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

[CorbinDallas]

How do you think the Lightspeed changes will affect their aoe damage? Think ast is new aoe king? I figured someone here would know the math

Just because you're instant casting doesn't mean your DPS is gonna increase. Astro still won't hold a candle to WHM when it comes to aoe damage. Aero3/holy/assize is just too good.

[LadyKairi]

Just because you're instant casting doesn't mean your DPS is gonna increase. Astro still won't hold a candle to WHM when it comes to aoe damage. Aero3/holy/assize is just too good.

I know, but wanted to give someone the math of it, since they’re arguing that Astro will still be better.

[Sebazy]

I know, but wanted to give someone the math of it, since they’re arguing that Astro will still be better.

It's going to make for some very interesting possibilities on long pulls with a tank that's willing to generate a bit of agro as they go along. It'll also be really nice on a couple of pulls in earlier dungeons such as Ala Mhigo (Dogs+Gorrillas springs straight to mind).

As above, it's still not going to compete with WHM, but at least it won't be quite so drastically far behind with this.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

Who are you and what did you do to Tonberry?! D:

I'm not going to complain if there's nothing to complain about, even though I guess that's kind of the reputation I gained unfortunately lol...

I'm just another WHM scared of the powercreep potential of AST and SE' incompetence when it comes to balance.

But back on AST, as far as aoe dps goes, it's definitely going to increase. Simply because of more Gravity casts from less MP being used. I never really cared about dungeon balance though, I'm more curious about how ASTs crazy mobility is going to effect their healing in raids. If they start designing fights that require you to heal while moving thats going to be a problem since WHM only mobile heal is Assize.

[Ghishlain]

I will be fine nobody stacks for Cure 3 anyway, Aspected Helios is like what 40 potency less then med 2. As for the Mp will probably be a wipe if it I need to raise a bunch anyway.

Well, if that's your prerogative, don't let me stop you then. I'm just of opinion it's quite the narrow view of the situation.

How do you think the Lightspeed changes will affect their aoe damage? Think ast is new aoe king? I figured someone here would know the math

AST with Lightspeed will give 2.5s Gravity recasts that are basically front loaded. When extended to 20s via Celestial Opposition, that's essentially 8 GCDs of Gravity so (1,600 potency X #ofTargets)*(AoE Multiplier). One could make the argument that you'd be able to fit a 9th Gravity into the final second of Lightspeed if the AST had a sufficient spell speed value. So, a total of 1,800 potency within 20s via Gravity.

WHM can open a fight with Swiftcast Aero III followed by Assize. This is 590 Potency worth of burst at the beginning by the time we reach the 20s mark (300 + (50 + 40*6) = 590). Then PoM will reduce Holy's cast to 2.4s for 15 seconds. Since you gain the fast cast speed as long as you're beginning to cast before the buff wears out you'll gain 7 GCDs worth of Holy at this cast speed. This is 1,400 potency of Holy + 590 potency of DoT+Assize for a total of 1,990 potency.

Take into account that the 590 potency of damage is not reduced by hitting multiple targets, but both Holy and Gravity are. This will push WHMs advantage even further as more and more targets are hit by these AoE bursts.

The Lightspeed change is about a 20% DPS increase (3.0s / 2.5s = 1.2 more GCDs) and it closes the gap, but WHM will still win out.

=====

Random tangent, I'm glad Malefic was chosen to be the spell to have the shorten cast time. One could imagine the outcry from everyone if S-E had chosen, say, Benefic for the reduced cast time. I'm hoping this was an intentional design decision on S-E's part and we'll continue to see refinements towards pushing healer DPS subtly (IE, WHM Lilies being generated by DPS spells)

[Fernosaur]

I'm not going to complain if there's nothing to complain about, even though I guess that's kind of the reputation I gained unfortunately lol....

It's not entirely unearned, hahaha, but I hope my joke came off as such. I don't really disagree with you about AST powercreeping, no one wants to go back to late HW...

I do think that AST being more mobile to cast on the go is actually a nice way to give it a bit more of fluff identity to the way they reach their healing potential, though, and imo it would be nice to expand even further on that idea of having quicker, albeit maybe weaker spells in the future, just to at least make a further divide into how each healer plays, even if the end result of their abilities is more or less the same.

[Katlyna]

Math

You forgot about Astro Star too which would be another 150 or 200 potency. So in theory without any cards Astro can now do more AE damage but only 10 potency. So for AE whitemage and Asto are now par with cooldowns. Astro pulls slightly ahead with cards.

[Shurrikhan]

Well, if that's your prerogative, don't let me stop you then. I'm just of opinion it's quite the narrow view of the situation.



AST with Lightspeed will give 2.5s Gravity recasts that are basically front loaded. When extended to 20s via Celestial Opposition, that's essentially 8 GCDs of Gravity so (1,600 potency X #ofTargets)*(AoE Multiplier). One could make the argument that you'd be able to fit a 9th Gravity into the final second of Lightspeed if the AST had a sufficient spell speed value. So, a total of 1,800 potency within 20s via Gravity.

WHM can open a fight with Swiftcast Aero III followed by Assize. This is 590 Potency worth of burst at the beginning by the time we reach the 20s mark (300 + (50 + 40*6) = 590). Then PoM will reduce Holy's cast to 2.4s for 15 seconds. Since you gain the fast cast speed as long as you're beginning to cast before the buff wears out you'll gain 7 GCDs worth of Holy at this cast speed. This is 1,400 potency of Holy + 590 potency of DoT+Assize for a total of 1,990 potency.

Such an MP drain would be a hefty loss for the WHM without also attaching Thin Air, at which point you may as well add Earthen Star into the mix as well...

[Sebazy]

AST vs WHM aoe DPS math

One factor you can't really math in is both WHM and SCH's ability to load up a lot of dot damage whilst the pull is still in progress, this typically gives me a ~50%+~25%+~15% split in multipack pulls on Holy/Aero III/Assize respectively with Aero bringing up the rest. I'll have to experiment with it, but I'm fairly confident that the only way I'd be competitive with AST on a large pull is to next level scumbag it up and actually start gravity spam a good couple of GCDs before the tank is planted.

I'm hoping this was an intentional design decision on S-E's part and we'll continue to see refinements towards pushing healer DPS subtly (IE, WHM Lilies being generated by DPS spells)

Agreed, it's actually a surprisingly good design choice by SE, since it's primarily the DPS hungry players that feel the GCD clipping in the first place.

Such an MP drain would be a hefty loss for the WHM without also attaching Thin Air, at which point you may as well add Earthen Star into the mix as well...

MP isn't a problem in the current dungeons, the pace is just too slow. The only time I consistently run out of MP is on Fractal HM's second pull if the tank gets the Minotaur and Chimera packs but not the second Mino+Chimera, combine that with slowish DPS and I can run myself OOM pretty consistently there. Otherwise no, everything else either has a long enough gap to get plenty of mana back or just dies considerably faster than my MP

[Rubytoe]

AST with Lightspeed will give 2.5s Gravity recasts that are basically front loaded. When extended to 20s via Celestial Opposition, that's essentially 8 GCDs of Gravity so (1,600 potency X #ofTargets)*(AoE Multiplier). One could make the argument that you'd be able to fit a 9th Gravity into the final second of Lightspeed if the AST had a sufficient spell speed value. So, a total of 1,800 potency within 20s via Gravity.

Also factor in the balance, arrow, spear cards your feeding to your 2 dps members. Possibly Enhanced cards.