Astrologian 5.0 Discussion

[Seraphor]

Except you're only accounting for Balance in that percentage. You cannot simply ignore them because Balance happens to be better. They all provide far higher damage contributions than the card currents. Additionally, it's you who ignored the fact AoE Balance gave substantially more rDPS than new crappy single target Balance. A 1/3 chance to provide 4,800 rDPS (it would be higher since I didn't factor in tanks or healers) is much better than 100% at 780. It would take current AST roughly seven cards to make up for what old Balance provided as an AoE. And this is only accounting for the DPS still.

Fair enough, the prospect of Spear and Arrow does buff that up a bit.
But you're wrong on the Balance potencies. read again.


"When it comes to Divination/Expanded-Balance, it's a similar situation, but it is a nerf.
Again factoring in redraws, you had a 26% chance to draw an Expanded-Balance over a minute*, you now have a virtually 100% chance to gain a full Divination over 3 minutes, so 33% efficiency in comparison to that 26%.
33% over 26% is... 126% as efficient, and at 6% instead of 5% damage up, it's another 16% more potent for a total of 142% of the averaged potency. Plug in the halved duration, and it's 71% as efficient as the old Expanded-Balance. If you want to give Divination a like-for-like potency, then it could be reduced to a 130s cooldown, therefore a neater 120s cooldown would actually be a slight buff."


You have a 26% chance of a 5% Expanded Balance each minute, for 30s. (which means this averaged out to once every 4 minutes)
You have a 100% chance of a 6% Divination every 3 minutes for 15s.
That makes Divination 71% as potent as Expanded-Balance.

There is no way that's 4,800 compared to 780.

Even adding in Spear and Arrow would only boost that by a maximum of a factor of 3 if you paradoxically simultaneously had all BRD/MNKs and all BLM/SAMs, so probably more like 2.5, and less considering Arrow doesn't match up to Spear, which itself doesn't match up to Balance, bringing it closer to a factor of 2, if that. So Divination would be, at a guess, maybe 35% as potent. (which I personally think is still overvaluing Spear/Arrow)
4,800 to 780 is only 16%.


This doesn't even factor in the fact that while you were fishing for an Expanded Balance, you weren't dishing out single target balances at the same time, it was one or the other.

[Xelanar]

"During expert roulettes I find myself sometimes drawing ewers and boles, whishing their old effects were back so I could spend my mana more freely or help my tank mitigate through all those adds he pulled in overconfidence."

Lucid Dreaming on cooldown gives more than enough MP, more reliable than a Ewer.
Celestial Intersection gives more reliable mitigation than a Bole.


I honestly find fishing for seals to be just as engaging after having played the new AST for a while now.

There's no frustration of "I've drawn nothing but Spires for the last 5 minutes" or "I couldn't raise because I've run out of MP and haven't drawn a Ewer"

This really is a matter of perspective, and I feel newer players, or those who can get over the old mechanics, will enjoy this job a lot more.


The only gripes I now have, are potencies of CO and CU, and the cooldown of Divination or the inability to get seals out of combat.
Enabling seals out of combat would be a substantial buff in its own right. You'd be able to start a battle with Divination right away, instead of arbitrarily delaying it until 1m into the fight. Which means more Divinations over the course of a raid.

It does not give more than enough MP if your with a tank that pulls everything from end to end, while not using any mitigation cooldowns and DPS not killing those huge waves of adds fast enough. I realize that the issue in this case is not on Lucid Dreamings side but rather on party equipment/playstyle - I'm just saying I've run into these situations where ironically I even had the exact card I needed in hand.
And sadly Celestial Intersection is not nearly strong enough to compensate a full 20% reduction in damage for 30 seconds, but on another note Celestial Intersection is a really nice skill to have in emergencies that are not related to grouping up massive amounts of adds that eat away its shield faster than I can recast Benefic II.

Seal fishing IS something I like too. I just wish it was more of a challenge? Because by the time divination is usable again I had so many chances at drawing all the correct ones, that seals may as well not even be there in the first place. The only time where it actually matters is on pulls, and there it's really annoying. Not only because of the delay you mentioned, but because it can ruin your raid's strongest DPS phase by up to 4% due to randomness that was supposed to be trivialized by the new card changes.

Also newer players will still have to go through the entire 'darn! What was this card for again?' dilema. They still have to learn each of the six cards effects to buff melee and ranged correctly. I learned it by noticing how offensive cards(spire/arrow/balance) buff melee and utility ones buff ranged. But newer players do not have the luxury of learning it that way. They'll have to map each of the six cards to an effect, even if 50% of the time that effect is the same one. It's still 6 different card faces. So in terms of learning curve nothing changed. It only switched from 'what does this do?' to 'does this buff melee or ranged?'

But as you said - it is a matter of perspective. They gutted the job for me. For someone else they improved it.

[Seraphor]

I ended up in the Qitarna Revel yesterday with a DRK who decided to do max pulls, at top speed.
Having Tanked it before I knew that there were some pretty savage pulls in there, and I was worried for my MP, but I didn't have any issues. With reserved use of Aspected heals, and proper Synastry, Benefic and Lightspeed use, it's actually quite easy to heal.

As I've previously said, before ShB, I basically never needed to use Synastry, and Lightspeed was used purely for Gravity spam.
Now I actually need to use my full toolkit, and it feels good.

[lordparanoia]

I think the new cards system is really time-consuming with low rewards in terms of buffs. You need to press 3 buttons and switch target (and even think WHO is going to receive the card, if melee or ranged) to use one ability that gives only 5% of buff. When you use Redraw you have to repeat this as fast as you can. Meanwhile you have to manage with the mechanics, with the heals, with the dps.
Why did they kill AST?
It feels like they wanted to make Astrologians too much complicated but also if you play it perfectly I think it's not worth.
Cooldowns are ridicolous. Celestial Opposition is weak. Collective Unconscious is weak. Horoscope feels like they wanted to copy Plenary Indulgence. Neutral Sect has long cooldown and allow you to use 2 Aspected helios (if you don't want to overwrite them). Mana management is totally disgusting: if you die after using Lucid Dreaming, you can say goodbye to your mana for the next minute and half.
Why we have 6 cards that do the same thing, with other 2 cards that do just a little better than the other 6?
Astrologian is in the worst position ever. I think that WHM+SCH is meta right now. The only way SE found to make white mage great again was to destroy astrologian.

Gj. Change my mind.

[tesni_g]

I think the new cards system is really time-consuming with low rewards in terms of buffs. You need to press 3 buttons and switch target (and even think WHO is going to receive the card, if melee or ranged) to use one ability that gives only 5% of buff. When you use Redraw you have to repeat this as fast as you can. Meanwhile you have to manage with the mechanics, with the heals, with the dps.
Why did they kill AST?
It feels like they wanted to make Astrologians too much complicated but also if you play it perfectly I think it's not worth.
Cooldowns are ridicolous. Celestial Opposition is weak. Collective Unconscious is weak. Horoscope feels like they wanted to copy Plenary Indulgence. Neutral Sect has long cooldown and allow you to use 2 Aspected helios (if you don't want to overwrite them). Mana management is totally disgusting: if you die after using Lucid Dreaming, you can say goodbye to your mana for the next minute and half.
Why we have 6 cards that do the same thing, with other 2 cards that do just a little better than the other 6?
Astrologian is in the worst position ever. I think that WHM+SCH is meta right now. The only way SE found to make white mage great again was to destroy astrologian.

Gj. Change my mind.

This is basically my experience. I leveled SCH and AST in tandem. I gave AST a good try, but my god the cards are so many buttons for so little reward. AST cooldowns are spaced too far apart, they are weak, and there aren't enough of them. Helios and Asp. Helios aren't strong enough to compensate for those spaces in between cooldowns. If I only have to spam Malefic, it's okay to weave cards. Not good. Okay. Play's lag time is unplayable, and clips so bad with full cast heals. I understand that the game needs to check that I'm in combat and my target is the preferred recipient of the card, but the lag is atrocious.

I like the idea of Horoscope but in practice it falls flat. It needs two ogcds and requires two windows of opportunity, which is a crazy amount of work for a small heal.

I'm pretty bummed about this because I came into 5.0 believing that no matter how AST was changed, I could learn and eventually accept it. But I hit 80 on SCH and realized I wouldn't be switching back to "my main."

If AST gets buffed in .05, I will give it another try. But I'm not going to play a class that gives nothing but a marginal buff and repetitive strain injury.

[Boomsmash]

So. I just finally ran AST full up, for the first time during this expansion.

Ups:

• Dear lord, you can stack 3 HoTs together for around 210 potency. Most stuff kinda sorta works.
• Heals still pretty much work decently.
• The Lucid Dreaming time decrease seems to offset the loss of Ewer and Mana Shift and stuff, you just need to pop it whenever it's off cooldown to stay good.

Downs:

• Gravity costs more than SCH or WHM's spammable AoEs and does less damage.
• Combust 3 has less potency than Combust 2 did, and the WHM and SCH DoTs leave it in the dust at 60 vs 45
• Malific 4 is a tiny increase in potency that gets left in the dust by SCH and WHM single target damages.
• Cards. Dear lord cards. I'm giving this its own section.

Cards:

• We used to have 6 cards with symbols that were recognizeable, each with its own effect that was tied into the lore and the job quests.
• Learning to use all the cards where they could best be used is what separated decent AST from high level ones, because you could learn when to hold them, when to play them, when to Road them and such.
• The current system has managed to simultaneously give folks "what they wanted" while consuming 3 times the time and mental resources to use them well, so good job there guys.

1. Ignore what the cards actually are. And, you know, all the previous meaning and lore and stuff.
2. Pay attention to the color of the boundary to know which of the 2 roles benefits best from it.
3. Squint at the NOTABLY (12 times!) SMALLER SEAL to see what it is. Ignore the fact that the seals and astrological symbol colors clash for most of the cards.
4. Try and make sure you don't already have that seal.

1. If you have that seal already, either suck it or Redraw and go to 1.
2. If you don't have that seal already, great, find someone that can use the card.
3. Target them, play the card.
4. Realize that while doing that you probably compared pretty well to someone texting while driving because you weren't looking at what else is going on.

5. If you have all 3 seals, check if Horoscope is off cooldown or not. If it is, use it and profit. If not...
6. Start using Minor Arcana to get a little boost, and more or less ignore the seals, just throw them out as fast as you can to anybody, just looking at the color before slamming it on them.


Really? I mean, really? I can understand Draw and Play separating, BUT

• If Draw just had charges it would have accomplished the same thing as their supposed purpose, which was uncoupling draw and play timers from each other.
• Spire could have just buffed Determination or Direct Hit.
• If you thought the old system was hard you haven't seriously considered how much brain you're grinding on this one.

Addendum: Okay. So making the Arcana Gauge Simple and 200%-Huge, then pushing it as far below the screen as possible, seems to help give enough to focus on what actually means something on the cards. Has anyone gone back through the job quests to see if they changed them to "Ignore the constellation and look at the seal"? Because that's what you have to do.

[NanaWiloh]

You're still missing the point. Baelsar's Wall has been nerfed, thereby making it completely pointless as a comparison. AST being capable of healing gimped content does not mean it will measure up with current content. For reference sake, I can mass pull Xelphtol on DRG with Bloodbath. That's how weak the mobs are. You claim Holminster Switch isn't a good reference point except... it is. The mobs there aren't nerfed into the ground. This, in turn, makes huge pulls much harder on AST than any level 60 dungeon. My BFF, having recently leveled AST had no issues whatsoever with the old content regardless of small pulls or wall to wall mega pulls. With the 70+ dungeons, she was struggling on MP mightily. Why? Because like I said, those mobs aren't a complete laughing stock.



Except... they don't. AST struggles so much right now that weaving in Gravities outside of Lightspeed can easily get the tank killed if they do giant pulls. WHM does not have this problem whatsoever nor does SCH. That is the fundamental issue people have beyond how boring AST has become. It simply cannot heal like the other two while also having all its utility significantly reduced. I would like to believe the devs will address this quickly but DRK, WHM and MCH waited the entirety of Stormblood before their needs were addressed. Forgive me if I lack faith AST will see immediate attention by 4.05.

As Ast main healing as Ast in current content is a all out headache depending on the dungeon. I am i423 ran the Twining with my FC tank...the word painful does not describe how my healing felt in there.

[Shurrikhan]

I ended up in the Qitarna Revel yesterday with a DRK who decided to do max pulls, at top speed.
Having Tanked it before I knew that there were some pretty savage pulls in there, and I was worried for my MP, but I didn't have any issues. With reserved use of Aspected heals, and proper Synastry, Benefic and Lightspeed use, it's actually quite easy to heal.

As I've previously said, before ShB, I basically never needed to use Synastry, and Lightspeed was used purely for Gravity spam.
Now I actually need to use my full toolkit, and it feels good.

Isn't this more a symptom of just being a bit undertuned or in a below average party than anything else?

When spamming Revel to level up (was spending rested exp on DPS jobs), I needed scarcely a GCD or two of healing per wall-to-wall pull after pre-pull Regen. That your Lightspeed is now better spent healing is more a matter of just your party dps (yours included) being too low to kill mobs before all CDs are depleted. Newly "needing to use [your] full toolkit" is by no means a wide and wholly intentionally or paradigmatic change -- it's just a result of numeric breakpoints.

In some ways, I wish I could have that healer-toolkit stuff you're talking about, but as a WHM nothing has changed since SB (save perhaps getting a little bit easier to keep the party alive with even fewer globals of healing), so I suspect my job may be slightly overtuned and/or yours undertuned (or your parties somehow consistently worse) and had yours the efficacy of mine, Lightspeed would still be Gravity-buff and Synastry would still just be a global-saver.

[Hysterior]

So far, AST does not feel super good when using a controller. Manually dispensing each card is taking quite some time.
Probably not a major issue for keyboard/mouse users but definitely not optimal for controller use

[HyoMinPark]

Isn't this more a symptom of just being a bit undertuned or in a below average party than anything else?

When spamming Revel to level up (was spending rested exp on DPS jobs), I needed scarcely a GCD or two of healing per wall-to-wall pull after pre-pull Regen. That your Lightspeed is now better spent healing is more a matter of just your party dps (yours included) being too low to kill mobs before all CDs are depleted. Newly "needing to use [your] full toolkit" is by no means a wide and wholly intentionally or paradigmatic change -- it's just a result of numeric breakpoints.

In some ways, I wish I could have that healer-toolkit stuff you're talking about, but as a WHM nothing has changed since SB (save perhaps getting a little bit easier to keep the party alive with even fewer globals of healing), so I suspect my job may be slightly overtuned and/or yours undertuned (or your parties somehow consistently worse) and had yours the efficacy of mine, Lightspeed would still be Gravity-buff and Synastry would still just be a global-saver.

Honestly, AST has to work a lot harder to heal dungeons compared to the other two healers. I’m now leveling WHM, and I spend more time Holying than anything else (so basically like it was in SB, except now my GCDs are Solace > Cure II once my oGCDs are burned). Leveling AST, and I had to use more GCD heals compared to the other two because it felt as if the job just couldn’t keep up with the damage. COpp losing its stun also didn’t help, because I used it in the past to give a brief respite during the larger pulls for the tank (and to allow for some LS+Gravity spamming). COpp’s regen is weak for its CD, and CU barely warrants hotbar space at this point when you compare it to Sacred Soil and Asylum.

Lightspeed is also now saved (optimally) for Divination/Sleeve Draw windows, meaning that you can no longer use it for periods of heavy movement, MP conservation, or when you really need to get those heals off fast, which removes a lot of the versatility from the skill. Not using it during a Divination window means that you end up hurting your party members by being unable to throw out enough buffs during the time period due to having to double weave Draw and Minor Arcana between GCDs to Play Lords/Ladies while Divination is active.

There was also no real need to up Synastry’s cooldown from 90s to 120s. It does literally the same thing, and while good in dungeons, was pretty niche in some of the high-end content since you want to optimize around not using as many GCD heals (and it doesn’t benefit from oGCDs).

Horoscope should also function like WHM’s Plenary Indulgence, where a single GCD heal can proc the heal. While I watched a review on ShB AST that says it is good to top off tanks during pulls because of its short CD (and I agree and see the usefulness there), it also comes with overhealing the rest of the party more times than not (from my experiences). Overall, though, it feels less smooth to use compared to WHM’s Plenary, and I’m not terribly fond that I have to weave in a second Horoscope press to activate a 400 potency heal.