WHM converting to AST -- newb questions ^_^

Hi all,
I'm currently in the process of transitioning over to AST from WHM and am wondering if anyone can provide a 'similar to' kind of advice concerning AST skills compared to WHM skills. For example, I find that Benefic II is pretty much Cure II, and Aspected Benefic is like Regen? (I think). I'm not planning to play AST as just a different kind of WHM, and am planning on learning all the skillset and taking advantage of the unique things AST brings. However, from a learning point of view, a way to align AST skills with WHM skills would go far towards helping me to learn and adjust :) Thanks!!

Hey there !
Lucky you, here is a brand new, thorough, sexy Astro guide :
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...lWUm4JjAI/edit
If you like getting in depth of things, this is to be your bible :D

I can try to give you a general presentation of AST compared to WHM though. WHM's focus is regen heal, with little to no damage mitigation. Basically you heal after the damage, except for Divine Benison for single target shielding, and Regen which kinda works as compensation of ongoing damage (auto-attacks on the tank for instance).

Benefic and Benefic II are your Cure I and Cure II.
Helios is your Medica (it heals more than Medica).
Earthly Star is an AOE you set up on the ground, and everyone standing in it will be healed when it pops (at the end of its timer or when you pop it yourself), it's free (no MP cost), and it also damages enemies standing in it. Essential Dignity would be your Tetragrammaton in an instant heal, but it works differently as it heals more the lower the target's HP are. So you can play with your tank's sanity with "How low can you get?"
Your DPS kit is limited. Malefic is your Stone (faster cast time), Combust is your Aero II, Gravity is your Holy (but weaker and no stun effect).

Main difference : sects and aspected spells. You have two sects, Diurnal (Regen) and Nocturnal (Shield). That gives the added effect to the Aspected Benefic (single target) and Aspected Helios (AOE). In Diurnal Sect, you Aspected Benefic is a WHM Regen (though shorter duration, High MP cost) and Aspected Helios is Medica II. In Nocturnal, these two spells will place a shield for respectively 250% of the heal on a single target, and 150% of the heal in an AOE.

Then you have AST only kit actions, cards and buff timer manipulation that are covered in that guide. Everything I said is quite general, if you look in the details there are significant potency differences on each spell / abilities.

Hope this helps!

Thanks Mansion, that helped a ton ^_^v

Just going to two cents in here quickly and state that due to the similarity in healing spells between AST and WHM, it would be in your interest to put similar spells into the same hot bar slot for both healers. This way it doesn't hurt your muscle memory too much and it makes it a lot easier to transition between WHM and AST.

You seem to have figured out that a lot of the heals are pretty analogous, so... Some miscellaneous quick tips, mostly around the CDs:

Plan Lightspeed around phases where you need a lot of mobility (If you raid, panto2 is a great example and as the video shows, lets you fill some nontraditional roles). No high mobility phases? Use it if you need to do some heavy healing with spells instead. None of those? Then just use it generally to maximize DPS.
Aside from being up to 1000 potency on a 40s CD, using Essential Dignity reduces Lightspeed's cooldown. Don't let this sit on CD for long, feel free to let a tank's health drop to maximize it.
Earthly Star works best when it has at least 10s to charge, but if you're new to a fight, it's a decently powerful heal even uncharged. Fully charged and on a 60s CD, it can handle a lot of the raid wide heals - and should. Also adds a bit to your DPS, so don't forget it.
Collective Unconscious is the most powerful AOE regen in the same. Use this and often you won't need any other healing, just let the HoT do it's work. Must be manually interrupted.
Synastry works even if you're not split healing - that is, even if the synastry target is the same as your healing target. This pushes benefic 2 to over 1000 potency on a synchronized target. If you must GCD heal a tank, this will get it done real quick. And of course, still useful if you need to split heal as well.
Celestial Opposition extends more than cardbuffs. Pretty niche use but - Buffed up an Aspected Benefic on the tank? You can use Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition to make it last a pretty good while. Ideally this would overlap with card buffs - but if RNGsus and you are just having a really bad, you could use this to DPS more, or if a fight has you spend a while out of range of the tank, or similar.
Malefic 3 has a fast cast time and Combust 2 is instant. This means you can constantly weave without clipping, not to mention high mobility. So don't forget those cards (multitasking on AST can be hard at times...), and if ever there was a healer to DPS on - it's AST. Try to make the most of all the spare time AST DPS spells give you.

Going from WHM to AST is a pretty simple transition early on and I think people have covered the analogous spells well already. At higher levels the classes start to diverge. Around level 60 you'll probably need to practice with the newer skills as they don't really have direct WHM equivalents.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Plan Lightspeed around phases where you need a lot of mobility (If you raid, panto2 is a great example and as the video shows, lets you fill some nontraditional roles). No high mobility phases? Use it if you need to do some heavy healing with spells instead. None of those? Then just use it generally to maximize DPS.

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Lightspeed doesn't really help with raw DPS unless you're AoEing with Gravity. AST's single target attacks are either OGCD or cast faster than GCD. I agree with the mobility and heavy healing, though again with healing it doesn't increase raw HPS. LS allows weaving OGCD's between AoE healing and lowers healing cost, so it's more of a long term gain.

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Earthly Star works best when it has at least 10s to charge, but if you're new to a fight, it's a decently powerful heal even uncharged. Fully charged and on a 60s CD, it can handle a lot of the raid wide heals - and should. Also adds a bit to your DPS, so don't forget it.

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Yeah don't be afraid to use the star before it's fully charged. If you do put it down early you can extend Giant Dominance (2nd stage) with Celestial Opposition, but I would only do this if you absolutely need to.

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Collective Unconscious is the most powerful AOE regen in the same. Use this and often you won't need any other healing, just let the HoT do it's work. Must be manually interrupted.

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Just want to add, UC has a damage reduction and a regen. Both of these effects persist even after the shield animation is canceled. Using UC optimally usually means that you cancel it before it runs for the full duration. You can also extend its effects with Celestial Opposition.

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Celestial Opposition extends more than cardbuffs. Pretty niche use but - Buffed up an Aspected Benefic on the tank? You can use Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition to make it last a pretty good while. Ideally this would overlap with card buffs - but if RNGsus and you are just having a really bad, you could use this to DPS more, or if a fight has you spend a while out of range of the tank, or similar.

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Celestial Opposition isn't niche. It's a pretty critical AST skill. Using it to buff cards is good, but I think it's more useful to extend Lightspeed and Lucid Dreaming. Doing this gives you massive amounts of additional MP and healing capacity. Extending Lucid is especially important if you DPS heavily because AST burns quite a bit of MP.

Time Dilation is probably better used to extend buffs on other party members, like tanks, because it can't be used on self.