Astrologian buffs confirmed

[Krixus]

Balance gives the biggest DPS increase in all of the AST's tools.

Can I see the math for this also? In ffxi haste always trumped everything in terms of dps, why would it be different here? I've always assumed arrow was greater than balance, but I'm willing to be proved otherwise. I just don't know how that would be calculated when it all depends on the buffs the player has on at the time, their current attack speed increases.

For example in ffxi if you added 2% haste to a player with 23% gear haste, it would have a much greater effect than adding 2% when they had 20% gear haste. So maybe using arrow on a job with huton has a much greater effect as well?

[Staris]

I don't know why people are so ready to discount WHM potential dps. My static whm spikes at 950 dps in A4 throwing boulders. The ease at which a whm can meet the minimum required hps to clear the encounter allows their partner to spend more time in clerics. Ast mana issues when dpsing full time are limiting and the unrealiable buffs lower total raid dps well below what the other healing pair can bring in raw damage even without selene.

Because accuracy requirements will go up, and whm damage will go down.

[Ghishlain]

Can I see the math for this also? In ffxi haste always trumped everything in terms of dps, why would it be different here? I've always assumed arrow was greater than balance, but I'm willing to be proved otherwise. I just don't know how that would be calculated when it all depends on the buffs the player has on at the time, their current attack speed increases.

For example in ffxi if you added 2% haste to a player with 23% gear haste, it would have a much greater effect than adding 2% when they had 20% gear haste. So maybe using arrow on a job with huton has a much greater effect as well?

Here's some quick napkin math.

In general, you can pretty much say 10% Haste increases a player's output by 11.1% for the duration of the buff (100/90 = 1.111) but that number changes based on WHO gets the Haste.

For example, Haste does nothing with the final damage of the DoTs. It decreases cast time, but the final damage output of a DoT will be same regardless of haste or not. And since most DPS in this game have at least one DoT that is part of their rotation, this already devalues that to a slight degree. This means Arrow is less useful for high DoT jobs like SMN. Unfortunately, this number isn't the easiest to calculate via napkin math, but not impossible either. For general purpose discussion, let's just say the more DoTs a DPS has, the less potent Haste will be for them.

However, Haste stacking with an Huton'd / Grease Lightning'd MNK would result in a higher DPS increase due to the nature of how Haste works. For example, Huton grants a 15% Haste. Then giving a Ninja the Arrow buff is actually a 13.3% increase for the duration of the buff (85/75 = 1.13333333). This value is slightly inflated due to the fact both NIN and MNK do have a DoT or two (I think? I don't play either) in their rotation. In the end, this means you have to be particular with who you use Arrow. Expanded Arrow could be more or less beneficial depending on the raid composition and Enhanced / Extended Arrow can be very potent for MNKs and NINs.

10% boost to damage is just that, 10%. This damage affects DoTs, auto attacks, weaponskills, magic damage, etc. and will give a flat 10% increase and thus much easier to work with, though also at a glance less potent than Arrow.

[Parawill]

It's not the base heals that are weaker but it's our cooldowns that don't really measure up. The stance effects in both stances bring our base heals up to par, but when you really need to pump out more is when we start falling behind. They can leave our base heals where they are in terms of potency if they give us more useful cooldowns.

I was focusing on our base heals because we don't have any reliable cool downs to increase HPS. The point is that it takes more time to do what Scholars or White Mages can currently do, which is horrible because if you throw mana out the window, we're always doing more for less.

I don't know about you, but I feel like Astrologians currently feel like a mash-up between the weaknesses of both Scholars and White Mages pre-heavensward. Lack of AoE Burst (Indomitability and Emergency Tactics fixed this) and lack of off-GCD healing (Assize, Tetragrammaton and Asylum fixed this).

[RichardButte]

Can I see the math for this also? In ffxi haste always trumped everything in terms of dps, why would it be different here?

What's different here is that it doesn't really matter because, as I said, unless Arrow gives a 1,000% DPS increase, it's not going to make AST worth it.

The individual benefit of the speed increase is likely felt differently on every class, but again, Selene's buff still beats the piss out of it and it doesn't make ASTs worth bringing because it's not going to end the encounter significantly faster or anything of the sort.

I don't know if you're looking for a "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?" situation here, but sorry, no, this ain't the "one thing AST got".

There is 0 reason to bring an AST over another healer. You're better off going SCH/SCH or WHM/WHM if you have to than anything/AST.

This right here makes absolutely no sense. Selene doesn't increase your party's DPS output by 12%, she increases it by 1.5%.

1.5% for each of 8 people, which is a cumulative increase of 12%. If we want to call it 1.5%, we can, we just have to then divide AST's 1.5% by 8 to get the actual number since we're only casting that buff on one person instead of 8.

[HeavensSword]

Can I see the math for this also? In ffxi haste always trumped everything in terms of dps, why would it be different here? I've always assumed arrow was greater than balance, but I'm willing to be proved otherwise. I just don't know how that would be calculated when it all depends on the buffs the player has on at the time, their current attack speed increases.

For example in ffxi if you added 2% haste to a player with 23% gear haste, it would have a much greater effect than adding 2% when they had 20% gear haste. So maybe using arrow on a job with huton has a much greater effect as well?

I just wanted to chime in with a DPS perspective here both from this game and FFXI.
Haste was great in 11, but you need to keep in mind that increasing the speed of your auto attacks meant increasing the rate of TP gain allowing you to WS faster. In this game you get a bit of the opposite effect in that increased attack speed results in spending TP faster. Sure you will do damage faster up front, but without TP regeneration you will run out of steam a lot faster during a fight. In 2.x this was a major reason Skill Speed was undervalued, because DPS didn't want to bottom out of TP too quickly. When you are TP starved, your DPS plummets and quickly cancels out the gains your may have received.

I would think that the arrow might better suit a BLM.

[RichardButte]

I just wanted to chime in with a DPS perspective here both from this game and FFXI.
Haste was great in 11, but you need to keep in mind that increasing the speed of your auto attacks meant increasing the rate of TP gain allowing you to WS faster. In this game you get a bit of the opposite effect in that increased attack speed results in spending TP faster. Sure you will do damage faster up front, but without TP regeneration you will run out of steam a lot faster during a fight. In 2.x this was a major reason Skill Speed was undervalued, because DPS didn't want to bottom out of TP too quickly. When you are TP starved, your DPS plummets and quickly cancels out the gains your may have received.

...Which is another reason Balance is probably the best thing AST has to offer a party.

BLMs and healers want haste. Everyone else? Not so much...

[Ghishlain]

1.5% for each of 8 people, which is a cumulative increase of 12%. If we want to call it 1.5%, we can, we just have to then divide AST's 1.5% by 8 to get the actual number since we're only casting that buff on one person instead of 8.

No, this is incorrect.

Player 1 contributes 300 DPS, a 1.5% increase to their DPS is 4.50 DPS for a total of 304.50 DPS
Player 2 contributes 350 DPS, a 1.5% increase to their DPS is 5.25 DPS for a total of 355.25 DPS
Player 3 contributes 400 DPS, a 1.5% increase to their DPS is 6.00 DPS for a total of 406.00 DPS

Total DPS of the group pre buff = 300 + 350 + 400 = 1,050
Total DPS of group post buff = 304.50 + 355.25 + 406.00 = 1,065.75

1,065.75 / 1,050 = 1.015 or a 1.5% increase to group DPS.

You can't sum the parts of each DPS and assume their sum is the total increase to raid DPS without also including the sum of the base raid DPS before the buff. That's the error in your math.

Likewise, while Arrow is approximately an 11% boost to a specific player, that's 11% specific to that particular player. So use my previous example.

Player 1 contributes 300 DPS, a 11.1% increase to their DPS is 33.30 DPS for a total of 333.3 DPS
Player 2 contributes 350 DPS
Player 3 contributes 400 DPS

Total DPS of the group pre buff = 300 + 350 + 400 = 1,050
Total DPS of group post buff = 333.3 + 350 + 400 = 1,083.3

1,083.3 / 1,050 = 1.032 or a 3.2% increase to group DPS.

Remember in math, you always want to try to calculate like for like as much as possible.

[Kietsu]

1.5% for each of 8 people, which is a cumulative increase of 12%. If we want to call it 1.5%, we can, we just have to then divide AST's 1.5% by 8 to get the actual number since we're only casting that buff on one person instead of 8.

A cumulative increase in what? Certainly not damage.
Say you've got a four-man party where everyone's dealing 1000 DPS because that's convenient and also impossible. Your party deals:
1000 + 1000 + 1000 + 1000 = 4000 DPS

We've established that Fey Wind is (roughly) a 1.5% increase to each party member's DPS over the course of your fight.
This means each person's DPS rises to 1015, meaning it lets your party deal:
1015 + 1015 + 1015 + 1015 = 4060 DPS

How much of an increase is that?
4060 / 4000 = 1.015 -> 1.5%

So again, I see where you're pulling this '12%' from but it's ultimately meaningless. The only way to compare a single target Balance / Arrow to an AoE Balance/Arrow or Fey Wind is to know the exact DPS output of every party member - but again, single target DPS buffs are worthless in 8-man parties anyway.

[Leiloni]

For example, Haste does nothing with the final damage of the DoTs. It decreases cast time, but the final damage output of a DoT will be same regardless of haste or not.

I was under the impression that in 3.0 they changed Skill/Spell speed to affect DoT potency? I mean I'd definitely prefer giving it to a BLM but I believe Arrow's buff has multiple affects.

Are you sure this is the correct translation about Yoshi-P said? If this is true then Alex Savage will be in at least 2 weeks from now because still no love for AST...

Yes that is the official translation. Here's the direct link:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3128580