Help with melds for my Astrologian.

[Ghishlain]

I'll repost what I posted on a different thread about melds:

1) Don't bother with Accuracy melds. For healers that just heal. Meld CRIT, PIE, DET, and SpS in comfortable levels that augment your healing. You'll probably feel it later if you're going to try to DPS, but it's something to consider for the pure-healer types.

2) You want to DPS consistently in casual content (EX dungeons / Midas normal). You'll probably want to meld approximately half your slots with Accuracy. No need for penta melded 220s, so don't break your bank over that. Midas / Lore 230-240s with 50% accuracy materia should be more than sufficient for current casual content.

3) You want to DPS consistently in hardcore content (Savage Midas / EX Trials). You'll probably want to meld EVERYTHING with T5 Accuracy and eat some HQ food to boot. Supposedly caster cap for A8S is in the 600+ range which is completely doable with full T5 Accuracy melds in i230/240 gear and food. Remember you get a free T5 outta Void Ark each week.

You should pick a meld paradigm that suitable for yourself as a player. Just because your healing partner will be a SCH doesn't mean AST won't have the means to add DPS to the encounter and potentially push a clear versus a 1% wipe. Accuracy is single handled the best DPS stat in the game until you cap accuracy.

If your Malefic IIs account for 75 DPS on a training dummy and you only have an 80% hit rate in say Sephi EX, your average Malefic II potential will be 60 DPS. If eating Accuracy food increases your hit rate to 85%, your Malefic II DPS will 63.74% (a 6.25% gain in average DPS). Crit, Det, or SpS will give you no where near this benefit in the same quantities until you start getting into the 90+% range.

I know it doesn't answer your question directly, but I'm hoping these bits of information will allow you to make a decision that is to your benefit.

[Kerrigen]

Lots of great posts already so I'm just going to piggyback on one of them with actual recent experience as a main healer:

Just because your healing partner will be a SCH doesn't mean AST won't have the means to add DPS to the encounter and potentially push a clear versus a 1% wipe. Accuracy is single handled the best DPS stat in the game until you cap accuracy.

My first Hummelfaust (the Gatekeeper for Alexander 5 Savage that is a harder DPS check than the actual boss) kill involved me delivering the killing blow with Stone III, right as the enrage came off. Had I been on AST instead of WHM that night, this could have been Malefic II. This is never something that I want to leave to RNG, and while one could argue that it's the DPS' job, I feel like this is a team effort and every bit helps.

Do what suits your playstyle the most. I fully agree with Ghislain's post and I think this is the best way to approach healer melds.

[technole]

My first Hummelfaust (the Gatekeeper for Alexander 5 Savage that is a harder DPS check than the actual boss) kill involved me delivering the killing blow with Stone III, right as the enrage came off. Had I been on AST instead of WHM that night, this could have been Malefic II. This is never something that I want to leave to RNG, and while one could argue that it's the DPS' job, I feel like this is a team effort and every bit helps.

Bingo! Couldn't have said it better, and I don't think many that barely DPS appreciate ACC that much until they have been in that 1% wipe situation and realized that RNG miss might have been avoided. In-which their damage points if they would have counted, would have helped a clear.

Someone will likely say "it's the DPS's job" but in a raid, it's everyone's job to have DPS as part of their game.

I'm certainly no expert, but imo acc is not as important to AST as it is to the other healers as combust and combust II never miss anyway. obv our other offensive toolkit is still subject to acc

Malefic II is almost akin to Stone III, and that is the single target burst you want hitting in-a-bind. ACC is just as valuable on Astro as it is on the other healers. Despite having two non-aspected DoTs that don't deal initial damage, which ignores the ACC cap.

You really need a lot of Det to make a dent nowadays ever since the 3.0 nerf.

[Andrea]

Someone will likely say "it's the DPS's job" but in a raid, it's everyone's job to have DPS as part of their game.

Imo anyone who claims its the dps job deserves to be removed from the static. That is not the kind of attitude you want in a raid group >.<