AST Sect Theory

[Aurum]

Snip

Something to consider about this argument (the one in which the Hots are ticking, but people are full health) is that if you accept that this is the case, it makes things swing in diurnal's favor since you're accepting that people are topped off often enough that overhealing becomes an issue. Edit: Or it could mean that your cohealer is throwing out too many heals, but that's a seperate issue.

As far as how often these HoTs actually do tick when people are at full hp, experience tells me that people end up spending a lot of time at less than 100% hp when you have an AST in the party, hence overhealing ends up being not so much of a concern.

[Zholi]

Yes, Diurnal has more overheal because of HoTs. Adjusted for overheal, I'd say Diurnal is still about 20% stronger. This is when under near maximum stress in terms of healing output, and assumes you are paired with a WHM and not a SCH, where your shields can overwrite and skew the numbers. Also, a WHM at maximum HPS heals for about 35% more than a Diurnal AST, and about 75% more than Nocturnal, for anyone who cares. A SCH can also easily match (or beat) your maximum HPS in Nocturnal while still outputting 200+ more DPS than you depending on the fight.

[Ninimo_Babamo]

So your plan is for the Nocturnal AST with the SCH to ignore half of their skills.. That is ludicrous. Benefic 2 in Nocturnal is 651 potency while it is 620 in Diurnal, but casts 5% faster. It ends up being the same overall. You can't just continue to ignore the spell speed granted by Diurnal and you cant ask a Nocturnal AST to ignore half of their heals. That in itself ruins the validity of any argument this could ever have of being viable.

[Apeiron]

Something to consider about this argument (the one in which the Hots are ticking, but people are full health) is that if you accept that this is the case, it makes things swing in diurnal's favor since you're accepting that people are topped off often enough that overhealing becomes an issue. Edit: Or it could mean that your cohealer is throwing out too many heals, but that's a seperate issue.

As far as how often these HoTs actually do tick when people are at full hp, experience tells me that people end up spending a lot of time at less than 100% hp when you have an AST in the party, hence overhealing ends up being not so much of a concern.

A good point, one I'll admit I didn't think about, but overhealing is something likely to come up. Maybe not the whole party, but ones and twos could definitely be there. While it might not much of a concern, I still like to know what that would do to numbers.

Yes, Diurnal has more overheal because of HoTs. Adjusted for overheal, I'd say Diurnal is still about 20% stronger. This is when under near maximum stress in terms of healing output, and assumes you are paired with a WHM and not a SCH, where your shields can overwrite and skew the numbers. Also, a WHM at maximum HPS heals for about 35% more than a Diurnal AST, and about 75% more than Nocturnal, for anyone who cares. A SCH can also easily match (or beat) your maximum HPS in Nocturnal while still outputting 200+ more DPS than you depending on the fight.

Just want to make sure I got the intended jab right: you're saying the overwriting of shields, the damage mitigation things, the things which don't tick up potency (and HP) beyond their initial cure potency, and can't be stacked, can skewer numbers? Am I right? Because that's what I'm reading.

We'll agree on the easily match/beat comment for HPS from SCH, but is it really only 200+ DPS? That doesn't seem right. The fight depending, still, they've got plenty of DoTs to drop and let work. I'd figure it to be a bit higher. Oh well.

Even more so, though, I want to know the 75% comes from. If Diurnal is ~20% stronger, the WHM shouldn't be ~75% stronger than the Noctast. That's a huge disparity in numbers. There's a whole ~40% missing. Using HPS with your statement, that would mean a WHM at 600HPS outpaces the AST in Noct by 450HPS (who would be doing a pitiful 150HPS) ... that's more than a little problem, and I'm not ready to buy the accuracy of that statement. I'd have bought your statement if you'd said 55%, but 75% is exaggerating a bit much don't you think?

So your plan is for the Nocturnal AST with the SCH to ignore half of their skills.. That is ludicrous. Benefic 2 in Nocturnal is 651 potency while it is 620 in Diurnal, but casts 5% faster. It ends up being the same overall. You can't just continue to ignore the spell speed granted by Diurnal and you cant ask a Nocturnal AST to ignore half of their heals. That in itself ruins the validity of any argument this could ever have of being viable.

Again, not ignore. They'd simply be prioritizing it lower on their list of spells to use first.

I haven't ignored the 5% to spell speed, it just hasn't come up. But, since you've brought it up now.... Currently, at 53, the 5% puts my cast time at... I want to say 2.28seconds compared to my Noctast's 2.40. The purpose of the spell speed increase seems to have been the dev. teams way of making sure the lower potency healing of Diurnal could keep up with the boosted healing potency of Nocturnal. Imagine attempting to heal as a Diurnast with the lower potency and same GCD as the Noctast, it'd be utterly horrid.

Now, to the cast faster it certainly does that, but to get a tangible benefit out of that type of speed you'd need to stack more spell speed. As it is Diurnal AST doesn't really start dusting Nocturnal AST in terms of time until after the 5th Benefic II where it shaves off a whole second and takes 12.20 seconds to get to (just to get twice as much out of the spell speed buff you'd have to double that time and then some). Until then it looks like you're talking .XX seconds. Again, this is using lvl53 ilvl123 gear, not sure if this stays constant or if higher skill speed makes the difference greater (need more numbers!). This can be modified by your card buffs, but that's a game of RNG, where you're the only person who could possibly benefit from the card (hint, hint, you're not).

But yeah, that's straight Benefic II, and you probably shouldn't be chain casting Benefic II 5 times in a row. It still wouldn't beat the Nocturnast Benefic II, though. Speed, sure, but not by a lot. The difference in potency for them would be 155 (Noctast at 3255, Diurnast at 3100). With every cast of Benefic II, the Nocturnast would also gain a lead on the Diurnasts raw heals by 31 potency. Something that could easily be fixed if they stop to cast A. Benefic where they trade out up front heals for a lower potency just to catch up, to combine their HoT with Benefic II.

[Zholi]

There's a difference between skewing and skewering. There's no jab; it's simply difficult if not impossible to calculate the contribution of shields if they are being overwritten and you have a constant stream of shields that aren't being consumed. And that 200 is at the bottom of their range. At the top, they can go 600+. A SCH doing 200 DPS is still pulling a good bit more HPS than you possibly can.

Forgot to adjust for overheal on the Nocturnal AST vs WHM comparison. WHM is 50~% stronger. Your numbers are also far too small. More realistic would be 1500 vs 2600, but this is before the numbers are adjusted for overheal. After overheal it'd be like 1300 vs 2000.

[Cassandaria]

WHM + AST/Diurnal = good
WHM + AST/Noct = Meh but good
SCH + AST/Diurnal = good
SCH + AST/Noct = BAD. SCH is always going to over write Noct because he has a higher cure potency, even with the 5% boost that Noct gives. Also you don't need to save the SCH mp because they don't have mana issues and AST do.

I disagree, you act as if a GOOD ast is going to replace the scholar shields. If you go AST in noct and a scholar, the first thing you realize is that you're going to use your higher potency skills and your cards more instead of fighting a shield war, which is just ignorant. Acting like all players are of the same caliber and always do something stupid is a foolish way to play. Also I know people keep putting up that tests were done in 2.0, but perhaps they'd like to recall that stats were CHANGED in the new content, spell speed and determination no longer function the same, those tests are no longer valid. Now don't get me wrong, Noct AST and SCH is not IDEAL, but it's not BAD by default because you can't think outside of the box.

[Amiaze]

I'd like to know where my hypothesis fails off on paper, though. That was a worthwhile remark. No one here has yet to refute any of the numbers I've put down with their own, and instead I've been met with a fantastical display of what can be watered down, "ast regens are love, ast regens are lief".

One of the reasons your theory cannot be fully supported was mentioned way earlier in this thread. Nocturnal Sect's shields overwriting SCH's buffs automatically makes one of their shielding abilities pointless unless the healers have perfect coordination over Teamspeak or something. For that sort of effort, why not just go to Diurnal Sect?

I very much think that we should be treating AST as a WHM or SCH Jr, and this can easily be seen in combat. I'll use Nael deus Darnus as an example.

WHM can easily heal the party to full, even if they take Lunar Dynamo by mistake (assuming that it didn't outright kill them). Would AST helping with proactive heals be helpful? Yes, because it would mean that WHM would have to heal less -- but because WHM's healing potency is already so high, you would then risk overhealing, anyway, making one of the healers waste MP. It would be more preferable that the party be shielded throughout the fight so that WHM doesn't have to spend so much MP healing in the first place.

Now, let's use A4 as a second example. There is a lot of unavoidable splash damage in that fight. Would shields be preferable? Likely, yes. But, because SCH's shields cannot work with ASTs, you won't be doubling up on shields any time soon. So let's say the AST was in Diurnal Sect with a WHM. The healing output would be amazing, but again, you'd run the risk of overhealing and wasting MP. The problem with having two WHMs in later Coils was that the damage output was very high, and eventually, one of them would run out of MP if the run wasn't going smoothly. The other would follow suit. The problem with having dual SCHs was that the reactive healing just wasn't really there. They were meant to mitigate damage, not heal through it.

If a WHM were to run out of MP during a raid, then having AST in Diurnal Sect would be great...except for the fact that if they started in Nocturnal Sect, the point is now moot. I think that it was for situations like this that AST received healing buffs. This way, your party isn't SoL when a WHM runs out of MP. If you had a SCH run out before the AST, and you were in Nocturnal Sect, you might be able to argue that their pet could help out with the healing while you shielded...but, inevitably, you would just be waiting for the SCH's health to regen. And God forbid your party take a heavy AoE. If you're in an 8-man-raid, it won't be as easy to heal through that.

That's not to say that either combo is impossible, but it is noticeably more difficult to pull off until you have said content on farm.

You could always try running with WHM in Diurnal Sect and SCH in Nocturnal Sect, but you'll find that your roles overlap far too much. AST was meant to be a more flexible answer to the WHM/WHM and SCH/SCH combo problem, and should be treated as such. It has the ability to cover the weaknesses of both classes, so why not use the ability properly?

Edit: In response to your remark on nobody refuting your numbers, I'll admit that I won't try to. I don't know all the numbers personally. Nor do I think that you really need to. You can, but looking at basic potencies and ability rules should be enough. If not, then there's always the tried-and-true method: put it to the test in and endgame raid and see how well it goes.

[Apeiron]

Didn't expect to see this thread back, haha. Good to see more replies, though (even if it irritates some others). Amiaze, I'm going to work backwards on your post, so forgive me if I miss something.

Edit: In response to your remark on nobody refuting your numbers, I'll admit that I won't try to. I don't know all the numbers personally. Nor do I think that you really need to. You can, but looking at basic potencies and ability rules should be enough. If not, then there's always the tried-and-true method: put it to the test in and endgame raid and see how well it goes.

Potencies need to be looked at now, anyways, but there's no real need to refute them. On paper, the numbers I've posted up are pretty sound given their scenarios they're included in. The problem comes from application, which leads me to the next part of your post:

You could always try running with WHM in Diurnal Sect and SCH in Nocturnal Sect, but you'll find that your roles overlap far too much. AST was meant to be a more flexible answer to the WHM/WHM and SCH/SCH combo problem, and should be treated as such. It has the ability to cover the weaknesses of both classes, so why not use the ability properly?

Yes, I could, and in-point-of-fact I will. I created this thread back when my AST was lv52-53, and I had not yet completed the MSQ to unlock Alexander. It was an attempt to elicit more talks about methods to play the AST by posing the hypothesis and letting available Alexander players try it. From what I'd read, the primary opinion was (and pretty much still is) that unless you're running dungeons or other content outside of raids, the AST should never be outside of Diurnal Sect. I disliked that opinion, as it relegated the AST to WHM Jr. (in which case why ever bring an AST?) and left an entire mechanic (the Sects, more specifically Nocturnal Sect) untouched by the players to figure out all of its shortcomings, and ways to make it work.

I'm happy to say my AST is 58, pushing 59, and my next move is to recruit (or be recruited) and test out my hypothesis to see where, and under what conditions, it breaks.

I did consider the overlap in roles; however, I looked at it from the standpoint of capitalizing on your healer's strengths (regens/lots a single target heals) as with WHM/Diurnast you'd have plenty of ticking regens that could leave healers to do other necessary things, and with SCH/Noctast you'd have effectively 3 healers capable of responding to mechanics differently, but ultimately working towards the same end (Succor, Divine Wind, and Helios in tandem).

One of the reasons your theory cannot be fully supported was mentioned way earlier in this thread. Nocturnal Sect's shields overwriting SCH's buffs automatically makes one of their shielding abilities pointless unless the healers have perfect coordination over Teamspeak or something. For that sort of effort, why not just go to Diurnal Sect?

I very much think that we should be treating AST as a WHM or SCH Jr, and this can easily be seen in combat. I'll use Nael deus Darnus as an example.

WHM can easily heal the party to full, even if they take Lunar Dynamo by mistake (assuming that it didn't outright kill them). Would AST helping with proactive heals be helpful? Yes, because it would mean that WHM would have to heal less -- but because WHM's healing potency is already so high, you would then risk overhealing, anyway, making one of the healers waste MP. It would be more preferable that the party be shielded throughout the fight so that WHM doesn't have to spend so much MP healing in the first place.

Now, let's use A4 as a second example. There is a lot of unavoidable splash damage in that fight. Would shields be preferable? Likely, yes. But, because SCH's shields cannot work with ASTs, you won't be doubling up on shields any time soon. So let's say the AST was in Diurnal Sect with a WHM. The healing output would be amazing, but again, you'd run the risk of overhealing and wasting MP. The problem with having two WHMs in later Coils was that the damage output was very high, and eventually, one of them would run out of MP if the run wasn't going smoothly. The other would follow suit. The problem with having dual SCHs was that the reactive healing just wasn't really there. They were meant to mitigate damage, not heal through it.

If a WHM were to run out of MP during a raid, then having AST in Diurnal Sect would be great...except for the fact that if they started in Nocturnal Sect, the point is now moot. I think that it was for situations like this that AST received healing buffs. This way, your party isn't SoL when a WHM runs out of MP. If you had a SCH run out before the AST, and you were in Nocturnal Sect, you might be able to argue that their pet could help out with the healing while you shielded...but, inevitably, you would just be waiting for the SCH's health to regen. And God forbid your party take a heavy AoE. If you're in an 8-man-raid, it won't be as easy to heal through that.

That's not to say that either combo is impossible, but it is noticeably more difficult to pull off until you have said content on farm.

I particularly enjoyed this chunk of text. Especially because you used both sects in your examples instead of singling out Nocturnal. Thank you for this They're more of what I was expecting (hoping, really) to get from some of the more seasoned healers.

I still dislike the argument that more communication is required, though. Is it really that much more communication? Having two healers who understand, and have researched, the fight and noting at what times they might both need to use shields shouldn't really require more communication. And with something like Teamspeak, why would a simple phrase like "shields" or, perhaps more appropriate "Helios" require more coordination?

If I've missed anything, let me know. Pressed for time, atm, so I don't think I covered everything I wanted.

[Amiaze]

Yes, I could, and in-point-of-fact I will... From what I'd read, the primary opinion was (and pretty much still is) that unless you're running dungeons or other content outside of raids, the AST should never be outside of Diurnal Sect. I disliked that opinion, as it relegated the AST to WHM Jr. (in which case why ever bring an AST?)

I really wish we were on the same server. I'd love to test that with you. I can't run all of the dungeons with AST yet (like you, I'm still leveling it, but I'm almost there), but in my experience, it isn't always best to be in Diurnal Sect. In fact, I've been going through every dungeon I can in Nocturnal Sect. I believe the only one that simply wouldn't let me do that was either Dzamael Darkhold or Aurum Vale. The damage going out was simply too much to shield through, so I used Stoneskin as a temporary shield while healing everyone up. Please let me know how your experiment works. I might even ask someone to help me to the same thing.

I still think that AST is great even in these scenarios, though, because of their cards. They are RNG-based, once Bole or Balance are drawn, the difference is noticeable.

I did consider the overlap in roles; however, I looked at it from the standpoint of capitalizing on your healer's strengths

That makes sense. I would argue, however, that AST's actual strength is in its versatility and cards rather than just in shielding or healing. If you're focusing on an EX Primal, then having constant regens might be a good idea, and it would likely be easier to pull off having a WHM and AST in Diurnal Sect (although I wouldn't recommend SCH and Nocturnal Sect for reasons such as EX Shiva's ice spears, which will likely kill anyone who is behind her when they aren't supposed to be if they have no shields up). It would leave the healers available to help with DPS and phase pushes. However, that wouldn't be as safe in Coil or Alexander, especially in A4, where there is a big healer focus.

I can't say that I can justify WHM and Diurnal Sect simply because of the overlap, but I also don't think it would result in a tank's death in a dungeon. It's really harder content (T9/T13, A4/AS4) where it would become an issue. As for SCH and Nocturnal Sect, overwriting each other's abilities would likely result in death. I'll explain why below.

As for effectively having three healers rather than two, you could argue that a pet could make up for a lack of reactive healing where a SCH and Nocturnal AST could shield, except that the shields would not be consistent due to the overlap. Going into Diurnal would mean that a SCH could shield while their pet helped heal, and then AST could help heal and focus more on trying to drawing cards that would help with damage output (assuming that the party's HP is already topped off and they aren't taking a lot of damage). In this case, having the AST be in the opposite form of their co-healer would be more beneficial.

I particularly enjoyed this chunk of text. Especially because you used both sects in your examples instead of singling out Nocturnal. Thank you for this They're more of what I was expecting (hoping, really) to get from some of the more seasoned healers.

Thank you! I'm glad I could help.

I still dislike the argument that more communication is required, though. Is it really that much more communication? Having two healers who understand, and have researched, the fight and noting at what times they might both need to use shields shouldn't really require more communication. And with something like Teamspeak, why would a simple phrase like "shields" or, perhaps more appropriate "Helios" require more coordination?

This is where I think risking something like having two healers doing the exact same job would fall apart. My static originally had a WHM, but I was also a WHM, and we found that we would oftentimes waste abilities. Because we were both so focused (and we had no form of voice chat at the time), he might use Benediction a half-second before I used my own, or vice-versa. In the end, one of us would waste the CD. Or I would use Cure II after a tankbuster, he would use Cure II as well, but I would already be readying a second Cure II. Because I traded two pieces of gear out to increase my spell speed for healing in pinches, I couldn't cancel the move and, ultimately, it would be wasted.

Later, we would call out moves, but it's a bit more difficult to do. We were in T5 at the time, and if I had to cast Benediction or begin casting Stoneskin to help mitigate Death Sentence, I would normally end up calling it out as I performed the move. Emergency situations like that don't allow for a lot of forewarning. This tactic would be better used when farming something, but not when attempting to clear it.

Because of this, my co-healer switched to SCH.

My static has since disbanded, but I've found communicating with other healers to be very difficult because I don't know how they prefer to heal, and they don't know how I do, either. Because my static had such a hard time with T9, I have what my tank calls "Nael PTSD". The moment I see health fall even a fraction, I send out a Stoneskin and toss out a Cure or Cure II. It's just reflex. When I don't do it, and I see someone's health fall to around 75%, I don't know that the other healer is trying to conserve MP. So I'll being healing very quickly in an attempt to get them back up at the same time they do. Again, one of us ends up wasting MP.


I think that something else that should be considered is the party composition. I hate to keep using T9 as an example, but it's my go-to because I know its healing mechanics better than other instances. I'm...not exactly proud to say that I was stuck there for that long, but oh well.

As I mentioned before, we found that having two WHMs would, in most instances, become rather problematic. It wasn't so much an issue in T9 so long as we had a Warrior tanking for us.

With Warrior, I found that, because my WAR was taking so much damage so consistently on top of players getting hit by mechanics, my MP would often fall to about 60%-70% before the Golem Phase of the fight. I would actually use that time to let it regenerate while tanking a Golem. With another WHM, however, MP wasn't really an issue. Assuming AST is in Diurnal Sect for this, WHM could benefit from it. But the healing potency wouldn't be as high as having another WHM, so they can't answer the MP issue as well as another WHM could have unless the can consistently draw Bole.

For this, I would much prefer to see Nocturnal Sect.

In the same fight, we later had my WAR switch to PLD. He wasn't happy about it, but it made the fight a lot easier. Healing him up was no issue at all. The only issue I would encounter would be if he took a hit he wasn't supposed to, or if he got a critical. It was rare, but it did happen from time-to-time, and because I would often be dropping a meteor somewhere or would be in the midst of casting Stoneskin, Nael's next auto-attack would kill him. Two WHMs or a WHM and AST in Diurnal Sect simply could not heal through this. A SCH or Nocturnal Sect would be needed to mitigate some of the damage and allow for enough time to heal.


Note: At one point in my earlier post, I accidentally said "proactive" rather "reactive". Sorry about that.

[Apeiron]

I really wish we were on the same server. I'd love to test that with you. I can't run all of the dungeons with AST yet (like you, I'm still leveling it, but I'm almost there), but in my experience, it isn't always best to be in Diurnal Sect. In fact, I've been going through every dungeon I can in Nocturnal Sect. I believe the only one that simply wouldn't let me do that was either Dzamael Darkhold or Aurum Vale. The damage going out was simply too much to shield through, so I used Stoneskin as a temporary shield while healing everyone up. Please let me know how your experiment works. I might even ask someone to help me to the same thing.

I still think that AST is great even in these scenarios, though, because of their cards. They are RNG-based, once Bole or Balance are drawn, the difference is noticeable.

Haha, sorry. About the closest I can get is a low-level alt on Adamantoise I occasionally play.

Hrm. Probably Aurum, as DD is a 44-46 dungeon iirc. I'll have to give that a go to figure out why that might be a problem. Honestly, if you get a pre-fight shield up with stoneskin I don't think you should be having much trouble, especially now with the new buffs. Mixing Aspected Benefic's shield with Benefic, Benefic II, or Essential Dignity should keep you out of the fire for your tank. Though, if your party is taking too much damage from the boss mechanics of the 1st or final boss, see about having them push as many stacks as they're comfortable with before eating fruit, gather up for Aspected Helios, and then drop Benefic II on your DPS. That should take care of them, and your tank should still have enough HP for you to catch up with your standard mix of Benefic, A. Benefic, etc.

That makes sense. I would argue, however, that AST's actual strength is in its versatility and cards rather than just in shielding or healing. If you're focusing on an EX Primal, then having constant regens might be a good idea, and it would likely be easier to pull off having a WHM and AST in Diurnal Sect (although I wouldn't recommend SCH and Nocturnal Sect for reasons such as EX Shiva's ice spears, which will likely kill anyone who is behind her when they aren't supposed to be if they have no shields up). It would leave the healers available to help with DPS and phase pushes. However, that wouldn't be as safe in Coil or Alexander, especially in A4, where there is a big healer focus.

I can't say that I can justify WHM and Diurnal Sect simply because of the overlap, but I also don't think it would result in a tank's death in a dungeon. It's really harder content (T9/T13, A4/AS4) where it would become an issue. As for SCH and Nocturnal Sect, overwriting each other's abilities would likely result in death. I'll explain why below.

As for effectively having three healers rather than two, you could argue that a pet could make up for a lack of reactive healing where a SCH and Nocturnal AST could shield, except that the shields would not be consistent due to the overlap. Going into Diurnal would mean that a SCH could shield while their pet helped heal, and then AST could help heal and focus more on trying to drawing cards that would help with damage output (assuming that the party's HP is already topped off and they aren't taking a lot of damage). In this case, having the AST be in the opposite form of their co-healer would be more beneficial.

I'd caution against calling it a "strength" but it is undoubtedly a big draw with AST for the players who want to be able to play both WHM and SCH, but don't want the hassle of juggling two jobs. Likewise, the cards are another big draw for players who want to play a more support-esque job, but don't want to roll ARC/BRD or MCH. Not too long from now, and I suspect we will get a tank version of the DPS/Healer utility. Still, I'm not wholly convinced this is a "strength" of the AST in the sense that it's something that makes the class irreplaceable, but it does have a lot of good points to make a compelling argument that it is a strength. The biggest factor that holds it back from being a true strength is, no surprise, the RNG factor. As much as I love the RNG factor in place of consuming MP a la BRD/MCH, it has its downsides.

The pet very well may, but I can't say how effective it is as a reactionary partner with two other healers that are being proactive. At least you can assume the pet will heal the lowest HP, and work around that. Still, with an AST in Noct, I don't think the overwrite would be as big of a problem as some suggest. The shields are no longer grossly under-powered now, and even still the AST would simply reserve their A. Benefic for if the party was split (for whatever reason) or if the SCH went down. Doing this would mean they have the stronger healing spells, while saving on MP by not spamming A. Benefic or A. Helios. There would still be other problems, as you've pointed out with MP, but a little fine-tuning and the SCH/AST pair should be able to clear the content just fine (by just fine, I mean the party clears. I understand ideally healers want to keep the whole party alive through content, but I'm more focused on just getting through the content).

This is where I think risking something like having two healers doing the exact same job would fall apart. My static originally had a WHM, but I was also a WHM, and we found that we would oftentimes waste abilities. Because we were both so focused (and we had no form of voice chat at the time), he might use Benediction a half-second before I used my own, or vice-versa. In the end, one of us would waste the CD. Or I would use Cure II after a tankbuster, he would use Cure II as well, but I would already be readying a second Cure II. Because I traded two pieces of gear out to increase my spell speed for healing in pinches, I couldn't cancel the move and, ultimately, it would be wasted.

Later, we would call out moves, but it's a bit more difficult to do. We were in T5 at the time, and if I had to cast Benediction or begin casting Stoneskin to help mitigate Death Sentence, I would normally end up calling it out as I performed the move. Emergency situations like that don't allow for a lot of forewarning. This tactic would be better used when farming something, but not when attempting to clear it.

Because of this, my co-healer switched to SCH.

My static has since disbanded, but I've found communicating with other healers to be very difficult because I don't know how they prefer to heal, and they don't know how I do, either. Because my static had such a hard time with T9, I have what my tank calls "Nael PTSD". The moment I see health fall even a fraction, I send out a Stoneskin and toss out a Cure or Cure II. It's just reflex. When I don't do it, and I see someone's health fall to around 75%, I don't know that the other healer is trying to conserve MP. So I'll being healing very quickly in an attempt to get them back up at the same time they do. Again, one of us ends up wasting MP.

Ah, yeah, I see where that's a problem. I'unno, having played AST as I have with other healers, I don't find a lot of problems coming up. Again, I haven't done really demanding content as a healer, but I see what you mean. Originally, I thought one of the reasons for weaker potencies might be so that healers didn't have to worry about overhealing as much. The WHM and SCH, who are dedicated and focused healers with kits built around making them effective in their respective areas, would take the lead in healing, and the AST would follow-up as necessary here or there to help top-off the odd party member or two. Not so much, now, but I'm not going to complain about the changes. I actually laughed, I was so happy.

Hrm. Welp. I guess like any good group, the pairing would have to be up to the healers -- how comfortable they were, and how well they could communicate. If they don't want to communicate, or can't for technical reasons, matching healer roles won't work out well. In which case, the AST will be playing the opposite role.

I think that something else that should be considered is the party composition. I hate to keep using T9 as an example, but it's my go-to because I know its healing mechanics better than other instances. I'm...not exactly proud to say that I was stuck there for that long, but oh well.

As I mentioned before, we found that having two WHMs would, in most instances, become rather problematic. It wasn't so much an issue in T9 so long as we had a Warrior tanking for us.

With Warrior, I found that, because my WAR was taking so much damage so consistently on top of players getting hit by mechanics, my MP would often fall to about 60%-70% before the Golem Phase of the fight. I would actually use that time to let it regenerate while tanking a Golem. With another WHM, however, MP wasn't really an issue. Assuming AST is in Diurnal Sect for this, WHM could benefit from it. But the healing potency wouldn't be as high as having another WHM, so they can't answer the MP issue as well as another WHM could have unless the can consistently draw Bole.

For this, I would much prefer to see Nocturnal Sect.

In the same fight, we later had my WAR switch to PLD. He wasn't happy about it, but it made the fight a lot easier. Healing him up was no issue at all. The only issue I would encounter would be if he took a hit he wasn't supposed to, or if he got a critical. It was rare, but it did happen from time-to-time, and because I would often be dropping a meteor somewhere or would be in the midst of casting Stoneskin, Nael's next auto-attack would kill him. Two WHMs or a WHM and AST in Diurnal Sect simply could not heal through this. A SCH or Nocturnal Sect would be needed to mitigate some of the damage and allow for enough time to heal.


Note: At one point in my earlier post, I accidentally said "proactive" rather "reactive". Sorry about that.

Hey, use whatever you've got for your examples and we'll work with them. If you've got T9, you've got T9.

I've actually have nothing to comment about this portion of your post, other than it's just a good example of why stacking regens isn't always a good idea, and why some mitigation is better than no mitigation. Thanks for sharing

I am wondering, now, how people are taking the new changes. I'll have to go and dig up some of the newer threads to get the feel of what people are experiencing.

Also wondering what content a group of all healers can clear up to....