Astro is Sadness

[HyoMinPark]

Healing as an astro was fine for the most part in the trials and raids. It was dungeon healing that was a little annoying. The biggest problem that they faced was their combined personal dps with raid buff contribution was far, far behind the other healers. That's what needed fixing most, and it went (almost) completely ignored by SE. This divination buff will hardly make up for any of the difference between astro and the other healers. Noct sect is a whole different issue that I don't think SE is capable of fixing any time soon, as nice as it would be. SE really needs people on the balance team that actually play healers, because I can almost guarantee you that none of the people working on healers actually play them right now.

While yes, AST still needs to bridge the gap between its rDPS and WHM’s pDPS by several hundred, the healing changes are still welcome additions. I understand that healing with it in raid/trials was fine, but it was still significantly weaker than the other two and still had to work harder for the same results. I wasn’t expecting massive buffs/changes to the cards in a Savage balance patch—changes to cards have never occurred in patches like these, but main patches (e.g., Patch 3.4 with the lul 20% Balance change). I don’t disagree that the developers really struggle with healing balance, but these are at least something.

And while I understand and agree that balance should always occur at the highest levels of play, let’s also be realistic here: most players are participating in those dungeons where AST was struggling the most. Most aren’t participating in raids. And let’s also be honest: Titania EX, Innocence EX, and Eden NM weren’t exactly hard fights, so we really can’t say how AST’s healing would have faired if Eden Savage has teeth to it. EDIT: And I actually shudder to think about if AST had saw no potency buffs to its healing between now and the release of the next Ultimate. I doubt any would have seen that fight at all.

I don’t think we should downplay these buffs. They are at least better than nothing.