WOOT! They listened!!!! (AST Buffs)

[Sidra]

But you're wrong there - well sorta. The entire concept of AST is that it can fill the WHM or SCH role at a slightly lesser level, bit in return it adds the entire party benefit of it's card buffs. If you compare heal to heal or shield versus shield it will always lose. So now, there is a fight where Aspected Benefic would be needed to survive a hit, and the party has 1 WHM healer slot filled - who do you bring?

Answer: Whoever joins first or whatever your friend happens to like to play more. If a SCH comes, you will have more leeway after the big hit, and if an AST comes, you will have a little less leeway but all kinds of goodies being passed out throughout the fight. Either way - you win.

[basketofseals]

The problem is Aspected Noc spells are weaker than their NON aspected counterparts. If you can see a big hit coming, you're better off precasting a regular helios/benefic 2 than you are applying a shield.

[Sidra]

The main point of a shield it to give the recipient an effective HP pool greater than their max HP which a hot or heal can never do...

[Alahra]

The main point of a shield it to give the recipient an effective HP pool greater than their max HP which a hot or heal can never do...

Assuming the target is at full health before the tank buster, however, it actually *is* more efficient to pre-cast a Benefic II than it is to use Aspected Benefic in Nocturnal Stance. The former is a total of 500 potency, while the latter is 620, meaning that after the hit comes through, the target will have more HP with the pre-cast Benefic II than they would with a pre-cast Nocturnal Aspected Benefic.

[Roxas_Andrade]

The main point of a shield it to give the recipient an effective HP pool greater than their max HP which a hot or heal can never do...

Exactly, and shield-healing has the fact the whole potency of the shield is available as soon as the spell is cast. Regen skills take 10, 15sec to do their thing...

[basketofseals]

But that isn't necessary. There's not, or at least shouldn't, be a enough of damage in any mechanic to one shot you or your entire party. The reason it's good on SCH is because with their crit heals they can add a significant % to your tanks health. Your shield doesn't really do that. Precasting a benefic 2 would put your tank at a much healthier range than a mediocre shield would. Perhaps it would be worth it if aspected benefic was ONLY shielding, but it's currently far too small of a shield.

[SuzakuCMX]

But that isn't necessary. There's not, or at least shouldn't, be a enough of damage in any mechanic to one shot you or your entire party.

These mechanics are a certainty in progression raids. Sidra is right when he says that shields are almost a necessity in progression because there's always been mechanics that will either hit your tank hard and reduce healing afterwards (T5 Death Sentence) or will outright kill your tank if you don't have a shield on them (T13 Ahk Morn). These make shields MUCH more powerful.

Alex Savage is supposed to be harder than Final Coil so it's likely there will be a similar OHKO mechanic in the last floor.

My problem with the shield is that it makes us a direct copy of SCH but weaker. Noct doesn't benefit from Celestial Opposition or Time Dilation nearly as much as Di, and Collective Unconsciousness isn't really worth it.

Cards are supposed to make up for the deficits in healing/utility AST has vs. WHM/SCH but they need much larger buffs than what we got in 3.05 if that's to work.

However, I'm beginning to think Noct Benefic + Lightspeed Stoneskin will be significant mitigation vs. Tank Busters. Unsure if it's worth using the Lightspeed CD though.

[Parawill]

But that isn't necessary. There's not, or at least shouldn't, be a enough of damage in any mechanic to one shot you or your entire party. The reason it's good on SCH is because with their crit heals they can add a significant % to your tanks health. Your shield doesn't really do that. Precasting a benefic 2 would put your tank at a much healthier range than a mediocre shield would. Perhaps it would be worth it if aspected benefic was ONLY shielding, but it's currently far too small of a shield.

Have you done end-game raiding where you need more than 100% of your HP to survive an Astral Flow? o.o

[Sidra]

There were a number of mechanics during coil that when done as the initial item level, needed full HP plus mitigation to pass.

[basketofseals]

I've never don anything harder than extreme primals, so if I'm wrong on that regards, then my apologies.

I would still like to argue that if that is the case, I would not be comfortable with an aspected benefic being the sole thing keeping a tank from dying.