SCH vs AST?

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Originally Posted by Krixus

Mitigation is the name of the game for sch, you will never outheal a whm or astro. And you can't count shields into HPS because things like succor are often not used because the player didnt take dmg. Obviously this doesnt reflect anything bad about sch's, I just thought it was hilarious he said he outheals whms.

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A bit off topic, but last week I was running floor 4 on SCH with a random WHM partner. We were struggling with keeping the party alive and wiped over and over and I was wondering out loud what the hell was going on (I had only cleared the fight once before while the WHM claimed to have beaten it tons of times). After we decided to vote abandon someone told me I had been doing 1,5 times the HPS the WHM had. Queued again and one-shot it with another SCH.

There are all kinds of healers out there for all the healer jobs.

I can sustain just over 2k hps for about 8 minutes, and then I'm generally out. Thats overkill for most fight, by far. So, I usually share the healing, and spend a fair bit of time dpsing. I do know that a whm can spam cure3 on a group and do over 3k hps, but they cannot sustain it. I'm not saying I beat every white mage, just most.

Galvanize isn't that hard to be efficient with, just use it before damage is taken. One of the "secrets" of dpsing as a healer, is understanding that you don't need a party with full health bars, they just need enough health to survive the next unavoidable mechanic. I'm happy to let Eos get to people in time, or I might help her out if I have a spare GCD, and all my dots are up.

The real factor to consider, when looking at hps, is over-heal percentage. I tend to run 30-40%, I'd be lower, but that Eos is overkill, and wastes a lot, but she can't help it (I'm usually 15-20% with Selene, but I don't get nearly as much dps time that way, and I end up more dependent on a healing partner than I'd like to be). Most white mages are 40-50%, given the nature of regen, that's understandable. Once in a while, I see an extremely efficient white mage, that can dps while giving me a run for my money on healing. Those are few and far between, but they are certainly out there.

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Originally Posted by Tashim

IOne of the "secrets" of dpsing as a healer, is understanding that you don't need a party with full health bars, they just need enough health to survive the next unavoidable mechanic.

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While I very much agree (and it always bugs me when I don't see the other healer's DoTs on a raid boss, ever.), this strategy isn't so great in pick-up groups, because you can't make the assumption they'll move out of the orange.

Why's the only sane reply in this topic being ignored?

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Originally Posted by Tranquil

Why are you guys even talking about HPS as if it meant something? It's not some competition where you maximize your numerical throughput in the same way you minmax DPS. I would be more interested in the overhealing % and the added extra contribution in terms of off-DPS. Look, I have all this HPS! Wohoo.

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Originally Posted by Kietsu

While I very much agree (and it always bugs me when I don't see the other healer's DoTs on a raid boss, ever.), this strategy isn't so great in pick-up groups, because you can't make the assumption they'll move out of the orange.

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This pretty much sums up the entire reason why I never dps in PUGs. I know there will be morons who stand in orange and I'm gonna need my mana to save their ass. Now when I go in with friends that I know are good, I dps quite a bit.. But if the dps suck so bad that they can't clear the dps check, then you already know you're going to be burning way more mana than you should have to just to keep them alive, because they clearly lack skill and will not get out of things in time.

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Originally Posted by Lyrica_Ashtine

Why's the only sane reply in this topic being ignored?

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Because people like to see big numbers. It's like when people complain about AST's randomness and then they say SCH should totally aim for crits. I've been liking Tranquil's replies a lot since I've joined the forum.

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Originally Posted by Tashim

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I'll contend to your point about eye for and eye and to an extent fey illumination.

Your are exaggerating a bit though:
Note that you may want to reread the description of fey convalescence. Increasing magic defense by 20% is very different than 20% magic resistance.
Using SS twice a min limits the use of the other skills you've listed that require stacks.
Disable is comparable to virus in emergencies.
Dissipation kills ur faerie

I'll also go as far to say the cards could use a buff. It might take ten minutes to get what you want, and the effect is nice... But not worth 10min wait IMO.

But at what point do you say the healing is subpar? For example, I think most will probably agree that:
Lustrate > tetra > benediction
Lustrate is the lowest heal, but its value is mostly just because it's instant and accessible. Lustrate isn't necessarily about topping off, it more about ensuring you have enough HP.

You can also pump out 2-3 Lustrates back-to-back in critical situations, or use it on multiple targets. It's more granular than Tetra, but costlier (since that's potentially all of your Aetherflow stacks gone, which can really string when you need Indom).

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Originally Posted by Adrasteia

You can also pump out 2-3 Lustrates back-to-back in critical situations, or use it on multiple targets. It's more granular than Tetra, but costlier (since that's potentially all of your Aetherflow stacks gone, which can really string when you need Indom).

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+1 Pretty much exactly where I'm going with this. Lustrate's strengh is instant cast + availability, with less emphasis on potency.

Considering that in nocturnal sec, AB is instant and accessible every gcd. AST has also has access to ED and instant benefic II. Meanwhile, Helios is always accessible compared to SCH indomitably which requires stacks. Is AST bad when SCH is considered good?

If your defence is really just HPS you are at a lost. If you want to talk about HPS talk too about how much of that HPS is on overhealing. IF is more than 50% you are doing something wrong on my eyes.

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Originally Posted by Myrhn

If your defence is really just HPS you are at a lost. If you want to talk about HPS talk too about how much of that HPS is on overhealing. IF is more than 50% you are doing something wrong on my eyes.

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I don't think HPS matters as much as people make it seem; however, the ability to increase your actual throughput on demand or respond to spike damage is far more important, which is something AST terribly lacks. They give up too much for their mediocre card buffs. Meanwhile, WHM and SCH have emergency heals in spades.

I'm interested in seeing how Lightspeed gets adjusted, as that could easily give AST some of the most versatile burst healing capacity.

SCH main with a lv 55 AST and 50 WHM currently.

I really miss having e4e and more than one emergency heal for snap decisions you need to make. The instant cast heal is quite underwhelming, and you never know when you'll get the card buff you need. It would be nice to have a healing potency cooldown like WHM and SCH do, and to do away with Lightspeed for healing altogether.

The tools that a WHM and SCH gets are versatile, presence of mind, can be used in many different ways, as can Aetherflow Stacks. I feel that SCH is the most versatile healer, and probably still has the best single-target burst healing potential, as long as their aetherflow holds out, but WHM has the highest group healing throughput potential, abit inefficiently (although their single-target burst is still quite good too)

The problem, is that AST has the lowest burst healing potential in any situation. AST burst healing consists of:
1. Essential Dignity
2. pray for an arrow card, to give to yourself
3. use the bole card you drew instead, and hope its enough

Level 60 AST/SCH here.

AST can heal fine in any content before raids, so long as the group is competent and doesn't get hit by too much avoidable damage. If the group is taking more damage then they should be, AST goes OOM VERY quickly and lacks the emergency buttons to save multiple party members if a situation turns sour.

In exchange for this inherent weakness, AST has random card buffs which generally do very little to help the party overall. Even the hallowed expanded RR + Balance combo is only 5% more damage for 15 seconds, and that's garbage, considering the difficulty and randomness of setting it up in the first place.

I think they should just improve the AST's emergency options, because a hybrid healer just isn't going to work in a game with a duty finder where the healer is going to have to heal people who make mistakes a lot or wind up getting kicked (as some ASTs have already complained about).

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Originally Posted by RichardButte

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YES!!! YEEEESS you just said everything i feel. THANK YOU!