any miss click simply remove that line from the macro.

[GeekMatt]

This is a really good macro to have, however i recommend removing the balance status off, as theres never a situation where you would want to discard it.To prevent any miss click simply remove that line from the macro.

Before pull, you have The Balance saved and Expand ready. You draw in the off chance that you can get another Balance before the pull, only you then find out the tank won't be pulling any time soon (someone says brb, etc.) Clicking off The Balance which you can't save or use will get the CD timer ticking sooner. This happens every now and again, it's like getting blue-balled.

Personally since playing AST I've become comfortable clicking off the buffs without delaying my casting, since cycling UI elements by clicking the touch pad and using your crossbars can be done simultaneously without interrupting each other.

[ChiiSoSeriouz]

Before pull, you have The Balance saved and Expand ready. You draw in the off chance that you can get another Balance before the pull, only you then find out the tank won't be pulling any time soon (someone says brb, etc.) Clicking off The Balance which you can't save or use will get the CD timer ticking sooner. This happens every now and again, it's like getting blue-balled.

No, since you should only draw as the tank starts his countdown. If you're drawing earlier then the pull countdown after a ready check then you're setting yourself up for that situation, that's probably why you say it happens now and again.

[GeekMatt]

No, since you should only draw as the tank starts his countdown. If you're drawing earlier then the pull countdown after a ready check then you're setting yourself up for that situation, that's probably why you say it happens now and again.

Assuming there's a countdown. In DF/RF if you assume that, you're at a loss as an AST or a DPS. Obviously a good tank will use a countdown, but unfortunately tanks also have to account for bad players and so a lot of them don't use one. PLD is my secondary and it's not unusual for DPS to pull as I activate the countdown. NIN is my third at ilvl 239 and I know from experience that depending on a DF/RF tank to do my 18s countdown is a DPS loss more often than not.

Edit: Can also have the pull delayed after the start of a countdown.