According to FFLogs, AST pDPS >= WHM pDPS in 4.3

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Originally Posted by Mutemutt

To be honest, I think it's more likely that if they buff whm damage it would actually just make sch/whm more prominent than it already is, if anything. I think both ast and whm are solid healers, but sch just stands way above them, and that's the problem. The failing of the AST/WHM pairing isn't that whm is weak -- whm sees plenty of play in raiding in the SCH/WHM pair-- it's that sch is way above noct ast.

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I agree, the problem is I dont believe SCH will ever be nerfed and will remain above them. We are talking about a class that had the top healing spot from 2.2-4.3 (With a short exception in 4.0 that was quickly fixed). What we can realistically hope for is more buffs in similiar fashion to what AST got in 4.3

SCH is powerful, yes, but the problem with Noct AST compared to them is solvable. All you need to do is give AST an ET-style cooldown that temporarily swaps their stance for the next aspected spell, and the AST/WHM combo becomes a lot better as AST gains what it needs to compete with SCH, namely access to shields and regens at the same time, as the fairy is essentially that for free and Eos' cooldowns in particular are amazing. Of course AST has ways to compete with that, but they're already overtuned as is, and I'd rather see the Malefic line nerfed by 30 or so potency to bring them in line first before even considering a stance swap spell.



WHM on the other hand desperately needs more utility and self-synergy. Lilies are a joke, still. Even with reliable Cure I/II procs, they don't do anything noteworthy, even in casual content. PI is barely usable after being changed to an AoE proc, and it's literally overkill except in O4/8S and Ultimate progression as a buffer. Just compare the level 68 SCH and AST traits to Secret of the Lily II now that Lightspeed can be used to its full potential on CD without any DPS loss. It takes dedicated Cure I/II spam to get anything out of that trash trait. AST gets 90s Lightspeed and SCH gets 45s Aetherflow, and while they get less value out of it compared to Secret of the Lily I, they get it reliably. Hell even Freecure isn't as useful as it once was compared to the crit proc on Benefic II.

But if you really want to improve WHM? Change the level 68 trait to give them Lily procs after casting Stone spells or Holy, and change the buffs that Lilies give to be comparable, that actually fit with the spell. Stuff like this:
- Take 10s off Tetra per Lily when used.
- Add 50 more potency on Assize's damage/healing per Lily.
- Increase Asylum's duration by 3s per stack. No longer consumes Lilies.
- 100 base potency on Fluid Aura, plus 100 per stack. Shares cooldown with PI/Fluid Aura. Range increased to 25y and no longer has a knockback. 30s cooldown.
- Benison costs 1 stack again. 5% additional Shield on 2 stacks, AoE at 3rd Rank. Shares cooldown with PI/Fluid Aura.
- PI now costs 1 stack and isn't generated by AoE heals. Increase its duration to 15s. 100 potency per stack. Consumes all stacks to heal any player it affects when they take damage, or at the end of its duration. Shares cooldown with Benison/Fluid Aura.

The shared cooldown seemed like a way better way to balance all of those effects.

Regardless of anything above, there is one harmless thing you can do to help WHM without affecting anything. Give Thin Air 100% aggro reduction. They still don't have additional emnity control after all this time, even though every other healing class does. And it shows.

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Originally Posted by Grimoire-M

Regardless of anything above, there is one harmless thing you can do to help WHM without affecting anything. Give Thin Air 100% aggro reduction. They still don't have additional emnity control after all this time, even though every other healing class does. And it shows.

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This can be a problem while I'm soloing. I depend on Thin Air to have MP enough to keep healing myself AND continue spamming holy (while Assize is on cooldown).

If the aggro drops to 0, the mobs will get off me and their HP will reset. Thus I will have to make one choice: have MP to cast more holies, but start the encounter again or try to finish the encounter, but risk dying due to lack of MP to heal myself, let aside cast more holies to finish them.

I'd prefer 80% or 90% reduction.

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Originally Posted by miraidensetsu

This can be a problem while I'm soloing. I depend on Thin Air to have MP enough to keep healing myself AND continue spamming holy (while Assize is on cooldown).

If the aggro drops to 0, the mobs will get off me and their HP will reset. Thus I will have to make one choice: have MP to cast more holies, but start the encounter again or try to finish the encounter, but risk dying due to lack of MP to heal myself, let aside cast more holies to finish them.

I'd prefer 80% or 90% reduction.

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I believe the poster you are replying to implied that the skills you use while under the buff of Thin Air do not generate any enmity - not reduce the whm's enmity to 0.

Correct me if I'm wrong though~

Double post because I figure the wall of text I'm putting below should be it's own post for reference.

We've hit the two week mark and Ultima's Refrain has hit the table. I figure I'll go do a high level analysis of the log data and put some thoughts down.

4.3 90th Percentile Metric for all of Sigmascape - at time of this posting:

• SCH leads DPS at 2,701.43 w/ 24,872 logs recorded
• AST is second DPS at 2,614.21 w/ 16,982 logs recorded
• WHM is last DPS at 2,542.47 w/ 23,205 logs recorded

High level notes

• The total DPS spread from lowest to highest is approximately 160 DPS (WHM DPS is ~6% lower than SCHs). I will reiterate that the logs doesn't show neither pDPS nor rDPS but a total DPS accumulated from the jobs pDPS and any rDPS bonuses they get from other jobs (Balance, Chain Stratagem, Spear, Arrow, etc.). By the nature of 2-healer compositions, WHM will only ever get 0-1 rDPS buffs from the healing composition (Chain Stratagem or Cards or nothing at all if 2xWHM) whereas SCH or AST can get 1-2 rDPS buffs from the healing composition (Chain Strat and/or Cards). This will skew WHMs DPS to be slightly lower as they'll always be at a composition disadvantage. How large of a difference that will make though is difficult to say.
• Assuming optimal play, each card action is a 3 GCD clips (Draw, Redraw, Minor Arcana / Royal Road / Spread), Earthly Star is 2 GCD clips, and Essential is 1 GCD clip a minute, and 1 GCD clip to apply cards, AST would lose a total of 10s per minute (not included Sleeve Draw) to clips. They can regain 4s of that due to reapplication of combust meaning a total loss of 6s (about 3GCDs). The faster cast time then means that AST gains 3 GCD. In a game where the total GCDs per minute is 24 and optimal play conditions would mean the AST would get to use 21 GCDs per minute, this is a 14% gain. GCDs gain =/= complete DPS increase but for the sake of easy math, we'll make that assumption. At 2,200 DPS, AST gaining 14% would put them 2,508 DPS. The difference between this 2,508 DPS and the 2,614DPS recorded above is probably the gain the AST gets from using Lightspeed during movement heavy mechanics to maintain DPS.
• WHM maintains a higher DPS average at the 70th percentile. AST begins to overtake WHM at the 75th percentile. This coincides with the fact that WHM has a higher skill floor but lower skill ceiling compared to AST.
• AST participation are still the lowest of the three, though no where near as bad as it was pre 4.3. If the intent of these changes is to have more people play AST, they are succeeding.
• AST currently trumps WHM on all fights in Sigmascape when you look at each individual boss, though the difference can be pretty small. For example, at the time of this posting the DPS difference between WHM and AST on Kefka at the 90th percentile is literally less than 1DPS (2,640.49 DPS AST versus 2,639.81DPS WHM). Guardian has a 20DPS spread.

Thoughts and Solutions

• The easiest thing S-E can do is give WHM a potency increase on their primary spells. In theory they should be out doing SCH in DPS and have the highest pDPS of all three. This DPS hierarchy is reflected for DPS at the 90th percentile with BLM and SAM both leading at the 90th percentile. WHM should follow suit. I was thinking a 20-30 potency boost to Stone IV and/or increasing the initial DoT damage of Aero II to 75-100. The thought on the latter is to reduce the punishment for clipping your instant DoT so WHM can gain more GCDs via other means.
• It's time to rework the Lily system. I've mentioned in previous posts that I felt S-E hasn't touched the Lily system because of the balance the current healers are at. Now that the balance has been shifted again, it's probably time to review both how they're generated and the bonuses they give. The amount of thought I've put into this particular aspect of the WHM kit is far too much to paraphrase but this would be the way to go as it both would assist in WHMs identity and strengthen their kit at the same time if the lily rework is implemented correctly.

And that's my wall of text for your review and thoughts~ Happy reading and responding~

idk why they touch AST tbh ik there clipping ect but healers where somewhat balance compare dps/tanks.

SE should stop to have favoritism on certain jobs accept concept of the classes & purpose even if it the job not strong certain domains still excel on other stuff.

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Originally Posted by Grimoire-M

But if you really want to improve WHM? Change the level 68 trait to give them Lily procs after casting Stone spells or Holy.
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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

[*]It's time to rework the Lily system.
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You both bring very valuable points! Fixing the lilies and perhaps boosting 1-2 WHM dmg abilities would be enough. I think everyone playing FF can agree that the Lily system is probably the poorest excuse of "interesting/engaging mechanic" ever implemented in an mmo. It makes WHM even more blank and boring than it already was and RNG mechanics doesnt fit the WHM to begin with only makes them even more ressemblant to AST. We are nearing 4.4 and the end content for stormblood, would be nice to get a lily rework before it follows us all the way to the next expansion and they start implement it in new skills yet again that will only futher mess up the WHM all together.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

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Your analysis completely ignores the fact that AST at 90% brings at least a good 500 rdps -extra- to the table. While whm brings nothing extra in terms of dps.

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Originally Posted by EaMett

Your analysis completely ignores the fact that AST at 90% brings at least a good 500 rdps -extra- to the table. While whm brings nothing extra in terms of dps.

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I wasn't including an rDPS contribution in my analysis because it wasn't the intent of my analysis. FFLogs doesn't analyze rDPS so it'd be difficult to include that using data supplied only by FFLogs. With that being said, WHM should be top of the list when you include the benefit of other utilities and that should be adjusted. I'm also of opinion total rDPS contribution should belong to those that give the rDPS buffs because they generally need to synergize and coordinate with others to gain the most contribution.

With the above being said, can you supply some evidence that a 90th percentile AST brings 500 DPS? Given the nature of both RNG and composition, I would find it's difficult to determine the rDPS a AST should be contributing at that percentile and I would like to see either your or anyone other's theorycraft on how that value came about.

In an attempt to find numbers myself, I took the 90th AST percentile DPS on God Kefka and looked up logs in that range on the rDPS calculator and came up with the following:

90th Percentile God Kefka (as of this posting) = 2,269.49
Source #1 | DPS = 2,251.7 | rDPS = 881.9 (!!)
Source #2 | DPS = 2,285.3 | rDPS = 441.4
Source #3 | DPS = 2,286.6 | rDPS = 82.4 (!!)
Source #4 | DPS = 2,281.5 | rDPS = 312.0
Source #5 | DPS = 2,275.2 | rDPS = 274.8
Source #6 | DPS = 2,268.6 | rDPS = 420.8

I'm more inclined to believe, using the numbers above, a 90th percentile AST contributes around 350-375 rDPS for their raid. Of course it's also important to note that the rDPS calculator can't account for Crit so the Spear bonus isn't accurate in the slightest either.

Correct me if I'm wrong in my assessment as I am curious to see how others came up with the AST rDPS values.

I did the same as you except I curated the list further to only include groups with a closer percentile to that of the healer (stayed within a 20% range so nobody bellow 70%.. no point looking at card value if all your dps are subpar). I was also looking at other info so I limited it even further to healers who shared the healing (as opposed to one healer just dpsing). This guarantied a more balanced set of skills over someone who parses high because he has more uptime (instead of good gameplay/card management).
I also did so over all the savage fights, not just god kefka.

It is worth mentioning that this was before 4.3 hit.

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Originally Posted by EaMett

I did the same as you except I curated the list further to only include groups with a closer percentile to that of the healer (stayed within a 20% range so nobody bellow 70%.. no point looking at card value if all your dps are subpar). I was also looking at other info so I limited it even further to healers who shared the healing (as opposed to one healer just dpsing). This guarantied a more balanced set of skills over someone who parses high because he has more uptime (instead of good gameplay/card management).
I also did so over all the savage fights, not just god kefka.


It is worth mentioning that this was before 4.3 hit.

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That makes sense. I can respect that level of searching as AST (and by extension, SCH) rDPS contribution is solely dependent on the skill level of the group as a whole. A 90th percentile AST may not have a 90th percentile group to take advantage of their buffs and skew results improperly.

I do think it's important to note that not all groups are made equal. Factors include skill, compositions, and even moods and attitudes at the day that particular log was made can greatly affect performance. Mechanic selection in the fight themselves can affect a person's performance as well. As such trying to curate towards a group of equal skill may also misinterpret the data in a real world application.

Unfortunately, I feel the only true way to determine the correct rDPS contribution is hundreds upon hundreds of simulation with the data collected and analyzed. I don't think that's a realistic approach for any of us though.

Well fortunately when it comes to raw class balance, you only need to look at the players that use their class at full potential (99%) to see where balancing issues lay. And WHM is seriously lagging behind at that level.

Whether or not it makes political sense to actually balance the classes as opposed to balancing the player base is another issue entirely.. And most likely the reason why SE went ahead and broke the semblance of healer balance we had.

Its funny to see how it went from being pretty mixed depending on what boss in 4.2 between the 3 healers as you can see here:
https://www.fflogs.com/rankings/21#m...ddps&bracket=3

To this domination of SCH and AST in 4.3: (All though the overall dps of healers are similiar or even lower then WHM at some parts, the duration of the fight is MUCH shorter in AST/SCH combo though, which is probably also cause they have better gear at this point aswell as the contribution AST brings to the raid dps overall)
https://www.fflogs.com/rankings/21#m...ddps&bracket=4

So, how do we stop the sky from falling? My guess is this:

Fluid Aura: Deals Damage with a potency Of 150.
30s CD

SotL renamed to Power of the Elementals.

Water: Gains stacks up to 3 for every Cure/Cure II/Cure III cast. Stacks are used when a Healing oGCD is used.

1 Stack: 5% Healing Increase.
2 Stacks: 10% Healing Increase.
3 Stacks: 15% Healing Increase.

Fluid Aura can consume all stacks as well to increase potency by 50 per Stack.

Wind: Gains Stacks up to 3 on a critical Aero II tick. Increases Spell Speed for every Stack.

Aero III’s DoT potency increases by 20 for each Stack, and consumes all when cast.

1 Stack: +3% Spell Speed
2 Stacks: +4% Spell Speed
3 Stacks: +5% Spell Speed

Earth: Stacks up to 3. Has a 50% chance to proc a Stack on cast of Stone IV. Divine Benison when used uses 1 Stack, and Asylum when used has its potency increased by 10 per Stack and consumes all Stacks when used.

+2% potency per Stack.

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

So, how do we stop the sky from falling? My guess is this:

Fluid Aura: Deals Damage with a potency Of 150.
30s CD

SotL renamed to Power of the Elementals.

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Why didnt SE think of something like this? Seriously now when I think about it elementals have 100000 times more things to do with conjuring/white magic then the current gardening gauge we got. Water, Earth, Wind similiar to how black mages fire/thunder and ice gauge look would be way more fitting.
Its so simple, but nooo :p lets have lilies.

Also something thats interesting to look at is the overall active player classes played in 2018 where all classes are almost played exactly the same amount (not in raids just in general) except SCH. Which leads me to believe why SE is trying to keep them on top to avoid seing the class go even lower in activity. Although thats not justified to keep it in meta constantly.

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Originally Posted by _Winters_

Also something thats interesting to look at is the overall active player classes played in 2018 where all classes are almost played exactly the same amount (not in raids just in general) except SCH. Which leads me to believe why SE is trying to keep them on top to avoid seing the class go even lower in activity. Although thats not justified to keep it in meta constantly.

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They did nerf SCH at the start of Stormblood, but they had to quickly buff it as it was hated.

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Originally Posted by jameseoakes

They did nerf SCH at the start of Stormblood, but they had to quickly buff it as it was hated.

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People hated it because of some QoL issues. If anything reception in regards to trickling down from High End Hardcores causes panic for some people and overall disrest in the community and brings on this thought that you have to be their jobs just because they shape the meta.

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

People hated it because of some QoL issues. If anything reception in regards to trickling down from High End Hardcores causes panic for some people and overall disrest in the community and brings on this thought that you have to be their jobs just because they shape the meta.

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I don't remember anyone being happy with the changes given it mostly just sucked the fun out of the class

It was a nerf on near everything. Fairy embrace was made weaker and fey illumination went from 20>10 percent so overall strength of fairy was cut down. Their dps, both st and aoe, were cut with the loss of 2 dots(aero and bio) abd bane suffering from a huge diminishing returns(20 percent instead of 10 and in hw it was full potency on the first 3 targets from the origin down to 50 on the fourth and beyond) and their mp efficiency also took a dive( aetherflow mp restore 20>10 percent) and aldo and succor mp cost went up.

Since then, it has changed. The lost of the fairy has been offset by their ogcds (indom and excog being stronger) the lvl 68 trait helping mp, in 4.1 mp cost on succor and aldo being reduced along with the buff to succor, miasma 2 being added as aoe, and fairy qol changes that make it easier and its neck and shoulders above its opposite in the noct astro.

But anyways, SE does to look into and see what they can. Their track record of success, however, is a completely different. This may get momentum back for the astro but at the cost of whm. Hopefully( staying very pessimistic) they can do a few things for the Whm, mainly that worthless 68 trait and buffs to their dps.