In the previous article on the Astrologian, we talked about this suggestion from Reddit:

Currently, based on current math and statistics collected from FFlogs, we know that:

• SCH is hilariously overpowered; even moreso than WAR is for tanks.
• People barely take AST and AST, in both Diurnal Sect and Nocturnal Sect, is still horridly underpowered compared to their WHM and SCH counterpart.

We know this when we examine the data primarily gathered through data logs regarding clears and party compositions through FF logs. Square primarily takes into account which jobs are and aren’t taken into parties for Savage content when balancing them. If we examine the current clears for A8S, we find:

• Almost all ~500Party compisitions included a Scholar. A very few extreme minority (only 6) included an AST over a SCH.
• Of these ~500party compsitions, around 440 included a WHM. Only 60 of these included an AST in Diurnal.

Now we are about to continue this opinion on the game needs rebalancing

The Gimped Astrologian: Continued

This tells us that next to nobody is taking a N. AST, and very few people are taking a D. AST, leading the general consensus to be that Astrologian as a whole is underpowered, even in Diurnal Sect.

The usual argument against that is that AST should be taken into farm parties and WHM into progression, but these statistics show us that even AST isn’t being taken into large farm parties. Besides that, no single job should be regulated to permanent “farm duty”; all classes should be viable in progression.

I think we all know at this point that AST in its current form has many issues; it has been discussed before. Currently what prevents it from being taken over WHM is:

• Unreliable/help cooldowns. Synastry has a 50% longer cooldown for only 20% potency in AoE healing (68% on single target) and no equivalent of Benediction.
• No real burst healing, akin to WHM having Cure III/Assize and SCH having indomitability.

AST has the equivalent healing strength of a WHM pre-3.0. It does not come with the added benefit of extra oGCD security that WHM has.

Naturally, this means that AST has more to offer than WHM in several areas, namely MP management, mitigation, and card buffs. But therein lies the main problem:

Are the card buffs and added mitigation enough to warrant taking an AST over a WHM? In its current iteration, statistics show us the resounding answer is no. The mitigation AST provides is not capable enough of replacing two insanely useful tools (Assize and Cure III), and the cards are too unreliable and weak to make enough of a difference.

I agree, AST cannot be chosen since the obvious chose is still WHM. So I guess the game developer behind FFXIV should really consider rebalancing in favor of AST.

Balancing can be a fickle thing as there is no perfectly balanced MMO. There will always be classes or jobs that will be gimped no matter what. However, developers should always make an effort to reduce the strength gap of classes as much as possible.

Check out the other suggestions to improve the Astrologian class in the next articles!