What do you want to see on Astrologian?

Just wanna see everyone's ideas. :D

This would be a good start

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2...uel_Disk_2.PNG

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Originally Posted by Linfy

Just wanna see everyone's ideas. :D

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That they change the icon used for SCH? We know people are going to be making that mistake.

Honestly, I just hope that it's healer/shielding stance makes sense. Not this "Cleric Stance makes you a crappy healer and a mediocre DPS" in which I hope future dungeons actually align combat better where you can't just faceroll over top of it with sheer DPS. I'm talking about actual phases of trash and boss monsters where shielding saves the party instead of just buying a few seconds for the healer to DPS.

I'm probably minority here but... I don't want to DPS as a healer...

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

I'm probably minority here but... I don't want to DPS as a healer...

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I don't care much for the healer DPS. Going by FF lore, the only DPS spell the WHM/Healer is supposed to have is Holy which is supposed to be the equivalent of casting "long cast" Ultima, Flood, Quake(Stone III,) Tornado (Aero 3), Meteor, or Gravity 3. If you note, both Stone and Aero are also part of the Conjurer spell list, while Holy is WHM-exclusive. So it may seem strange if CNJ gets Stone III and Aero III and they do the same damage as Holy.

In FF6, what I'd do if I wanted to grind for something, is just have everyone learn Ultima, and have everyone with the white magic healing spells anyway. In other FF games that have the roles like FFXIV, FF5 and FFX-2 if you wanted to do the same, you just put everyone into the job that has the most powerful spell, and cast it repeatedly, forgoing the healing.

That unfortunately is what people want to do ... all the time. So powercreep through gear ilevels eventually lets players do that.

So we won't see a healer class with no DPS skills, because that will prevent them from being able to play the storyline since the storyline always involves solo instances. The Astrologian might have to get their DPS skills from cross-classing if they don't have any.

Can understand that, I just hate seeing people expect the healer to be doing DPS. Drives me nuts.

Well when FCoB was still new, Scholars were recommended to contribute in DPS numbers, only switching out to assist the WHM during certain mechanics.
Maybe they'll tweak Alex so that it's impossible to solo heal majority of the encounter (I doubt that), but otherwise if you play a Scholar and you wanna be raiding while its still new, you'll probably need to DPS more.

If you're really really against DPSing as a healer, I highly suggest you either play a WHM or an AST (Speculation only, but from most info seems AST DPS capabilities are even worse than a WHM, rely more on cards to buff team members).

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

Can understand that, I just hate seeing people expect the healer to be doing DPS. Drives me nuts.

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What people usually expect is for healers not to stand around doing nothing, which is often what happens when they don't help DPS. Most content in the game has a very low healing requirement.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

I don't care much for the healer DPS. Going by FF lore, the only DPS spell the WHM/Healer is supposed to have is Holy which is supposed to be the equivalent of casting "long cast" Ultima, Flood, Quake(Stone III,) Tornado (Aero 3), Meteor, or Gravity 3. If you note, both Stone and Aero are also part of the Conjurer spell list, while Holy is WHM-exclusive. So it may seem strange if CNJ gets Stone III and Aero III and they do the same damage as Holy.

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If what the devs said earlier on holds true, Aero III and Stone III will be WHM Job skills (supposedly no class skills were going to be added).

Whenever players start talking about how they don't like the idea of healers DPSing, WHMs in particular, it's funny to me since the CNJ storyline was very clear on how the kind of magic they use has the potential for both healing and destruction and that mastery of all aspects was necessary to be successful. Then we have the ancient WHMs in this same setting who waged a War of the Magi with their brand of white magic.

And finally, Cleric Stance doesn't make anyone a crappy healer unless you don't turn it off. It actually makes for great healers and strong supporting DPS. Power creep isn't necessary for this to happen; sufficient player skill is enough.

I'm at the other end of the spectrum. I play Scholar and absolutely love their capability to deal damage while keeping the group alive. Personally I hope Astrologian won't have comparably weak damage capabilities with the only thing to make up for the difference being an RNG dependent buff. When Scholar can do everything it does while keeping a consistent 30% skill or spell speed buff on the whole party while Astologian applies a 25% speed buff to a single party member once in a blue moon, I just have to wonder. I'm mostly just concerned about how they plan to keep the job balanced around the randomness of their buffs.

I dont like stance dancing either.

Probably try astro, if only because I prefer active buff/heal role. If I wanted to heal/DPS I'll go play my Discipline priest.

If I'm not doing anything, pull more.

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

I dont like stance dancing either.

Probably try astro, if only because I prefer active buff/heal role. If I wanted to heal/DPS I'll go play my Discipline priest.

If I'm not doing anything, pull more.

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Seems like the astrologian stances are kind of a pick one and stick with it the whole battle thing and they will still be using cleric stance the same as every other healer on top of that

Already feel like i know a ton about astrologian but something i would like to see is the stances changing effects of attack spells too

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Originally Posted by Blueyes

I'm at the other end of the spectrum. I play Scholar and absolutely love their capability to deal damage while keeping the group alive. Personally I hope Astrologian won't have comparably weak damage capabilities with the only thing to make up for the difference being an RNG dependent buff. When Scholar can do everything it does while keeping a consistent 30% skill or spell speed buff on the whole party while Astologian applies a 25% speed buff to a single party member once in a blue moon, I just have to wonder. I'm mostly just concerned about how they plan to keep the job balanced around the randomness of their buffs.

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I am hoping that the haste from astrologian is going to work differently than just a flat % increase in skill/spell speed like selenes buffs. However, i am not sur ehow this could be implimented without a game balance issue O.o

And back to the OP. I am hoping we get a genuine contender for a raid healer from ast. I have been using sch since 2.0, and would like to see ast being able to take the place on a raid team comfortably. So what i want to see is the card buffs being able to contribute to the teams performance enough to warrent an ast in the party, as well as the buffs not being held completely hostage to rng. If the ast dps is insignificant compared to the other healers (not to sure if this is the case or not, remember reading that the people who had hands on at france with ast mained dps classes and not healers, so this low dps comparision may need to be taken with a grain of salt), then the buffs and dubuffs the ast brings to a raid need to be fairly significant to compensate. And finally, we need to see potencies etc for the healing spells in both sects. We also need to see if shield sect (cant remember the proper name) has access to any healing abilities or not, or if it just can create shields. We also need to see if the shields are akin to sch, where there is a shield + healing component, or just shield.

But more than anything, i want to see ast being a very strong buffer/healer class.

According to some lucky fella from Reddit who went to the Nantes Event, AST's Haste is fundamentally different from Skill/Spell speed increase.

It's the buff that actually reduces your Cooldown on skills by 20% (300 Sec Cooldown *0.8 = 240 Sec Cooldown), but the benefit is not retroactive, meaning if your skill is already on cooldown and you receive the buff, that particular skill will not benefit from it.

I'm personally not looking forward in a raid scenario for the entire group waiting on the AST to draw this particular card before starting the fight :(.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

What people usually expect is for healers not to stand around doing nothing, which is often what happens when they don't help DPS. Most content in the game has a very low healing requirement.

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Not in my experience. You don't get to decide if there is a low healing requirement. Your tank and DPS configuration decides that. The powercreep from stronger gear makes the goalposts move over time.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

If what the devs said earlier on holds true, Aero III and Stone III will be WHM Job skills (supposedly no class skills were going to be added).

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The base-class is where the skills come from at level-up. The Job has very specific changes to stats that are available at specific levels, and with that comes the Job-skills at the expense of most of the cross-class capability. You can cross-class 5 skills in a Job, but only specific class skills, not Job skills (otherwise everyone would have Holy.)

So whatever we get at level 51-60 would have to be added to the base class, and whatever is job-specific would be added via whatever convoluted quest that is only unlocked at that level. If they aren't class skills, then they won't be cross-class able either.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

Whenever players start talking about how they don't like the idea of healers DPSing, WHMs in particular, it's funny to me since the CNJ storyline was very clear on how the kind of magic they use has the potential for both healing and destruction and that mastery of all aspects was necessary to be successful. Then we have the ancient WHMs in this same setting who waged a War of the Magi with their brand of white magic.

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Go back to V1.0 before they took away half the skills. The old version of the lore the Conjurer was a master over all 6 elements. The current version... well 3(Wind, Earth, and Water.) THM got the other three (Thunder, Fire, and Ice)

The Conjurer's magic and the White Mage's magic come from two different sources. The fact that the Job only gives us the destructive Holy as a DPS, and then gives us Benediction as it's opposite. The Black mage has Freeze and Flare (which by all accounts are the long casts like Holy.)

If you go look at the skill list, what SE really did was they split Conjurer in half and the other half wound up in Thaumaturge. The skills that Thaumaturge had wound up in Arcanist/Summoner. So I'm expecting Astrologian to pick up the skills that didn't end up on Arcanist.

If we were still playing the V1.0 game, the Conjurer had cure I, II, III and Raise/Reraise. If we were still playing the Version 1.0 game, there was an elemental strength/weakness consideration... which all but doesn't exist in the current game. So for all intents all the magic that both the CNJ/WHM and THM/BLM have behave like unaspected damage. Arcanist's DPS (and thus SMN and SCH) are all DoT's save for Ruin.

This is where things go in completely different directions. Other than Psysick/Resurrect, the Arcanist can only cross-class CNJ skills... of which half the skills that overlap with it's own. All their SCH Job skills are healing skills, so you end up cross-classing CNJ's DPS skills if you need more DoT's.

So when we are using the Lore as an excuse to say what a class/job is or isn't supposed to do, we completely overlook that the developers kept a lot of the lore intact, but originally had different intents for our caster classes. The War of the Magi = WHM, elemental magic... which in V1 we never even got to, save for the fact that the CNJ had all the elemental magic. The Lore in the current version talks about the CNJ and the WHM as two different kinds of magic.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

And finally, Cleric Stance doesn't make anyone a crappy healer unless you don't turn it off. It actually makes for great healers and strong supporting DPS. Power creep isn't necessary for this to happen; sufficient player skill is enough.

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Fixed.

The point I make in most threads about healers shouldn't be DPS'ing is because they see CS and go "hey look I can holy spam and not heal the party" when that just makes them a crappy player after 5 seconds. The developers intent (yes I know YOU are tired of hearing this) has defined roles. If you step outside those roles, you are taking ownership of a situation. When everyone steps outside their roles, you get Tanks that don't tank, healers that don't heal, and DPS that are healing themselves. Basically the crappy state that every MMORPG devolves into where everyone wants to DPS and nobody wants to do the mechanics because they take too long.

If someone is comfortable DPS'ing because the have static parties that they work well with, voice chat and all that, then there is no reason to even argue for that side. It works for you.

But every PUG is unique. They generally range from super-crappy-stumbles-through-content to parties that work-just-barely-enough-together. I can find a gold mine to complain about, but I don't... I just pick the worst stuff that I keep seeing over and over and go "This is stupid, quit being stupid."

The two nitpicks I find the most are when healers forgo healing so they can DPS... like their DPS is going to matter when they let the DPS die. And Healers who spam heals when no heals are needed. I expect PUG's to make a lot of mistakes, and I'm not going to expect a perfect run every time, but these two points tell me the player either doesn't want to be a healer, or does't care/doesn't know.

Like it really does feel like sometimes we are reading from the same page, but we're arguing over semantics because our experiences do not align.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

I don't care much for the healer DPS. Going by FF lore, the only DPS spell the WHM/Healer is supposed to have is Holy which is supposed to be the equivalent of casting "long cast" Ultima, Flood, Quake(Stone III,) Tornado (Aero 3), Meteor, or Gravity 3. If you note, both Stone and Aero are also part of the Conjurer spell list, while Holy is WHM-exclusive. So it may seem strange if CNJ gets Stone III and Aero III and they do the same damage as Holy.

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Dia is a damaging skill and is part of WHM's spells as well :p
Not in FFxiv though

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

So whatever we get at level 51-60 would have to be added to the base class, and whatever is job-specific would be added via whatever convoluted quest that is only unlocked at that level. If they aren't class skills, then they won't be cross-class able either.

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It has been said that all of the new skills would be from quest, and job only. No new class skills should come in this expansion, due to SE's will to reduce classes' importance over time.

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Originally Posted by DreamWeaver

According to some lucky fella from Reddit who went to the Nantes Event, AST's Haste is fundamentally different from Skill/Spell speed increase.

It's the buff that actually reduces your Cooldown on skills by 20% (300 Sec Cooldown *0.8 = 240 Sec Cooldown), but the benefit is not retroactive, meaning if your skill is already on cooldown and you receive the buff, that particular skill will not benefit from it.

I'm personally not looking forward in a raid scenario for the entire group waiting on the AST to draw this particular card before starting the fight :(.

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Wow i missed this info on reddit, thanks for sharing. This is good news (for me at least), but i can see what you mean about everyone wanting this up befor ethe fight starts in raids to push progression. Imagine standing there waiting for the ast to Royal Road this.

Not much input for a DPSing healer but if they can do it, good. If they can't and let me die, I'll punish them by pulling a lot less.

What I want to see from an AST is a glamour for the cards. Some kind of frame to add to them, like maybe a Golden Frame or Silver Frame or those blue glowing weapon thingies as frames. Hey, maybe new artworks as more patches come in?

Or.... you know... Maybe an art competition to get some player arts to be featured in cards glamour?

In terms of combat, I'll wait and see for another 3 weeks.

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Originally Posted by DreamWeaver

According to some lucky fella from Reddit who went to the Nantes Event, AST's Haste is fundamentally different from Skill/Spell speed increase.

It's the buff that actually reduces your Cooldown on skills by 20% (300 Sec Cooldown *0.8 = 240 Sec Cooldown), but the benefit is not retroactive, meaning if your skill is already on cooldown and you receive the buff, that particular skill will not benefit from it.

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There are actually two different cards, one which does as you describe, but then there is another with a 10%(25%) speed buff. (Can read more here and here.) I do have to wonder if the buffs from Selene will have their percentages adjusted in light of how skill and spell speed will work in 3.0, but in the meantime I'll assume they will be left unchanged.

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Originally Posted by Blueyes

There are actually two different cards, one which does as you describe, but then there is another with a 10%(25%) speed buff. (Can read more here and here.) I do have to wonder if the buffs from Selene will have their percentages adjusted in light of how skill and spell speed will work in 3.0, but in the meantime I'll assume they will be left unchanged.

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I have the same suspicions about selenes buffs being changed. I imagine its going to happen one of 2 ways: the change in skill/spell speed is going to be significant enough to alter the damage output of classes that stack these stats as to warrant selens buffs being nerfed OR the changes to skill/spell speed is going to be insignifiant in the grand scheme of things and selene will stay the same. Magic christmas land wants buffs to skill/spell speed to be significant and selene unchanged.

>< I just am dying to know some nitty mechanical questions around how AST will work, and I don't see myself getting that info until I can test it myself. At the moment my curiosity revolves around the functionality of Synastry.

My first thought was 'oh, bacon of light' but then I saw it only lasts 20 seconds, and is not a static buff (which I like). And then I found myself wondering.... If I cast Synastry on someone and then move out of normal healing range, do they still receive healing from the buff? Secondly is the interaction of hot/shield mechanics from AST spells. Does the Synastry target receive the buff component of these spells? If not, then when in Diurnal sect, will someone's regen effects still heal the Synastry target for half of every tick but not appear as a separate regen buff? If so then Synastry is potentially less useful in Nocturnal Sect, since the shield might not carry over but the hots might.

I most want AST to be completely viable in general, and super amazing in the right hands. I like an 'easy to learn hard to master' type of thing. I like variety in my healers. I played every healer in wow and loved how each one FELT completely different, and had it's own rules for functioning at the highest level of play but they all were able to do their job. Even when one was bemoaned as being underpowered or overpowered, a good player in the 'worse' class could outperform a bad player in the 'better' class (though late expac power creep and disc priest still ugh...just ugh)

Also I really want to know about AST MP management, and how often we will be wanting to use the Ewer card on ourselves. It sounds like AST will be able to pump out crazy heals in a short period of time but at the cost of a lot of MP (more instant cast spamming but no mp cost reduction) Also agro management.... Man I dislike that WHM's agro dump and mp regen are the same spell but I digress.

Example- WHM's Shroud isn't as potent as SCH's aetherflow for on-demand mp but WHM has freecure and overcure to help. SCH has fairy 'free' heals, and even sacred soil has a chance of making succor cost less mana. Aetherflow, when desperate can also be used on energy drain for some clutch MP. WHM can reduce agro with shroud, and SCH splits agro with fairy (though they can't dump agro on their own). What will AST end up with?

I'm an avid DPS healer, both WHM and SCH, but I'm quite interested in seeing where AST will take us. I'm all for AST being primarily healing/support, with the caveat that it keeps me busy and provides as much party support to equal the damage output of Holy or Shadowflare + DoTs. If playing AST brings strong party utility, good heals, and requires a good amount of finesse to maximize it's potential, I'll be happy with it, maybe even enough to switch mains.

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Originally Posted by Blueyes

There are actually two different cards, one which does as you describe, but then there is another with a 10%(25%) speed buff. (Can read more here and here.) I do have to wonder if the buffs from Selene will have their percentages adjusted in light of how skill and spell speed will work in 3.0, but in the meantime I'll assume they will be left unchanged.

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Actually, the speed buff from Astrologian is similar to Monk's Greased Lightning and Ninja's Huton (assuming the translation is correct). Both of these give the user an "attack speed" increase. But in reality they also reduce the GCD of weapon skills and spells. Spells?! Yes, spells. You can confirm this by removing the soul stone and cross classing Cure. Meanwhile Selene's Fey Light and Fey Glow only grant the user skill- or spell speed. It wouldn't be strange if the effects would stack, but Selene's buffs wouldn't double stack on top of haste. Because haste doesn't give the user skill- or spell speed. So if we assume the translation is correct and indeed gives the same kind of "attack speed" as Greased Lightning and Huton does, I don't believe there is a need to tweak Selene's buffs.

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Originally Posted by Seryl199

I'm an avid DPS healer, both WHM and SCH, but I'm quite interested in seeing where AST will take us. I'm all for AST being primarily healing/support, with the caveat that it keeps me busy and provides as much party support to equal the damage output of Holy or Shadowflare + DoTs. If playing AST brings strong party utility, good heals, and requires a good amount of finesse to maximize it's potential, I'll be happy with it, maybe even enough to switch mains.

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I agree with you completely and couldn't have said it better myself!! Excellent post!

I'm already planning to swap, but I hope the job has a high skill floor to differentiate between those who are serious about mastering it and those who think it "looks cool" (yes, I'm aware that you can be of both mindsets at the same time, but sometimes I feel like AST will wind up being the NIN or DRG of healers). Maybe I'm too much of a healing snob, but I am worried that with AST's flashy animations, if that is paired with a low skill floor AND no real need to Stance-dance, that it will become the haven for mediocre healers everywhere.

So far the baseline seems to be, "pick between a moderately less specialized SCH or WHM and remember to Draw every 30 seconds or so and you'll be fine", which makes me a little concerned. Of course, I'll wait until early access to make a more concrete judgement. And even if "lolAST" becomes a thing, I'm still super excited to play it, as I love healer/support hybrids, and I'm looking forward to mastering all of the job's nuances.

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

It has been said that all of the new skills would be from quest, and job only. No new class skills should come in this expansion, due to SE's will to reduce classes' importance over time.

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I have a feeling that people are just reading what they want into it.

FFXIV has classes and Jobs, the two are mutually exclusive of each other. The class skills you automatically get when you get to that level. The Job skills are all quests that can only be done after reaching that level. Unless they are going to retroactively change this for every existing class, I'm pretty sure they will be unlocked the same as before. If you're not playing the Job, then you can't use the Job skills, even if there is a quest for it.

Where I think the interpretation is being lost is that whatever comes after level 50. Because if we continued the previous trend you got a new Job skill every 5 levels. The class skills you got a new skill automatically every 4 levels after level 15 as well as a new trait every 4 levels after level 8. So if there are 10 new levels, there would be no less than 2 new class skills, 2 new job skills (4 for ACN/SCH/SMN) and 2 new traits.

We do not yet know how these slot into the existing skill set. For example, does Aero III/Stone III replace Aero I and Stone I in the same way that Carbuncle's were replaced with the Fairies for Scholar, and Garuda/Titan? Or do they just appear as new skills that can't be accessed in all level synced 50-and-below content?

And it would be ridiculous to retcon this new way of getting the skills for the new class/jobs.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

I have a feeling that people are just reading what they want into it.

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No, they're reading what Yoshida has been saying over the past few months. All of the pre-release information is of course subject to change, but it's not spun out of whole cloth.

Frankly no one will give a damn whether new skills are class or job-based, anyway, except for SCHs (because Ruin III as an ACN class skill would automatically be granted to SCHs, and indications thus far are that it's not happening). Besides, all Astrologian, Dark Knight, and Machinist original abilities will be Job-based, so it fits with the new paradigm.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

I have a feeling that people are just reading what they want into it.

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As said just above, people are reading exactly what has been said multiple times before. anyway :

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

FFXIV has classes and Jobs, the two are mutually exclusive of each other. The class skills you automatically get when you get to that level. The Job skills are all quests that can only be done after reaching that level. Unless they are going to retroactively change this for every existing class, I'm pretty sure they will be unlocked the same as before. If you're not playing the Job, then you can't use the Job skills, even if there is a quest for it.

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Yeah, that's how it works. Not sure what you tried to say here.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

Where I think the interpretation is being lost is that whatever comes after level 50. Because if we continued the previous trend you got a new Job skill every 5 levels. The class skills you got a new skill automatically every 4 levels after level 15 as well as a new trait every 4 levels after level 8. So if there are 10 new levels, there would be no less than 2 new class skills, 2 new job skills (4 for ACN/SCH/SMN) and 2 new traits.

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and this is where you're wrong. We already know that new skills will all come from quests, will be "job only" skills, and will start form 52 (possibly every other level due to being around 5 new skills per job). No new trait will be added, with the exception of CNJ losing their lv16 trait, and no new cross-class skill slot will be added (so still 5 slots at level 60 for jobs)

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

We do not yet know how these slot into the existing skill set. For example, does Aero III/Stone III replace Aero I and Stone I in the same way that Carbuncle's were replaced with the Fairies for Scholar, and Garuda/Titan? Or do they just appear as new skills that can't be accessed in all level synced 50-and-below content?

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We do know how it will work. They will be new skills. The devs already said they were aware of the space issues on hotbars and are working on it so that we can fit all the skills we want, along with items and macros.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

(because Ruin III as an ACN class skill would automatically be granted to SCHs, and indications thus far are that it's not happening).

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Isn't Ruin III only available while under the Dreadwyrm trance though ?

I personally have no problems with tossing an Aero or Holy out here and there but I really will have a problem with "wtf healer, DPs so this goes faster."

I kinda liked while leveling that dungeons weren't a "pull to nods, aoe. Pull to next boss, aoe, pull to last boss, aoe" like wow.

Bleh.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

No, they're reading what Yoshida has been saying over the past few months. All of the pre-release information is of course subject to change, but it's not spun out of whole cloth.

Frankly no one will give a damn whether new skills are class or job-based, anyway, except for SCHs (because Ruin III as an ACN class skill would automatically be granted to SCHs, and indications thus far are that it's not happening). Besides, all Astrologian, Dark Knight, and Machinist original abilities will be Job-based, so it fits with the new paradigm.

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Yeah its been confirmed that sch only get one new attack spell. Its also a sch only one, which will be interesting. Its actually in the ability video, which also confirms its going to be sch only due to the cast effects being the familiar dual red rings casting animation on the book that delineates sch abilites from acn ones :). Now i just want to know what this sch only attack spell actually does........

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

Honestly, I just hope that it's healer/shielding stance makes sense. Not this "Cleric Stance makes you a crappy healer and a mediocre DPS" in which I hope future dungeons actually align combat better where you can't just faceroll over top of it with sheer DPS. I'm talking about actual phases of trash and boss monsters where shielding saves the party instead of just buying a few seconds for the healer to DPS.

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Aside from hitting the tank so hard that the healer literally can't do anything but heal every GCD with zero hesitation, I don't really see any way they could prevent healer dps from being a thing. And in many other cases, more than making heals more relevant again, it'd simply bring CC back into use.

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

I'm probably minority here but... I don't want to DPS as a healer...

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This will simply depend on the particular encounters. Just keep in mind that not dpsing will only be a thing in the same fights that give you no breathing room (spam heals), or somehow further restrict your mana (especially if it could somehow do so only for dps abilities).

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Originally Posted by DreamWeaver

If you're really really against DPSing as a healer, I highly suggest you either play a WHM or an AST (Speculation only, but from most info seems AST DPS capabilities are even worse than a WHM, rely more on cards to buff team members).

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Just keep in mind that already ideal healer dps is done by both healers stance-dancing according to DoTs, and technically by WHM spending more time in cleric than the SCH, since its filler dps has higher potency (more than double from Ruin to Stone II). WHM's dps will likely further push upward through Aero III, Assize, and Holy in place of Bane and Shadow Flare alongside Stone II-III and Aero I-II for single-target.

AST, from what we've seen, may well be your best bet at filling up healing-nonintensive time with something other than DPS.

What you guys need to keep in mind for WHM DPS is:

1) How will the new abilities work?
2) Whether or not they'll make any major changes to the WHM's MP-sustainability?
3) The accuracy issues of now.

Tetragrammaton, Assize and Asylum will reduce the MP spent over time while also making the WHM's Cleric Stance fluidity better due to those abilities being oGCD and some of them unaffected by Cleric Stance.

Tetragrammaton is %-based so that will be not affected by Cleric Stance, cool. How about Assize? Could it be that this is a flaccid damaging spell out of CS but with a stronger heal - and then in reverse - a strong damaging spell and a shitty heal in CS? Lastly, Asylum is probably affected by CS, so while that is a good helper in that a free HoT will make DPSing easier, saving it for something else rather than treating it as a "Regen #2" of sorts on everyone could also be needed at times, if AOE-healing needs are oomphed up. Depending on how these things weigh up, a WHM's DPSing free-time might not be so extensive (or worth it compared to the SCH doing the biggest bulk of the healing, if paired with a SCH).

So yeah, to actually push good numbers, those abilities would have to have rather short cooldowns and Assize would have to do plenty of damage, because the MP sustainability vs. DPS-output over time of a WHM and SCH is miles apart with how much the WHM has to spam their Stones and how their MP-restoration tools are at present. Who knows, they could change these things (Shroud adjustments, WHM spells costing less in proportion to their new MP bar etc.).

If a ton of healing is still needed, it could still be better to have the SCH "main-DPS" and the WHM main-heal, as it were. How this would pan out with other comps, I do not know.

Then there are the accuracy issues. If Cleric Stance gets some native accuracy boost, then that would make things a little bit easier, but if not, then if SE are scaling Alexander's accuracy-caps in a similar way to the current Coils, then WHMs would need to stack accuracy to be viable. That could still be done, though.

I'm really curious how this will pan out and I hope that WHM DPS will be viable in one way or another with their resources in mind, but well, it's SE, so who knows if these cool DPS tools will be good in dungeons and useless in actual raiding, without a ton of tweaking. :')

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Originally Posted by Tranquil

What you guys need to keep in mind for WHM DPS is:

1) How will the new abilities work?
2) Whether or not they'll make any major changes to the WHM's MP-sustainability?
3) The accuracy issues of now.

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Acc issues are my biggest concern. I think nearly every other issue will balance itself out, of a sorts, though MP consumption will probably rear its ugly head, as it always does for WHM (can Shroud be % based already, not just a fixed amount based on your level? jeez). But having a good portion of my spells miss as a WHM while trying to squeeze in some DPS when I wasn't main-healing our raid was pretty frustrating, to say the least. Assize will probably have 100% accuracy hit, but I doubt Stone III and Aero III will.

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

Isn't Ruin III only available while under the Dreadwyrm trance though ?

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Unless there's some info I missed (which is possible; there's a lot out there), Ruin III hasn't been mentioned to be a Dreadwyrm Trance skill. Still pretty sure it's a SMN Job skill either way rather than an ACN skill.

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

I personally have no problems with tossing an Aero or Holy out here and there but I really will have a problem with "wtf healer, DPs so this goes faster."

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I've never had anyone say this, probably because I DPS whenever it makes sense to do so. And this goes beyond Holy spam; there are plenty of opportunities to help DPS during boss fights as well. Stance-dancing is a skill that good healers are expected to cultivate, not just a speedrun gimmick.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

Unless there's some info I missed (which is possible; there's a lot out there), Ruin III hasn't been mentioned to be a Dreadwyrm Trance skill. Still pretty sure it's a SMN Job skill either way rather than an ACN skill.

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Ruin III

Single target attack
May only be available during Dreadwyrm Trance (unconfirmed)

If not - using Ruin III while in Dreadwyrm Trance reduces its MP Cost (Confusing wording from source material)

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source is here

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

It has been said that all of the new skills would be from quest, and job only. No new class skills should come in this expansion, due to SE's will to reduce classes' importance over time.

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Just throw the source for this out here for anyone else wondering.

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The level cap will be increased to level 60 for all jobs, and we'll be adding multiple new actions. Disciples of War and Magic jobs will learn new actions from their job quests. You’ll be able to level up without completing these job quests, but that means you won't acquire any new actions, so please be sure to accept job quests as they become available.

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All of the new actions we will be getting are going to be Job abilities and must be unlocked via quests. I think its going to be an ability every 2 levels, I forgets whether or not that has been said specifically yet.

On the topic of Astrologian, I am honestly torn between SCH and WHM and use them both frequently. I'm hoping the buffs in the card system pushes me in one direction to picking 1 of the 3 more frequently, I am loving the various buffs each of the cards gives. As for heal-dps I hope if AST does have DPS involved in its kit that is to be used in runs its not too risky/mp intensive, although I dont know what skills AST will have for mp regen.

I have to agree, having played WHM at least 2 months now, I honestly have never had anyone tell me to DPS before, or even to stop DPSing. The fact is, in many fights you are just standing around sometimes. I don't know the full name, in WoD Cerebus or something? For the first few minutes it really does no damage until it breaks free of its chains, so I always flip into CS, hit Aero II, Virus, then pop back out, periodically popping back in and hitting Aero II. Usually you're able to turn CS off very shorty after Aero II finishes casting.

Just fyi for Alexander hard, you'll need to dps as a healer to clear the content (as long as you're not overgearing it)

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Originally Posted by Shamirah

Just fyi for Alexander hard, you'll need to dps as a healer to clear the content (as long as you're not overgearing it)

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When you overgear it is when you tend to be dpsing. :p

That's my problem. When the healer obviously doesn't overhear it and you're expected to DPs. *hate* being told I should be nuking stuff when I'm MP starved and tanks getting wrecked because he's not as good as he thinks he is.

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

When you overgear it is when you tend to be dpsing. :p

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Not necessarily; this is just a common misconception.

In progression before high saturation of max ilvl gear and introduction of Echo you tend to value every bit of damage you can get. Even in easier content like Amdapor HM, an average party at minimum ilvl can easily fail the DPS check in the chamber before Ferdiad if the healer fails to assist.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that stance-dancing is just something that "overgeared" healers do. Also consider that, while it definitely can happen that a bad player projects their issues onto you, it can also be the case that your own perception of how things are going is skewed. Most players who claim that they simply can't stance-dance because they have to heal so much are actually overhealing like crazy.