The positive Astrologian thread!

[Ghishlain]

You are ignoring some important facts about that buff. First of all, haste doesn't affect every DPS job the same; some jobs do most damage with DoTs and Off-GCD spells, none of which are affected by haste. On top of that, the buff is not continuous and spells/weaponskills have to be used while it is on for it to be effective. If you target moves or starts doing anything else instead of casting, the buff gets less effective each second; that is true for both SCH and AST. However, the Arrow, even though it has an obvious RNG component, is concentrated and can be stored to be used in an optimal situation. Depending on the situation and if used properly, you can get more DPS output from it by using it on a single target than Selene will be able to get from an entire party. According to my testing in a dummy, Selene barely added 25-30 extra DPS output to a DRG, which is supposedly one of the best jobs to receive it; and that was in a dummy situation, with no moving and no mechanics.

Of course, Haste is one of those buffs where it's a bit hard to quantify how it actually affects the player. It'll do better for those jobs that already have haste or those that want to get through their rotation faster, so NIN / MNK / WAR / BLM all come to mind (though one could argue the use for BLM since their rotation is already really tuned, apparently). Likewise, any DoT style class like SMN and SCH won't be able to make it as useful and any seriously heavy oGCD class like DRG won't either. WHM / MCN / BRD / DRK / PLD all probably get okay mileage.

Admttidly, there are also exceptions too. A SMN getting Haste while in Dreadwyrm Trance and spamming that Ruin III button as hard as possible will get much more mileage than a SMN who's at the beginning of their DoT cycle. A DRG getting Haste while they're going through their burst cycle can make use of the additional attacks, etc.

While you mention 25-30 extra DPS on DRG, think of how that effects a party. If Selene adds an average of 25-30 DPS per person in the group and you're accounting for six people (four DPS and two tanks), that's another 150-180 DPS added to the group.

I don't think an AST can add that outside of getting perfect draws. If a DRG is doing 1,400 DPS and you're getting Balance every single time, your DRG is probably gaining about 70-100 DPS through their rotation.

I will admit it is exceedingly difficult to quantify how every single card and RR + buff permutation can affect a job/class/group, but I do believe AST is slightly underpowered compared to the reliability that Selene gives you, even when you take into account Haste isn't a great buff for specific DPS.

(if it crits it's amazing, but according to everyone RNG is bad, so you can't rely on it)

Just going to weigh in on this issue too.

If an Adlo crits, woohoo, more eHP! If it doesn't crit, it's still a heal and it's still beneficial for your tank.

If you're an AST and trying to setup a potent Enhanced Balance + Time Dilation for a DRG that's about to burst cycle and then end up drawing a Ewer and then shuffling into a Spire, then what do you do?

While they're both RNG in nature, an Adlo will be useful in any situation regardless of RNG while RNG buffs aren't. Of course that's the gamble you take when playing AST and sometimes it pays off big and other times it blows up in your face.

[TatoRazzino]

Snip

The thing is: Selene doesn't add this average. Dragoons benefit the most from it, according to some threads, and they can only get 25-30 on a dummy. In an actual fight, that number will be lower because of moving, target changing etc.; if I would just guess a reasonable number, I'd say 15-20. So for 6 people it's 90-120, and I'm not counting the fact that tank DPS is usually lower in most fights and that you can get nothing out of a haste buff, because it's only effective when a certain number of casts is done (that used to be the problem with how Ewer and Spire worked before the fix, btw).
And about Adlo, I was talking about ET+Adlo, not about Adlo alone. Adlo alone is more shielding and shields are never wasted; healing, however, doesn't work the same. hitting a 7K heal when you only need 4.5K lets 2.5K to waste, which is basically the whole crit.

[Ariel_Valmont]

If you're an AST and trying to setup a potent Enhanced Balance + Time Dilation for a DRG that's about to burst cycle and then end up drawing a Ewer and then shuffling into a Spire, then what do you do?

Do you already have the enhanced royal road up or are you working for that? Do you already have Balance up on the spread, or are you looking for that? Are we in a 4 or 8 man raid, there is quite a few ways this could pan out, and it cant really be answered with the amount of info presented to us. And while our buffs are tied to rng, we really don't have bad buffs.

[Ghishlain]

The thing is: Selene doesn't add this average. Dragoons benefit the most from it, according to some threads, and they can only get 25-30 on a dummy. In an actual fight, that number will be lower because of moving, target changing etc.; if I would just guess a reasonable number, I'd say 15-20. So for 6 people it's 90-120, and I'm not counting the fact that tank DPS is usually lower in most fights and that you can get nothing out of a haste buff, because it's only effective when a certain number of casts is done (that used to be the problem with how Ewer and Spire worked before the fix, btw).
And about Adlo, I was talking about ET+Adlo, not about Adlo alone. Adlo alone is more shielding and shields are never wasted; healing, however, doesn't work the same. hitting a 7K heal when you only need 4.5K lets 2.5K to waste, which is basically the whole crit.

Without knowing exactly all the different DPS rotations and only knowing what I know as a level 50 DRG, I would feel DRG is better suited to have Balance versus Arrow because of the amount of oGCDs they have that do nothing with Haste and I would have to respectfully disagree with your assessment. They'll still be able to make use of it, but I feel the 3% Haste is better for NIN / MNK / WAR than it is for DRG. Also, take into account any mechanic that reduces the effectiveness of your Selene buff will also reduce the effectiveness of your AST buffs too, especially if said buff is Extended / Time Dilationed. Most A1S parses I've seen have their DPS clocking in at around 800-900 DPS which means Balance would probably give an individual somewhere between 80-110 40-80 (edit, realized my internal math was slightly off since full time Balance = 5%) assuming perfect RNG. I feel the upper end limit would be higher just because there's a lot of downtime in the fight with movement and gives AST time to set up good combinations when the Oppressors are in the sky.

Also about the Adlo comment, yeah, I can agree with that. However, if you're a good SCH, you're hopefully never putting yourself in a position where you're relying on Crit Adlo + ET to live through something ^^;

As a random aside, I appreciate the amicable discussion on the whole thing. It's quite refreshing compared to some other discussions.

Do you already have the enhanced royal road up or are you working for that? Do you already have Balance up on the spread, or are you looking for that? Are we in a 4 or 8 man raid, there is quite a few ways this could pan out, and it cant really be answered with the amount of info presented to us. And while our buffs are tied to rng, we really don't have bad buffs.

This is actually why I like AST so much, is because you just don't know. Would I have Balance on spread and looking for the RR? Would I have Enhance on RR and looking for the right? That's the nature of the AST beast and it's fun to play the job on the fly as it is. You may have all the pieces lined up already and you may not but the DRG in your raid told you "Hey, my B4B is about to get off CD" so you make a decision there on how to proceed. I know it doesn't answer the question, but I'd like to think there are equal amount of opportunities where the card lines up perfectly and other times where it just blows up entirely in your face.

With that being said, while it's true none of the buffs are bad, certain buffs are certainly more desirable at specific instances of the fight. For example, you begin a fight with Faust (Savage) and you pop Expand Balance that was setup to give everyone a strong boost at the beginning. You Draw into your next card. At this juncture, Ewer and Spire are both not necessary (but can be RR'd), Spear won't be useful because you want everyone to maximize their CD usage with the current Balance (can also be RR'd). If you get Bole, you can RR that for Enhance or save it until just as Balance is about to expire and apply Bole on your tank. If you get Arrow / Balance, you can also save this and give it to a DPS once the existing balance is about to expire.

Notice how three of the cards in this scenario mean very little and the other three are very useful? Desirability of buffs is dependent on what is going on in a fight and when you happen to Draw that particular buff. While RR does mitigate the less desirable cards to a degree, if you're lining up for something specific and both your Spread and RR slot are filled, you may find yourself in an bad position of wondering how to play your next card. While clicking off a Draw is always an option to start the next draw cycle, something feels wasted when you do that since now the CD is gone.

[Ariel_Valmont]

Lustrate is comparable to Essential Dignity and Tetra.

I can agree with that, and All three jobs have 1 spell that is nothing like the other Benediction, Dissipation, and Synestry. The last group of abilities I lumped together cause I was wanting to play the game instead of talk about it. The main point of me putting all of them in one post was to point out that AST does have an amount of emergency buttons comparable to the other jobs (yes I am aware a couple could probably be tweaked, I am fairly certain SE is as well) One of the reasons I initially made this post is so that there would be a record of what people enjoyed about this job, which seemed to be lacking from the other posts. If people don't speak up about what they enjoy, it is possible it will get changed in a way the people who enjoy it don't agree with, because a bunch of talking heads are on the AST sucks bandwagon. (generalization, I am aware some people voicing concerns are in a good position to talk about them) And apologies about getting carried away with a post and your quote, just letting the thoughts flow after I agreed with that statement.

[TatoRazzino]

You are ignoring some important facts about that buff. First of all, haste doesn't affect every DPS job the same; some jobs do most damage with DoTs and Off-GCD spells, none of which are affected by haste. On top of that, the buff is not continuous and spells/weaponskills have to be used while it is on for it to be effective. If you target moves or starts doing anything else instead of casting, the buff gets less effective each second; that is true for both SCH and AST. However, the Arrow, even though it has an obvious RNG component, is concentrated and can be stored to be used in an optimal situation. Depending on the situation and if used properly, you can get more DPS output from it by using it on a single target than Selene will be able to get from an entire party. According to my testing in a dummy, Selene barely added 25-30 extra DPS output to a DRG, which is supposedly one of the best jobs to receive it; and that was in a dummy situation, with no moving and no mechanics.

[VanEinstein]

First of all, haste doesn't affect every DPS job the same; some jobs do most damage with DoTs and Off-GCD spells, none of which are affected by haste. On top of that, the buff is not continuous and spells/weaponskills have to be used while it is on for it to be effective. If you target moves or starts doing anything else instead of casting, the buff gets less effective each second; that is true for both SCH and AST. However, the Arrow, even though it has an obvious RNG component, is concentrated and can be stored to be used in an optimal situation. Depending on the situation and if used properly, you can get more DPS output from it by using it on a single target than Selene will be able to get from an entire party. According to my testing in a dummy, Selene barely added 25-30 extra DPS output to a DRG, which is supposedly one of the best jobs to receive it; and that was in a dummy situation, with no moving and no mechanics.

Even with the capacity to spread that card, AST is still statistically less likely to provide an equal or better dps boost over the course of the fight. Of course it's not impossible, just not guaranteed. That's what's being gotten at. Reliability and predictability are simply valued more.

[GideonHighmourn]

if it crits it's amazing, but according to everyone RNG is bad, so you can't rely on it

There's a fundamental difference between the "RNG" of a critical hit on an ability and an ability that relies on RNG for it's functionality.

NOT critting on an ET+Adlo/Succor doesn't make it unreliable; ET will always transform shields into heals, and critting through "RNG" will just make it more efficient/potent. The ability to Draw Spire 3 times in a row during an encounter where TP isn't a problem or the inability to Draw Bole before a tank buster that requires mitigation makes it unreliable.

[TatoRazzino]

Snip

Unless ET+Adlo crits, it's weaker than Cure II/Benefic II, while costing more MP. If it crits when it's not necessary, you overheal and the whole crit goes to waste. Getting a crit with Adlo is always good, but getting a crit with ET+Adlo can be good or can't do anything at all. This is another fundamental difference between having a cooldown to transform a low value healing spell in a higher value healing spell and actually having a big healing spell.

[Cynfael]

Unless ET+Adlo crits, it's weaker than Cure II/Benefic II, while costing more MP. If it crits when it's not necessary, you overheal and the whole crit goes to waste. Getting a crit with Adlo is always good, but getting a crit with ET+Adlo can be good or can't do anything at all. This is another fundamental difference between having a cooldown to transform a low value healing spell in a higher value healing spell and actually having a big healing spell.

What you say is mostly true, but in context of discussing SCH, it's not very important.

SCH can afford to bleed the most MP of the healers, so the cost is tuned well enough. ET+Adlo is a relatively uncommon use, anyway; between direct heals and the fairy, SCH has more-than-sufficient healing potency for ST in anything but an emergency, where Lustrate may be woven in or rarely ET+Adlo used to catch up on raw HP.