AST MP Issue?

Does AST have mp problem? I tend to run out of mp at the end of most fight or when shit goes south but I keep hearing people saying AST have no MP issue at all. All the vids I've seen from AST pov show that they don't really run out of MP but than again, almost all of the vids are farm runs where everyone is playing perfectly. I asked because my static is expecting me to dps as well (which I have no issue doing on my SCH) but I'm scare as hell that I will be going oom super fast. If I can draw a ewer card than I will be fine, but most of the time, that card does not come up. I use spear + LA + CO (when its off cd) to extend LA and I still run out of MP. My avg overheal % is 30-40% (I play in Diurnal stance) and from what I've been hearing, that is normal for most healers.I'm at a lost as to what I should do to improve MP management. I'm not sure if it is a player's fault or AST are just really bad at MP management.

It's a matter of familiarity with the content + the class. Most people who don't get mana issues have learned how to play the AST a bit more effectively, and the difference between those who don't run OOM and those that do is a very small one.

When have you been hitting LA?

About 10% into my mp and every time when it's off cd after that. If I know that there's going to be a long slow period where there will be no heal ex: rav ex liberation-butterfly phase, I'll just let my mp regen naturally.

What ilevel are you at? MP becomes less of an issue as your ilevel go up. Abilities stop becoming more expensive after you hit 60, but you will continue to get more PIE through gear.

Ilvl 179 atm. I can farm rav ex and A4 but I tend to run out when stuff goes wrong,when I have to rez, and near the end of the fight

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Originally Posted by Beyondgrave

Ilvl 179 atm. I can farm rav ex and A4 but I tend to run out when stuff goes wrong,when I have to rez, and near the end of the fight

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Not entirely sure what you're doing different but I've done both of these as an i180 astrologian and never had any MP issues. On ravana ex I heal very regularly, and dps on all liberations as well as on warlords shell. The only times I run below 50% is after a raise but that's more because of the enormous 2700mp cost on the spell

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Originally Posted by Beyondgrave

Ilvl 179 atm. I can farm rav ex and A4 but I tend to run out when stuff goes wrong,when I have to rez, and near the end of the fight

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And you should. A good healer shouldn't be able to carry a crap party, no matter how good they are. When stuff goes wrong, it's time for the group to get their act together and try harder. I tend to hold a spear card in my hand to use on myself before Luminiferous Aether. I pop a party buff, use the spear card on myself, use my Aether, then pop Opposition to extend all the durations. It goes a long way.

Their healing spells are cheaper than most of the healing spells the other healing classes similarly use, plus you have a biggest MP pool. I normally don't have MP issues as long as nothing goes seriously wrong (and for a long time at that), like a pull doing too much damage or when the team is failing to evade avoidable damage.

I don't know if you do this, but I hope you don't:

You can do the tank a favor by NOT taking damage for them. It's bad for everyone if you have to heal yourself. The more players you have to heal, the more MP you drain and additionally the less healing your tank will inevitably get. Don't eat the orbs. Unless it is completely unavoidable. Remember your #1, they live only because of you, so if you die, then who's keeping the rest alive?

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Originally Posted by RiisWolf

Their healing spells are cheaper than most of the healing spells the other healing classes similarly use, plus you have a biggest MP pool. I normally don't have MP issues as long as nothing goes seriously wrong (and for a long time at that), like a pull doing too much damage or when the team is failing to evade avoidable damage.

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Your AST isn't even 60 yet, and the OP is 60 and farming end game content. I have no idea why you think AST MP pools are larger. I'm i180 on both WHM and AST. Out of party, 10376 HP on both; 13027 MP on both. There's no difference.

I don't particularly have MP issues as an AST if things go smoothly, however when things get hairy I do find myself struggling to keep up with the healing output.

1) Luminiferous Aether is exactly like Shroud. That set MP refresh that doesn't really scale with your ilevel (unless they've changed it recently and I missed something). It's gonna refresh the same at i160 as it will at i190. This isn't so bad in the beginning, but as soon as your MP pool starts expanding, it becomes really noticeable. It's basically the skill WHMs have been complaining about since 2.0, except AST didn't come with an Assize in 3.0 (I suppose extending LA with Celestial Opposition is kind of supposed to help? But you'll have to spend 30 seconds not using LA while waiting for CO to come off CD so that isn't really super reliable...).

2) You have one instant heal that costs you no MP. Essential Dignity is like Lustrate and Benediction's temperamental love child. If you use this on someone with low HP, you basically Benediction'd them and that is worth putting it on CD. However, if you were a second too slow on that button and the other healer happened to heal that tank/DPS/whoever. Your heal's potency just drastically dropped and you lost your only instant heal and one that costs you no MP at that.

I guess you could almost say that AST is kind of like a 2.0 WHM trying to do 3.0 content? XD

The only time I seem to have extremely big MP issues is with the end boss of The Fractal Continuum. If the dps is very lackluster, and it takes ages and ages to kill the boss, I find myself starved for MP. Other than that, I'm pretty new to being a lvl 60 AST, and I'm still trying my best to manage MP at end game.

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Originally Posted by Selli

1) Luminiferous Aether is exactly like Shroud. That set MP refresh that doesn't really scale with your ilevel (unless they've changed it recently and I missed something). It's gonna refresh the same at i160 as it will at i190.

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You are correct. LA and SoS regen mp at a fixed rate depending on your level (not ilvl). The easiest way to tell how much it will restore per tick is to look at your cure mp cost I believe.

I am realy surprised at the responses saying AST don't have mp issues. Yoshi-P will be buffing astrologian and hinted at how their spells do not scale well at 60 for mp cost. AST spells are less potent than whm and we lack some qol things like freecure and healing buffs. It is possible to manage your mana better but it takes a very conservative playstyle to do so.

Always use Diurnal stance. Nocturnal stance is just really bad and the efficiency of your hps with hots ticking in Diurnal stance eases things a lot.

Use time dilation to extend your hot on the MT. Use Syngergy to heal dps or keep up the tank during heavy aoe damage. For long, protracted fights spread a spear card to use before LA. Don't save LA waiting for buffs though. Use Ewer on yourself. I will Bole the tank rather than RR it to ease healing slightly as well.

Ignore your Benefic II procs. This spell procs all the time and it will bleed your mana dry. Never use Lightspeed except to stoneskin.

You mentioned you do most of these already. I just wanted to touch on them again. Hopefully with the upcoming buffs extraordinary measures won't be needed to maintain yourself in longer fights. They are expected to come in before Savage releases so don't be discouraged.

I don't think people are saying the job itself doesn't have MP problems, just that we've adapted so that we don't have them as frequently.

I am a SCH main and I need to agree that AST needs MP buffs. At present they lack enough mana management skills to help them, as well as using lightspeed basically is a great way of chugging through mana to little effect.


I want to personally level an AST however I am very very wary of the mana management.

I really do hope their mana gets helped somehow, at present lumiferous aether (? I think that's the name) doesn't offset their problems enough.

Compared to other healers, yes, they do have MP issues. I don't think the argument "Only if the DPS sucks" is a fair one, when on a SCH/WHM they can suck and their MP is just fine. They shouldn't be bad in dungeons, or in raids. It's not one or the other that makes it okay.

Also, if you play around with nocturnal stance, you'll find the MP issues are even greater.

But, I'm glad we have things like a non-ogcd spell proc like Bene II that totally helps with mana like a free..cure... Oh wait.

It just bother me because I can't really dps and still be ok on mp. If I dps, I find it hard to gain back the mp used when dpsing. Also, I try to avoid rezzing as much as possible since that spell is 20% (cost about 2.6k and I have 129** mp) of my max mp. I even go as far as having our smn Rez for me lol. I play very conservatively and it's still a pain. I know my group hates it when they see me standing around doing nothing but I need to do that or else I will run oom even faster lol. Also, have our whm always at near max mp doesn't help me because it just make me seem like I'm bad at mp management compare to the whm

Well, about ress. 1 ress is fine, 2 resses are a problem and you will face mp crisis, 3 resses and might as well wipe lol. I think the MP usages offset the lower mp cost too much.

AST are ok mana wise when things go according to plan (but so are WHM and SCH). However it is the crisis management mode that sees AST really go into over drive on MP usage.

Both SCH and WHM can manage to heal up the party when things don't go according to plan fairly efficiently (without mentioning both have better MP recovery tools in the first place) where as AST are stuck spamming Helios as your only option. This is particularly important during progression as mistakes are natural.

I'm just hoping they address the lack of "oh-shit" button (Essential Dignity should be used fairly regularly for MP management in my opinion). The buffs to the 3 Utility spells will hopefully fix this.

Anyone know when the buff will be coming out? Is it the same path as Alex savage? Or are we expecting it to drop this Tuesday?

Don't know much more than "before Alexander (Savage)".

It's not entirely unreasonable to expect the buffs this Tuesday, though. :p

I would imagine we'll see it with 3.05, though the Q&A answer was vague enough that we could see changes in hotfixes before that.

AST should be the last person to rez. Should go SCH > WHM > AST/SMN. AST has the worst ways to regain MP of the healers, and if you have to rez people you will likely run into MP issues.

Keeping your Aspected Benefict HoT on the MT will go a long way to helping conserve mana. Your Benefic/Benefic II also cost less mana than the WHM/SCH's equivalent but at the cost of a bit of potency, but when you're just trying to top the MT off from 85-99% HP that's better since you won't be overhealing as much.

SCH/WHM have better ways to get the tank from low HP to full, so just throw your ED on them and maybe one Benefic II afterwards and keep using Benefic other than that. The other healer should really be the one doing most of the heavy emergency healing.

If you know there's going to be a single AoE hit, then start casting Aspected Helios early so it goes off right after the hit. The Heal + HoT will heal the party back to full so you don't have to use 2+ normal Helios to top off the party.

Find out the "tells" of the boss's stronger hits so you can start pre-casting Disable on bosses to get the 10% reduction from those hits. Over time that will save you and the other healer a small chunk of MP.

As for cards, I usually spread my first Spear/Ewer and save it for when I need to do some heavy healing or pop LA.

I'm only AST 52 but AST is basically a less potent 2.0 WHM minus Divine Seal/Benediction/Presence of Mind and I did get WHM to 50 in 2.0. These sorts of tips are what helped me conserve mana then so they should help now.

Probably as much issues as WHM. With SCH i never had mana issues ever and it's very difficult to get them.
I'm a rather low level and careful with mana, but if i do both heal and dps a bit, then i notice that it drops very fast.

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Originally Posted by Ninimo_Babamo

Your AST isn't even 60 yet, and the OP is 60 and farming end game content. I have no idea why you think AST MP pools are larger. I'm i180 on both WHM and AST. Out of party, 10376 HP on both; 13027 MP on both. There's no difference.

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Yes, My AST is not a 60, but I know they have the most Piety so what your saying can't be true. On top of that as a 60WAR, it's my job to take the heat, not them. I see many idiots actively eat damage like Alexander's T3 where that orange tether is on someone, I go take it off, then some WHM/AST (haven't had a SCH with me yet) just swoop, being "I GOT THIZ" and dies instantly, or T4 the orbs, in the middle of EVERYTHING. We tell them we tanks can take them, they eat one, last phase they end up OOM and dead, scratching their heads on why. Half of the time they end up OOM and with us tanks dead by the barrage.

So plz, don't shut down good advice cause of my healer's level. :|

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Originally Posted by RiisWolf

Yes, My AST is not a 60, but I know they have the most Piety so what your saying can't be true.

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It is true.

Piety does not change based on class (unless you use your attribute points in Piety instead of Mind). It comes from gear, race stats, attribute points, and level. So an i180 AST and WHM with the same armor and accessories on, with all their points in Mind will have the exact same Piety and Mind specs unless one of the jobs had a weapon that offered Piety while the other did not, as not all healer weapons offer the same stats.

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Originally Posted by Selli

*snip*

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The i180 weapons all have 69 PIE on them but trade it for SS on the i190 weapons.

I don't know why SMN is so low on most orders here. With their 3.0 rotation changes they really are not that starved for Aetherflow MP unless they are Ruin 3 spamming outside of Dreadwyrm Trance.

The raise order should be SCH>SMN>WHM>AST.

Basically it goes from jobs that have most efficent/less-impactful MP regen cooldown, to the job that has two of them, then the job that only has one. AST should absolutely be last in just about any situation unless swiftcast is down by all jobs, and they can lightspeed the raise.

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Originally Posted by Ninimo_Babamo

And you should. A good healer shouldn't be able to carry a crap party, no matter how good they are. When stuff goes wrong, it's time for the group to get their act together and try harder. I tend to hold a spear card in my hand to use on myself before Luminiferous Aether. I pop a party buff, use the spear card on myself, use my Aether, then pop Opposition to extend all the durations. It goes a long way.

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If only holding a spear card could be done out of combat, but during combat its too unreliable to wait for a spear card before using LA and Opposition. I tend to hit LA as soon as im down 1k mp, to maximize the usage

Unless the fight is heavy winded, I don't find myself gasping for MP to much. I do have a supply of X-ethers on my hotbar just incase and assuming I get lucky with Spear (which always goes on my spread if I can) I will use that and L.Aether to restore my MP once I am a couple thousand down. Works even better if I can pop L.Aether followed by collective unconscious to shield/heal the tank while restoring my mp.

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Originally Posted by Elanshin

AST are ok mana wise when things go according to plan (but so are WHM and SCH). However it is the crisis management mode that sees AST really go into over drive on MP usage.

Both SCH and WHM can manage to heal up the party when things don't go according to plan fairly efficiently (without mentioning both have better MP recovery tools in the first place) where as AST are stuck spamming Helios as your only option. This is particularly important during progression as mistakes are natural.

I'm just hoping they address the lack of "oh-shit" button (Essential Dignity should be used fairly regularly for MP management in my opinion). The buffs to the 3 Utility spells will hopefully fix this.

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Helios is not a good usage of your mana. Diurnal Aspected Helios is far more mana efficient if you let the HoT tick properly and heals for quite a lot. Always cast that first. In 8 man you'll have another healer there anyway so they will also be casting their AoE heal. Most of the time you won't need more AoE after that and in the rare chance that you do you can then Helios, but often all you need after that is back to healing individuals. Even in 4 man D stance AH is the better way to go. On the occasion that all you have is a small amount of AoE healing to where AH is too much, then sure go with Helios. But in that situation you're only casting it once and going back to the tank so the mana cost isn't a problem since you're not spamming it.

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Originally Posted by chumsy

If only holding a spear card could be done out of combat, but during combat its too unreliable to wait for a spear card before using LA and Opposition. I tend to hit LA as soon as im down 1k mp, to maximize the usage

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Even if you could spread spear out of combat, using spear + opposition for your MP usage isn't worth in comparison to the RR AOE buff the spear card gives for casting balance/arrow just after or even to the speared buff himself casted on AOE.

I assume the better option would be when you have a RR AOE buff, you Draw balance/arrow and before you had spread Spear. So now you cast the balance/arrow, then you spear yourself, then you hit LA and finish with using opposition.

In this situation the spread spear for yourself is worth because it doesn't prevent the AOE buff for the raid, but how many times are you meeting these requierements ? Even with spread out of combat, that's still too much for multiple occurences to happen around the same time.

As a result RR Spear / Speared AOE > Selfish spearing.

For those who use Spear on themself and opposition too just for the LA, this is the very wrong way to go. Better struggle at MP than loosing opposition and 1 card on only 1 target most of the time. Use Ewer on you instead of Spear, because for Ewer you haven't as much great choices as spear :

- RR it, that's correct for a next balance/arrow/bole or even another ewer
- Spread it for a time you know it's needed and you have a chance that you'll use it on some RR potency/duration effect
- use it without any buff, it's still convenient if you can't do anything else

Now the persons who may actually need this card since we heard so much "AST cards are to support the raid, not using them on himself" :

- the other healer but unless it's an AST he has better MP recovery
- the smn but for now I never heard one asking for MP
- the blm... Oh wait not even the case
- the only one who left is you

So basically, Ewer is born to be used only on you or on your co-healer if he is struggling more than you (in this last case, there is a more important issue...).

An ewer or even an enhanced ewer can help out a blackmage on DPS checks by allowing them to cast an extra Fire (w.e level) before switching to ice.

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Originally Posted by AlphaFox

An ewer or even an enhanced ewer can help out a blackmage on DPS checks by allowing them to cast an extra Fire (w.e level) before switching to ice.

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Only if they received Ewer before they started their rotation, and only if they knew they received Ewer prior to starting. You're assuming it was pulled while they were at full MP and were aware they actually received the buff; unless you're on VOIP and can communicate that, it's not really doing much for them. I think Ewer is best used on yourself or the other healer, since chances are you're both going to be casting fairly regularly; however, using it (or spear) on yourself defeats the purpose of bringing AST for group utility, as has been discussed before.

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Originally Posted by GideonHighmourn

Only if they received Ewer before they started their rotation, and only if they knew they received Ewer prior to starting. You're assuming it was pulled while they were at full MP and were aware they actually received the buff; unless you're on VOIP and can communicate that, it's not really doing much for them. I think Ewer is best used on yourself or the other healer, since chances are you're both going to be casting fairly regularly; however, using it (or spear) on yourself defeats the purpose of bringing AST for group utility, as has been discussed before.

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I agree that it's not best for BLM but I don't think it defeats the purpose of brining AST for utility. In the case of Ewer, healers need it more than any other class. Among the healers, the AST has the least options for mana return so we're really the best option for Ewer. In that case I don't see it as a waste but as the best use of a buff. Spear can be useful for a number of classes, however.

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Originally Posted by technole

*snip*

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Making the SMN rez someone is a DPS loss. Having to save Swiftcast for rezzing someone is a DPS loss because Swiftcast -> Shadowflare is a great way to push your DPS even harder. Though right now SMN isn't hurting for DPS :P

WHM also have pretty good mana management now that Assize is a thing on top of SoS.