Astro in savage

[Staris]

Oh that just got me to the edge of my chair. I'm going in again as AST and I'm going to push myself SO damn hard.

I was the AST

it would have been a kill if the monk didn't get killed by the giant avoidable laser halfway through also.
It really isn't that hard to heal it with ast/sch. It has advantages also like synastry lines up perfectly with double prey/tank buster.

Also our sch has cleric stance up more aggressively than he needs to, with even a few more gear upgrades to the group it would be jokes to make the dps check and he wouldn't need to do any damage and the healing would be trivial.

[Parawill]

I was the AST

~Snip~

Hi Staris! Thank you for dropping in and providing some insight. Would you mind answering some questions?

1. Does your Scholar change his playstyle from instead just DPS'ing and single-target healing and shielding, apply Succor and AoE heal when required? In addition, does s/he use Eos/Selene and rotate cooldowns to help you AoE heal?

2. For double preys & tank busters, do your tanks use two CDs as opposed to one? In addition, does your SCH apply Adlo on at least 2 or 3 targets?

3. If possible, could you provide raid DPS information as well? I don't care so much about individual numbers, but overall group DPS & tank/healer DPS would be nice.

Thank ^_^ I'm super excited to go in again for another attempt! And kudos and all the praise for clearing (or getting close to) A:S1!

P.S: (I do see lost of room for recovery. I know one main issue even on WHM is my entire raid isn't getting hit by AoE heals x.x)

[zuzu-bq]

I was playing AST before savage launch. He was really fun and ok to good on any content before savage. But his strength falls a lot when we were doing harder content. I was the SCH and I had my partner playing WHM. Our first atempt at Alex Savage went well, we got Faust quickly and we were adjusting to Oppressor. We had to leave duty because of some member rl thing.

After that, we rejoined. Our WHM went as AST. No changes on Faust honestly but when we got to oppressor we were having trouble to adjust heals in some parts that we already had adjusted on SCH+WHM duo, and since AST's healing kit is so simmilar to WHM, maybe this reveals that AST is really lacking on something. Total party damage per second didn't change much, but I can't say if that was AST or our DPSs are still adjusting themselves to the fight. I know I'm still adjusting my stance dance and mana management.

I think AST's main problem are Aspected Helios wich Burst is a lot lower than WHM's Medica II and the lack of the Mind Attribute Bonus. I wanna try the WHM+AST duo later (with both Di and Noct). I never liked Aspected Helios since I started leveling AST, and I don't think Nocturnal Stance is bad like most people think. I wanna give it a shot later. Back on 2.x SCH was the support healer, while he still is a semi-supportive healer we got a lot of new heals out of our scholar hats but maybe SCH+AST is not as good because both are supportive kinda of healers? I don't know, I hope not beacuse I love the idea off keeping the party buffed for almost 100% of the time. We may end going up for SCH+WHM duo for progression anyways. I noticed Virus cd doesn't sync well with some AoE magical raid damage, I hope this doesn't become an issue without Disable or other Super Virus user (Summoner).

tl;dr
I think AST can do it. But he'll maybe need a bit more effort and/or gear than the others. To be honest, most and maybe all healer formations may be viable as people get more geared. Who knows!

[KarstenS]

the lack of the Mind Attribute Bonus.

Yesterday I watches how much this bonus bring on the table. I was surprised. It was more than I expected.

This bonus do also affect cleric stance?

Are all bonuses this noticeable? We are missing the STR bonus becuase no DRG/MNK.

[Staris]

Hi Staris! Thank you for dropping in and providing some insight. Would you mind answering some questions?

1. Does your Scholar change his playstyle from instead just DPS'ing and single-target healing and shielding, apply Succor and AoE heal when required? In addition, does s/he use Eos/Selene and rotate cooldowns to help you AoE heal?

2. For double preys & tank busters, do your tanks use two CDs as opposed to one? In addition, does your SCH apply Adlo on at least 2 or 3 targets?

3. If possible, could you provide raid DPS information as well? I don't care so much about individual numbers, but overall group DPS & tank/healer DPS would be nice.

Thank ^_^ I'm super excited to go in again for another attempt! And kudos and all the praise for clearing (or getting close to) A:S1!

P.S: (I do see lost of room for recovery. I know one main issue even on WHM is my entire raid isn't getting hit by AoE heals x.x)

First off (From Yesterday)
\\

I used Diurnal Stance. Eos was out for the SCH.

1. I did significant amount of the aoe healing using only aspect-ed Helios. Remember people don't have to be topped off immediately the aoe damage is predictable, and you know who the prety targets are long enough ahead to top them off. Also i used synastry on a tank every double prey/ tank buster. (it lines up so perfectly that I would cast it early on the first 1 or 2) Should note that the range of synsatry effects the bonus heal and you have to be within 30 meters of the buffed target, but they dont have to be 30 meters from the heal target.

2. The paladin did Sentinel 1 and 3, HG 2, and was going to rampart 4 (which is risky he dies sometimes there but its secoonds before the enrage and he can survive it if topped off and disable/virus ect).
The Warrior does Holmgang for 1 and 3 and every other buff 2 and 4.
It is important to know you could and should virus and disable the tank buster on the tank who does not currently using HG or Holmgang.
Which means you could virus the prey cast on the HG/Holmgang target if you have a second super virus.

3. The SCH did About 400? DPS. I did about 20 (only dotted on pull) (Plus lots of dps cards on the summoner).


We had a 4 % wipe a 2 % wipe and a 1 % wipe. and than killed it like 10 seconds before enrage.
Very frustrating that we would have had it the first day minus a single dps death to big laser.

We did 3 lockouts on day one, and it only took 1/2 a lockout on the second day and nearly every attempt was to the end. So i feel it is a very viable comp. Very few wipes were to healing issues.

[RichardButte]

We did 3 lockouts on day one, and it only took 1/2 a lockout on the second day and nearly every attempt was to the end. So i feel it is a very viable comp. Very few wipes were to healing issues.

The problem is that if you're wiping to DPS checks, a WHM/SCH duo allows the SCH to do a hell of a lot more DPS and, as people have been saying in the thread, that's what their experience has been and the content becomes dramatically easier once they switched to this combo.

And that's actually BACKWARDS: the whole point of AST is that you should be making DPS checks faster because of the buffs, and if we're not, then there's NO point to AST at all. :\

I'm guessing that if you had a WHM/SCH combo you'd have just rolled right through it...

[GideonHighmourn]

And that's actually BACKWARDS: the whole point of AST is that you should be making DPS checks faster because of the buffs, and if we're not, then there's NO point to AST at all. :\

I think it should at least be a viable alternative to the WHM/SCH DPS combo. WHM/SCH simply buys far more guaranteed DPS through Cleric Stance for pushing through content than AST/* can buy with minor, unreliable card buffs.

[Staris]

The problem is that if you're wiping to DPS checks, a WHM/SCH duo allows the SCH to do a hell of a lot more DPS and, as people have been saying in the thread, that's what their experience has been and the content becomes dramatically easier once they switched to this combo.

And that's actually BACKWARDS: the whole point of AST is that you should be making DPS checks faster because of the buffs, and if we're not, then there's NO point to AST at all. :\

I'm guessing that if you had a WHM/SCH combo you'd have just rolled right through it...

THe dps gain would have to be greater than that of using dps cards on a dreadworm tranced summoner who is multi dotting.
I think its close enough to be irrelevant.

We have another group about to clear it, using a WHM and their sch is doing nearly identical dps.

I think you are vastly overestimating the differences in actual heals cast and and underestimating the usefulness of synastry and disable

[SuzakuCMX]

We have another group about to clear it, using a WHM and their sch is doing nearly identical dps.

And that's actually BACKWARDS: the whole point of AST is that you should be making DPS checks faster because of the buffs, and if we're not, then there's NO point to AST at all. :\

If AST and SCH output the same DPS per raid but AST's cards are a random buff and it heals for less, how is that balanced?

Another question: is AST worth giving up Selene/Eos buffs, Lustrate, E4E, Supervirus, Adlo crit shields, Shadow Flare slow, and Emergency/Deployment tactics for the card buffs?

[RichardButte]

THe dps gain would have to be greater than that of using dps cards on a dreadworm tranced summoner who is multi dotting.
I think its close enough to be irrelevant.

I think the SCH multi-dotting is more reliable than the 17% chance of a balance.

We have another group about to clear it, using a WHM and their sch is doing nearly identical dps.

We also need to consider the parsing of every player in both groups. It'll only be a valid comparison if the DPS are putting out near identical numbers in both groups.

I think you are vastly overestimating the differences in actual heals cast and and underestimating the usefulness of synastry and disable

SCH/WHM healing capability is vastly superior, as is mana management. That's not even up for debate. SCH is no more than 60 seconds away from restoring 20% of its mana (and then even MORE mana if you burn Aetherflow stacks on recovering more as needed).

SCH also has 6 dots (both miasmas, both bios, Aero and Shadow flare). I'm not saying they can afford to use all of them all the time, but the option is definitely there if they have the spare mana.

But did they fix Disable so it doesn't get triggered by individual auto attacks?

Not trying to downplay your accomplishment. I think it's extremely impressive, but that's just it, it shouldn't be THAT impressive to do this with an AST.

When people are reporting trying with AST and failing then switching to SCH and steamrolling it (with the only thing changing in the group being them switching to SCH and having largely the same gear), then the problem seems clear...