Another WHM chicken little sees the sky falling. The sky is an AST.

[basketofseals]

Exactly. And in a game that leads everyone down the same path of 'dps above all else' where does that leave WHM?

If you have this narrow of a viewpoint of balance, then there's zero point in discussion. All jobs aren't going to be able to be neck and neck in damage. It's the goal to strive for, but it's equally inane to expect it to be reality.

Also I would like to hop in on this "AST is not the greatest healer" argument because the job has extremely limited recovery tools. WHM and SCH have so many oGCDs to rotate through that any single mistake(assuming it doesn't kill the group entirely) is just a button away. If you're AST, you better start hard casting.

[MoroMurasaki]

Miste being an amazing AST

I think this is a totally fair point, but ultimately one that supports the questioning of these incoming AST buffs more than it supports the buffs themselves.


Right now without the buffs coming in 4.3 and with an average amount of dps buff cards you did as much as a 50% WHM on your first GK kill. To me that is showing a good current balance between AST and WHM. If you had worse luck with cards you would have come in below that WHM and with better luck you would have beaten them. That's fair to me. That's apparently fair to most AST mains as I've had conversations with plenty of them that are quick to point out current healer balance is about as fair as it's been since HW launch.

Now we're going to remove the pDPS loss on AST due to clipping DPS GCDs with card actions and give AST better MP management via Lightspeed (with no dps loss now) and also potentially a stronger AoE heal.

If WHM and AST were balanced before as evident in your example I'm still left wondering how they are also equal after one is given further advantages and the other is left alone.

I know you and I have beaten this horse to death, I just thought this was an interesting angle to your viewpoint.

As to the idea of complaining about AST over SCH as a WHM... I'm not in direct completion with SCH as a WHM. SCH/WHM is a lovely, popular healing comp. AST/WHM is... not? I get why, SCH is just all around great now, but to me this is like asking why SAMs aren't complaining about NIN and DRG like they are MNK - NIN has been desired since forever, DRG bringing piercing especially with BRD being so desirable guarantees it a slot and yet most SAMs I've seen on the forums or reddit will complain more about MNK encroaching on their territory with pDPS+ Brotherhood.

I know it isn't a perfect analogy but complaining about SCH just feels... pointless? SE loves SCH, clearly. They messed up a bit in 4.0 but fixed it quick and haven't even unboxed their "Nerf SCH" button.

If you have this narrow of a viewpoint of balance, then there's zero point in discussion. All jobs aren't going to be able to be neck and neck in damage. It's the goal to strive for, but it's equally inane to expect it to be reality.

Also I would like to hop in on this "AST is not the greatest healer" argument because the job has extremely limited recovery tools. WHM and SCH have so many oGCDs to rotate through that any single mistake(assuming it doesn't kill the group entirely) is just a button away. If you're AST, you better start hard casting.

Hop on bandwagons, enjoy. Doesn't mean you're right.

All healers can heal all content. Some might have an easier time than others but at the end of the day any healer comp is viable.

The question then comes down to who is bringing the most apart from their healing. The answer is (mostly SCH) but consistantly not WHM.

I don't understand where you're getting lost here.

[Trunks]

Yes it contributes a lot, but they might have to run the fight 20+ times to get that lucky.

This is absurd. Just patently absurd. First off, Balance isn't the only DPS contributor. Second, the RNG is way overstated with the tools that AST has since Stormblood. Just a quick glance through some logs from last week I had combined uptime of 50% on Balance and Spear on all of them, including on a long fight like Guardian (and yes that's excluding pets).

The amount of participation over AST kinda denies this idea that they have nothing special going for them. They have fifteen thousand more parses as of right now over AST and only 2000 less than SCH.

"lol it haz lots of parse so it must be gud" is just an appeal to popularity fallacy; millions of people read Fifty Shades of Grey but that doesn't make it a literary masterpiece. People play things for reasons other than "because it's fotm", you know. I happen to think WHM's GCD-bottleneck gameplay is the most fun of the three healers. I don't play it because it's good, I play it despite the fact that it's not optimal and because the game's carebear enough to indulge me on that. I'm sure many others play it because it's their favorite class from the franchise, or just out of inertia, or maybe they plain old don't like AST/SCH.

Nothing, because no job in this game so far has been so bad that it was completely unable to clear relevant content in the game. Not even 3.0 AST was trash enough to not be able to clear the content back then.
Also the scenario you give, as in clearing raid content, implies progression. The one area where WHM is actually strongest. So your point isn't completely supporting your implications.

Okay so I can play WHM until everyone gets their mechanics down and then switch to AST when we actually have to meet the DPS check? Gotcha. WHM's "advantages" in progression are a mirage. The point at which your healing throughput exceeds an AST is pretty much the point at which you're going to pull hate and die (because there's no "orange parse" in "team").

[Cidel]

And also its stuff like this that makes me never wanna see another healing class enter ffxiv.

QFE. As much as it pains me to agree with it.

[Kabzy]

Okay so I can play WHM until everyone gets their mechanics down and then switch to AST when we actually have to meet the DPS check? Gotcha. WHM's "advantages" in progression are a mirage. The point at which your healing throughput exceeds an AST is pretty much the point at which you're going to pull hate and die (because there's no "orange parse" in "team").

Not at all, there is no comp that can't CLEAR content. The only point where you'd need to switch to AST is if your team suddenly became hardcore and wanted to go for speedkills. Which, as I've said, is a minority within a minority of players. And again, if you're pulling hate and dying, either your team isn't utilising their skills properly, or your healing is not calculated enough. It's up to you to figure out that issue. You can't blame a job if you or your team aren't playing at least somewhat optimally.

[Miste]

Now we're going to remove the pDPS loss on AST due to clipping DPS GCDs with card actions and give AST better MP management via Lightspeed (with no dps loss now) and also potentially a stronger AoE heal.

If WHM and AST were balanced before as evident in your example I'm still left wondering how they are also equal after one is given further advantages and the other is left alone.

The % of DPS loss due to clipping is <1% of an ASTs damage. We're not talking big differences.

The reason why ASTs pDPS is so much lower than WHMs pDPS is in the potency of our spells.

Malefic III is 220 and Stone IV is 250

WHM has 2 DoT spells equaling 90 potency while AST only has one at 50 potency.

Assize hits for 300 potency while a unpowered ES hits for only 150, and the powered up version only hits for 200 potency.

Presence of Mind actually increases your cast AND recast times of spells which makes WHMs able to fit more damage in a smaller window of time while Lightspeed only reduces cast times of spells by 2.5s and doesn't touch your actual GCD. So your spells with low cast times cast instantly, but you still have to wait for the GCD after the cast to cast anything else.

These are the main factors why WHM pDPS is so much stronger than ASTs, and none of these potencies are changing as far as we know. Lightspeed not reducing your attack spells will just make AST have a bit more damage during times they were going to cast Malefic III anyway. The % difference is going to be quite small imo like <5% difference compared to now. Won't know 100% until it goes live and people test, but this is my educated guess.

If ASTs pDPS somehow ends up too high, which I don't see how it would with these changes, then yes I advocate WHM get a bit of a pDPS buff to go along with it.

I really doubt they are buffing Asp. Helios potency. I don't see the point. If they do and it matches Medica II I mean..I don't think it is necessary, but it wouldn't be the death of WHM. WHM still has stronger healing with everything else. Again though I don't agree with SE buffing Asp. Helios. I main AST and my experienced opinion is DiAST doesn't need it. Noct AST? Maybe...SCH just does everything too good for Noct to compete imo.

As to the idea of complaining about AST over SCH as a WHM... I'm not in direct completion with SCH as a WHM.

You aren't that is true, but if Noct is bad compared to SCH then WHM suffers as a result since one of its comps is not as good as the other.

I think the main comps being used atm for savage is majority SCH+WHM, and then falling behind is AST+SCH.

[basketofseals]

Hop on bandwagons, enjoy. Doesn't mean you're right.

All healers can heal all content. Some might have an easier time than others but at the end of the day any healer comp is viable.

The question then comes down to who is bringing the most apart from their healing. The answer is (mostly SCH) but consistantly not WHM.

I don't understand where you're getting lost here.

I'm lost because I fail to see how you're contributing to the discussion at hand.

If your perspective is that DPS is the only thing that matters, then what are you even attempting to argue? You want WHM to be in that precious meta spot? That's not a balance change, that's just you wanting to be the favored job.

Believe it or not, I'm not bandwagonning and am perfectly capable of having my own opinion, and it is of my own opinion that the dps meta isn't relevant to 90% of us. I couldn't give two bits about how stacking shields and throwing out 11 bars worth of limit breaks is the farming/meter/speedkill meta. For myself, and many others, progression is the content.

[Miste]

This is absurd. Just patently absurd. First off, Balance isn't the only DPS contributor. Second, the RNG is way overstated with the tools that AST has since Stormblood. Just a quick glance through some logs from last week I had combined uptime of 50% on Balance and Spear on all of them, including on a long fight like Guardian (and yes that's excluding pets).

Never said Balance was the only contributor, but it is what speed runners aim to get as much uptime as possible with since it is more powerful than any other AoE card. This is obvious so I am unsure what you are trying to argue unless you maybe don't understand how speed kills work? Spear contributes only like 1/4th(?) of what Balance gives so it isn't really the main focus.

RNG is still RNG. Also I checked your claims and I did not see 50% AoE Balance uptime on them, so not sure where you are getting that from. On guardian I only saw 29-31% uptime for all players.

If you are only looking at the main "buffs" page you are looking in the wrong spot, it may say 50% uptime, but that uptime may only be on 1 player, you have to click on the card and see if the uptime was 30-50% uptime across all 8 players.

Yes the Guardian one got very lucky with Balances, that can happen, never denied it. You simply MIGHT have to do a lot of pulls to get that lucky since being unlucky definitely happens as I have found in my experience.

Speed run groups don't just run o5s-o8s one time each and get 8-9 AoE Balances in all 4 fights back to back and call it a day. That is patently absurd.

I rDPS calculated the Guardian clear and even with all those Balances it is actually less rDPS than all of the WHM Guardian parses. So in this case WHM is a stronger contribution to the group than AST.

"lol it haz lots of parse so it must be gud"

Not even what I said, but you are getting super salty over nothing.

No matter what those numbers don't lie. If WHM was so less desired and you need them to switch to AST to meet the DPS check as you claim below then why is the raiding community not shutting WHMs out? 40,000 WHMs don't seem to have these DPS check issues you say make them have to switch to AST.

It is indicative that WHM is good because the raiding community is widely accepting them. It isn't about why people are playing WHM.

Okay so I can play WHM until everyone gets their mechanics down and then switch to AST when we actually have to meet the DPS check? Gotcha. WHM's "advantages" in progression are a mirage.

Read above, the WHM ones actually contribute more rDPS than the AST one when going by the information for Guardian. So no, you don't have to change to AST to meet a DPS check.

[MoroMurasaki]

snippity snip

I'm going to run on the assumption your explainations of attack spell potencies were because of something other than thinking I didn't understand the root of the pDPS difference between AST and WHM because despite prefering WHM I have played AST and I know Malefic III hits like pretty, sparkly tissue papehasIn addition, not that it's reliable or desirable to get very often, AST also has Lord.

My point is that despite these differences, by your own demonstration, AST rDPS will (in a mediocre card scenario) equal out it's pDPS deficencies with WHM. At the risk of having my own potentially unnecesary explaination when you have two equal things and add something to one of them you now have two things that are not equal any more.

I understand the clipping is more QoL than an intentional pDPS buff. I understand AST was lacking in MP management so Lightspeed makes sense for it. Running on the assumption that the A. Helios buff is just making it's range match that of Medica II I understand how that is closer to QoL as well, especially for people who play both classes.

What I don't understand is why we are addessing minor QoL issues on AST when WHM still has Lillies/Secret of the Lily traits as it's SB gimmick. It is the fresh new thing added to the class and it's entirely forgettable. Thin Air, while amazing, is in essence a bandaid over the gaping wound that was WHM mp management... kind of like the new Lightspeed will be for AST except as the one large improvment between HW WHM and SB WHM instead of a minor patch note.

I honestly think the root of this issue is the same mindset being exhibited by the devs that we have poked fun at when we see it on the forums- the idea that healers are healers in a game where they are dps.

They are so focused on making sure everyone can heal every fight (and apparently heal them as easily as one another since forcing greater mp responsibility on AST isn't acceptable) that they aren't looking at how the playstyle really grades healers (and tanks, and dps) which is by their overall contribution to the party. If it was all about pDPS SAM and BLM would be popular.

Healing is like Piety; if you have more than you need it's going to waste. WHM is swimming in HPS but it doesn't have an answer to the rDPS offered by both other healers.

If this thread has convinced me of anything thus far it's that the AST changes might feel like a slap in the face but it doesn't feel that way because AST is getting them but because once again WHM is getting ignored. If it persists then yes this is shaping up to be the end of HW all over again.

[EaMett]

A WHM can match an ASTs rDPS contribution with just their pDPS.

I'm definitely willing to entertain the idea but there are a few issues with your post. Putting aside the fact your example is an anecdotal sample size of 1 I'm more that willing to concede that it could be indicative of something bigger. With that said you make a few assumptions that aren't necessarily true.
1) A 50% whm and 50% ast parse don't mean the ast and whm are of the same skill level. I suspect there's quite a gap actually (this would warrant a dedicated post)
2) pdps and rdps for AST are two distinct mechanics. You assume the players skill expresses equally in both fields.
3) Logs from sub 90% players aren't a viable source of information. The lack of consistency in skill mean the interpretation of the data really can't be used in a class balancing scenario. Same goes with the number of parses per class (you can't interpret it as meaning the class is less viable without extra info).
Although I suspect this is how SE operates as a business. They'll forego the actual class balance in order to do a player skill balance. This means pulling a class' potencies up as a means to soften the learning curve and attract players (and thus really overbuffing the top 10% of players of those classes). Sadly those 10% are what matter the most when defining metas, hence the problem.

I also want to point out that RNG has been less of an issue since the changes to spear. And part of the AST rdps grows with the raid dps, so it's normal to not see good return on cards if half your group are pulling grays.

But yeah, we would need to somehow justify the assumptions in order to make some headway with your train of thought.