Astro in savage

[Parawill]

Do you have any tips? I've been having trouble with AST when heavy damage comes in because there's not much more I can do than...spam Benefic II and hope whoever I'm healing has some defensive cooldowns....

Healing is relative to how much DPS your group is outputting and how much appropriate cooldowns both the tank and healers are using. This is why "trialing" healers is one of the most difficult things to do when looking for one in progression statics. That being said, here are simple rules for DPS gains via spread vs. fights.

Enrage limits the amount of GCDs you can do per fight, thus one can assume Balance/Arrow would be best for those fights; however, you must factor time & resources into it. Resources such as TP/MP restrict the spamming of the highest potency GCD skill, and so do skill conditions (positionals, chain skills, etc.). So in fights that have a relatively short enrage time, i.e. Faust, Balance & Arrow > Spear. In fights with long enrage, Spear becomes more efficient as it saves your more time vs. Balance. Expanded Balance is now 30 seconds, but prior to this patch it was 15 ~ 20 seconds (with Celestial Opposition). 5% damage buff essentially means it takes 20 of the same skill to make up 1 free skill, which is equivalent to over 40 seconds spent to gain one extra GCD. Spear decreases CDs by either 10% to 20% when used, and makes coordinating with this skill super-fantastic. Shaving off over 10+ seconds off Raging Strikes, B4B and alike makes the skill really great, it just requires a lot of coordination. No coordination makes the skill very limited.

Healing wise, treat Essential Dignity like a Benediction but use it like a Tetragrammaton. What this means is that since it's our only instant-heal skill, don't use it on the fly. Only use it if you need to catch up in healing or if you are 100% sure that you are not going to need it within the next 40 seconds. Reason being is because since it's our only instant-heal it is the only way to catch up on healing. GCD healing is restrictive in interval type healing which is akin to regens; however, you have more control as you get more burst heal per GCD vs. heal per HoT tick. In addition to this, Essential Dignity is around 650 potency at 60 ~ 65% and at i193 it heals for around 6700 ~ 6800 HP (1k Potency) at 1 HP.

Figure out what to use Synastry. Finding situations where you'll most benefit Synastry is the best. In AS1, like many have said, Synastry's CD aligns with double preys. Throw it on tank and coordinate with your healer duo. How my healer partner and I set up double prey conditions was if prey is ever on me, my Scholar would heal me and I would heal the other target. If they were on our respective tanks, we'd heal our own tanks (and I'd throw Synastry on other tank or other prey target). If they were on DPS, I'd call it out

As for suggestions Dyvid... The essay is coming along, but the current "buffs" are more of a bandage patch that fixes performance rather than class vs. class. The issue of balancing comes with our watered down healing kit of both SCH & WHM which trades off vasts amount of healing and defensive utility (Emergency Tactics, Fairy, Benediction, Cure III, Crit Adlo-effect, Indomitability, Assize, Fey Illumination, Whispering Dawn, etc.) for cards which are buffs that are nice to have but not necessary. Buffing both healing amounts and card effects to provide impact that the group can feel in terms of DPS would make AST > WHM/SCH when it should be AST = SCH = WHM in terms of viability. What they should do is add in its own way of healing to define its class, because at this moment they're essentially consistent but weaker version of SCH & WHM, but provide card buffs.

Where a White Mage provides raw healing a Scholar provides shielding.
Where those healers provide their defined healing, an Astrologian mimics a SCH & WHM and has cards. That's not a good design in my opinion, especially since cards aren't tied to their core which is... Y'know, GCD... Something that makes up practically almost all your actions in the fight.

[LycorisSelunis]

Please let us know how the changed feel in Savage!! I know I only got to do a few dungeons so far but it feels very good. CU keeping it's regen in noct sect is particularly satisfying sofar (I generally use noct for trash and diurnal for bosses) and disable is my BFF. One minute arrows/balances on a dps, or 45 sec enhanced. Without CO. So much love.

[Rewind]

I'll be streaming Alex Savage from AST PoV later tonight (12 hours from this post) for those who are interested. It will most likely be diurnal stance as my partner is SCH.

[LycorisSelunis]

T^T that would be 5 30 am for me....looks like I will just have to watch a recording

[Assirra]

I'll be streaming Alex Savage from AST PoV later tonight (12 hours from this post) for those who are interested. It will most likely be diurnal stance as my partner is SCH.

Is it possible for you to save your stuff in pasts broadcasts?
I followed you some time ago but because of different schedules/timezones i can never catch it live.

[Yoshiyuki]

I did both AS1 and AS2 earlier today without a bard/machinist. Our bard wasn't able to make it today. Healing felt so much more manageable this time around. Before, I had to mash Benefic II and hope for the best, while squeezing out everything I could with other CDs. I was also able to support the party alone with my card buffs without issues. I'll do a quick rundown of both floors. I haven't gotten into A3S yet. My group runs an AST/SCH comp.

A1 - Standard fare in the first phase. Benefic II spam on the Prey target is still necessary while we're relatively undergeared. But it's okay to deal with this time around. After the split, I had some annoyances with Aspected Helios not reaching the whole party. To be expected since they didn't buff the range of that spell. The regen ticks worked well and I didn't have to fuss about topping people off before Preys anymore. During the Prey cast, I put Synastry up on my tank regardless of who the Prey target was. I had much more room to keep my target healthy during the missiles. Swiftcast + Stoneskin my tank, <tt> macro for Disable for the tank buster worked wonders. Essential Dignity to top the tank off after the buster. Collective Unconscious is amazing for the jumps now. Pop it in time for the damage reduction and then continue on. I didn't have any MP issues with the new Celestial Opposition CD lining up with Lumi. Because this is such a scripted fight, I chose to always use them together. I didn't really need to use Spear for my Lumi + CO combo because I wanted them on set timers to line up with mechanics.

A2 - Being the sole party buffer makes us really shine here. I chose to hold onto Spears if I couldn't get any Ewers. I used Nocturnal Sect here because the Diurnal regens are really annoying in between packs. For the first pack in the middle, before the spiders, I made sure to prep a RR combo for my Spear (ideally an Enhanced one, since I only need it to set up combos for a few OGCDs). Before the pack died, I used Spear on myself. Luckily I drew an Ewer right after, so I used that as well. As the tanks got the spiders into position, I used Lumi + Synastry + CO with the tanks in range for CO. Major MP refresh and healing potential here. Using Lightspeed for the next Prey helps for MP stamina and pure speed while solo healing. From there until the two sets of Jagd Dolls, I had to be careful about MP. Without a bard/machinist it was difficult to keep resources steady by this point in the fight. I made sure to Spread my Ewers first if I didn't have an RR combo ready. Ideally I wanted to pair Lumi + CO + RR Ewer on myself. Throwing out Spires to the physical DPS and Balance/Arrow to casters really helped things along. I used Synastry during the two sets of dolls to make sure it would be up again for the last wave. Leagues easier to heal this time around, as opposed to spamming Benefic II and cringing at my MP bar. Still had to spam but, again, it was more sensible this time instead of madly mashing the key. After the two sets of dolls, again, it was hard to stay on top of healing while keeping MP in check. Lightspeed was up again, and so I used it here. Synastry is essential for the last wave for that extra push. I had some awkward OOM moments at the end where I could only use Benefic, but the fight was nearly over, so it didn't matter so much. Maintaining the LA + CO combo, fitting in RR Ewers/Spears if possible, is a great habit to develop. Because this fight is more about stamina than anything, I liked having my Spears here as opposed to AS1.

Overall, I'm very happy with the changes. We're competitive with the other two healers now. I'm honestly cackling at the WHMs/SCHs crying foul like we're stepping on their territory. We're not. The changes helped us come into our own. It takes a lot of skill for an AST to outclass either of the other two healers in their respective niches. We work harder for more rewards now instead of just barely passing. With some more fine-tuning, we'll be in a great place.

[Rewind]

Is it possible for you to save your stuff in pasts broadcasts?
I followed you some time ago but because of different schedules/timezones i can never catch it live.

Sure! I've always intended to upload to past broadcasts but I have a busy daily schedule and haven't had the time. I'll try and upload the full thing and the clear attempt ASAP

[PetiteMalFleur]

Sure! I've always intended to upload to past broadcasts but I have a busy daily schedule and haven't had the time. I'll try and upload the full thing and the clear attempt ASAP

How fun! I really want to watch as well. Originally I leveled ast but switched to scholar. I'd really like to play ast again but I'm very nervous about not bringing as much as my scholar does in terms of raid dps and dislike the idea of modifying strat in progression content. Do people here feel it would be a viable alternative to scholar?

[Rewind]

How fun! I really want to watch as well. Originally I leveled ast but switched to scholar. I'd really like to play ast again but I'm very nervous about not bringing as much as my scholar does in terms of raid dps and dislike the idea of modifying strat in progression content. Do people here feel it would be a viable alternative to scholar?

It depends on your groups orientation to raiding - If you are looking to push content fast and compete with the 'progression race' then AST is not a viable replacement for SCH in its current form. SCH is quite unique in it can output moderately high DPS in comparison to WHM and AST.

For AST to compete with SCH DPS it would need some revisions to their DPS abilities and MP regen. Whilst the card changes have been a great plus, they're still completely random - so besides the initial balance on pull (if you draw long enough to spread it) you may never draw it again for the entirety of a fight. This isn't very helpful for fights that have 'hard' DPS checks (think Savage A3 hand split).

Having a SCH makes DPS checks less intensive on your actual DPS. It may be the difference between making it versus wiping...so it's something you and your group has to discuss. That being said, if you as a SCH don't DPS anyway its probably fine to take AST/WHM, if not better

[PetiteMalFleur]

snip

Thank you for your feedback. You've echoed many of my concerns about switching jobs. I'm expected to dps quite a lot. Maybe I could sneak it in during A1S next week.