Thoughts from a 60 AST & 60 WHM

[Dyvid]

snip

I was thinking about this. What if they switch Diu and Noct effect, then gave you the ability to switch in combat. In other words Diu would have the +5 healing potency and noct would have attack speed increase. Maybe even take it one step further where Diu is 10 to 15 percent higher heals but consumes more mp and Noct adds a slow refresh giving a whole BLM yen yang approach.

[whiskeybravo]

MP management
Ok... I've got to be honest. AST sucks at this. It's really bad. I try very much to make every spellcast count -- to get every last hp from every heal to mean something, to spend the absolute minimum MP I can to get others' health up... and I still run out. I start to panic when I see my MP reserves approaching their end and hope the DPS really gets a move on finishing it.

I was curious about this having heard similar remarks. Ended up rage quitting Fractal last night, the AST healer was out of mp at 50% boss HP on last boss, leading to 4 consecutive wipes. Ran OOM everytime and also on trash pulls.

[SuzakuCMX]

I was thinking about this. What if they switch Diu and Noct effect, then gave you the ability to switch in combat. In other words Diu would have the +5 healing potency and noct would have attack speed increase. Maybe even take it one step further where Diu is 10 to 15 percent higher heals but consumes more mp and Noct adds a slow refresh giving a whole BLM yen yang approach.

Then Di is a copy of WHM and Noct has even less potency and their shield is weaker even though it still sucks. Celestial Opposition will still suck. Collective Unconsciousness will still suck for Noct as well. Buffs the strength of Di without doing anything good for Noct.

[NorthernLadMSP]

Outside of the card mechanic the job is very simple. Making the job significantly weaker on it's main role (healing) is not making it "more complex." It's just making it worse than SCH/WHM. If AST could heal as well as SCH/WHM minus the use of cards or the use of healing buffs, then AST would be comparable. But it can't because its potencies are lower across the board in Diurnal, it lacks a way to stabilize the group, and it has nothing to fall back on when shit hits the fan. Nocturnal Stance makes the potencies exactly the same as Cure I/Cure II, but in that case your shield is awful and you still don't have as many tools to help with your healing.

At first I was thinking the job would be more complex as well. But, after playing it now for a few weeks, it really isn't that complex. It's underpowered and only offers a very mild trade off. So, essentially, I agree with what you have said here.

[Dyvid]

Then Di is a copy of WHM and Noct has even less potency and their shield is weaker even though it still sucks.

Diu is already a copy of WHM and Noct is a copy of SCH. WHM heals are reactive and SCH is proactive. Reactive is when you need more healing power while proactive gives you more time to dps and play with cards.

[SuzakuCMX]

Diu is already a copy of WHM and Noct is a copy of SCH. WHM heals are reactive and SCH is proactive. Reactive is when you need more healing power while proactive gives you more time to dps and play with cards.

Di has less potency across the board than WHM. Giving it the Noct bonus potency would bring it up to the same exact potency as Cure/Cure II while making the regen potencies closer to WHM.

In which case Noct now is missing the regen to make up for the lack of healing potency and also has the crappy shield that is instant anyways so is unaffected by the attack speed increase and it will suck even more because it's already too weak and now weaker.

This change just makes Di better than it already is and makes Noct completely useless. Di will ALWAYS be stronger for DPS/Cardplay because stacking the regen means you don't have to heal as hard, so you have more time to stancedance.

This change increases Di's strengths (healing throughput) while doing absolutely zilch for the draw of Noct (shields).

[Leiloni]

I have played both WHM and AST using the SAME gear (except the MH) in the SAME instance and AST healing is still subpar. If I wasn't interested in AST, why would I level it to 60? Factual-wise, AST's healing has lower healing potency than WHM. Healing potency affects mana management - if AST requires more healing spells to be cast to heal the same amount of HP compared to WHM, AST will use more mana than WHM. Hence, AST's mana management is going to be more problematic than a WHM's - which part of this logic do you not get?

To state here that WHM's mana management is the same as AST is just plain factually wrong - it is not a perception, it is factually wrong. Learn to accept this.

Well there's also the fact that WHM has Freecure which both saves mana and increases healing output for free, along with the fact that Divine Seal effectively saves a ton of mana as well.

[Seryl199]

AST's comparative lack of CDs that increase healing efficiency is a glaring oversight IMO.

Additionally, if you find yourself frequently blowing cards to cast Spear and Ewer on yourself (as I hear many people around here do) that's a little sad because it mostly negates the group benefit of the entire card mechanic. The Job should be able to sustain itself adequately without having to patch up its MP issues by hoarding cards for itself.

I feel that you're as much of a party member as everyone else. If you can make the best use of a buff, I don't see why you'd choose not to use it on yourself. If I plan on using Spear on myself, I know what CD's I have on tap and how I can use them to keep the party stable, as opposed to having no clue how a pug member would use their buffs, not necessarily having kept track of CD's that they've used, or if they'd even notice Spear at all. Of course, spending all the cards on yourself is indicative of a problem, but an AST shouldn't neglect themselves when other party members don't stand to benefit from your buffs.

Their lack of healing buffs, however, is a definitive issue. Although I'm not looking to cookie cutter AST by giving them a potency buffing skill, they need some manner in which to recover from mistakes. They are more than able to sustain a party through battle, but when the balance shifts to more damage coming in than healing going out, AST has a hard time playing catch up, and with limited resources to do so.

[Risvertasashi]

I feel that you're as much of a party member as everyone else. If you can make the best use of a buff, I don't see why you'd choose not to use it on yourself. If I plan on using Spear on myself, I know what CD's I have on tap and how I can use them to keep the party stable, as opposed to having no clue how a pug member would use their buffs, not necessarily having kept track of CD's that they've used, or if they'd even notice Spear at all. Of course, spending all the cards on yourself is indicative of a problem, but an AST shouldn't neglect themselves when other party members don't stand to benefit from your buffs.

I would say AST's buffs shine when you know your party members. The people I play with, I know their CD rotations so I can hit them with Spear right as their strong stuff is coming up. Or Balance if they're about to have a damage spike.

I think this is relevant since in the context of more difficult content, the party probably knows each other at least to some extent and higher levels of performance are usually expected. In dungeons, of course... Well, ASTs can heal those OK generally, doesn't take much as long as the tank doesn't overpull.

And, even in pug groups, ACT can track/display in real time what buffs your party members are using and what they have coming off cooldown in a few moments. When SMNs are about to enter Dreadwyrm. Etc.

Not that that negates your point -- I won't say buffs can never be used on the AST themself. But, with either attention to detail or via parser, it's possible to get a pretty good sense of timing and how others are playing so you can maximize buff use.

[Leiloni]

I played WHM 2.0-2.2, playing AST now. I don't have WHM to 60 yet, currently 55. Here's my $0.02.

When I started with AST, I had MP issues. Mainly because I was playing it like a WHM, which isn't efficient. So I looked at potency per mp-spent with AST vs WHM and the AST wins except for AB vs regen.... of course. I've trained myself to keep my finger away from AB unless necessary, which I've surprisingly found isn't too often. I'm not having any MP issues in all of the floors of Alex. Looking at parsing data I'm regularly healing right under or as much as my static's SCH(1100-1400 "enchps") and consistently doing more DPS on single targets(300-400AST/200-300SCH). The fairy's healing puts the SCH's healing ahead overall though(200-250selene,500-600eos).

AB vs Regen, yes Regen is indeed a better skill. But when you look at Diurnal AB vs Benefic and Benefic II, it's our most mana efficient single target spell. Benefic is 1.08 potency per mana, Benefic II is an abysmal .78 in Diurnal, and AB is 1.12. I would keep it up on the tank at all times and if you have a dps that will actually be using up all 790 potency, it's better to throw that on them as opposed to a Benefic II or two Benefic I's. And for that matter, using Diurnal Aspected Helios on even two targets is more mana efficient than a Benefic II (.96 actually) for more healing (ignoring Synastry which is amazing as well for certain uses. Even just casting one Benefic II with Synastry up and getting another 310 potency on the secondary target makes it even more efficient than AB, although you don't want to waste a 2 minute CD when it's not needed). Yes both AB and AH are HoTs so you'll want to make sure your target isn't going to dip too low in that time period, otherwise you're better off giving them a Benefic I or II to get them up more immediately, but in the case where it's not terribly urgent to top them off, the HoTs are just by themselves a far better usage of mana.

But if you're considering WHM's entire arsenal there's more to it than just slightly less efficient base heals. Cure II is only marginally less efficient at it's base then Benefic II, however when you consider Freecure it comes out ahead and Regen is more efficient than anything we have. Compare that to AST's need to constantly spam heals to get the same amount of base healing as a WHM and we're already using more mana. Then Divine Seal allows WHM to get a ton more healing for no more mana at all, on a short one minute cooldown, when in the same scenario an AST is losing mana extremely fast because we have nothing comparable to help us save any in intense situations.