AST's weakness in end game

[AzureFlare]

You can also see that WAR/SCH can't replace PLD/WHM as well as DRK/AST, simply because the last two were designed as main-tanks/healers. If you ignore their DPS toolkit and just focus on their healing spells/skills, you can see that WAR/SCH doesn't have a complete toolkit to main heal. They can, but it takes considerable effort to do it. In my opinion, that's not a problem, and I bet our next tank/healing job will compete for the off-spot of the meta. We just have to give it time. Until then, we can use PLD-WAR/WHM-AST for heavy damage fights where no DPS check is tight, since they offer the safest mitigation/HP restoration combo.

EDIT: another thing that I just remembered: in SCoB, the meta for lots of the fights excluded an off-tank, as lots of groups (even in the beginning) took only one tank to T8-T9. The chosen tank was PLD.

My problem is that from a "bare bones" point of view, SCH and Nocturnal AST are both made to at least fulfill their basic requirements, being able to contribute enough healing (with a partner in 8man/alliance setup) and that SE largely ignored the extras both of them bring, nocturnal AST being the one to have the short end of the stick and having a completely different design mentality than SCH for some unknown reason ('Arcanist iz hard to balance guise, SCH fairy fundamental 'cuz no regen'). Just talking about healers, it feels like SCH was allowed to keep the 2.0 flaws because 'it's strengths don't matter for the barebones design' (high near-mana neutral DPS), or in the fairy's case it is 'too fundamental' to the job, with 3.0 fixes to make it fit more with the barebones design (apparently it was lacking AoE healing). Meanwhile, WHM never had those design flaws coming from a pure healer class and only lacked healing flaws (quick direct heals) while AST also wasn't designed with those inherit flaws. And because nocturnal AST was meant to replicate most of the healing part of SCH, without breaking too much into its flavor (strong mitigation and pet), it doesn't have anywhere near the 'non-healer' strengths of SCH.

And for the same reason I don't see WHM-N.AST becoming a really favorable match-up at all. At most WHM/N.AST will become on par with D.AST/SCH-WHM/SCH if the SCH has to focus on doing a lot of healing and spending waaaaay less globals on DPS than it does now (which honestly is good enough). Unless they make a complete oversight (wouldn't surprise me) where stacking regens becomes obscenely powerful, in which case WHM-D.AST would be the king comp.

[Ghishlain]

With all of this theory crafting going on how come no one attempts to figure up the dps contributed from astrologian through the card buffs. Theory crafting works with dps simcraft but not healing. Se has stated countless times about in house scenarios and dps requirements but never have I seen them talk about healer balance outside of trying to make certain mechanics work to the strengths of certain jobs.

Theorycrafting exact DPS contribution via cards is very difficult to quantify because of the massive amounts of variables you have to consider when applying cards. Here's the list of things to consider:

1. Determine frequency of specific card combinations from happening
2. Determine frequency of specific buff combinations from happening
3. How specific card combinations affect specific classes
4. Party composition
5. Weighted average of each combination and how they affect each other

Each point on that list also has a specific sub list associated with it too. Just consider the probably of specific card combinations:

1. Balance Drawn
2. Arrow Drawn
3. Extend + Balance Drawn
4. Enhanced + Balance Drawn
5. Expand + Balance Drawn
6. Extend + Arrow Drawn
7. Enhanced + Arrow Drawn
8. Expand + Arrow Drawn
9. Extend + No DPS Card Drawn
10. Enhanced + No DPS Card Drawn
11. Expand + No DPS Card Drawn
12. No DPS Card Drawn

And the above list doesn't even incorporate probability changing based on how often Shuffle and Spread are up. Spear also plays a factor in DPS but it's more difficult to use and quantify because Spear needs to be played at a time where a lot of DPS abilities are coming off cooldown and reducing the cooldown of a DPS enhancing buff like Blood for Blood may not necessarily give a DPS increase because said player may need to hold buff anyway for say, an invulnerability phase or burst phase that's coming up soon.

Then you have to be able to play the card on a DPS and depending on their buff(s) activate could dramatically change their use. Take DRG for example:

1. No Buffs
2. Blood for Blood
3. Internal Release
4. Battle Litany
5. Blood for Blood + Internal Release
6. Blood for Blood + Battle Litany
7. Internal Release + Battle Litany
8. Blood for Blood + Internal Release + Battle Litany

And then each class itself is affected differently by each type of DPS card. Balance is a good all around but should be stacked with someone with a fair amount of buffs active if possible. Arrow is great for NIN, MNK, WAR, and BLM (baring no resource constraints). Spear is generally useful for DRGs, NINs, and MCHs with some usefulness to other DPS classes if their DPS augmenting buffs are coming off CD for a dummy-esque fight. So, your desired buffs and buff priority can change depending on your group composition and there are a ton of different group combinations.

It's... a lot to consider at once. Given how badly I fudged up the MP efficiency theorycraft which has a lot less variables associated with it, probably not something I'll personally try for a while. lol. Though I commend anyone who wants to take a crack at it because it'll be worth the read.

[NamoNanamo]

Arrow is also great for Dragoon. It's really nice for multiple gk/blood of the dragon buff.
Arrow speed up the rotation and it allows you to do more gk/min.

[TatoRazzino]

@AzureFlare
Notice that I didn't say nocturnal Astro. I don't see N. AST as an off-healer version of D. AST because your toolkit is still there and you can still main heal some fights in Nocturnal, even with a SCH in the group (A2S, for example). In my opinion, it's more a matter of play style than a matter of duty requirements.
Also, WHM/N. AST is a good combo for Thordan. The constant moving around the arena, repositioning the boss and constant AoE damage allow for N. AST to shine a bit in areas a SCH can't. Also, a lot of the SCH's DPS is lost when Shadow Flare becomes hard to use efficiently; if we're just throwing some DoTs and adding some burst spells when we see the boss doing his basic Dragon Eye + Knights of the Round rotation in the beginning of each fight, AST's combined potency can be higher than SCH's. When I cleared Thordan for the first time, I was playing D. AST with a SCH; I solo healed the first phase while adding some DoTs here and there and he DPSed the whole time, he also DPSed a little bit during the two knights part while I solo healed, and on the phases after Ultimate End, we DPSed the same amount of time by adding our full DoT rotation and some burst spells at the star of each phase. At the end of the fight, he parsed something around 360 and I parsed 280. Only 80 more, and he DPSed way more than I did. The second time I cleared it, I beat the SCH in DPS, and I had to solo heal the first phase with almost no DPS at all, only adding DoTs at the start of each phase. We're not as far behind as some people want us to be.

[TatoRazzino]

Theorycrafting exact DPS contribution via cards is very difficult to quantify because of the massive amounts of variables you have to consider when applying cards. Here's the list of things to consider:
[...]
Given how badly I fudged up the MP efficiency theorycraft which has a lot less variables associated with it, probably not something I'll personally try for a while. lol. Though I commend anyone who wants to take a crack at it because it'll be worth the read.

It's impossible, in my opinion, to get satisfactory results by using only theorycraft. What we can do is test DPS output for different jobs in a dummy, to get a "best case scenario" number, and then estimate an average DPS increase by comparing those numbers with what those jobs do in actual fights. We could do some 2 minute simulation runs in a dummy with a MNK, for example; then, run others while throwing a single Balance on him/her and compare the DPS increase. Then take that MNK to a fight like Ravana EX or A1S, set the parsers to give us numbers every 2 minutes (I play on PS4, but I believe this is possible), and see how they do with no cards. We can see the percentage of DPS they "lost" in relation to their dummy numbers and estimate how much more DPS they'd do with a card. It won't give us an exact number, but it's a start.

[NamoNanamo]

Stuff about thordan.
We're not as far behind as some people want us to be.

Yes, the personal dps of Astro is far from Scholar. That's normal. That's ok. We get card to help us.
And your personal example is irrelevant.

I don't know why WHM/SCH players are so afraid of ASTs doing well.

Stop being paranoid. I am myself pro-astro.

[Vlady]

In fact it is impossible. Only se can reliably do it from data gathered to calculate its average means. I did hours of tests worth and without buffs with my brother and get yelled down for supposedly coming up with magic numbers during the time astrologian were wanting buffs. I only reported what were my personal dps gains the two jobs parsed over not having a steady stream of balance/arrow/timed spear cards.

Using math to prove one side of the other works well but only when variables are constantly consistent which is less likely in healing compared to dps checks. 10 pages of theory craft has shown us over the course of a longer fight the white mage comes out ahead but during shorter encounters the astrologian has the advantage which seems a decent trade off. People need to get away with wanting nocturnal stance to let the astrologian be in essence a scholar. I would be for a unique shield mechanic as I have said countless times and or even nocturnal being a weaker offensive version of cleric stance but not suffer the healing penalties of cleric stance as a form of additional dps support. But in order for our utility to be buffed we cannot keep this healing power that we have right now.

[TatoRazzino]

Yes, the personal dps of Astro is far from Scholar. That's normal. That's ok.
And your personal example is irrelevant.

Your remark is also irrelevant. I don't know why WHM/SCH players are so afraid of ASTs doing well.

[Vlady]

Yes, the personal dps of Astro is far from Scholar. That's normal. That's ok.
And your personal example is irrelevant.

Why is the astro dps far from the scholar? Our dps+cards is not bad as people would have you believe. On Burst phases it might be better then scholar since balance stacks retroactively with itleast blood for blood and rage strikes.

[Sidra]

SCH AOE DPS is far better. Single Target they are about the same, with the asterisk AST can't keep it up. DPSing on AST runs AST out of mana in pretty short order, whereas SCH can go indefinitely. It presents a major problem in fights there the offhealer spends the first 90sec or so dpsing. You aren't totally OOM after as an AST, but your mana level is very unsafe.