Another perfectly reasonable AST idea

[LegoTechnic]

Whenever I see a thread with "perfectly reasonable", I feel it's the same as seeing a party finder group with "sureclear".

[Aloise]

You've never actually raided as a SCH, have you?

No. I've raided as a Noct AST and with multiple SCH's who are always on top of their game and know what's going on. I'm quite familiar with the tools because I have a pocket SCH when I tank, and we work out how to do our best as a pair. SCH was designed from the ground up to mitigate; AST was not. It's not rocket surgery to see that SCH's kit is far better for that role.

A lot of things

I've PvPed as Noct AST a handful of times in the drought before 3.1 when I really didn't want to get Neverreap again. You're right, it is extremely powerful. I'm not all that knowledgeable on PvP though, but my thought is that PvP would need a lot of tweaking to be a well-balanced experience.

I do agree that they're more equivalent in 2.X content, but I don't think that should be a major contributing factor when it comes to discussing its balance. It's nice, but AST is a HW job, so talking about its usefulness in ARR seems a bit tangential to me. I doubt many people are going to hit HW specifically because they want to heal ARR content as an AST and as no other healing job, and the only way they'd get non-faceroll content otherwise is by doing min ilvl sync.

As far as progression goes, SCH DPS is definitely an important factor, but AST could have the ability to contribute in a harder to calculate way. An AoE balance is an incredible boon, but it's not as easy to calculate how that contributes to the raid's DPS as it is to look at a SCH's potencies. I'm sure it's doable, but as it stands right now, your raidwide DPS contribution comes from having an Expanded Balance Spread at the start of the pull. Beyond that, you're stuck with a weaker WHM for DPS and RNG for your other contributions, including enough MP regen to keep yourself on track with WHM. If healer DPS is truly a problem, having the equivalent of an Expanded card without needing to burn a Spire or Ewer would significantly increase the frequency of cards played and boost raid damage more. An AST feeding one person cards is great for their personal DPS, but this way they could increase their raidwide contribution without having to wait ages for a Balance or Arrow.

As far as overestimating the fairy goes, you're probably right. I know fairy heals aren't as strong as SCH heals, but even if your fairy is set to manual and you never use a single pet ability, it's going to ease your healing burden because it will always be healing.

I probably forgot to address some things but oh well.

Whenever I see a thread with "perfectly reasonable", I feel it's the same as seeing a party finder group with "sureclear".

I was poking fun at myself, because I'm aware it doesn't resemble anything close to balanced, proper, or reasonable. I just wanna kick my ideas around a bit.

[TatoRazzino]

As far as progression goes, SCH DPS is definitely an important factor, but AST could have the ability to contribute in a harder to calculate way. An AoE balance is an incredible boon, but it's not as easy to calculate how that contributes to the raid's DPS as it is to look at a SCH's potencies. I'm sure it's doable, but as it stands right now, your raidwide DPS contribution comes from having an Expanded Balance Spread at the start of the pull. Beyond that, you're stuck with a weaker WHM for DPS and RNG for your other contributions, including enough MP regen to keep yourself on track with WHM. If healer DPS is truly a problem, having the equivalent of an Expanded card without needing to burn a Spire or Ewer would significantly increase the frequency of cards played and boost raid damage more. An AST feeding one person cards is great for their personal DPS, but this way they could increase their raidwide contribution without having to wait ages for a Balance or Arrow.

You're underestimating the card system as a whole. All cards contribute to DPS in different ways, and some of them are not obvious. Drawing Ewers and Spires takes the refresh burden away from BRD/MCH, which increases overall DPS for two reasons: 1) they don't have to sacrifice their personal DPS to play songs/activate the refresh mode for turrets; and 2) BRDs can use that MP to play Foe Requiem for longer. Boles can increase DPS in several ways: 1) the most obvious is your MT dropping tank stance for that duration, which will increase DPS output; 2) you can go into Cleric Stance and use your DoTs, which are powerful and bypass accuracy checks; 3) your co-healer can stay in Cleric for a longer time, adding more DPS; and 4) you can conserve MP, which helps with the refreshing issues. The Spear card is useful in many ways, specially if you have a NIN or MCH in your group; if you don't, you can use it to double the amount of time your next card will stay on. Utility increases overall DPS, buffing specific party members increases their personal DPS (which increases overall DPS). It's a huge mistake to think that only an AoE Balance or Arrow will do the trick; use an Extended Arrow in your BLM at the pull, and you'll do more for him in their opener than Selene will do for them in the whole fight. Feed your MNK with a Balance and increase it for 15s, and notice the difference in the boss HP percentage. It's tangible and you can feel the difference if you pay attention to what you're doing. When I don't play AST and go WHM instead in fights like Thordan EX, for example, I notice a 3% difference in the boss HP in the splits. That's how strong the cards are.

My point about the tookit pre-level 60 was not to argue its balance, but to point out a situational use. SE doesn't need any reason beyond that to choose not to change anything about Nocturnal Sect. Like I said in my original reply, there are several situational stances/spells/skills that are only used in few places or in PvP. SE can simply state that they never intended a high end use of Nocturnal Sect and that will be it.

Also, there are A4S clears with Nocturnal AST, and that fight is arguably the only one that actually requires heavy shielding. My point is: using SCH to point out things about Nocturnal Sect is not going to take us anywhere.

During 2.X progression groups had one spot locked for BRD among the DPS jobs, and one of the melee and one of the casters were going to be locked out no matter what. That happened because BRD was the only DPS/support job that existed; SCH is currently the only healer job that has an actual DPS toolkit (not only DPS spells/skills, but a resource management system), which means it's the only job that can perform well as an off-healer. The same thing can be said about WAR: it's the only tank made to work well as an off-tank. They'll not nerf WAR/SCH, and they won't buff PLD/DRK or WHM/AST to become closer to what WAR/SCH can do. We'll have to wait for the next off-tank/off-healer oriented job to be launched. Either that or SE will start designing fights that require only one tank/one healer; remember T5 and T9? A lot of groups simply ran it with PLD only, because a second tank was not needed. The smart choice for those fights wasn't WAR (and I doubt it would be now). If you need a solo healer, you'll either choose WHM or AST, with regens, for progression. Or they could simply design fights that require two healers actually healing. In those contexts, you'll prolly see more WHM/ASTs, and SCH may be left out. In a similar way, fights that would require two tanks using tank stance at the same time for long periods of time may see more PLD/DRK combos. Then we'll see threads crying about WAR/SCH and so on.

[Kabzy]

No. I've raided as a Noct AST and with multiple SCH's who are always on top of their game and know what's going on. I'm quite familiar with the tools because I have a pocket SCH when I tank, and we work out how to do our best as a pair.

Well my point was that you've come up with certain things in your post which simply aren't true, which you would notice if you raided as a SCH. For one, as mentioned above, embrace is not 300 potency, at least not in comparison to our 400 potency heals. It does around 30% more than a WHM regen tick, and my WHM is less geared than SCH so I can't make an accurate comparison.

Sacred Soil is definitely not something an AST is losing out on, in fact I think it's quite barbaric that anyone would even suggest Collective Unconscious as being inferior to the other two 'bubbles'. Sacred Soil isn't something you just use a stack on and plop on the screen, it's used specifically for raid wide damage and usually people run out of it as soon as the move is over; as such Collective Unconscious does exactly the same thing plus adding a very potent regen on top of that. Saying you can't move is not a valid argument, because you only ever really need it up for the one incoming attack anyway.

Finally, MP is certainly not endless on good SCHs. When you're in charge of essentially taking on two roles at once, you'll drain your MP fast. Not to mention some of our spells cost considerable more to cast than the other healers.

I appreciate that Nocturnal AST isn't as good at mitigation as SCH, but if you're making comparisons, you need to at least know enough about the other jobs so you're not discrediting your post. Personally I think AST is in a great place right now and needs NO buffs, it just requires more skillful people to play.

[Cheibriados]

Finally, MP is certainly not endless on good SCHs. When you're in charge of essentially taking on two roles at once, you'll drain your MP fast. Not to mention some of our spells cost considerable more to cast than the other healers.

I would suggest you a bit more use of Energy Drain.

Really, in raids and dungeons Scholars does have a large amount of practical mana, enough for it to not matter unless you waste it all on Succor and Adloquium. Sacred Ground is a great mitigation tool as well, due to the low cooldown it has. I'm using it more and more to lessen the amount of incoming general damage, in much the same way I learned how to love Emergency Tactics. The general idea of damage prevention is lost to the Nocturnal Astrologian, since all it seems to have gimmick-wise is an inferior Scholar toolbox.


And Embrace is half a Physick, almost a whole Physick if you've got Rouse up, at the same delivery speed as the Scholar can muster if it's got Fey Wind, or like a normal Physick if the target has Fey Illumination going. You're doing about 60% of your own healing most of the time.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Really, in raids and dungeons Scholars does have a large amount of practical mana, enough for it to not matter unless you waste it all on Succor and Adloquium. Sacred Ground is a great mitigation tool as well, due to the low cooldown it has.

I'll let Kabzy roast you if he/she feels like it, so I'll just ignore the rest of your post. But this particular bit I'd like to address.

You do realise that Sacred soil is never worth it on non-lethal attacks, right?

[DarkmoonVael]

I would suggest you a bit more use of Energy Drain.

Really, in raids and dungeons Scholars does have a large amount of practical mana, enough for it to not matter unless you waste it all on Succor and Adloquium. Sacred Ground is a great mitigation tool as well, due to the low cooldown it has. I'm using it more and more to lessen the amount of incoming general damage, in much the same way I learned how to love Emergency Tactics. The general idea of damage prevention is lost to the Nocturnal Astrologian, since all it seems to have gimmick-wise is an inferior Scholar toolbox.


And Embrace is half a Physick, almost a whole Physick if you've got Rouse up, at the same delivery speed as the Scholar can muster if it's got Fey Wind, or like a normal Physick if the target has Fey Illumination going. You're doing about 60% of your own healing most of the time.

Basic rule of thumb on SCH: lustrate and imdom are for more valuable to spend stacks on than sacred soil. In fact sacred soil is usually the last thing a SCH spends stacks on. If its a non lethal attack, the soil is wasted. Lustrate and indom let you dps more, as you can drop clerics and use stacks on instant heals. Energy drain manages your mana and deals more dps. Sacred soil hasnt been worthwhile (except a few niche uses in raids like t11 crit nerve cloud, t13 terraflare) since 2.0 when lustrate healed a lower % of hp and people were still figuring stuff out.

Also in progression raids, SCH do have mana issues. They are less than AST or WHM usually, but non the less they are still there.

Personally I think AST is in a great place right now and needs NO buffs, it just requires more skillful people to play.

Where as i agree that AST is in a good place right now, i dont agree that it needs no buffs. There is one area that really needs addressing and that is emnity management on AST. Luminiferious Aether's Quelling Strikes effects is all but useless, so some tweaking is needed there.

[Kabzy]

-Snip-

So a SCH who keeps up Sacred Soil all the time is telling me I need to use Energy Drain more. Yeah... I suggest you learn that AF stack management IS a thing.

I just hope no one is reading your post and actually thinking it's a good mitigation strat. As Lyrica said, Sacred Soil's only use is heavy raid wide damage in which it can prevent KO's. Using it outside of that scenario is a complete waste of an AF stack (you can use it on Energy Drains ).

Also you only mention Adlo and Succor, both which do need to be used somewhat frequently, and not any of the DPS abilities. Even when using all your stacks on Energy Drain, the cost of healing, keeping up DoTs and using Broil as a filler far outwieghs the regen from Energy Drain and AF. I agree that SCHs have the most friendliest MP regen, but we also seem to use our MP the most too. MP management is a skill that ALL healers need to learn, none of us have a free pass unless you're one of those terrible healers who stands idle when everyone's topped up.

You do realize that aetherflow stacks aren't THAT precious, right? You even have two ways to gaining them now. Shadow Flare does take priority, of course, but prevention is better than curing at all times.

That's cute, maybe you should just stick to WAR.

Also you contradicted yourself big time here. If Shadow Flare, a move you should keep up all the time takes priority, why are you using Sacred Soil whenever it becomes available? ;D You're not only losing out on DPS and a slow debuff but you also waste an AF stack on something completely useless.

[Nathair]

I would suggest you a bit more use of Energy Drain.

You do realize that aetherflow stacks aren't THAT precious, right? You even have two ways to gaining them now. Shadow Flare does take priority, of course, but prevention is better than curing at all times.

So, I'm sorry, but from your PoV do I need to use ED or Soil?
Do I need to keep up Shadowflare and don't let if fall, with the other DoTs, or use Soil?
If, as you stated, the answer to these questions is "not Soil", then you yourself said Soil is actually situational and pretty useless otherwise.
T11, T13, A1S Jumps (when we were undergeared), maybe A3S, Thordan's LB, but that's as far as it goes.
Unless, of course, you're fine with losing 900~ish MP*3, the strongest ST heal we have, or the strongest AoE we have.
Your pick.