Healing 'big' pulls on Astro

Like others have said, most the time it is the tank at fault. What I do on pull is, as soon as the tank grabs hate put regen on him + a card on tank/dps. Don't use DoTs if there is 3+ mobs, just jump right into gravity spam. Let the tank get real low, just watch how fast his hp is dropping to determine when to leave clerics. Essential dignity, with real low hp has huge potency. I've healed close to 10k with a crit using this. Follow that with an instant aspected benefic, then jump back into gravity spam. Killing big groups faster saves a ton of mp, and gravity spam with no interruptions can outdmg even aoe dps jobs.

I wonder why people are using Nocturnal though, I mean the shields are without any synergy (like the scholar ones - and no I'm not qqing therefore, it's prolly better that SCH has the upper hand on that behalf) and are most of the time gone in 1-2 hits. Normally you can't spam AB to make it worth the GCD. Compared to that the HoTs are much more reliable.

Plus the fact that Nocturnal & Galvanize won't stack wheras Diurnal & WHM HoTs do stack.

I might be going off topic here, but what are your thoughts on Nocturnal? Are you using it? Why?

I'm playing catch up with my static so these were PUG groups I was healing :) So that may be an element of the issues I've been having.

Thank you all very much for the advice. I feel like healing with this class can be awfully more stressful but I am still determined to give it a go - though I shall be leveling my scholar asap after Astro hits 60, just incase I'm putting too much stress on my co-healer in my static. I do hope we get some tweaks as Astro is quite a nice class to play. Mana issues are cropping up more often too at this stage ^^; I was spoiled on my scholar xD

first off hammer your tank if they dont use CDs properly.

Drives me insane when I see tanks who think no cd is acceptable when pulling large groups, yes you are a tank but with CDs you are pretty much just any other character with a larger health pool it still hurts when you get hit!!!!!

From your side of things, try and pocket a bole and enchance/duration, or balance +duration/aoe pre pull or while running yes you can use spear for reduced CD on lumi but isnt all that and ewer helps a little as well. Make full use of essential dignity!!! its on a short CD and use it when its most effective to spare your MP when poss.

I find especially in level 50 content that as an AST, I have to spam Bene II until I'm out of MP. On my WHM I could easily just Regen the tank, pop out 3 Holy's and throw out a couple Cure I's, regardless of how big the pull was. But as an AST, with no AoE skill at this level I can't really do anything to help with DPS, not that it matters because I am Bene II spamming until I'm out of MP basically every single pull.

And, no, it isn't my tank's fault. I run with my boyfriend who mains a Paladin and he uses CDs appropriately. But even with him attempting to mitigate things, I still have a hard time with the healing. Hell, even when he pops HG and I have 10 seconds to do what I want (which I would normally use to AoE), I'm STILL spamming Bene II to get him to full for when HG falls off.

I've tried both Sects, I've tried using both my WHM and my SCH full i130 BiS sets and nothing really seems to help. I think what the big problem is really is that WHM has Holy; a nice big AoE stun. SCH's have Shadow Flare (which slows dungeon mobs 90% of the time) or Sacred Soil (10% damage reduction to everyone in it) and AST offers neither of these at 50. You have your sects, your cards, your heals, your DoTs. That's it. Unless you're getting Bole every 30 seconds, there isn't any way to really help mitigate the incoming damage.

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Originally Posted by Selli

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Sacred soil is 10% mitigation, and is often neglected in favor of another lustrate/bane.

You did touch on the point though: outside of RNG cards, and essential dignity once every 40 long seconds, AST pretty much has the barebones healing kit. It's enough to heal through normal content done under normal conditions, but little else.

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Originally Posted by fanservice

Sacred soil is 10% mitigation, and is often neglected in favor of another lustrate/bane.

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Is it? I haven't touched SCH since before 3.0 since my video card exploded, I'm using someone else's PC and have no gear sets/hot bars so I haven't bothered to set anything up aside from WHM and AST. My mistake. I really should have double checked, but I didn't want to deal with the empty hotbar. >.<

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You did touch on the point though: outside of RNG cards, and essential dignity once every 40 long seconds, AST pretty much has the barebones healing kit. It's enough to heal through normal content done under normal conditions, but little else.

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Very bare. My hotbar at level 50 as a WHM (not including macros) was much fuller than my AST hotbar was at 50.

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Originally Posted by Mirakell

Hmm - So HoT's are still better than shields? Okays :3
I just feel like i'm having more trouble than when on Scholar and I know part of it is a new class and all - but I do find myself willing the dps to kill faster more often these days xDD

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You need to be wary though when using HoT on big pulls though because if you "buff" them before they start pulling, all the mobs will rush to you because you technically healed the tank.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

You need to be wary though when using HoT on big pulls though because if you "buff" them before they start pulling, all the mobs will rush to you because you technically healed the tank.

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AST regens are front-loaded so it's not even a technicality. You cast aspected (diurnal) benefic, you heal for >1k hp and then the HoT starts.

I only did a small amount of testing but I quickly found HoTs to be more helpful than AST shields for stuff like this, or at least with how I was playing it. If someone gives Nocturnal Sect a more thorough test in these sort of near-wipe situations, please share your experiences.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

AST regens are front-loaded so it's not even a technicality. You cast aspected (diurnal) benefic, you heal for >1k hp and then the HoT starts.

I only did a small amount of testing but I quickly found HoTs to be more helpful than AST shields for stuff like this, or at least with how I was playing it. If someone gives Nocturnal Sect a more thorough test in these sort of near-wipe situations, please share your experiences.

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Well my experience in speed runs is if I use regen before the tanks starts pulling the mobs stop catching the tank and start attack me. I'm starting to use Noct for trash mobs now since I'm used to SCH and i'll let you know how it goes.