I will be fine nobody stacks for Cure 3 anyway, Aspected Helios is like what 40 potency less then med 2. As for the Mp will probably be a wipe if it I need to raise a bunch anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghishlain
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05-19-2018, 01:46 AMJxnibbles
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05-19-2018, 02:48 AMExiled_Tonberry
I mean the AST Changes are good, but I really don't understand where the "time to quit WHM" stuff is coming from.
Nothing has changed other than the people who already played AST can play it slightly better. Lightspeed is incredibly strong now, but that's really it. Their healing or DPS won't be getting significantly stronger. -
05-19-2018, 02:52 AMRisvertasashiYeah I don't think these changes are significant, balance wise. IMO a much bigger threat would be if SE uses more spread mechanics next tier, making WHM's cure 3 much less useful.Quote:
Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry
That being said, it's always going to be a long term concern -- so long as these 2 healers have highly similar kits while Scholar remains uncontested. -
05-19-2018, 03:19 AMCeasaria
It's time for a lesson I guess before WHM continue to critic AST.
Let's talk about the changes in his mana.
In the most case, now, Lightspeed will be use to cast Malefics III every 120 sec.
With Celestial Opposition, it goes to 20 sec, so 8-9 Malefics III which will cost 2400-2700 MP less.
With the end of the clipping, and now the free moving, AST will have more cast, meaning, more mana consumption.
So, 2-3 extra cast by min, meaning 5 cast every 120 sec = 3000 MP.
Do you see an improvement in the mana management here or not ? no there isn't, and now to be able to cast more, Lightspeed will become mandatory.
In fight (as Kefka god) where you have to do a lot of Aoe heal, yes, it will be better, but otherwise this and for rez, mana will be unchanged.
In the end, AST (who play already at high level, doubt it will touch below) will do more dps (~5%) because of the extra cast, and it's well deserved for the most complex job (with sch) in this game. -
05-19-2018, 03:23 AMBahati
As a WHM having so many tools to increase DPS uptime is what those who play it should be focusing on.
It doesn't matter if AST has a buff to lightspeed, we have Thin Air, PoM and Cleric Stance.
In my mind WHM should be played like an off DPS that has a ton of ability to clutch heal between damage. Those who prefer to play WHM as a "pure healer" or are still getting comfortable with the toolkit will find the class lack luster until they actually maximize it's strengths. -
05-19-2018, 03:29 AMCaeliaCat
Well, even with more spread mechanics, Medica 2 out-ranges Aspected Helios, Assize out-ranges Earthly Star, Plenary Indulgance is like 30 yalms (had to look that one up). Definitely don't hang up the canes if you enjoy playing WHM..
That said. I would like to see Presence of Mind brought down to 2 minutes now that Lightspeed is being buffed to the same, and maybe damage could come back to Fluid Aura as something to weave oGCD (even if it means removing the knockback). WHM already has Repose and Holy stun for CC abilities, Fluid Aura is a wasted opportunity. -
05-19-2018, 03:43 AMTridusThis is the missing thing, yeah. WHM has no real answer for weaving, not to mention no real equivalent to Ruin 2 for when there's lots of running.Quote:
Originally Posted by CaeliaCat
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05-19-2018, 03:53 AMSquintinaWell technically Aero does initial damage of 50 potency + 30 potency dot with 6 ticks (unlike sch's bio 2 or ast's combust, which only have the dot effect). The initial damage itself is technically spammable instant damage.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tridus
So a WHM could just spam aero while running and technically be using an instant damage skill.
The fluid aura suggestion for becoming a damage-only ogcd (similar to AST's lords or SCH's Energy drain) does sound nice. -
05-19-2018, 05:39 AMFernosaur
I think the Asp. Helios cast time buff was put in place to make it somewhat more on par with Succor. DiAST won't notice it, but NoctAST will make slightly more use of it.
I do think the new Lightspeed is a little bit too strong, but tbh it's wtv, I play SCH so I have no right to complain about the strength of other jobs :P
How dare they nerf my WD by 20 potency tho
Who are you and what did you do to Tonberry?! D:Quote:
Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry
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05-19-2018, 06:42 AMLadyKairi
How do you think the Lightspeed changes will affect their aoe damage? Think ast is new aoe king? I figured someone here would know the math
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05-19-2018, 06:53 AMCorbinDallasJust because you're instant casting doesn't mean your DPS is gonna increase. Astro still won't hold a candle to WHM when it comes to aoe damage. Aero3/holy/assize is just too good.Quote:
Originally Posted by LadyKairi
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05-19-2018, 06:59 AMLadyKairiI know, but wanted to give someone the math of it, since they’re arguing that Astro will still be better.Quote:
Originally Posted by CorbinDallas
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05-19-2018, 07:20 AMSebazyIt's going to make for some very interesting possibilities on long pulls with a tank that's willing to generate a bit of agro as they go along. It'll also be really nice on a couple of pulls in earlier dungeons such as Ala Mhigo (Dogs+Gorrillas springs straight to mind).Quote:
Originally Posted by LadyKairi
As above, it's still not going to compete with WHM, but at least it won't be quite so drastically far behind with this. -
05-19-2018, 08:23 AMExiled_TonberryI'm not going to complain if there's nothing to complain about, even though I guess that's kind of the reputation I gained unfortunately lol...Quote:
Originally Posted by Fernosaur
I'm just another WHM scared of the powercreep potential of AST and SE' incompetence when it comes to balance.
But back on AST, as far as aoe dps goes, it's definitely going to increase. Simply because of more Gravity casts from less MP being used. I never really cared about dungeon balance though, I'm more curious about how ASTs crazy mobility is going to effect their healing in raids. If they start designing fights that require you to heal while moving thats going to be a problem since WHM only mobile heal is Assize. -
05-19-2018, 09:14 AMGhishlainWell, if that's your prerogative, don't let me stop you then. I'm just of opinion it's quite the narrow view of the situation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jxnibbles
AST with Lightspeed will give 2.5s Gravity recasts that are basically front loaded. When extended to 20s via Celestial Opposition, that's essentially 8 GCDs of Gravity so (1,600 potency X #ofTargets)*(AoE Multiplier). One could make the argument that you'd be able to fit a 9th Gravity into the final second of Lightspeed if the AST had a sufficient spell speed value. So, a total of 1,800 potency within 20s via Gravity.Quote:
Originally Posted by LadyKairi
WHM can open a fight with Swiftcast Aero III followed by Assize. This is 590 Potency worth of burst at the beginning by the time we reach the 20s mark (300 + (50 + 40*6) = 590). Then PoM will reduce Holy's cast to 2.4s for 15 seconds. Since you gain the fast cast speed as long as you're beginning to cast before the buff wears out you'll gain 7 GCDs worth of Holy at this cast speed. This is 1,400 potency of Holy + 590 potency of DoT+Assize for a total of 1,990 potency.
Take into account that the 590 potency of damage is not reduced by hitting multiple targets, but both Holy and Gravity are. This will push WHMs advantage even further as more and more targets are hit by these AoE bursts.
The Lightspeed change is about a 20% DPS increase (3.0s / 2.5s = 1.2 more GCDs) and it closes the gap, but WHM will still win out.
=====
Random tangent, I'm glad Malefic was chosen to be the spell to have the shorten cast time. One could imagine the outcry from everyone if S-E had chosen, say, Benefic for the reduced cast time. I'm hoping this was an intentional design decision on S-E's part and we'll continue to see refinements towards pushing healer DPS subtly (IE, WHM Lilies being generated by DPS spells) -
05-19-2018, 10:55 AMFernosaurIt's not entirely unearned, hahaha, but I hope my joke came off as such. I don't really disagree with you about AST powercreeping, no one wants to go back to late HW...Quote:
Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry
I do think that AST being more mobile to cast on the go is actually a nice way to give it a bit more of fluff identity to the way they reach their healing potential, though, and imo it would be nice to expand even further on that idea of having quicker, albeit maybe weaker spells in the future, just to at least make a further divide into how each healer plays, even if the end result of their abilities is more or less the same. -
05-19-2018, 02:23 PMKatlynaYou forgot about Astro Star too which would be another 150 or 200 potency. So in theory without any cards Astro can now do more AE damage but only 10 potency. So for AE whitemage and Asto are now par with cooldowns. Astro pulls slightly ahead with cards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghishlain
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05-19-2018, 02:34 PMShurrikhanSuch an MP drain would be a hefty loss for the WHM without also attaching Thin Air, at which point you may as well add Earthen Star into the mix as well...Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghishlain
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05-19-2018, 05:23 PMSebazyOne factor you can't really math in is both WHM and SCH's ability to load up a lot of dot damage whilst the pull is still in progress, this typically gives me a ~50%+~25%+~15% split in multipack pulls on Holy/Aero III/Assize respectively with Aero bringing up the rest. I'll have to experiment with it, but I'm fairly confident that the only way I'd be competitive with AST on a large pull is to next level scumbag it up and actually start gravity spam a good couple of GCDs before the tank is planted.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghishlain
Agreed, it's actually a surprisingly good design choice by SE, since it's primarily the DPS hungry players that feel the GCD clipping in the first place.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghishlain
MP isn't a problem in the current dungeons, the pace is just too slow. The only time I consistently run out of MP is on Fractal HM's second pull if the tank gets the Minotaur and Chimera packs but not the second Mino+Chimera, combine that with slowish DPS and I can run myself OOM pretty consistently there. Otherwise no, everything else either has a long enough gap to get plenty of mana back or just dies considerably faster than my MP ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
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05-19-2018, 06:27 PMRubytoeAlso factor in the balance, arrow, spear cards your feeding to your 2 dps members. Possibly Enhanced cards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghishlain
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05-20-2018, 12:41 AMMisteYou would have to take an average to do that properly and/or accept the fact that AST may be better with good cards, but will be worse if they don't...which means AST and WHM fluctuate back and forth for 1st place.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rubytoe
The cards are RNG so you can't be like "every pull you'll have X more damage because of cards."
Dat Sleeve Draw and get double Spire.
It's harder to calculate. -
05-20-2018, 03:00 AMGhishlainYeah, I didn't state it out right but my thought process did indeed include Thin Air for the mix just to help MP sustain for WHM. Admittedly, I've drained MP on my WHM down to triple digits before and was still successfully able to finish healing a super pull pack just on the power of WHMs non-MP reliant healing tools. It shows you the amount of HPS power WHM has at it's disposal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
I will add Earthly Star to the mix since it is something I omitted and has been brought up by multiple posters. I do have to change the scenario a little because Earthly Star and Lightspeed share the same 10s countdown and since Earthly Star itself can be affected by CO, you'll want to either drop it before popping LS or won't be popped until after LS is resolved. The new scenario below adjusts the total time for the burst phase to 22.5s and includes "wind-up" preparation for both.
WHM @ -2s to 0s - Swiftcast + Thin Air
WHM @ 0s to 2.5s - Aero III + Assize + PoM = (50 + 40*7) + 300 = 630 Potency (equal potency afflicting each target)
WHM @ 2.5s to 19.3s - Holy x 7 = 200*7 = 1,400 potency (weaker as more targets are stack)
WHM @ 19.3s to 22.3s - Holy = 200 potency (weaker as more targets stack)
AST @ -2s to 0s - Earthly Star + Swiftcast
AST @ 0s to 2.5s - Gravity + Lightspeed = 200 potency (weaker as more targets stack)
AST @ 2.5s to 12.5 - Gravity x5 = 200*5 = 1,000 potency (weaker as more targets stack)
AST @ 12.5s to 14.9s - CO and pop Giant Dominance - 200 potency (equal potency afflicting each target)
AST @ 15.0s to 22.5s - Gravity x4 = 200*4 = 800 potency (weaker as more targets stack)
WHM totals
-630 potency that is unchanged by number of targets
-1,600 potency that is affected by the number of targets hit
= 630 + 1,600 = 2,230
AST totals
-200 potency that is unchanged by number of targets
-2,000 potency that is affected by the number of targets hit
= 200 + 1,800 = 2,200
WHM wins even with the inclusion of Earthly star. The gap is kinda negligible at a glance but take into account that 630 of WHM's potency is unaffected by multiple targets while only 200 of AST's damage is unaffected by multiple targets.
For perspective:
https://i.imgur.com/FGs2IsB.png
Spreadsheet of the calculations can be found here for error checking.
WHM does 1,240 more potency at 8 targets in this scenario (155 more potency/target).
I've also included the total potency potential if the AST decides to Balance or Enhanced Balance. I also didn't include any damage boost to Earthly Star because I'm not sure if Earthly Star gains the Balance effect (I should go test this later).
AST can card a true DPS but they're kinda at the mercy of how skilled and geared that person is in PuG environment and thus would also be difficult to calculate for. Also I believe both Holy and Gravity are the two highest potency GCD AoEs that are unrestricted by any prerequisites (i.e. Foul needs Polygot) and can be spammed (i.e. DRG will need to alternate Doom Spike and Sonic Thrust for maximum effect) so for absolute purposes, it would probably be best for the AST to Balance themselves for maximum effect when you look at the table above.
AST starts to win in damage with Balance only until the pack is 7 or larger. WHM can't keep up with Enhanced Balance AST at all. Due note that it'll be unlikely that AST will get an Balance or Enhanced Balance on every single pull due to the RNG nature of the cards.
When all tools are played in an AoE burst phase, in terms of reliability, WHM will win. If RNG is on AST's side, AST will win.
This is true, and yes it would be hard to calculate. Any mob that AST can combust, WHM will be able to Aero II with the same DoT tick potency and have an initial potency to go with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sebazy
Also, if AST pops Lightspeed early to be able to move and Gravity together while a pack is being situated, it will hurt their overall DPS later as they start working off a 3.0s GCD instead of 2.5s when Lightspeed expires sooner. -
05-21-2018, 01:17 PMNobleWinter
Are all the Scholars out there considering how to manage their Rouse usage now that it won't affect Whispering Dawn. I have Macros to rework and strategies to rethink. Now Rouse is just to make Embrace stronger which makes Selene more viable-ish which is an interesting way to adjust the fairy balance. They can both use Fey Union but now that difference in healing potential is much less drastic once party buffs are considered. Fey Illumination will also only work on Succor, Adlo and Physick so the buff will actually be something you give to your cohealer instead of reserving for yourself. I think it really makes Scholar more friendly to heal with now that they will consider how their regen healer can get the most benefit from their buff. I like the Scholar changes but now it will mean changing my reflexes to suit the skill set.
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05-21-2018, 01:35 PMKDSilver
It doesn't really make Selene "more viable-ish" since she still doesn't have what Eos has.
Being able to buff WD or not doesn't change that fact and the reason why you choose each fairy.
Your theory only works if your switching your fairy during the fight. In that case => prepull Selen Fey Wind / Eos => WD when needeed and keeping Rouse for a dedicated moment to switch to Selene.
But it's not common to see/do that because it still bit the GCD and mana
However, yes, Rouse will exclusively be used for Embrace now and be used on CD or specific moments when you want stronger embraces. (when not having a long Fey Union window ready) -
05-21-2018, 01:39 PMNobleWinter
I typically use Selene for boss fights in dungeons and Eos for heavy wall to wall pulls. Switching fairies really only happens between fights mostly. I say Selene is more viable because the gap in healing potential between fairies did close slightly. I would still prefer to trade Silent Dusk or Fey Cleanse for a Fey "Medica" but SE seems dedicated to leaving those abilties in place.
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05-25-2018, 05:59 AMFiorinol
TBH, I'm thinking of playing tanks instead of healers. That's how tired I am with healer balance. I play WHM because I hate dealing with card RNG, and because I hate dealing with pets in this game. However, WHM seems to get the shaft at every turn, essentially making AST White Mage 2.0 at higher levels of play.
At least it's not as bad as at the end of HW, where there was simply no reason to bring WHM over an AST for anything. What we got this expansion though was somewhat disappointing, and I'm floored by how full my hotbars are when I switch to AST.
Yea, sure, WHM is viable, but it's getting tiresome to justify why you play it over AST to raid parties; they all want to get balances/arrows/spears because muh fflogs. If you're not willing to play AST, you "hurt" the raid. At this point, there's even less reason to justify it because AST got better yet again.
I also don't understand the WHM job gauge. Both AST and SCH's "gauges" have some sort of interesting gameplay aspect to them. Meanwhile all WHM's gauge accomplishes is give bad players who can't manage their mana a crutch, as you barely ever case Cure or Cure II unless you have no mana, and what lillies will do is lower the cooldown of abilities so you can use them more often. -
05-25-2018, 09:25 PMKabzyAs a SCH main, I would say that at least your gauge has something to it, even if it is underwhelming. Ours is just a stack which could have been an icon with roman numerals like AF is, and ASTs is literally just UI for cards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fiorinol
Also, I think you may be in the minority with the whole expansion thing. 4.0 made WHM a lot more interesting, SCH got completely gutted. I'm not talking about the power of the jobs here, but gameplay wise SCH is still nowhere near as fun as it was in 3.x, where we actually had DoTs, our own mana regen, Virus and most importantly Cleric Stance. I won't comment on AST as I don't play it very often, but gameplay wise I only found WHM to be a lot more enjoyable out of the three in Stormblood. -
05-25-2018, 09:37 PMTridusThe lily gauge is a counter. It's a very aesthetically pleasing counter, but it's a counter. It counts from 0-3. The only difference between it and the Aetherflow gauge is how they look, in that they both count from 0-3. SCH also has the fairy gauge, which is effectively a counter from 0-10 (sure it goes to 100, but everything works in increments of 10).Quote:
Originally Posted by Kabzy
On that end, the gauges aren't different. The difference is that the SCH one matters to how the job plays (managing Aetherflow is required to play the job well), and the WHM one is functionally irrelevant (managing lilies is largely pointless).
Cleric stance aside (because I like that change and it's really another discussion), this happened to everyone. WHM lost a lot of buttons as well, several of which became cross role and some others became basically not worth pressing (Fluid Aura is so niche now it's hard to remember its there). But yes, WHM is really fun. :D There's a button for everything and most of them feel pretty impactful when they land.Quote:
Also, I think you may be in the minority with the whole expansion thing. 4.0 made WHM a lot more interesting, SCH got completely gutted. I'm not talking about the power of the jobs here, but gameplay wise SCH is still nowhere near as fun as it was in 3.x, where we actually had DoTs, our own mana regen, Virus and most importantly Cleric Stance. I won't comment on AST as I don't play it very often, but gameplay wise I only found WHM to be a lot more enjoyable out of the three in Stormblood.
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05-25-2018, 09:48 PMKabzyI'll give you that one, you're right. Though you could also argue that there's not really any thought process going into building up the Faerie gauge, as you'll do it naturally regardless. All three are pretty useless, I guess WHMs is just more so because the end result is also not beneficial.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tridus
Cleric Stance though, it's the one thing I would really like back. Though I know with the direction they seem to be taking, it will never be the case. It's a shame because I completely understand that for jobs like WHM and AST it was probably just a hinderance, but SCH has tools that work with the old CS so well and it gave that much more depth to the job. It really is still a snoozefest compared to how it played in 3.x. :C -
05-25-2018, 10:55 PMTridusYeah the faerie gauge is pretty much just "is this up high enough that it's worth using yet?". It's not especially exciting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kabzy
Cleric Stance was definitely a different thing for SCH. :) For WHM, especially when new to content, it had a habit of being a death sentence for other party members. It was "great everyone's full, I'll pop CS now! ... oh god, oh god click off click off!!"Quote:
Cleric Stance though, it's the one thing I would really like back. Though I know with the direction they seem to be taking, it will never be the case. It's a shame because I completely understand that for jobs like WHM and AST it was probably just a hinderance, but SCH has tools that work with the old CS so well and it gave that much more depth to the job. It really is still a snoozefest compared to how it played in 3.x. :C
It would work better as a job specific skill than a role one, I think. -
05-26-2018, 12:33 AMMutemuttAnd the funny part is that when the ast gauge was first introduced, it was actually detrimental. I believe all the restrictive parts that came with the change have been undone at this point, but that still leaves the gauge being largely redundant.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kabzy
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05-26-2018, 01:33 AMKDSilverNot only SCH actually. Yes, he has "more" tools that works with the old CS, but Ast and Whm too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kabzy
Actually, the funny thing is, with all the new healing skills they gave us, we would have actually been able to have a better uptime of CS.
SCH still has the fairy/Rouse/Whispering Dawn ect... but now got Excog and Fey Union
As for WHM, he could have avoid dropping CS/or stay a bit longer thanks to Devine Benison, Benediction which got its CD reduced and Plenary Indulgence
And for Ast, of course, Earthly Star incredible potency when you can pretty much ignore damages until those explode.
So with our current toolkit, we would have been certainly more efficient with the old Cleric Stance. -
05-29-2018, 04:54 AMEaMettI've been meaning to reply to this. I actually compiled a lot of data but never got to finish it up before the patch hit and then got caught up in it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Miste
Now with the current AST status I feel like collecting more data would be a mute point.
Just to respond to this you really need to compare the rdps for a larger sample size (remember whm rdps is lower than their pdps so you need to subtract some). I only collected data from 99 and 75 percentiles but both had AST ahead. The data I collected was going by best kill times to ensure "group over individual" attitude on those same fights and then I curated the data to make sure party members are all of the same level and one of the healers isn't carrying the heals.
My initial hunch was that the lower you go the more this trend reverses. Since entry level on AST is much harder than on WHM I expect there to be a skill gap in the lower tiers for equivalent results. But as WHM starts capping out in higher tiers, AST still has room to grow.
And since higher tiers are all that really matter when it comes to raw class balance.. yeah. (doesn't mean SE sees it this way, clearly AST buff has been pretty big judging from recent parses) -
05-29-2018, 06:17 PMFiorinolSCH in 4.0 was by far the worst healer balance-wise.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kabzy
As for the SCH gauge, it's pretty much a stack, but it does something gameplay-wise. Lillies are used for nothing and you never ever look at them; they feel like a mechanic designed solely for PvP where managing your lillies is essential.
+50 percentile is where I tend to play, although my deltascape parses don't speak well for that; we had a healer that barely dpsed or communicated for a few weeks. I didn't bother with sigma because I couldn't find a group that I liked.Quote:
Originally Posted by EaMett
But this is also where balance gets concerning; I don't like RNG, the cards cause petty infighting I don't want to deal with (Gimme all the cards cuz muh fflogs), the class has other things I don't like, notably Earthly Star doesn't feel good to me, because of the weird delay on cast/detonation. And I don't like pet management.
I don't want AST to be WHM 2.0 again.