Do AST really need this Buff?

[FreakinRican]

... RNG in Astro has been mitigated fully- ...

Until we can draw balance on demand (we shouldn't) this statement is false. Being able to do something with a bad card other than click it off means that we aren't wasting another 30 seconds.

[AstroZombie]

Until we can draw balance on demand (we shouldn't) this statement is false. Being able to do something with a bad card other than click it off means that we aren't wasting another 30 seconds.

You're right, I misspoke. It still helps mitigate RNG and turns the worst possible outcome before "discarding a card because it would be a waste of your royal road" into the significantly better "a strong off global heal or damage ability". That's a significant buff regardless even before looking at Lord and Lady's potency.

[MsTanya]

The entire point of the card system was gambling for a boon to the party, be that result a success or a flop, just like real gambling. Now its just oh hey mash this key every 30 seconds and you're bound to get something good no matter what. Its taken the entire initial concept of the card rng system and turned it into a joke. It needs a drawback or potencies need to be adjusted, which I'm sure they probably have been doing, just speaking based off of what we have access to in terms of information.

[RukiaFae]

The entire problem with this is that the addition of minor arcana, either Lord or Lady, means that the RNG in Astro has been mitigated fully- no matter what the card you draw is now useful for something and you never have to discard to preserve your royal road again. The worst case scenario for a card draw is now a 500 potency heal.

Ummm no. It is still RNG. You may draw that card when you don't need a heal (everyone is topped off with regen in place) then it is a waste. You may draw the damage card when you need the heal card (tank buster, people dying). Each card has a situational use. If you can't use the card it is still a wasted card and time. And again we don't know what the potency of anything this may change but the numbers are high because of RNG. If the potenct is less than bene or damage is low people won't take the risk to use it and will just royal road the card instead.

[AstroZombie]

Ummm no.[snip]

Ummm yes. First of all people will royal road first regardless because they want an enhanced/expanded/extended balance because that's stronger than either minor arcana. The Lord will always be good because damage is good 100% of the time, so 50/50 you turned a dead card that would have ruined your royal road into a pure upside. For the Lady being situational? Since you don't use the card instantly when you convert to minor it sits there for a while waiting to be used. Even if you don't use it in the window it's available (we don't know how long that window is yet) having a free high potency instant cast heal stocked in case something goes wrong is 100% better than just discarding a card to get nothing at all in exchange.

[RukiaFae]

Snip

Ok yes it is good to hold it but what happens in 30 seconds when you draw again? If no one needs healing and you don't have a good card you will either have to RR it or risk overwriting in hopes for the damage card.
Another way to look at it is if you're getting useful buff cards you may not use the Lord and the Lady much. You're not going to throw away guaranteed buffs on a 50/50 chance you get what you want. This gives you somthing to do instead of wasting a draw, which can suck if you get a bunch of useless cards in a run. People act like you're going to use the the Lord and the Lady every 30 seconds.

[AstroZombie]

Ok yes it is good to hold it but what happens in 30 seconds when you draw again?

Then depending on duration (which we still dont know) you still have it stocked, or you go on about business as normal and either play your new card, royal road it, or convert it to minor again. It's also worth noting that there are very very few times where you will go an entire 30 seconds with literally no one in the party taking any damage at all, so if the duration is that long you've saved at least one GCD worth of healing.

Obviously no one is going to be using it constantly because fishing for enhanced/extended/expanded balances is still going to be the best thing you can do. That doesn't change the fact that turning what would have been a discard into an off-global resource takes even more sting out of the already heavily padded RNG. The fact the heal is 500 potency is just extra bonkers.

[RukiaFae]

And if the heal isn't 500 potency would that make you feel better? Because again we don't know if it will stay that way. I think it should be better than your regular heal because you won't use it often, heck you may go a whole fight and never see it. AST didn't really have any burst healing like SCH or WHM so I can see why it got some this time around.

AST had to get new skills also. What would you prefer for AST to get in terms of new skills? Anything they give them would be considered a buff. Just fyi I'm not talking about potency because I'm ignoring that until we get final numbers.

[Blueyes]

So... personally I am not bothered by the fact that the most defining feature of Astrologian, the only part that is truly unique to the job, has had its experience enhanced in some way.

Looking at Nocturnal Aspected Benefic specifically, I don't believe there is anything inherently wrong with the way it provides a shield equal to 300% of the amount cured. The issue, in my opinion, is the base cure potency. For example, if the base potency was 140 (the same as the Diurnal potency) then a 300% shield would equate to a shield roughly on par to its value as of the 3.5 patch. The end result would be an overall nerf, but personally I rather like the idea of its use being more strictly focused on providing a shield while being less useful for directly restoring someone's HP because that gives it more of a niche purpose.

Addressing the issue of whether or not Astrologian should be able to heal equally well to a Scholar or a White Mage, my belief is that if anything should be weak it should be its AoE healing capabilities. It does raise concern when a Nocturnal Aspected Helios has a greater shield strength than a Scholar's Succor and by no small margin. Perhaps it would be less of an issue if Deployment Tactics could be used with a much greater frequency, which I think would better compliment the tactician style of a Scholar, but currently a Scholar can only provide a better group shield once every two minutes.

So no, an Astrologian absolutely should not struggle with keeping a tank alive, but if any part of its healing should suffer I believe it should be its AoE healing, forcing a greater dependency on a co-healer while discouraging an AST/AST dual setup.

[AstroZombie]

Honestly? No they don't deserve powerful new abilities AND potency buffs across the board AND better shields AND the lowest mana cost of all three healers. Astro as it is right now in HW is stronger in a raid composition than Scholar or Whitemage are with their SB abilities (at least on paper) while being able to also adequately fill both of their niches. Scholar got hit with the nerfbat in several departments and none of whitemages new skills besides thin air actually do anything at all. If they wanted to give Astro a bunch of new toys that substantially increase the consistency of their kit and add raw numbers they should not have also given across-the-board potency and shield buffs to it too. Letting them turn dead cards into free damage (because a healing off global means your next global can be spent on damage) when they already contribute the most raid damage and the best shields and healing compareable to the (useless) pure healing class is blatantly unfair.
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