Pros and Cons of each Healer Role

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

I've re-read your original comments on the matter just now just to be sure I wasn't missing anything now that I've cleared my head after a night of rest and now I can kinda see what you're trying to say with Lightspeed on the original comment >>;

It'd probably be better in the future if you said "Spell Speed enables more casts which allows you to fit more spells into Lightspeed's duration" which is absolutely correct (assuming that's how you wanted your original point to come across, I honestly don't know anymore with the way you try to explain yourself)

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Well tbh im NOT very good at explaining things but u hit the mark what im trying to say... Sorry that im very very poor at explaining but its forums people flame before asking if the person is explaining properly and topivs just heat up

/air hugs

Im use to getting bashed at for poor explination so im use to it

So much pointed debate! You all leave me no choice! (Begins casting...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HVWitAW-Qg

Kum-ba-yah mofos!

Oh, and I <3 Ghishlain. That is all.

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Originally Posted by Yhisa

Yay an ast that knows the 3 card trick /happy and well if u pull spear and hold until ur draw comes back u can knock off 6 sec on ur draw cooldowm which drops it to 24 seconds but this 3 card trick is very good if rngus favors u before i have gotten 2x balance and 1x arrow

And celestrial opposion is no different when ast use it on AoE balance/arrow which onky give + 5sec

Like i said im always testing and playing AST and finding new tricks when playing it

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That sounds like a massive waste of cards and cool downs.

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Originally Posted by Violette

That sounds like a massive waste of cards and cool downs.

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Short: Yes, with a but.
Long Answer: No, with an If.

In 4-Man content an extension gives you double the normal effect on a card, while an expansion gives you half the effect on 4 people.. or double the effect if you will. However since not all 4 party members are equally good in terms of output you get the most value from an extension on the party member most able to make use of it.

In 8-Man content this is much harder to justify, since you effectively get 4 Cards worth of value out of expansion. However if what's gating you isn't DPS there may be value to be had from concentrating other cards a bit more. For example you can imagine content with a lot of scripted damage and small DPS windows where you get gated on healing longevity and so concentrated ewers are going to be the best use of CDs. Also if you've got an extreme setup, say.. 2x Paladin Tank and no room for Healers to DPS and 2-3 DPS that are way more component than other(s) the value may be there as well. Granted these all represent narrow edge cases that I can't imagine come up much, but it's at least worth remembering from a conceptual standpoint.

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Originally Posted by DarkmoonVael

Mega HoT trick is not just unique to AST, WHM can do exactly the same effect.

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What is meant by Mega HoT? Is that just Synastry + Aspected Helios or Divine Seal + Medica II? There is also Rouse + Whispering Dawn, which I believe is actually the highest of the 3 for potency during it's duration, but comes with a 60s cooldown.

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Originally Posted by HPDelron

Short: Yes, with a but.
Long Answer: No, with an If.

In 4-Man content an extension gives you double the normal effect on a card, while an expansion gives you half the effect on 4 people.. or double the effect if you will. However since not all 4 party members are equally good in terms of output you get the most value from an extension on the party member most able to make use of it.

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Well thank you mr obvious, however you must remember 2 key points:
1. 4 man content is garbage easy and should not be balanced around.

2. If you're in such an extreme set it up likely that DPS is very unimportant, rendering methods of increasing dps moot.

So I think the answer you were looking for was "yes." Because if you're trying to maximise dps, you would have thrown out the first spear on a dps so their cool downs would be back faster.

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Originally Posted by HPDelron

Just for the sake of being a contrarian I'll pipe in here. I can't speak for Yhisa but it seems obvious to me that Lightspeed lets you get more casts off in many practical situations. This is because there are a great deal more circumstances where you can get off an instant cast than a standing one. In cases where you must move or get hit by an unacceptable AoE you can get a cast off with Lightspeed but not normally. In cases where can stand to cast but your targets are moving such that you can't reliably count on range, you must move to get off the heal in a meaningful fashion.

While I'm not well acquainted enough with Savage to say how common those conditions are there. Even in normal modes and primals these conditions are common enough to be a meaningful consideration. The idea that instant casts and extra mobility do not also translate to more heals cast more effectively only really holds in the case you and your target are both essentially static.

Sure it doesn't get you more GCDs but when the chips are down in an emergency I'm not sure GCDs are always acting as the real bottleneck.

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This is a perfectly reasonable way to look at Lightspeed. It allows the AST mobility while handling their healing responsibilities. You'll actually find this is a very good use of Lightspeed in a fight like Sephirot EX (in fact, that entire fight feels tailored to the AST kit).

Whether this is the context Yhisa was trying to go for, who's to say (well, it's not now that we know what Yhisa was trying to say in a previous post above).

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Originally Posted by HPDelron

At the start of the encounter have any 30s base card in spread with extension up. Cast it and draw/redraw for another 30s card.
You now have a 30s card and a 60s card ticking. Draw is on the usual 30s CD.
Time Dilate the 30s card.
You now have a 45s Card and a 60s Card ticking.
When Draw's timer is up they're at ~15s and ~30s each.
Cast a new card and you can Celestial opposition all 3. Giving you ~35s, ~20s, ~35s on the duration at that time. Though in practice these duration will probably be off by a second or two because human reaction times and server input delay just aren't going to get you 0-MS uses the instant everything is up.

That said it's kind of a cute gimmick and not a real power boost. Your card CDs are what they are and it's basically a whole lot of bending over to get an extra 5s worth of value out of CO and it probably isn't any better than fishing for expansions.

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Funny thing is this isn't really a trick that any AST should be actively shooting for as it requires a heavenly dose of RNG in your favour to have it happen. It is something to be aware of and if it naturally occurs, use it to its full advantage. Trying to actively aim for this is akin to ASTs trying to actively aim for Expanded Balance all the time - you're going to end up wasting cards which lowers your overall raid utility. Some raid utility is better than 0 raid utility.

So yeah, I count this less of a trick and more of something to consider with enough foresight.



Gravity + Lightspeed

Gravity Normally
@00.00s - Begins to cast first Gravity
@03.00s - First Gravity resolves, begin to cast second (total potency - 200 X multi-enemy multiplier)
@06.00s - Second Gravity resolves, begin to cast third (total potency - 400 X multi-enemy multiplier)
@09.00s - Third Gravity resolves, begin to cast fourth (total potency - 600 X multi-enemy multiplier)
@12.00s - Fourth Gravity resolves, begin to cast fifth (total potency - 800 X multi-enemy multiplier)

Gravity w/ Lightspeed
@00.00s - Cast first Gravity (total potency - 150 X multi-enemy multiplier)
@02.50s - Cast second Gravity (total potency - 300 X multi-enemy multiplier)
@05.00s - Cast third Gravity (total potency - 450 X multi-enemy multiplier)
@07.50s - Cast fourth Gravity (total potency - 600 X multi-enemy multiplier)
@10.00s - Cast fifth Gravity (total potency - 750 X multi-enemy multiplier) [Assuming you get the Lightspeed in for easy math]
@12.50s - Begin casting sixth Gravity

Gravity Normally is 800 potency at the 12s mark for a total 66.67 potency per second (plus multipliers which is the same across the board)
Gravity w/ Lightspeed is 750 potency at 10s mark for a total of 75 potency per second (plus multipliers)
Gravity w/ Lightspeed is 750 potency at 12s mark for a total of 62.5 potency per second (plus multipliers)

In theory this looks better to do Gravity + Lightspeed when you consider number of casts within the 10s period of Lightspeed but since you can't begin to cast a sixth Gravity until the 12.5s mark and won't get it until the 15.5s mark, you might as well count Gravity w/ Lightspeed as 5 Gravity's over 12s, leading to the above. Therefore it's better not to use Lightspeed with Gravity.

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Originally Posted by Violette

Well thank you mr obvious, however you must remember 2 key points:

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If what I'm stating is both obvious and illustrates case(s) where expansion is not always the most optimal choice than it is obvious that expansion is not always the most optimal choice. In which case calling out a highlight of a non-expansion use of cards as worthless seems silly and overly confrontational. I'd ask that at minimum we don't indulge in name calling however much we may disagree with each others positions.

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1. 4 man content is garbage easy and should not be balanced around.

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4-man content represents a majority of overall content experience for many, if not most players. 4-man content is about the only level cap content anyone is guaranteed to run. It's absolutely at the core of a lot of player experience and the game should be tuned with this in mind. The content and abilities need to work for the 10 people paying subs to log in a few hours every weekend just as much if not more so than the 1 person logging in for the same amount every day to do savage progression. The player base falls on a spectrum and it's heavily weighted to the simpler, more accessible content. I've seen enough people struggle with this content to know that it can't be rightly dismissed as "easy and garbage".

Even ignoring that, there isn't any reason to ignore facts about the game engine and how mechanics interact. The simple fact is that performance per cooldown is higher with extensions and enhancements in 4-man content. Easy or not, that's true and all ideally one puts in their best effort no matter what the content is.

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2. If you're in such an extreme set it up likely that DPS is very unimportant, rendering methods of increasing dps moot.

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Again there are cases (however edge), where the largest DPS gain would be to concentrate buffs on to one or two people. The cards can also do more than DPS gains. If you'll re-read the specific hypothetical I was putting forward, it was talking about maximizing mana regen. It's also not hard to imagine where your primary concern is keeping tank spike damage down. Even if these situations are either extremely rare or non-existent in current content we ignore their existence at our own peril should content change. Having a comprehensive understand of mechanics and how they interact can only be a good thing, even if some of those interacts are currently limited to the realm of theoretical instead of the practical.

I'm a bit late but I want to answer these claims:

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

Adlo's shield w/ CRIT of 548 starts to match and exceed Aspected Benefic's shield when you average it all out

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The average is irrelevant and crits are unreliable. More often that not, they are wasted in the sense that they were not needed because you already planned to mitigate some incoming damage without a crit Adlo.
Regular Nocturnal Aspected Benefics have a stronger shield than Adlo, and are instant cast. Saying that "Adlo is better" because of crits, isn't relevant.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

Deployed Adlo (even no Crit) is better than Aspected Helios

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Of course it is. But why are you comparing the two? One is a 2mn cooldown used only when you'd need to mitigate moderate to high raid damage, the other is a bread and butter raid mitigation AoE on GCD. The setup and uses are completly different. No Noct.AST would only use Aspected Helios in order to mitigate this kind of damage. They'd use another cooldown with it, which is easier to do since they're usually on a shorter timer than SCH cooldowns.
So, really, comparing the two is pointless.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

Supervirus + Sacred Soil + Succor is better than Disable + Collective Unconsciousness + Aspected Helios more often than naught (additional 5% reduced on a 10K attack is 500 damage, Aspected Helios needs to heal for an impossible 10K without Sect bonus to get that 500 mitigation back)

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I have absolutly no clue what you're talking about.
- Supervirus is a stat reduction, which doesn't equate raw mitigation. Disable is raw mitigation, meaning that it's 10% flat, while Supervirus is more like 7-9% (and doesn't work on darkness damage).
- Sacred Soil is 10% mitigation and cost an Aetherflow stack. Collective Unconscious is 10% mititagion and add a strong regen.
- Succor has a 150 potency shield, Nocturnal Aspected Helios has a 157.5 potency shield.

If anything, of the two sets of mitigation abilities and cooldowns you're comparing here, the AST one is slightly stronger due to Disable being better, A.Helios having a very small potency bonus and CU applying a regen.
Also, I have no idea where you 5% thing comes from.


People seems to compare the two jobs like they'd use the same amount of cooldown at the same time, without considering that the overall liberty of cooldown usage is completly different. You can't just say SCH X skill is better than AST Y, because chances are that they are used completly differently ingame, making the "on paper" maths completly pointless.

Maybe all of this would be better said in an AST thread and not a thread comparing the three healer...? >w>