Final Fantasy XIV‘s world is vast, with plenty of classes to choose from. There are a total of 19 battle classes, with two pure healers and two shield healers. Pure healers can be thought of as the “main” healers, with shield healers as “mitigation” healers.
Astrologian acts as a main healer with a tremendous amount of timing related to its skills. Considered one of the harder healers to play, Astrologian also has a card minigame on top of its many skills, allowing the class to buff the damage of its teammates. This extra damage Astro can give to its team usually makes up for its lower personal damage, making them a great asset to a team.
How to unlock Astrologian in FFXIV
Players can unlock Astrologian once they hit level 50 and advance to Ishgard. This requires beating A Realm Reborn, and dipping into Heavensward. The main aetheryte players will use is Foundation, and they can use the aethernet to jump to the astro headquarters. At Athenaeum Astrologicum, Jannequinard can be found at X: 15.2 Y: 10.0. He’ll dole out the quest Stairway to the Heavens, unlocking the Astrologian soul crystal and basic gear. Players will begin their journey as an Astrologian at level 30.
An introduction to Astrologian
To succeed in the Astrologian job, players will need to be good at multitasking. Healers need to pay attention to their health, the boss, mechanics, the party’s health, and doing damage as often as they can.
- Slide casting: This isn’t a skill in the game, but it is important. About three quarters of the way through your Malefic cast, you get the chance to move without interrupting your spell. It will still go off, and you’ll get the chance to move out of damage or preposition. Practice this often until you perfect it.
- Combust (I, II, and III): This is your damage-over-time (or DoT) that you’ll want to always have on a boss. It lasts for 30 seconds. Aim for 100 percent DoT uptime.
- Malefic (I, II, III, IV, and Fall Malefic): This is your damage spell. Press it any time you can when not casting global cooldown (GCD) heals. Remember: always be casting.
- Earthly Star: A healing skill that’s arguably the most important one in the Astrologian’s kit. This is an off-global cooldown heal, (oGCD) and this is the one you want to use most. Timing is integral with Earthly Star, as you need to place it at least 10 seconds before big damage goes off to raise its potency. Reactivating the skill earlier than 10 seconds will do less potent healing and damage. The skill will go off automatically and deal damage to targets inside, as well as heal party members inside, after 20 seconds. You can also detonate this at any time.
- Essential Dignity: An essential part of your Astrologian kit. This is another oGCD heal, and at max level you’ll have access to two casts of it. This is a single target heal, but the lower health a target is, the more healing it’ll do. If you can pop this on someone who is under 30 percent HP, it’ll do maximum potency.
- Lightspeed: This is a great skill to use any time it’s up, and especially if you need to move and cast at the same time. It reduces cast times of spells by two and a half seconds, making most of Astro’s casts instant, so you can walk around and cast spells to your heart’s content while active.
Astrologians have many skills at max level. You can use the Astrologian Rotation Guide to learn how to get the best use of all of them.
The Astrologian Card System in FFXIV
What sets Astrologian apart from the other healers is its tarot-like card system. There are six cards possible for the Astrologian to draw, with three different types of seals: solar, lunar, and celestial. It is ideal to get one of each seal type before using divination and then Astrodyne, but it isn’t essential. So long as you get at least two different seal types, you can activate Astrodyne without issue.
The Balance, The Arrow, and The Spear cards will give a six percent damage increase to DPS and tanks, and three percent boost to anything else.
The Bole, The Ewer, and The Spire cards will give a six percent damage increase to ranged DPS and healers, and a three percent boost to anything else.
A handy mnemonic device is: balance the arrow on the tip of the spear. These three cards will always go to melee or tank for maximum DPS boost.
Astrologian can draw a card every 30 seconds and should give it to party members to maximize DPS. Seals can be redrawn to prevent doubling up or overlap on current seals stocked, but so long as there are at least two different ones when Astrodyne is played, there’s really no issue.
There are also Minor Arcana to draw every 60 seconds. It’s important to draw these every time they’re available, as you’ve got a 50 percent chance to draw Lord of Crowns for an AoE DPS attack, or Lady of Crowns for a free AoE oGCD heal. Use Lord during burst phases (like when Divination or Astrodyne is up), and Lady when healing is needed to top your party off.
Divination should also be timed to get the most of other teammates’ burst windows, as it increases the damage of all members nearby six percent. This should also be used when taking into account Astrodyne availability for the caster. Mastery of timing of all of these skills is integral to playing the class efficiently.
Level 90 Astrologian skill rotation and opener
This is for a 30 second countdown. It’s important to make sure you’ve got two card draws upfront, or that you’ll get your second card draw back after the first few seconds of the pull. If your tank gives you a 20 second countdown, make sure you’ve got 20 seconds until your next card, and so on.
Pre-pull:
- Draw at 30 seconds
- Earthly star at ten or five seconds
- Pot at three seconds
- At two seconds, or a second and a half left, cast Fall Malefic
After pull:
- At pull, press Lightspeed
- Combust III
- Play card
- Draw
- Fall Malefic
- Play card
- Draw
- Fall Malefic
- Cast Divination
- Play card
- Fall Malefic
- Minor Arcana
- Astrodyne
- Fall Malefic
- Play Lord of Crowns if you have it
- Fall Malefic
- Adjust if Lady of Crowns is pulled and hold until needed for heal, but try to use before Minor Arcana cooldown is up.
Redraws are allowed in your opener, though they do need to be woven into the pull between Malefic casts without clipping, or interrupting casts.
For shields, you can also pop Neutral Sect at 15 to 10 seconds before pull, pop Horoscope, and then cast Aspected Helios if you’d like to add shields for initial damage. Then, proceed with your opener as normal. If you need Horoscope for other damage later before the cooldown is up, you can also just cast Neutral Sect and then Aspected Helios for shields.
Astrologian utility skills and when to use them
Collective Unconscious is a bubble that reduces 10 percent of damage and gives a regen effect as well. This is good to use to mitigate big attacks, or when other people don’t have mit available. When the bubble goes down, the damage reduction effect will persist for five seconds, and the regen for 15.
Celestial Intersection is an oGCD shield that can be cast on yourself or on a target. While it’s only a single target shield, there are two charges total, allowing you to use it on two tanks, or two people who need some cushion in the form of shields.
Neutral Sect allows the Astrologian to add shields when casting Aspected Benefic and Aspected Helios. This’ll cost a GCD to get the benefits of, but it’s good for raid wides or in pinches when you may need to cast a single target heal and might need a cushion shield. This also increases healing potency by 20 percent.
Exaltation is a single target shield that reduces damage by 10 percent, and also gives a heal after eight seconds of mitigation.
Astrologian food, pots, and gear – current for Patch 6.5
Astrologians going into end-game content, especially high-end content like Extremes, Savages, and Ultimates will need additional items. For patch 6.5 the best food for Astrologians is Caviar Canapes. Use Grade 8 Tinctures of Mind for pots during pull and burst phases to help reach peak efficiency.
Best-in-Slot (BiS) gear can vary week to week, but can be looked up to see what’s best. Crafted gear, called the Diadochos gear of healing, is a good place to start if you’ve just hit level 90, and can be purchased off of the marketplace. The Credendum gear can be purchased with endgame tomestones, and Astrologians should prioritize picking up the Credendum Hose of Healing if they’d like to move towards BiS.
For the Savage gearset, check out Etro for recommended gear and melds.
Astrologians as a general rule will want to prioritize melding critical hit, direct hit or determination, and then spell speed. Spell speed can be dangerous to meld, and is best left as a lower priority. Pentamelds aren’t necessary for all endgame content, and can be left up to preference. Savages can be cleared as long as you’re base melding, so see what works best for you.
