Things currently wrong with frontlines that the community would like to see fixed

[Kyani]

You, uh.. you do know damage for DoT effects is only calculated the initial application, right? You have to have Focalization up before Tri-Diaster even lands, because no amount of defensive buffs will change the damage a dot, baned or otherwise, ticks for. One of the only changes SE has ever made to current raid content was changing T12 because Summoners could do way too much damage to Phoenix by baning off of a vulnerable target.

For AoE healing, Equanimity is slightly better for AST than SCH/WHM because of your ability to choose between Medica and Succor, but CU is not very good outside of a coordinated team - you're giving up your mobility and several GCDs (thanks to the shoddy way the buff is applied) to maybe get the HoT on half of your party. Whispering Dawn is a more reliable (if slightly less powerful) version of the same effect, on a shorter cooldown.

You're still missing the forest for the trees, though! Outside of Retrogradation every 2 minutes and ED every 40 seconds, AST is tightly GCD locked - your cooldowns, even Synastry, are all about giving you better healing per GCD, rather than a faster GCD or OGCD burst options. As fights go longer, this becomes a significant disadvantage - if you're ever crowd controlled or otherwise forced to stop casting, you don't have anywhere near the ability to recover compared to WHM or SCH's OGCD and passive options.



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I understand that Astrologian is a strong class, and definitely the strongest healer while moving, but there are a lot of claims being made here that are wildly exaggerated. The class does have weaknesses: having the highest per-GCD potency "floor" (603 even while moving) comes with having the lowest potential potency ceiling. Just as SCH can never hope to match the raw throughput of WHM or Diurnal, and WHM lacks the ability to heal "over" max HP like SCH or Noct, Noct suffers from not having the option to add "extra" potency outside of a few long cooldowns.

Seriously, run the math before claiming how wrong I must be - if both parties pop everything, INCLUDING CE, Noct & SCH heal for almost the exact same amount. Scholar's frontload is significantly better, but falls off with time, whereas Astrologian maintains a similar level before flatlining from a lack of mana. All of the following assuming no particular burst damage, no cc/interrupts, and no single-target threats that need to be addressed (all of which favor Scholar to varying degrees thanks to Indom and Lustrate being off the global):

Over 20 seconds, AST winds up with 3528 (504*7) potency/target from Helios, 1050 (150 * 7) from CU, and 150 from Retrogradation, for a total of 4728 potency per target (Obviously excluding overheal, because this is magical christmas land). Astrologian additionally has access to a single Essential Dignity, which scales between 400 and 900 potency - an "average" essential Dignity adds (700 / 8 = 87.5) potency, for a total of 4815.5.

In that same timeframe, Scholar winds up with 3024 (432x7) potency/target from Succor, 770 (~110 Player Potency*7) from WD and 400 from Indomitability for a total of 4194 potency over that same period. The Scholar also has 8 Lustrates - enough to heal each target once (though this undervalues the ability to split them), bringing its total over the same period to 4794.

It's when you peel away cooldowns (either because they're inefficent uses or they've been used elsewhere) that Astrologian falls behind: If you aren't able to roll CU before the fight starts, you have no real answer to even the passive healing of Medica II or the off-GCD utility of Indomitability and Whispering Dawn: all of your options use the same cooldowns as your single-target heals, and you can't generate extra time for yourself the way Lustrate & Prism/Asylum do to get yourself some breathing room.

[Mutemutt]

The zerg style gameplay is definitely the biggest thing I don't like about the latest frontline modes, but them being flooded by summoners is a close second.

For AoE healing, Equanimity is slightly better for AST than SCH/WHM because of your ability to choose between Medica and Succor, but CU is not very good outside of a coordinated team - you're giving up your mobility and several GCDs (thanks to the shoddy way the buff is applied) to maybe get the HoT on half of your party. Whispering Dawn is a more reliable (if slightly less powerful) version of the same effect, on a shorter cooldown.

You're still missing the forest for the trees, though! Outside of Retrogradation every 2 minutes and ED every 40 seconds, AST is tightly GCD locked - your cooldowns, even Synastry, are all about giving you better healing per GCD, rather than a faster GCD or OGCD burst options. As fights go longer, this becomes a significant disadvantage - if you're ever crowd controlled or otherwise forced to stop casting, you don't have anywhere near the ability to recover compared to WHM or SCH's OGCD and passive options.

I feel like sch is the only one you can say isn't bound by gcd and ast is the only one you can say isn't bound by cast times. You can't bug ast with normal attacks like the other healers; the only thing that will force essential dignity is high burst on a target. You can often force whm and even sch into using their emergency heals just by constantly bugging them, keeping them from getting casts off normally. I can find use in equanimity for sch and whm but for ast... pretty questionable since lightspeed trumps it in every way.

And am I the only healer that places so little value in aoe heals and HoTs? Only dangerous aoe damage I see is cometeors and when 3 or so smns bane buffed DoTs and usually my first response to either of those is the healer limit break. Indomitability, Assize/cure 3 and lightspeed helios is just the back up or the "this isn't even worth my lb" option. Being brutally honest, Medica 2's HoT is just about as useful as protect in keeping people alive: fodder to keep retro/wither/one ilm punch/glory slash from hitting an actually useful buff.

[Kyani]

The zerg style gameplay is definitely the biggest thing I don't like about the latest frontline modes, but them being flooded by summoners is a close second.

And am I the only healer that places so little value in aoe heals and HoTs? Only dangerous aoe damage I see is cometeors and when 3 or so smns bane buffed DoTs and usually my first response to either of those is the healer limit break.

You're not wrong - AoE healing is only really useful in very small bursts (but it's very good then). In practical terms, though, you only really want to spend one GCD on your AoE, which is when Scholar is at its weakest / Astrologian is at its weakest - that's where my perception of AST as a weak AoE healer is rooted.

The 3 good HoT effects are legit, though - their presence is why Bane is wasted damage, and they're equivalent to casting half a basic heal on someone every single GCD for the duration. Having lots of strong HoTs makes triage healing a lot more effective, and it's the only way to keep people topped off through movement. Medica II's not really as good, though - it counteracts Bane, but for the most part it's Meter Padding Central :x

JP PvP matches are literally zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

If you look on XIVPvP it's SMN after SMN, at least with EU/NA servers they have at least some difference in classes, not everyone and their mother rolls SMN

It's funny - they flock toward a percieved imbalance, but don't really have a great idea of how to counter it. A giant pile of summoners like that is soft to paladins and warriors, especially after Adrenaline, but there doesn't seem to be much of that present at all.