Astro or White Mage ?

Thank You for Your all posts ! This gave me much to think about. But I have one more question. Gameplay. What are the diffreneces between gameplay of White Mag and Astro ? Of course I watched some gameplays on Youtube but I would prefer to hear some opinions from You. Which of them play faster, are more demanding or give more satisfaction ?

I heard that White mage is more demanding if we are talking about skill of the player who plays it, but is this true ?

I would not agree that WHM takes more skill. WHM is the more straight forward powerhouse healer, while AST has less powerhouse cool downs and the card buffs to manage effectively.

If you want to do Savage progression, WHM/AST will both be filling the main healer slot because they can't compete with SCH DPS. WHM has better tools to fill this role than AST, offering more safety in exchange for less utility.

If you have no plans to do Savage, then choose whatever.

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Originally Posted by NamoNanamo

Give more detail, more in-depth. Please.
Why do you chose 6min duration, why Freecure gives the win to WHM ? etc etc etc

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Six minute duration was chosen because it's pretty much the point where all cooldowns will come off cooldown together if you're using them with impunity. The goal of my model was to measure maximum potency in a given scenario. The only exception to the six minute rule was Benediction because of the fact it's a five minute cooldown. If I tried to get that in line, I'll be looking at a thirty minute model instead. Not that it would be too difficult to model, but t was something I didn't quite want to try at the time.

Anyway, when I made my model, I based it on the following:

• GCDs = 2.5s
• Cooldowns are instant (have no animation delay)
• Compensated for additional GCDs based on Diurnal Sect and PoM
• Benediction was an approximation based on a tank of equal ilvl in hybrid 3 STR / 2 VIT accessories as Benediction's potency will always be different based on the gear of the tank and when it was used
• Essential Dignity is a heal based on a tank being healed at approximately 50% HP as it's been shown to be a linear boost proportional to HP lost

For the "no-holds barred infinite MP model" looking for absolute maximum, you can find my analysis in this Google doc.

Pretty much the idea was Cure II / Benefic II as hard as possible and pop all cooldowns as they go. Refresh Regen / Aspected Benefic / Medica II as required as they have a higher potency / GCD versus Cure II / Benefic II (even when you account for Synastry w/ Aspected Benefic).

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For a more "normal healing pratice scenario but with infinite MP", you can find my model on this Google doc.

In this scenario, I was trying to be a bit more moderate and think about how a normal player would heal more. The changes included not using Medica II with the WHM and only using Cure II when Freecure was up (you can approximate how many Cure II's you'll have based on the amount of Cures you'll cast). Even if Cure II heals for the same amount as Cure, you might as well use it for the 0 MP. This also means the AST won't be using Benefic II as part of their normal healing as it's inefficient in the same scenario.

If you remove Freecure from the equation, AST wins over WHM because they'll get to heal more often and their single target heals burst for better thanks to Synastry and Essential Dignity.

Also, my math in my previous post was wrong as I gave WHM too many GCDs in my model when I look at the normalized stat. So WHM + Freecure is about 2% better than AST under constant but normal healing practice.

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Originally Posted by Zernat

Thank You for Your all posts ! This gave me much to think about. But I have one more question. Gameplay. What are the diffreneces between gameplay of White Mag and Astro ? Of course I watched some gameplays on Youtube but I would prefer to hear some opinions from You. Which of them play faster, are more demanding or give more satisfaction ?

I heard that White mage is more demanding if we are talking about skill of the player who plays it, but is this true ?

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If I were to describe it, I'd say WHM requires more thought and AST requires more knowledge.

WHM requires more thought because you're generally limited to one heal per GCD. Your one burst heal (Tetragrammaton) is on one minute cooldown versus AST's burst heal (Essential Dignity) of 40s cooldown. It's a small but subtle change. Though limited in use, AST also has Enhanced Benefic II which makes it instant cast. Though you can't rely on it, it does give AST more movement options than WHM (especially when you account for Lightspeed as well).

Being able to play a WHM well requires you to plan out your next few moves in advance and be aware of incoming mechanics so you can position yourself properly or re-position yourself quickly to resume healing.

The reason I say AST requires more knowledge as the card buffs can be better or worse depending on who you're giving it to. Having rudimentary knowledge of how each class/job in the game functions allows you to decide which of them gets which card. For example, Arrow is a Attack Speed card and the more Attack Speed a class has, the faster they go. Therefore Arrow works better on classes that have innate haste buffs like Ninja and Monk to give them increasingly faster attacks.

i would go with a scholar actually more than ast or whm for the beginner, u have a pet that heals and u won't have much mana issues, like at all, do check scholar out as well if u didn't

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Originally Posted by Zernat

Thank You for Your all posts ! This gave me much to think about. But I have one more question. Gameplay. What are the diffreneces between gameplay of White Mag and Astro ? Of course I watched some gameplays on Youtube but I would prefer to hear some opinions from You. Which of them play faster, are more demanding or give more satisfaction ?

I heard that White mage is more demanding if we are talking about skill of the player who plays it, but is this true ?

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Technically both require knowledge of the fight and party and the actual stress is similar enough at endgame. The biggest difference is mostly in how comfortable or happy you get with letting the tank's HP plummet/rise.

WHM
WHM are great at sustained healing and throwing out bigger heals to deal with bursts of damage. Many of the abilities have the same cast times so the playstyle ends up being very reliable and has a certain rhythm to it. You will learn the enemy's damage rotations and when damage comes out more than any other healer class.

AST
AST has you see-sawing with your tank's HP more because you have better burst healing and more things you can do between casts. It is considered more demanding since your tank's hp will often drop closer to death than WHM or SCH, but it can also be satisfying if you like seeing your tank hp jump from 10% to 90% within 6 seconds. Also, employing the right buff at the perfect time can be exciting.

SCH
SCH actually sees the least HP drops in tanks (because of buffer HP and fairy), so it is probably the least stressful of the healers. Endgame play does ask SCH to dps so the stress and difficulty comes from juggling those 2 roles. So you end up with players that either have very little fluctuation in the tanks HP (low dps SCH) or healers who let the tank drop very low (heavy dps SCH).

As an aside, Arrow's aspd buff also helps Black mages a lot to juggle enochian and umbral/astral timers.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

stuff.

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Thanx for replying.

I just check 30 sec and I see a mistake. The first google doc, It's not 806 but 845 potency for cure 2 with DS. I'll edit later

You uses 36 spell with ds.
24 cure II
12 regen

Each Ds is 15 sec

15/2.5=6 cd available (more if Pom)
So 36 spell, you uses 6th times DS.
SO each DS, you use 4 cure II and 2 regen.
So I assume you use Regen, Cure II*4, Regen.
So, you lost 3.33 tick eacth times.*6 DS=20 ticks

So one full Regen Ds is like 1365 but a regen that lost 3.xx tick is +- 780potency and it's less than a cure II. So If I'm correct Regen DS+ 5 Cure II DS is better. I didn't check yet for Astro.

So if you keep regen, 6 full regen ds= 42 tick and 6 regen with only 4tick=24=> 42+24=66 tics.
and 66*195=12870
But I would imagine that the last regen will have less ticks and so, can be replace by Cure if we finish at 6.00 min


I don't know why astr got 151 gcd versus 150 for whm ?
So if I wanted to do max heal. I would use Pom and Divine seal in the same time. And Even MedicaII wich is (200+(500 hot))=700 potency So with unlimited Mana, I would use that everytime WITH Swiftcast.

And I don't like how you count the cd. You said we got 2 benediction. SO I Start to 0=>5 min. So you can use it 2 times in 5 min. The same for Divine seal, you can use it six times before we reach the 6th min.
But for tetra/asylum/assize/ED/CU, you don't start at 0. So I would say you can use 7 tetra in 6 minutes.
0.00 min=>1st tetra
1.00 min=>2nd tetra
6.00 min=>7th tetra So the seventh tetra end when the time limits ends.

So In the end, I would do

I'm checking more but it takes times



Here, what I would change. In this change, I take the fact That POm is performing when DS is active. 2.5 gcd is becoming 2.0 when Pom is active.
I would do 144 gcd + 6 gcd from Pom( 4 cureII with ds)
=>92 CureII and 40 Cure II with DS = ((92*650=59800)+(40*845= 33800))= 93 600 potency
=>12 regen and 6 Regen DS= ((12*150*7=12600)+(6*195*7=8190))= 20790 potency

It's 114 390 against 110 820

And if I take your Ogcd=> 114 390 + 11200= 125 590. +- the same As Astro but I will put more potency for Benediction and less to ED. Hoping that you will understand.

ps1: I could be wrong, But I hope i've made no mistake

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Originally Posted by NamoNanamo

Thanx for replying.

I just check 30 sec and I see a mistake. The first google doc, It's not 806 but 845 potency for cure 2 with DS. I'll edit later

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Fixed~ Thank ya, I was apparently doing floor(620*1.3) instead of 650, hence the error. It's rare to get people to fact check me since many players see my massive wall of text and instantly go "NEWP". Let me know if you see anymore errors, I look forward to seeing what else you see in there as it's rare to generate interest in discussion like these.

Just to add, I know the model isn't 100% replication of how the game plays, but I'd like to think it's decently accurate when you consider the constraints of simulating the actual game.

Here my short answer.

-I don't have any sheets like your so It's really digusting to read my math.
-Pom while DS to gain a huge Boost.
-I don't rewrite my Regen while it has DS, I prefer to use cureII
-Too lazy to check Your astro math.

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Originally Posted by NamoNanamo

Here my short answer.

-I don't have any sheets like your so It's really digusting to read my math.
-Pom while DS to gain a huge Boost.
-I don't rewrite my Regen while it has DS, I prefer to use cureII
-Too lazy to check Your astro math.

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Thanks for the thoughts. I will review tomorrow when I get off work and make sure my numbers are crunched properly and can re-update the spreadsheets then.