AST low DPS overblown?

Does AST really have lower DPS, or is it just perception? Lower potencies of 10-30 is a small change, percentage-wise. For example stone 4 is only 8% better than AST’s version, even though the 220 vs 250 potency split looks more substantial. Any 3 of the DPS cards on a single DPS character is much more impactful.

Another argument is that they only have one dot, while others have two. However, there’s does 500 overall damage with one GLD, while the others do 300-350 and take two gCLD. If you add 220 (second gCLD), the numbers are actually comparable and actually slightly favors AST. All have just the one instant cast dot, so they are equal there.

AOE favors the other healers, though the cards are also generally more impactful in those situations and at least there is always gravity spam, mp allowing. AST really improves with extra dungeon downtime to pre-shield in Noc, fill out the card spreads, and regain mp. So I guess best with groups that don’t do huge pulls.

I also often hear that whm has better healing output than AST, which is not true. All of the healing potencies are higher and the cooldowns are better. As an added bonus, AST can pre super shield and then switch to regen mode prepull, for a sort-of divine benison. The + 10% stance bonus makes all healing slightly better and regen is the same. They also have more oGLD with synastry, duration extension, earthly star (better than two assize with same cooldown and more controllable to avoid overheal waste) and a lower cooldown benedict with essential dignity. Also Lady of Crowns. Synastry alone could be multiple oGLD per cooldown if a lot if healing is required.

Ast dps is still lower than the two other, yes, but not that much.
What's make the difference in the final resultat is that :

- It looks harder to dps as an Ast cause you're relying more on the Malefic III spam.
- You have less oGCD healing, so you have to take one GCD to heal sometime
- The clipping is strong in ast toolkit. Drawing every 30s + spread or royal road or shuffle/lord of crown...

At least, if the clipping could be avoided a little more, well ast could do a little better.

So all of this is ast dps in real situation.
But its true dps isn't that far from the other (still the weakest however).

No, WHM is better on that point.

Diurnal Aspected Helios is still weaker than Medica II.
Essential Dignity has somehow merged Tetragrammaton and Benediction into one skill. So yes, it's 40s, but it's only one VS Two for WHM.
Earthly Star is twice better than Assize because its Ast only oGCD aoe heal,otherwise, he must rely on Helios.

WHM has Assize, Plenary Indulgence, Medica, Cure III. Ast has Earthly Star and Helios.

If you check the toolkit correctly, what you'll notice is, Ast needeed space for its cards.
But since he also need some heals CD, they decided to make those look stronger.

You are not considering Lady of Crowns, Synastry (which has a long duration), and duration extensions abilties. Add those, and AST has more oCLD and the better regen up time saves gCLD by not having to recast HOTs as often which is the same as gaining another oGLD to heal (since you could just heal with a gCLD instead of using it to re-cast the regen). Just the basic, very mp efficient heal of benedict 2 heals for over 700 so gaining a global cooldown though duration extension is like getting a tetragrammanton.

Helio 2 is only a tiny bit weaker than Medica 2. 3-4% after factoring the 10% bonus. This is offset by AST having higher potentiates with every single other GCLD healing spell, including the single target regen one (Asp Benedict).

I think many of AST "bonus" healing is just more "hidden", which is why it seems like they have less on the surface. But if you critically think about it and do all of the math, they are the strongest. Granted, it takes optimal play to not mess up the cool downs and to line up abiltities that synergize well, particularly with the duration extensions. For the average skill player, white mage is probably a little better.

Really, I feel like whm biggest advantage is that it is the easiest so you are less likely to mess it up (and thus perform better) and also handle other people messing up since it takes the least pre-planning. Also, they are certain strongest in AOE damage and speeding through dungeons because of the mp management. But, they are not the best healers. I think both SCH and AST are better overall when looking at the full toolkit; particularly ways that global cool-downs can be reduced (and thus available for healing). For example, SCH has free, zero-action regens with the fairy so they don't need to ever cast regen or medica 2, allowing them to instead cast a healing spell during that time which is basically the same as having another tetra or other oGLD. Duration extension works the same way.

The draw of AST is the party buffs. Its dps and healing need to be slightly lower to compensate. if the dps and healing output was equal to WHM, for example, plus the buffs, what would be the point of anyone playing WHM?

I think whm purpose is to provide a job that is straight forward to play and a low skill floor. Most people will perform better with whm because it is harder to mess up using it and to play sub-optimally. Basically, it serves the same purpose as the new warrior; you don’t need to memorize and practice specific rotations to do well. I actually perfer whm and play it the most because it is easier to play well.

I see “party buff” vs “personal dps” words thrown around, but they are really the same thing. The cards are “1 mitigation, 3 flat dps increase, 1 mp regen, 1 useless”. All can be royal roaded into DPS as needed. So it isn’t really “utility”, it is just simply dps in a different form, like a DOT. Another way to think of the cards is as an attacking “pet”. If EOS could attack with embrace instead of heal you would think of it as your own dps, not a party buff. Just like EOS is really a HOT, cards are really a DOT

Just to add some numbers to this discussion.

AST seems to be around 20-25% behind SCH in terms of personal raid DPS in the current Savage turns, granted this in a situation where they are free to focus very heavily on their DPSing.

This is based on my co-healer who is robot level consistent. It's harder to judge his impact on the raid DPS as a whole due to my group's DPS being a bit more human, but I seem to trend about 100 dps higher when he is on SCH (More likely down to better tank healing). Overall, I think Cards vs Chain is very close, perhaps not that far off a draw (hurr hurr) if you're consistently aligning Chain with Trick.

The clipping thing is my biggest bugbear with the job now, even using minor arcana grates. I routinely find myself falling back on my old card click macro so I can deal with cards without delaying my next GCD.

Yeah, SCH is really good despite lower potencies, for the same reason as AST. Potencies are only slightly less than baseline white mage (~6%), and easily made up with the free global cooldowns granted by not casting regen spells in addition to all the aetherflow skills that go off cooldown faster than whm. It only takes like one or two free actions over 60 secs (eos free regens provide more than that) to exceed white mages higher personal damage potencies. Of course chain stratgem is great for boss enemies for the same reasons as expanded cards.

Is that 25% considering cards or chain stratagem? It also makes sense for AST to heal the most in multi-healer compositions since it hurts their DPS the least to do so and their gCLD heals are stronger than SCH. As a result they will less damage but heal a lot more. If everything is taken into consideration and healing and skill are equal, I think they would be very comparable.

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Originally Posted by Braven

Is that 25% considering cards or chain stratagem?

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The 20-25% difference is purely plucked from my co-healers numbers. It's a small sample size, but his consistency is such that I've got faith in them being a decent representation to go by.

Your point on AST being the better option to push the HPS heavy lifting is very valid, unfortunately I'm a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to my DPS in raids. Whilst our combined damage is actually pretty solid (92-98% combined), there's no denying that he is carrying me on that front. It's a shame that I absolutely couldn't stick AST at the start of 4.0 as it would have suited our play better.

No, it's not overblown. Head over to FFlogs, pick a fight, and look at all the healers. AST is always the lowest by a significant margin. Their personal DPS is the weakest in the game. The exact amount varies by which encounter you look at, but it's pretty much always at least 25% (and seems to be even higher in Rabanastre, which could be due to who is doing that regularly vs savage). It doesn't tend to matter as much in group content because cards and they can push a lot of HPS.

But I find playing AST outdoors downright painful.

It's down to the fact AST is fundamentally the closest to a support job we have in FFXIV.

So many skills are dedicated towards the card system that an AST only has the single most basic damaging spells, but more than makes up the output difference by properly buffing allies in group content.

It's fine.