What do you want to see on Astrologian?

[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.

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. :')

[loreleidiangelo]

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.

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.

[Cynfael]

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

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.

[Cynfael]

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'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.

[Kuwagami]

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.

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)

source is here

[SirDiscoFrog]

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.

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

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.

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.

[416to305]

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.

[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)

[Nadirah]

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)

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

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.

[Cynfael]

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

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.