3.2 Astrologian Changes

[Sidra]

Any healing team without a SCH is going to be sub optimal because it is simply so good at it's role. That being said, any of the combos are workable. One thing you may run into in your setup is WHMs dpsing can run into mana issues, and AST also have mana issues in marathon fights - you may be relying on some good luck Ewer RNG to ensure each healer gets one or two. The other thing you are missing is the massive AOE shielding capability of a spread Adlo + Fey Covenant - although I am unsure how much it will be needed in this raid tier.

[loreleidiangelo]

I didn't see it discussed, but I'm curious on others thoughts of this point:

Comparing an endgame party comp of WHM/SCH to WHM/AST(Noct) with the 3.2 changes I envision WHM/AST actually working with WHM as the support healer.

WHM has strong DPS and due to HoTs it can stance dance easily as support. What it lacks in that role is MP conservation. That is where AST changes come in to supply MP to the WHM.

I think that would actually make AST/WHM a competitive combination.

Thoughts?

It could work, but why pigeonhole a job that excels at burst healing into an off-heal/DPS role, when SCH already excels at it without having to hope for good card RNG to sustain their mana?

[Triston]

Comparing SCH to either of the other two healers is utterly pointless; SCH was designed for the off-heal role, Noct AST for some reason wasn't, and therefore WHM and AST can't begin to compete for SCH's slot. What the real question is is: if you happen to have WHM and AST, which one do you have do the off-healing role? In this case I also agree that WHM is the better off-healer than N.AST is. WHM can roll regens while in Cleric stance to simulate a fairy, has better DPS than AST, and can indeed be fed Ewers to sustain it. The 'correct' answer is "level SCH" but that is a horrible solution to the problem.

X/SCH vs. WHM/AST is an obvious win for /SCH because SCH is nearly irreplaceable. But for WHM/AST vs AST/WHM I favor AST/WHM.

[Crushnight]

In a support hlr role sch can't be topped with its fairy/utility and mitigation that being said these changes are really nice but doesn't solve the nocturnal ast issue of being viable over sch. with still having the worse dps for mp ratio of all hlrs and not having a decent substain healing while dpsing it can cause more of a burden on main hlr/grp, i still believe all fights are gunna be passable regardless of comp its just u rather have a sch/X over Whm/Ast anyday for more ease.

I do think theres a way to help this;
Maybe CO and TD could change 'Nocturnal Field' to 'Nocturnal Barrier' when it instead gains 'A barrier around target that mitigates 3/4 of the shield provided by Nocturnal Field for its duration' This may have to come with a longer cd for TD or slight decrease in AB nocturnal potency but it would provide noct ast with something without affecting Duirnal or sch
Any thoughts? or bad idea from get go?

[Judge_Xero]

It could work, but why pigeonhole a job that excels at burst healing into an off-heal/DPS role, when SCH already excels at it without having to hope for good card RNG to sustain their mana?

Just looking at it from another angle. Since WHM has strong DPS as well and great sustained heals through HoTs, which compliments NoctAST as main heal for lacking great DPS and sustained heals.

That's why I wondered if others had any views on that idea as well, since 3.2 Ewer can now put out 2210 MP per normal use.

Ewer + RR Arrow/Spear = 4420 MP
Ewer + RR Arrow/Spear + TD = 6630 MP
Ewer + RR Bole + TD = 6630 MP

Trough Draw, Redraw, and Spread you should be able to get that combo @ 2 minute intervals + Time Dilation is 90s CD

What I wasn't sure of is how much MP WHM would actually need in that situation. From what I can see is that @ 14,000 MP it takes WHM roughly 3.5 minutes to go OOM in full DPS mode. (efficient usage of Shrouds/Assize) - so it would need an additional 4k MP/minute to sustain itself similar to SCH.

Which should translate into needing ~18k MP + Ewer support. So I'm not sure if that would still make it as good, simply from WHM's stronger single target damage/burst damage + more controlled heals (multi regen compared to the fairy)

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

I didn't see it discussed, but I'm curious on others thoughts of this point:

Comparing an endgame party comp of WHM/SCH to WHM/AST(Noct) with the 3.2 changes I envision WHM/AST actually working with WHM as the support healer.

Well, it's not like you're the first who thought of this idea. For example:

I've always wondered why people try to cram AST into SCH's slot when going WHM/AST. AST and WHM have comparable main healing, and WHM's DPS is objectively better than AST. Although I haven't put it in practice, why is it very seldom raised the proposition that AST be the primary healer in BOTH compositions, and have WHM fill the "support healer" role?

Accuracy is an issue, and will need to be addressed by SE, but WHM's DPS rotation is better in all ways than AST. AST can use Ewers to supplement WHM's mp, (though not as well as SCH does, which is itself an issue that needs be addressed) and WHM can use Regens as their version of fairy heals to keep up sustain while in Cleric Stance. Meanwhile Nocturnal AST can use shields more liberally than SCH does (both are inefficient, but Aspected Benefic I *think* is more efficient than Adloquium) and cards to support the raid. This I've always thought would be superior to Noct AST trying to copy SCH and falling short on all three of DPS/mana/healing, but I don't have enough experience to see where having Noct AST primary heal in an AST/WHM combo could be worse.

Is it just that WHMs are so accustomed to being the main healer they find it unthinkable to play the DPS-healer role?

Follow where that quote came from if you are curious about how that (short) discussion went

[Judge_Xero]

Well, it's not like you're the first who thought of this idea. For example:



Follow where that quote came from if you are curious about how that (short) discussion went

Oh I missed that post on the Astrologian Impossible to Balance Thread. It does look like the discussion was short lived, although it was also before the 3.2 Changes as well. Maybe it requires further discussion? Since a few of the points that would make being a WHM Support Heal for NoctAST were partially addressed.

Very much this. While there are situations in which it makes more sense to have a WHM temporarily DPS instead of a SCH, a WHM cannot put out sustained DPS like a SCH does without severe outside help. A SCH has virtually infinite MP while DPSing in Cleric Stance, whereas a WHM will MP-floor after just a few minutes, and that's assuming you do not use even a single heal.

An interesting point here is that SCH does have virtually infinite MP while DPSing as long as all of their Energy Drains connect. This requires being as close to the accuracy cap as possible. Which leads to the next point.

My biggest problem with whm main dpsing is the accuracy. THeir dots can miss. (I spoke about a3s)

If you are main healer/dps, you can always switch to help your partner. So the whm can Medica II or switch role if he lacks mana.

Yes a WHM's Dots can miss but as a support healer they would need to stack accuracy the same as SCH, because while 2/3 of SCH's dots wont miss if their Energy Drain misses it's a terrible MP loss.

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These were the only points in that other thread as far as discussion went. All very valid points and I'm not certain that the MP issues on WHM can be fully addressed by AST even with the 3.2 changes. There's also the issue of if you had an AST/SCH party then those buffs could be used for other abilities other than MP recovery.

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I guess the other intersting thing is WHM's healing abilities, Tetra, Asylum and Assize. These all require no MP and Assize gives MP and are fully useable as support heal skills.