Healers and 6.0; What we can learn from AST and what I'd like to see going forward

[Kabooa]

I hate to sound stupid, but can someone explain to me what "Clipping" means in terms of gameplay mechanics? People keep saying that the clipping for healers is bad but I'm not following lol.

I'm assuming we're not talking about graphical clipping...right?

All actions have animation lock.

Think of your GCD as a box that's somewhat filled. That's the GCD's animation lock.

[XX ----]

if the GCD is instant cast, that empty space can be filled with OGCDs without impacting your ability to do another GCD action.

[XX ZZZ] Where Z is the space your OGCD animation lock takes.

Clipping refers to the inability to work around an Action's animation lock without impacting your ability to do another GCD.

[XX ----][XX ----][XX ----][XX ----] You want it to look like this, or

[XX ZZZ][XX ZZZ][XX ZZZ][XX ZZZ]

For casters, who have both a cast time and an animation lock, the length of the cast time directly impacts their ability to use off-GCDs without impacting their next GCD.

[XXXXX Z]ZZ

Each time you clip, your next GCD is delayed, and over time, you end up "losing" the benefit of that particular GCD.

[XXX ZZZ] [XXX ZZZ] [XXX ZZZ] [XX ZZZ] - Ideal, compared to
[XXXXX Z]ZZ [XXXXX Z]ZZ [XXXXX Z]ZZ

[AnotherPerson]

I hate to sound stupid, but can someone explain to me what "Clipping" means in terms of gameplay mechanics? People keep saying that the clipping for healers is bad but I'm not following lol.

I'm assuming we're not talking about graphical clipping...right?

To add onto what the previous two people have said

Essentially Clipping multiple times is prolonging the use of the next GCD due to animation lock on the current oGCD skill. This translates into lost casts throughout an encounter. Kabooa's example is pretty much what clipping is, but I'll elaborate what GCD and oGCDs are too.

When you use a skills, sometimes there will be other skills that you haven't used go on cooldown for a brief moment before they are available to be used again. That means those skills are on the GCD.

A GCD is a skill that shares a global cooldown - generally this cooldown is 2.5 seconds before the next skill that shares a global cooldown can be used. This is without spell or skill speed modifiers. GCDs may have their own cooldown in addition to a global cooldown.

Examples of GCDs are:
Cure I, Cure II, Benefic I, Benefic II, Physick, Regen, Aspected Benefic, Adloquium, Stone, Glare, Broil, Dia, Combust, Bio, Malefic, Medica, Medica II, Succor, Aspected Helios, Helios, Afflatus Solace, Afflatus Rapture, Afflatus Misery, Art of War, Raise, Ascend, Resurrection, Shadow Fang
.
An Instant GCD means a skill that is on the global cooldown and can be used instantly, but still requires you to wait the global cooldown before using the next skill with the global cooldown. This is why White Mages cannot cast 3 Afflatus Solace or Afflatus Rapture in 2 seconds even if they have 3 lilies ready and the spell is instant cast. The global cooldown prevents them from doing so, so there is a wait period between casts.

Examples of Instant GCDs are:
Regen, Aspected Benefic, Dia, Combust, Bio, Ruin II, Afflatus Solace, Afflatus Rapture, Afflatus Misery, Art of War

oGCDs are skills that do not share a global cooldown. They can be used without having the 2.5 second wait on all skills that share this timer. These skills have their own cooldown timer associated with them. However, like all skills, they are also subject to an animation lock - so you won't be able to use another skill immediately while you are in animation lock. This animation lock is usually 0.7 seconds. Some are longer - such as Red Mage's Displacement - because you can't also do anything while you are dashing backwards, resulting in a 1.1 second animation lock.

Examples of oGCDs are:
Benediction, Essential Dignity, Lustrate, Indomitability, Celestial Opposition, Tetragammaton, Divine Bension, Assize, Emergency Tactics, Deployment Tactics, Aetherflow, Energy Drain, Lucid Dreaming


While some oGCD skills are weaker that GCD skills, their inherent advantage is that they can be used between GCD skills, thus making them beneficial to use even if they are weak since there would be no downsides to using it. GCD skills are the only skills that have an associated cooldown between multiple skills in addition to their own cooldown in order to be used, so the idea is to use oGCD skills between the GCD skills so you can repeatedly use GCD skills continuously. This is how healers who need to burst heal can keep their GCD rolling while using multiple skills to get the maximum output in a small timeframe without losing casts and how Ninja bursts an enemy down with multiple uses of their oGCD skills per GCD within their Trick attack window.

Example of a GCD with oGCD usage:

Say a box [ XXX(#)--XXX(#)--XXX(#)--(#)] represents a GCD, around 2.5 seconds of time, XXX is a skill, and the (#) in the box represents the duration of that time.
For White Mages:
[ Afflatus Solace (0.7) -- Tetragammaton (1.4) -- Divine Bension(2.1)-- (2.5)] [Glare(0.7)----Glaring(1.4)-------Glare Done(2.5)] ====== total time 5 seconds with 2 GCDs and 4 total skills used in that timeframe.

[Dia(0.7)---Swiftcast(1.4)--Plenary Indulgence(2.1)--(2.5)][Medica II(0.7)---Assize(1.4)--Lucid Dreaming(2.1)--(2.5)] ====== total time 5 seconds with 2 GCDs and 6 total skills used in that timeframe.

[Afflatus Rapture(0.7)--Swiftcast(1.4)--Thin Air(2.1)--(2.5)][Raise(0.7)--Tetragrammaton(1.4)--Assize(2.1)--(2.5)] ====== total time 5 seconds with 2 GCDs and 6 total skills used in that timeframe.

For Astrologians:

[Malefic(0.7)--done(1.5)--Celestial Opposition(2.2)--(2.5)][Malefic(0.7)---done(1.5)--Essential Dignity(2.2)--(2.5)] ==== total time 5 seconds with 2 GCDs and 4 total skills used in that timeframe.
[Malefic(1.5)--Lightspeed(2.2)--(2.5)][Malefic(0.7)--Celestial Intersection(1.4)--Draw(2.1)--(2.5)][Malefic(0.7)--Play(1.4)--Horoscope(2.1)--(2.5)] === total time 7.5 seconds with 3 GCDs and 8 total skills used in that timeframe.

For Scholars:
[Biolysis(0.7)--Aetherflow(1.4)--Chain Strategem(2.1)--(2.5)][Ruin II(0.7)--Sacred Soil(1.4)----(2.1)---(2.5)] === total time 5 seconds with 2 GCDs and 5 total skills used in that timeframe.
[Broil(0.7)---Broiling(1.4)--Broiling Done(2.5)][Ruin II(0.7)--Aetherflow(1.4)--Swiftcast(2.1)--(2.5)][Broil(0.7)--Recitation(1.4)---Excogitation(2.1)--(2.5)] == total time 7.5 seconds with 3 GCDs and 7 total skills used in that timeframe.

Example of a GCD no oGCD usage:


[Medica II(0.7)---casting(1.4)---casting(2.1)-done(2.5)][Afflatus Rapture(0.7)---done(1.4)---(2.1)--(2.5)] ====== total time 5 seconds with 2 GCDs and 2 total skills used in that timeframe.
[Aspected Helios(0.7)---casting(1.4)--done(2)--(2.5)][Benefic I(0.7)---done(1.5)--(2.2)--(2.5)][Benefic II(0.7)---casting(1.4)--done(2)--(2.5)] === total time 7.5 seconds with 3 GCDs and 3 total skills used in that timeframe.
[Succor(0.7)--casting(1.4)---done(2)--(2.5)][Adloquium(0.7)---casting(1.4)--done(2)--(2.5)][Broil(2.5)]=== total time 7.5 seconds with 3 GCDs and 3 total skills used in that timeframe.


Weaving oGCDs between GCDs allow a lot of healing without sacrificing time, eventually letting you cast more of the heavier GCDs that don't allow weaving in that time period, resulting in more potency for both healing and for damaging enemies in the course of the encounter. However, if you start to clip too much to use your oGCD, you essentially lose a GCD skill that you could have fit there in that timeframe. What that means is that you could lose a GCD by using oGCDs, causing oGCD skills to not be free since it costed you a GCD to use it. This eventually bleeds into less healing output and less damage output in the course of the encounter.

Examples of Clipping: Clipped skills in Italics

[Glare (2.5][Dia(0.7)--Assize(1.4)--Lucid Dreaming(2.1)--Plen]ary Indulgence(2.8)[Medica II(2.5)] ==== total time 7.8 seconds with 3 GCDs and 6 total skills used in that timeframe.
[Broil(2.5)][Adloquium(2)--Emer]gency Tactics(2.7)[Adloquium(2)--Reci]tation(2.7)[Adloquium(2)--Deplo]yment Tactics(2.7) === total time 10.6 seconds with 4 GCDs and 6 total skills used in that timeframe.
[Malefic(1.5)--Draw(2.2)--P]lay(2.9) [Aspected Helios(2)--Celestial] Opposition(2.7)[Malefic(2.5)] ===== total time 5.6 seconds with 2 GCDS and 5 skills used in that timeframe.
[Malefic(1.5)--Draw(2.2)--P]lay(2.9)--Neutral Sect(3.6)[Aspected Helios(2)--Essential] Dignity(2.7) === total time 6.3 seconds with 2 GCDs and 6 skills used in that timeframe.

Although the effect of clips may seem small, such as 0.6 seconds of clipping maybe every 30 seconds, if an encounter takes 10 minutes, and the healer is continuously clipping every 30 seconds for 0.6 seconds, that results into 12 seconds of clipping. 12 seconds could be almost 5 GCDs, which could mean 5 missed aspected helios, 5 missed Succors, 5 missed Cure II, or 5 missed glares. That's a lot of healing output and damage output lost overtime to simply clipping. Generally, it could be more depending on if the boss has phase transition mechanics or untargetable moments, causing each clip to prevent the last GCD from happening.

[Minitails]

I don't hold much hope for AST since he's destroyed then rebuilded each expac...
But I had an idea that seemed like a good compromise between those that love the actual card system and those that prefered the previous one :
The red seal card could give a raw damage bonus (pretty much like they actually do or like the old Balance card)
The yellow seal card could give a casting/attack speed bonus (like the old Arrow card)
The blue seal could give a bonus on recast speed (like the old Spear card)
This way, we could regain the need to favor different jobs for the different card, while still having the seal system and Divination

[LariaKirin]

Not a fan of the Malefic treatment for Broil and Glare.

What we can learn from AST is that having 20% of your dps contribution tied to raid buffs means a potency buff to other jobs is an indirect buff to your job. Meaning that AST will inevitably outperform other healers in dps because Squeenix is utterly terrified of nerfs and choose to powercreep the game instead. So we end up with the best dps, best free healing output, best mobility in one job.

SCH is currently a worse AST that needs to sacrifice more dps for less healing output.

WHM is completely crippled and requires an enabler to reach their dps potential. Why AST is allowed to still be above WHM in dps when WHM has to sacrifice the entirety of their healing output is baffling. Why haven't they moved Lightspeed to WHM yet? Why is PoM still 150s? WHM needs to not heal to match AST dps.

So now you want a WHM to reach their maximum dps output while being enabled (read: carried) by an almost solo-healing co-healer. And AST is just better for that.

WHM needs more mobility + more dps/cheaper heals. SCH needs fairy fixes. AST needs nerfs.

[QooEr]

. So we end up with the best dps, best free healing output, best mobility in one job.

it baffles me why they made celestial opposition a heal, and reduced collective unconscious cooldown from 90 to 60. Ast can now solo heal almost all content now without ever casting gcd heals. and to make it worse they removed the only synergy ast had with its heals when they replaced the ability to extend regens with more free healing that was not needed

if ast was low on the healing department at the beginning of the expansion its because they nerfed all of its heals for no particular reason, but rather than returning them to what they used to be, they just buffed them significantly till we got to this point

[Mortex]

it baffles me why they made celestial opposition a heal, and reduced collective unconscious cooldown from 90 to 60. Ast can now solo heal almost all content now without ever casting gcd heals. and to make it worse they removed the only synergy ast had with its heals when they replaced the ability to extend regens with more free healing that was not needed

if ast was low on the healing department at the beginning of the expansion its because they nerfed all of its heals for no particular reason, but rather than returning them to what they used to be, they just buffed them significantly till we got to this point

It is a time honored tradition now for astro. It sucks really badly at the start of every expansion and then gets buffed to heaven and beyond too outshine sch and whm. And whm being the same old bag since the game startet (as a former whm main it does hurt to see). Like at this point whms Job identity is being actually clipping mage

[Semirhage]

I hate to sound stupid, but can someone explain to me what "Clipping" means in terms of gameplay mechanics? People keep saying that the clipping for healers is bad but I'm not following lol.

I'm assuming we're not talking about graphical clipping...right?

+1 to previous explanations. In addition to the mathematical inefficiency, it also feels wonky when you've established a good groove with your job. Keeping your GCD rolling has a rhythm to it. Using oGCDs between your instants (referred to as "weaving") are nice extra beats in that rhythm. 1, 2, 3-and-4, etc. Clipping is awkward stumbling over that rhythm that disrupts your job's flow. If you need to do it a lot your gameplay doesn't feel smooth anymore.

[Nefimmyr]

Not a fan of the Malefic treatment for Broil and Glare.

What we can learn from AST is that having 20% of your dps contribution tied to raid buffs means a potency buff to other jobs is an indirect buff to your job. Meaning that AST will inevitably outperform other healers in dps because Squeenix is utterly terrified of nerfs and choose to powercreep the game instead. So we end up with the best dps, best free healing output, best mobility in one job.

SCH is currently a worse AST that needs to sacrifice more dps for less healing output.

WHM is completely crippled and requires an enabler to reach their dps potential. Why AST is allowed to still be above WHM in dps when WHM has to sacrifice the entirety of their healing output is baffling. Why haven't they moved Lightspeed to WHM yet? Why is PoM still 150s? WHM needs to not heal to match AST dps.

So now you want a WHM to reach their maximum dps output while being enabled (read: carried) by an almost solo-healing co-healer. And AST is just better for that.

WHM needs more mobility + more dps/cheaper heals. SCH needs fairy fixes. AST needs nerfs.

How heavy a nerf are we talking? Because 5.0 AST is still fresh on my mind for how terrible healing was on AST. I'm more of a fan of first trying to buff the weaknesses a job ahs exposed before just shooting their competition in the knee caps for an artificial feeling of "progress".

[QooEr]

How heavy a nerf are we talking? Because 5.0 AST is still fresh on my mind for how terrible healing was on AST. I'm more of a fan of first trying to buff the weaknesses a job ahs exposed before just shooting their competition in the knee caps for an artificial feeling of "progress".

rather than straight up nerfing Astro's potencies like they always do i want them to make the cooldowns longer so that heal planning is actually significant. However ideally i just rather them revert the shadowbringers changes and make Copp and Cu like in stormblood, where opposition isnt a heal but rather extends your already ticking regens. ast at launch was nerfed tremendously from stormblood which is why it felt so weak.

For some perspective, SB ast had about 1455 ogcd aoe heal potency per minute*; at 5.0 launch ast had 1320 aoe heal potency per min. Now its 2120 free aoe healing potency per min. Its beyond insane how much free healing AST has.

* this is if you always had asp helios up when you used copp. If you never casted gcd heals, ast had 1395 potency/min. if you always extended aspected benefic on a tank with copp it had 1605 p/min on single target.

[Nefimmyr]

rather than straight up nerfing Astro's potencies like they always do i want them to make the cooldowns longer so that heal planning is actually significant. However ideally i just rather them revert the shadowbringers changes and make Copp and Cu like in stormblood, where opposition isnt a heal but rather extends your already ticking regens. ast at launch was nerfed tremendously from stormblood which is why it felt so weak.

For some perspective, SB ast had about 1455 ogcd aoe heal potency per minute*; at 5.0 launch ast had 1320 aoe heal potency per min. Now its 2120 free aoe healing potency per min. Its beyond insane how much free healing AST has.

* this is if you always had asp helios up when you used copp. If you never casted gcd heals, ast had 1395 potency/min. if you always extended aspected benefic on a tank with copp it had 1605 p/min on single target.

While I am not against reverting certain effects on a couple of AST's actions, wouldn't allowing AST to extend their buff durations on their regens (and presumably their shields too like the old CO) make their healing too strong when factoring in Neutral Sect buffs? And as for Collective Unconscious, it could use a recast increase. Maybe 90 seconds to be consistent with Assylum or 120 seconds. But I am against just removing a consistent AoE ogcd heal from AST in general. Horoscope still irks me with how I need to spend a GCD heal anyway if I want that ability to be comparable to Assize or Indom. And Collective Unconscious current strength is not 3 minute recast worthy in my opinion. I'm gonna start another thread about a more in depth reworking on AST as a job in this game after some time of really thinking over some changes that could be made both functionally and thematically.