Astro changes 5.1

[LariaKirin]

I wonder if this is going to be too much.

The Malefic/Combust changes are an approximate increase of 7% to the AST's dps. The CU buff in Diurnal is massive.

Currently: 50 pot regen every 90 sec.
5.1: 100 pot regen every 60 sec.
Stormblood: 150 pot regen every 90 sec.

It's 3 times stronger than current CU and equal to Stormblood in terms of throughput. This is alot of free healing that will result in a dps increase.

AST + SCH might once again become the strongest combination.

[Sylvain]

I wonder if this is going to be too much.

The Malefic/Combust changes are an approximate increase of 7% to the AST's dps. The CU buff in Diurnal is massive.

Currently: 50 pot regen every 90 sec.
5.1: 100 pot regen every 60 sec.
Stormblood: 150 pot regen every 90 sec.

It's 3 times stronger than current CU and equal to Stormblood in terms of throughput. This is alot of free healing that will result in a dps increase.

AST + SCH might once again become the strongest combination.

if it's strongest by 1% dps margin it's not a big deal (especially considering WHM brings the insurance of unlimited mp and death recovery)
SB was bad because the gap made by the AST was just too big, AST SCH was way ahead of WHM SCH.
With these buffs if it goes ahead it will be marginaly ahead.

[LariaKirin]

if it's strongest by 1% dps margin it's not a big deal (especially considering WHM brings the insurance of unlimited mp and death recovery)
SB was bad because the gap made by the AST was just too big, AST SCH was way ahead of WHM SCH.
With these buffs if it goes ahead it will be marginaly ahead.

It's not going to be 1%, it's going to be 3.5% from potency buffs alone.

It depends where you look (I'm looking at 95% here):
- E1S, E2S: there is a gap in favor of WHM+SCH, which from these potency buffs alone will shift equally in the other direction. E.g. where WHM+SCH was 250 ahead, now AST+SCH is 250 ahead.
- E3S, E4S: both comps are very close to each other, so in this case you are creating a gap favoring AST+SCH.

I've said this in other threads:
AST functions as an enabler and will increase the DPS of their cohealer. It is why AST+SCH can be equal to WHM+SCH in Titan when AST is 500 behind WHM.
CU is free and 3 times stronger than before. This change will allow it to ease the healing burden, thus increase dps. So expect to see another combined dps increase in AST comps in addition to the Malefic/Combust buffs.

E.g.:
Q: Why use Soil and lose 150 potency when AST can CU?
A: Because CU was weak. That is no longer the case.

So, looking in a vacuum, all three healers will be very close to each other individually. But this ignores other things that each healer brings to the party.

[MitsukiKimura]

I wonder if this is going to be too much.

The Malefic/Combust changes are an approximate increase of 7% to the AST's dps. The CU buff in Diurnal is massive.

Currently: 50 pot regen every 90 sec.
5.1: 100 pot regen every 60 sec.
Stormblood: 150 pot regen every 90 sec.

It's 3 times stronger than current CU and equal to Stormblood in terms of throughput. This is alot of free healing that will result in a dps increase.

AST + SCH might once again become the strongest combination.

I don't care about receiving more DPS so I can do as much as a SCH. Honestly feel like these changes are to make us turn a blind eye toward the lame card system they have implemented.
CU was garbage to begin with, with Celestial Opposition on a 60 second timer with 4 times the HoT it was valued more than it. AST is the party buff support of the three healers, giving it more "Raw" damage than actually making it unique is very uninspiring.

[tesni_g]

I wonder if this is going to be too much.

The Malefic/Combust changes are an approximate increase of 7% to the AST's dps. The CU buff in Diurnal is massive.

Currently: 50 pot regen every 90 sec.
5.1: 100 pot regen every 60 sec.
Stormblood: 150 pot regen every 90 sec.

It's 3 times stronger than current CU and equal to Stormblood in terms of throughput. This is alot of free healing that will result in a dps increase.

AST + SCH might once again become the strongest combination.

I feel like SCH/AST would have to be stronger by a margin than WHM/XXX to shift the meta. The AST population has been gutted because many don't consider it fun. The new card system drove away a lot of players and we've been told to stop hoping for changes. The damage has been done, basically, and a potency adjustment can't repair it. This change will hopefully make it easier for those of us who stick with AST to enjoy it a bit more, but if I wasn't already playing it, I wouldn't be changing mains because of these updates.

And if it does become a problem, I sincerely hope that SE will buff WHM, because they really should hold the same throne as BLM and SAM do in their subroles--low utility, unmatched pDPS.

This buff to CU is more for Diurnal than it is for Noct and that's crazy to me considering how it was acknowledged specifically that Noct AST needed love. Losing that regen is gonna hurt, and it feels like Diurnal got a huge buff while Noct got a trade-off buff--they had to sacrifice the only weak HoT they had to get another thing they (also) needed. That's disappointing. Diurnal already felt good. Noct will still feel kinda bad.

[SilverSlayn]

I wonder if this is going to be too much.

The Malefic/Combust changes are an approximate increase of 7% to the AST's dps. The CU buff in Diurnal is massive.

Currently: 50 pot regen every 90 sec.
5.1: 100 pot regen every 60 sec.
Stormblood: 150 pot regen every 90 sec.

It's 3 times stronger than current CU and equal to Stormblood in terms of throughput. This is alot of free healing that will result in a dps increase.

AST + SCH might once again become the strongest combination.

I'm surprised more people on here aren't concerned about these changes. AST's healing kit was already very strong and now it's going to be even stronger.
With these changes they will now have 3 powerful oGCD AoE heals on short CDs that will open up a lot more opportunities for SCH to DPS similar to Stormblood.
Now anytime a SCH would Soil an AST can just CU for free which means more Energy Drains not to mention depending on how damage lines up it can allow
for more Broils (which is only 20 less potency than Glare btw) if the AST can heal through the damage with an oGCD. This doesn't even take into account the DPS
buff to Malefic and Combust.

We're possibly looking at a repeat of 3.4/4.4. Not as bad of course, but I'm really thinking with these changes the best comp with once again be AST/SCH with
WHM/SCH being the undisputed best for prog.

[LariaKirin]

I wonder if this is going to be too much.

The Malefic/Combust changes are an approximate increase of 7% to the AST's dps. The CU buff in Diurnal is massive.

AST + SCH might once again become the strongest combination.

After realizing I failed to account for another factor, I'll correct this. It is in fact too much.

The buffs to DPS jobs that happened across the board has put AST at the top by quite a bit.

And now AST+SCH is dominating, being above WHM+SCH by a very significant amount, even in E1S.

[Shurrikhan]

After realizing I failed to account for another factor, I'll correct this. It is in fact too much.

The buffs to DPS jobs that happened across the board has put AST at the top by quite a bit.

And now AST+SCH is dominating, being above WHM+SCH by a very significant amount, even in E1S.

Ouch. Such were my fears. Though I'll give it another week and/or the removal of WHM from the top 10 combined healer damage ranks of each Savage fight before I transition from conscientious alarm to a wallowing in disappointment.

Meanwhile, how do we all feel the solution should progress? Should we rein unintended overbuffs back in or increase healer relative contribution through role power creep in our next attempt at parity?

[LariaKirin]

Ouch. Such were my fears. Though I'll give it another week and/or the removal of WHM from the top 10 combined healer damage ranks of each Savage fight before I transition from conscientious alarm to a wallowing in disappointment.

Meanwhile, how do we all feel the solution should progress? Should we rein unintended overbuffs back in or increase healer relative contribution through role power creep in our next attempt at parity?

I say this based on 95 percentile, so at the time of this post:
- In the case of AST+SCH, that would would cover about 11 samples.
- In the case of SCH+WHM, that would cover about 78 samples.

I expect volatility from AST+SCH given the number of samples, that's the number that is most likely to change in the following days. I agree that we have a sampling problem, but I think it's enough to conclude that AST+SCH will be on top. The question will be, by how much?

What I thought AST needed before knowing anything about 5.1 was the Combust buff. And even then, I wasn't sure about it because of how good the AST+SCH synergy is (even more so now that CU is back to its broken state). The Malefic buff, I just don't understand. And I didn't when I failed to account for the indirect RDPS buffs either.

On the plus side, AST+WHM seems to be pretty close to SCH+WHM at the moment. So I suppose we'll soon have a pretty good idea of how much WHM needs to solidify its role as the "selfish" healer and bring the three possible combinations within competitive numbers with each other.

[Crushnight]

I say this based on 95 percentile, so at the time of this post:
- In the case of AST+SCH, that would would cover about 11 samples.
- In the case of SCH+WHM, that would cover about 78 samples.

I expect volatility from AST+SCH given the number of samples, that's the number that is most likely to change in the following days. I agree that we have a sampling problem, but I think it's enough to conclude that AST+SCH will be on top. The question will be, by how much?

What I thought AST needed before knowing anything about 5.1 was the Combust buff. And even then, I wasn't sure about it because of how good the AST+SCH synergy is (even more so now that CU is back to its broken state). The Malefic buff, I just don't understand. And I didn't when I failed to account for the indirect RDPS buffs either.

On the plus side, AST+WHM seems to be pretty close to SCH+WHM at the moment. So I suppose we'll soon have a pretty good idea of how much WHM needs to solidify its role as the "selfish" healer and bring the three possible combinations within competitive numbers with each other.

The numbers may not shift as much as you think, AST's playstyle has barely changed with 5.1, which is the biggest contending factor to how much it is used, WHM throughout SB was considered inferior to AST yet it still had plenty more parses in each raid tier than current AST does, the current numbers difference only matter for those trying to be as optimal as possible which is a narrow group by far, playstyle is far more important and the shift that AST got with the expansion created a decent amount of contention with a decent amount of people still not going to be happy now, potency fix would look like a plaster going on a scar to these people.