Cleric stance on sastasha for Ast

First post for me here I'm not level 60 on either healer yet and I don't consider myself an expert. I have a friend who just started and it was his first time going through it. After casting protect I swapped to cleric stance which stopped my heals and killed the tank which I regret. The tank told me that I shouldn't be DPSing anyways and said his main was healer. I pray he's not a scholar but I can't possibly see his side of the story on that one. In a level 16 dungeon with two level 55 people and a new drk level 32. He's pulling two sets of trash mobs and I had no issue healing him through it but he was constantly losing aggro on a class with aoe enmity and consistently whined about protect and how it was needed. I really just couldn't see his point so I just stayed with cleric stance so I didn't have to wait 30 seconds without heals again for useless unnecessary mitigation. How can anyone justify standing around casting cure ever 15-20 seconds on any class.

I've been leveling AST as my last healer job to 60 so been to Sastasha recently a bit more than I'd like :D Personally I have only cleric stance there as cross-class and just skip protect entirely. The healing requirement is already very low and I don't think protect makes much of a difference. I've had quite a few runs where I've healed mostly between pulls and maybe tossed one benefic during the pull here and there. There's no excuse for idling as healer for long periods of time so yes, you should be doing dps and the tank was just plain wrong. Healer dps is so high that it almost rivals that of the dps classes if you're geared well and it's sometimes even better. I'd also say that there's very little to gain in the early dungeons from pulling more than one group of mobs as nobody has a decent AoE damage anyway and taking one group at a time gives the healer more freedom to push dps as most of the time you can skip healing entirely.

Protect is useless in the early parts of the game. Stick with Cleric Stance.

Just keep CS as your first Cross class. Protect is over rated, especially at that level. Yes it's free damage mitigation but it isn't nearly as good, or as essentially, as many make it out to be. You'll need it by at least level thirty, so ignore anyone ignorant enough that tells you is better than CS.

Running PotD its funny to see how many AST and SCH have CS as their 10 skill vs the ones who have Protect. Noticed more people with CS.

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Originally Posted by Heliantheae

Running PotD its funny to see how many AST and SCH have CS as their 10 skill vs the ones who have Protect. Noticed more people with CS.

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It helps make the run quicker and seasoned healers should be able to heal just fine.
It's those who are learning who should start out with at least Protect.

The early dungeons where you only get the choice of one cross class skill definitely do not need Protect. I always have Cleric Stance set as my first cross class skill. That said, you will want to stance dance as an Astrologian whenever you need to heal which will happen occasionally. Usually this amounts to once at the end of each trash pull fight, and a couple of times during a boss fight. As a Scholar, as long as everyone is avoiding unnecessary damage you can literally leave Cleric Stance on 100% of the time, since your fairy will easily cover all healing needs even on bosses.

Isn't most casters leveling gear kinda even with mnd/int? It's been over a year since I've leveled a caster so I don't remember.

So, clerics in lower dungeons will give you what...5 extra points to int? And in the same breath, CS shouldn't gimp your healing that bad either. I think trying to sneak in one more Malfect or Stella made have done the tank in lol.

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Originally Posted by BorisDaBlade

Isn't most casters leveling gear kinda even with mnd/int? It's been over a year since I've leveled a caster so I don't remember.

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Yes. But...

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Originally Posted by BorisDaBlade

So, clerics in lower dungeons will give you what...5 extra points to int? And in the same breath, CS shouldn't gimp your healing that bad either.

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No. First, Cleric Stance does more than just swap INT and MND. It also increases magic damage by 10% and reduces healing by 20%. And that's not counting the situation of doing a roulette on a higher level class where you end up with synced gear which only has MND and no INT, and difference is quite significant.

A lot of people here recommend sticking with Cleric Stance in the first cross class slot but if you don/t Protect, the hate you'll get from the party members can be surprising since people sometimes don't really know what they're saying. SO I do the same as you put Protect on the first slot and swap it out once I finished casting it. That said, the healing requirement for Sastasha is really low so maybe it's a combination of you doing too much dps or the tank being too confident and pulling a ton of mobs. I find that even in the lowest level dungeons, mass pulling is still dangerous since no one really has their complete kit yet and only Archer and Thaumaturge have some sort of AOE damage.

Thanks for all the input guys, I figured as much. In game I was being called out for it being 60 but I got to 50 twice before the HS expansion I consider myself more then an adequate healer. Just wanted to make sure from some overs it was the right choice. I would probably be higher level but I've been helping my wife learn the game and progress her blm. The tank was talking about clearing a12s as a healer but I feel like if he did without dpsing as a healer his team carried him pretty hard

There's no situation before Lv20 where having Protect will result in you having to heal the tank any less. You'll either have a tank who is geared and knows how to use his cooldowns such that you have to heal no more than once per pull, or you'll have a tank who is undergeared or unfamiliar with his abilities who will require you to heal after every other Malefic. Cleric Stance is the best slot 1 ability for its ability to cut minutes from the run. It's fine to slot Protect at 20 permanently, rather than swapping it in and out at entry.

Kinda use protect and swich the skill with CS afterwards? xD Thats what i do usually in palace.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

There's no situation before Lv20 where having Protect will result in you having to heal the tank any less. You'll either have a tank who is geared and knows how to use his cooldowns such that you have to heal no more than once per pull, or you'll have a tank who is undergeared or unfamiliar with his abilities who will require you to heal after every other Malefic. Cleric Stance is the best slot 1 ability for its ability to cut minutes from the run. It's fine to slot Protect at 20 permanently, rather than swapping it in and out at entry.

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Agreed. It's not even worth swapping Protect back in and having to deal with the annoying CD. The impact of Protect at low levels is so insignificant that no one would bother waiting for it to be cast if they truly realized how much of a placebo it actually is when your base defensive stats are in the double digits.

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Originally Posted by BorisDaBlade

Isn't most casters leveling gear kinda even with mnd/int? It's been over a year since I've leveled a caster so I don't remember.

So, clerics in lower dungeons will give you what...5 extra points to int? And in the same breath, CS shouldn't gimp your healing that bad either. I think trying to sneak in one more Malfect or Stella made have done the tank in lol.

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No. Its more than that.

I did some basic quick tests on the first two bats at minimum ILVL to check:

- With basic low level equipment (actually only gaining INT and MND from Right side) on a SCH I gained 5 points in damage per Ruin with CS up.

- With a Synched down AST (level 60) I went from ~35 damage per Malefic to ~70 damage per Malefic with CS up.

- With and without Protect I took between 40 and 47 damage.

- As a Paladin I took ~32-35 damage from each attack. Again with and without Protect.

In the end Protect proved pretty much useless and CS is a DPS increase no matter what.

And please don't ever use Stella. Ever.

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Originally Posted by Rivxkobe

And please don't ever use Stella. Ever.

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Tell that to Stanley.

I can think of very few places where a slow (I mean heavy) is useful. Slowing the heart from the cat in A7 is a good time, for example. But Stella is pretty... eeeehhh.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

I can think of very few places where a slow is useful. Slowing the heart from the cat in A7 is a good time, for example. But Stella is pretty... eeeehhh.

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I think they just meant "don't use it as a dps spell." There are a ton of instances where gravity is useful (slow is a different status entirely). I know personally when I PVP on WHM, Stone is my most potent DPS spell just because it keeps it keeps them from fleeing the actual DDs on my team.

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Originally Posted by Urthdigger

I think they just meant "don't use it as a dps spell."

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^

I mean its good for PvP but out of that and in A7 (though most everyone else has some way of slowing it down) there is little use of it. Really in regular dungeon runs, FATES etc. its pointless.

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Originally Posted by Urthdigger

slow

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I meant Heavy. I'm bad for that.

And I agree with Rivxkobe. Stella is a garbage DPS spell.

I do not even bother with Protect until my level 30 cross class slot. I'd rather have it on 40, actually, but this guy in my FC gets annoyed by that, so I try to remain cooperative for community's sake and meet his expectations half-way.

That said, a tank death is partially the tank's fault too. A tank's primary job is to initiate fights, position the foes, and stay alive as long as possible. If a tank's HP goes from full to dead within the 7.5 second window of Cleric Stance's cooldown and the cast time of one healing spell, that is a huge tank fail, not the healer's. Even if you were healing them instead of using Cleric Stance, you realistically could not have healed through the damage anyway without a ton of cooldowns or instant cast heals, which you do not have at low levels anyway.

CS>>>>>protect at those early levels.
On ast even more so than the other healers. ED is a basically a 1min benediction, available for every trash pack, even without dropping CS

protect actually does nothing at all, you will still need to cast as many heals. Instead of the mobs hitting for 50hp, they might instead hit for 47hp if the tank has protect (numbers out the air). you're not suddenly going to have to not cast a cure because that 3hp made a difference

healer is ridic op at early levels

All non CNJ/WHM healers should have Cleric Stance cross classed as their first. I personally then have Protect, Stoneskin, Swiftcast then Aero. They're the order I found them most useful for both solo & instanced content without needing to swap. Many argue that Blizzard2 is needed but as a SCH I have a lot of AoE ability & like the sheer smack Aero can give against solo monsters.

I keep cs as my first cross class slot, and when I roll sastasha as heals, there's usually a class there to cover with protect anyway. I've rolled it a lot and never had any actual "hate" for not casting it myself. There is usually that 15s lull where people wait for it though, that's usually funny, especially if they wait so long I have to go pull to show them protect ain't coming.

I just keep CS in the first slot and mention to the group that I don't have protect cross-classed at that level. 9/10 times someone else does and if they don't, it's not a huge deal.

You should be dpsing.

If the tank isn't terrible (like... wearing DoW gear and not using CDs like someone I had the other day) You shouldn't have to leave clerics except to throw like 1 heal a fight.

I put clerics as my lvl 10 cc on ast/ch and protect at 20 - I don't even use it if i get the teens leveling dungeons. Rarely someone who doesn't know what they're talking about will complain about it - they're wrong.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

Protect is useless in the early parts of the game. Stick with Cleric Stance.

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Technically, both of them are useless at that low level. You won't notice much a DPS difference for not using cleric at level 15 and at least your team won't yell at you.

What I do in Sastasha is protect, swap protect and cleric stance as the tank is running to the next pack, and if he gets low before I get Benefic off cooldown, hit him with essential dignity. Then I turn on cleric stance and dps for most of the dungeon bc Sastasha healing requirements are very low. You can even Benefic through CS and it's decent enough in a pinch.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

Technically, both of them are useless at that low level. You won't notice much a DPS difference for not using cleric at level 15 and at least your team won't yell at you.

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Incorrect.

I posted earlier about this.

CS increases the damage your spells do by, at least, 5. At most it doubles the damage of your spells. Again this is in Sastasha.

Protect on the other hand has no discernable effect on the damage you recieve. Even as a tank. So it is, in essence, useless. Its not even worth the swap.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

Technically, both of them are useless at that low level. You won't notice much a DPS difference for not using cleric at level 15 and at least your team won't yell at you.

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This is only true IF you are wearing low level gear, as that is general DoM gear that has both int and mnd. If you're a high level player synced down however, you likely get NO int on your gear whatsoever.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

Technically, both of them are useless at that low level. You won't notice much a DPS difference for not using cleric at level 15 and at least your team won't yell at you.

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RivxKobe already pointed you to their previous post but I'm going to include one little tidbit.

If you increase your dps by even 1 with CS then you are getting more use out of it than you would Protect. And a 1 point increase to dps isn't entirely useless so I would have to disagree with you completely.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

RivxKobe already pointed you to their previous post but I'm going to include one little tidbit.

If you increase your dps by even 1 with CS then you are getting more use out of it than you would Protect. And a 1 point increase to dps isn't entirely useless so I would have to disagree with you completely.

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What I read from Foxy's comment was that getting through the duty is such a non-issue that the choice of Cross-Class slot isn't very important no matter how you spin it.

Personally I go for CS because a 10% damage boost is better than nothing even if we're talking about lowbies with comparable base INT and MND. If the party wants to bitch, they can have at it. Most players by now seem to recognize that Protect in low-level content is basically irrelevant.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

snipperoo.

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True enough. Clearing the duty is braindead af, but it's rather ignorant to claim CS and Protect are on the same level at lv. 15. Protect is literally useless. There is no change to the damage you received when you apply it. CS at least does something.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

What I read from Foxy's comment was that getting through the duty is such a non-issue that the choice of Cross-Class slot isn't very important no matter how you spin it.

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Maybe.

But CS isn't "useless", as he claimed. While it isn't important, placing Protect as your first CC has no real merit or practical use.

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Originally Posted by Urthdigger

This is only true IF you are wearing low level gear, as that is general DoM gear that has both int and mnd. If you're a high level player synced down however, you likely get NO int on your gear whatsoever.

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Not even then is it true.

You would still gain the slight bonus from naturally higher mind and the 10% increase. It, in no way, never doesn't increase the damage you do. Meaning it is not useless as he so claimed. Important? Not really. But there is literally no reason to take protect over CS.

As someone who primarily tanks I love to see healers at low levels helping to kill things. If a healer is staying in healing stance I take that as a sign to pull everything in sight, gotta make em work for their coin as it were. DRk and WAR can do decent aoe dmg at that level anyways, so it actually does speed up the run to pull alot and aoe it down.