Thread: Astrologian 5.0 Discussion

Originally Posted by KanameYuuki

Should SE just give up on AST being a two sided healer and from now on make either healers Regen or Shield, I imagine that would be easier to balance around and at least that way the 4th eventual healer could have a spot that would be the one AST isn't. I for one would welcome Regen AST and the one and true.

I suggested AST being a Dodge / Evade healer which seemed kinda fun at least. But anyway, really came to post update and thoughts.

L75 AST now:

Running Dohn Mheg as a L73 (full Augmented Scaevan fully slotted) Diurnal AST, the mobs were much more trouble than the bosses, honestly. Some of them hit like a truck, and Benefic 2 and such seemed underpowered. It may be a hiccup / dip in the scaling road, but yeah.

It kind of feels like AST's shtick is "stack effects". The individual HoTs and shields don't seem that special, but it feels like you can layer them in ways you can't with WHM or SCH. Likewise with cards, how you can toss individuals and then layer on Divination on top. Not sure on the mana efficiency of that, but doing Omegascape 3 Normal I was able to deploy Noct Aspect Helios + Celestial Opposition + Collective Unconscious vs the Tribeam, and those shields didn't break.

The card play still feels clunky, having Constellations that are redundant to card edge colors doesn't help at all. Having the Arcana Gauge shoved halfway offscreen is getting me through it. They really need to sit down and rethink this design, it's not good. We went from "the constellation tells you what it does, put it on who benefits from it", to "The edge color tells you which 2 roles can benefit most from this, try and don't repeat seals". So there's 2 things to fiddle with instead of 1 in order to optimize Divination. It feels like busywork/ ditch digging.

How about: Take away the seals, keep the Constellations and maybe the edge colors too if you want to be consistent. Just count up 3 cards thrown on people (since they overwrite let people do their own optimization on who they're thrown on), and then you can fire Divination for a 5% party buff. Royal Roading cards to damage or heal was nice before, but if we're stacking effects maybe it's redundant and the boost to 8% is fine. It's just that extra layer of complication that makes carding people clunky.

Originally Posted by TankHunter678

The Dhonbaskets, Etainmoth, Honeyhunter, and Kelpies all have TBs that they love to spam. The Naiads also have a cone shaped TB that hits like a truck but can at least be avoided. So on the first wall to wall pull you have 1 TB spammer, on the second wall to wall pull you have 2 TB spammers, the 3rd wall to wall has 0 TB spammers, the 4th has one TB spammer, and 5th has 2 TB spammers with 2 TB cones.

As a result that dungeon puts out more healer stress then some of the later dungeons, as later dungeons lack in unavoidable TB spams.

I've had to run that dungeon a lot to level my trusts...

That explains it. Haven't had that issue since, not sure if better at anticipating now or I had undergeared/unmitigated tank.

L76 Horoscope thoughts: *puffff* "Okay, wait. I've got it. Let's give AST, like, a baby Wildfire, you know? It'll be awesome..." Okay, maybe it kind of is, though it feels kind of a weird mashup of other stuff, including the Lilies. Definitely one of those plan-aheads, where you know you're going to need 2 AoE heals within a relatively short period of time. The name makes it feel like they were forcing this fortune teller theme in a way that's undercut by the gutting of the effects of the cards though, so I'd rethink that. Consdering it's almost a redo... Deja Vu?

To bad the increasement in rdps through the divination changes isnt going to close the gap between whm pdps and asts rdps. Bit less clunkyness to the card system through sleeve draw changes is welcome. Buffs to the healing spells are solid, CU untouched is lame, Lightspeed at 90sec cd is pretty much the same as before, might even be a nerf if you would have made use of your four dignitys within that 120sec window. Tho one must say divination and sleeve draw are now out of line with their cds. So for every other~ divination you now not only have a shorter window but also less available cards to match your seals, potentially leaving you with a tier 2 divination much more likely. Gravity and helios at 1.5sec castime allows extra windows for weaving and increases ast dps (only in dungeons) by a large largin, alongside granting you a bit more movability. Celestial Opposition still fairly useless in nocturnal, while being pretty solid now in diurnal (To bad with the whm overflow ast is pretty much doomed to stay in nocturnal for every content where it actually matters). Furthermore, no changes to the card effects and how they work also still let you remain screwed with bad party composition (Wasnt a goal of them to remove the need for certain compositions?).

Since WHM is still way ahead ast in terms of dps, and their healing kit still remaining to be better than asts kit, alongside the fact that ast has to put a lot of effort into the cards, i can easily say that WHM/SCH combo is the absolute goto composition. If your raid group swaps out a WHM or SCH for a AST, then you are giving your raid group with a huge deficit to deal with.