Astro in savage

[Ghishlain]

Forgive me father, for I have sinned: i was tired and forgot to divide by two.

That totally justifies telling me that I "need to stop talking about math", which is then totally not offensive because it was prefaced with "no offense".

Never mind the fact that I was wrong in my favor, meaning my argument was actually stronger than I stated, so it's not like I was trying to mislead anyone.

Besides, if I stopped talking about math, who would you be smarmy and condescending to?

Consider how badly you use math to try to justify your position, yes, you should stop talking about math. Considering you're trying to argue balance, you're continued mishandling of math does nothing more than undermine your own position as an advocate for AST balance. I was trying to be nice and not try to make you look like a complete fool but hey, if you want to be salty, let's play.

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.

The 10% chance at boosting DPS for 15 seconds comes at the cost of a 1 in 6 chance to get that ability, which averages out to a 1.67% DPS boost on one player per minute. It would have to be closer to a 40-60% DPS increase for 15 seconds to actually be worth anything

Your first error with your math is you have no understanding about how to balance the power of a card with the probability of the effect you're trying to garner. When you tried to equate 8 people doing 1.5% additional damage is the same as one person getting a 12% increase on a single player, you showed how heavy handed your balance suggestions actually are. As every player in the game has a different DPS potential due to their job, skill, and equipment, giving an extreme single target boost would be devastating to game balance.

Let's consider your example of boosting Balance and Arrow to 40-60%. Now, let's consider this A1S parse for Faust - the DPS check wall and make an assumption that we're gonna RR every first card for the bonus effect. Since we have Shuffle up every minute, you'll be guaranteed to get Arrow or Balance 55.5% [ 1/3 + ( 1/3 * 2/3) = 55.5%] of the time. We will also assume Arrow / Balance gives the same boost despite the job in question just for easy math (since everyone's baseline is Fey Wind 1.5% haste increase = 1.5% DPS increase).

Group DPS = 8,020
SMN DPS (highest) = 1,581.66

Extend Balance / Arrow = 20-30% increase in DPS 55.5% of the time = 11.1% - 16.7% increase = SMN DPS being increased by 175.56-264.14. A 2.2% to 3.3% increase in total raid DPS.
Enhanced Balance / Arrow = 15%-22.5% increase in DPS 55.5% of the time 8.3% - 12.5% = SMN DPS being increased by 131.28 - 197.71. A 1.6% to 2.5% increase in total raid DPS.
Expand Balance / Arrow = 10-15% increase in raid DPS 55% of the time = 5.6% to 8.3% increase to total raid DPS

So, right there alone, getting the WORST card combination is still a minimum of a 1.6% raid DPS increase. Then consider that drawing Balance in your initial draw is equal to drawing Extend. This means you have a 50% chance to get Extend (Balance/Arrow/Spear), 16.7% chance to get Enhance (Bole), and 33.3% chance to get Expand (Ewer/Spire). If you do the weighted averages.

With a 40% Balance/Arrow - 2.2%*0.50 + 1.6%*0.167 + 5.6%*0.333 = 1.10% + 0.27% + 1.86% = 3.23% average increase to raid damage
With a 60% Balance/Arrow - 3.3%*0.50 + 2.5%*0.167 + 8.3%*0.333 = 1.65% + 0.42% + 2.76% = 4.83% average increase to raid damage

So, at this point, why would I bother playing any other healer if double AST, with the buffs you're suggesting, and just have them alternate when they Royal Road and buff?

people would cry OP because they don't understand how statistics work...

^ Which leads to the irony of this statement.

The more I think about it, the more astonished I am that you can revel in the math of this discussion like a, no offense, pig rolling in filth, yet somehow still completely miss the point of it...

We're talking about the fact that the buffs do not compensate for the AST's overall craptacular healing and terribad mana management. No amount of card micromanaging is going to change that fact.

Either the cards make a HUGE impact on ending the fight more quickly or the AST needs to have its healing potencies dramatically increased

I haven't missed the point. I just take issue with your attempts to make the card system "better" when it doesn't need the dramatic buffs that you continually suggest.

To me, AST will never be viable in any progression content because they lack the proper tools to heal efficiently. Buffs of any nature won't do you any good if your tanks and DPS are lying flat on the ground, and no amount of "buffs to cards" will fix that. Your buffs to cards will make AST the defacto healer to go to in farm content, but do nothing for low ilvl progression content. There will be an inflection point in player skill, gear, and job composition that will put an AST over a SCH or WHM in progression content, but that point will be a very narrow range.

That's why I made a few suggestions to Synastry and Celestial Opposition a few pages back to help with an ASTs output. Just to add to that, I'd like to see Enhanced Benefic be adjusted for which sect you're in. Having Diurnal Sect Benefic proc should make the spell become oGCD and having Nocturnal Sect Benefic proc should either make the spell cheaper in MP or heal for a higher %, perhaps in the range of 20-30%.

First thing first - balance the baseline healing toolkit so it's perfectly viable to take any healer to any content. Then make tweaks to the unique features of their kit. Afterwards, let the player's decide which healer they want to take based on their skill, gear, comfort level, and job composition.