SCH and AST

[HyoMinPark]

AE heals with 15y range are also pretty underwhelming compared to other job ranges.

To be fair, WHM’s Medica is also 15y—Medica II and Solus Rapture are 20y. They gave Horoscope a 20y range for AST, so I guess that’s supposed to compete with Medica II/Rapture...but it’s extremely clunky to use. I prefer the new PI instead, where it activates with the additional heal on its own after receiving a Medica/Medica II. No additional clicking required. But the range of AST heals never bothered me all that much. I learned to deal with it after 3 years of playing the job.

SCH’s Succor is also 15y; Indom is 15y as well.

[GrimGale]

I have leveled both AST and SCH to 80. Used them both on Extreme content. Here's my two cents:

Scholar:
-Dps rotation is effective but boring. Yes, you basically do the same dps (It's just more tedious and repetitive, especially having to sling Biolysis to each mob when you could spread them with Bane before.) AoW is fine I guess, it's just underwhelming to use and very expensive for what it does. I ultimately wouldn't change much here, maybe adjust some potencies and MP cost since DPS is not the main focus of a healer. (I'd instead focus on improving Scholar's overall support abilities.)
-Fairy Gauge and Aetherflow stacks feel extremely clunky now: Being unable to apply excog pre pull is unnecessarily frustrating. Moreover I often find myself with excess AF stacks that I am forced to dump on overhealing to make efficient use of the manaregen on AF. Fairy gauge is still rather useless, Fairy Union is weak and locks your abilities out during the channeling. Fairy Blessing is allright I guess, though I don't know why it costs Fairy Gauge considering its on a CD.
-Dissipation is now less taxing since it summons Eos back but now stacks are less valuable. In addition the fact that it sends your fairy away is still rather stupid, you are basically locking yourself out of several skills for a 20% healing buff- This problem is aggravated when you take Seraph into the equation. I guess they wanted Dissipation to be a last resort button, when all your fairy and seraph is on CD and you've spent all your AF stacks. I've barely used it so far, maybe twice in all ShB when leveling and Tank pulled more he could withstand. I didn't use it at all in Stormblood. I didin't even have it on my bar)

Scholar's kit feels like it fights itself with a lot of its mechanics.

Astrologian:

-Seals: The fact that you can use cards out of combat and seals only in combat makes it so that I often use cards at the beginning of the pulls only to not get a seal since, while the character I buffed is in combat, my character isn't yet so I lose the Draw CD for the seal.
-Divination: It's clearly a huge nerf to Royal Road+ Balance. While it's more consistent, the fact that it's on a 180 second CD makes it extremely weak. Cards are supposed to be the strong feature of AST- With strong cards I could understand the weak heals overall but that's not the case.
-Celestial Opposition, Collective Unconscious: Extremely low potencies for those very long CDs. CO should be o an a 30s CD. CU should be on a 60s CD. That or simply increase the potencies on both.

Astrologian overall feels weak compared to SCH and WHM. It's strong point, the Card Buffs, is needlessly frustrating and weak. A shorter CD on Divination and higher potencies on the cards would make the job feel more impactful.

[KittenMittens]

To be fair, WHM’s Medica is also 15y—Medica II and Solus Rapture are 20y. They gave Horoscope a 20y range for AST, so I guess that’s supposed to compete with Medica II/Rapture...but it’s extremely clunky to use. I prefer the new PI instead, where it activates with the additional heal on its own after receiving a Medica/Medica II. No additional clicking required. But the range of AST heals never bothered me all that much. I learned to deal with it after 3 years of playing the job.

SCH’s Succor is also 15y; Indom is 15y as well.

Oddly enough, I'm not sure if this was an oversight by the development team, but Divination is only 15y while Expanded Royal Road was 20y. Effectively a nerf to the radius.

[gerrylix]

You are right on the 15y front, you get used to it.
Cards atm remind me somehow of some vanilla wow paladin blessings everyone hated back in those days.
I shudder by even thinking of going down that road with cards.

[gerrylix]

It's funny when thinking about the job quests for AST, they try to explain in depth the seven heavens and how every constellation is special only to recognize that the whole story was made up.
Maybe the Ishagardian Astrologians were right in the end, sharlayan artrology sucks, for the moment at least.

[HyoMinPark]

Oddly enough, I'm not sure if this was an oversight by the development team, but Divination is only 15y while Expanded Royal Road was 20y. Effectively a nerf to the radius.

Divination in and of itself is a nerf to the old Expanded mechanic. Probably goes in line with the overall redesign of the card system. (I'm so cynical right now.)

[Haxaan]

Another thing that has been bothering me is why didn't they just make Horoscope a better potency and leave CO how it was in SB. That would help with extending the buff duration of divination, making the 3 minute cd at least feel a little more viable. Granted Horoscope feels a bit clunky at the moment, but it is also super weak. I hate that they took CO,the most fun and versatile ability AST had, and made it into a baby medica. CU was nerfed in half as well. I'm all for balancing and lowering potencies, but changing abilities for the sake of changing them is just silly. CO could have stayed exactly how it was, CU could have had a minor nerf and Horoscope could have been our singular insta aoe "Oh Shit" button.

It feels like they looked at PI and Indom and said "Hmm you know what, let's give both of these to Ast but make them both really weak but stackable cuz raisins..." Like seriously WHY? Sorry for the rant, but it is really hard to wrap my head around some of the changes they have made to this job. It went from a super fluid job to a very robotic job that, while busy, doesn't actually do much.

[Muahbec]

this

Jesus my phone messed up with these "//" all over the place...
Sorry bout that

[MOZZYSTAR]

Been grinding fates as AST all night and it occurred to me that I can't aoe my cards anymore. I know RR doesn't exist anymore, but I just figured it would automatically AoE cards instead? So, why is it that DNC and BRD and other classes can have AoE synergist skills when AST, the synergist healer, cannot?



A friend of mine and I've been talking and while I consider AST the synergist healer (i.e. the healer with the many buffs for a whole party) and SCH as the saboteur healer (i.e. the one with many debuffs, like DoTs, for enemies), both classes don't really "have" what made them...them. They've lost their identities. I know it's been repeated all throughout the forums but just really hit me when I played it in a party. It does not feel good.

[Haxaan]

Been grinding fates as AST all night and it occurred to me that I can't aoe my cards anymore. I know RR doesn't exist anymore, but I just figured it would automatically AoE cards instead? So, why is it that DNC and BRD and other classes can have AoE synergist skills when AST, the synergist healer, cannot?



A friend of mine and I've been talking and while I consider AST the synergist healer (i.e. the healer with the many buffs for a whole party) and SCH as the saboteur healer (i.e. the one with many debuffs, like DoTs, for enemies), both classes don't really "have" what made them...them. They've lost their identities. I know it's been repeated all throughout the forums but just really hit me when I played it in a party. It does not feel good.

You can AoE your buffs once every 3 minutes now using Divination