Astro in savage

[justinjarjar]

Any Astros in A1S floor clears? Or are there any groups thinking of bringing one in for next week? Probably not going to run savage myself, but want to get a feel for how the end game community is looking at astro. (I also want to cheer my favorite class on hopefully).

[Aurorarose51]

I tried.. i really tried... just attempted with ast/sch, and we just could not get off enough aoe healing and topping people off for the double preys.. faust was a pain healing through as well. tanks died so much for us at 6% with ast healing and mild sch dps.. Switched back to sch/whm, one shot faust, i didn't even have to cast a single heal with me back on sch. boss himself went a lot better as well to heal through. i... really tried... and i'm so upset i'm going back to sch </3

[Parawill]

Disclaimer: 1 Lockout (per class). 1 Perspective. Take it with a grain of salt. Like literally, one grain.

OKAY! SO! Faust.

Healing as an Astrologian I could pull out around 1.3k to 1.5k HPS in comparison to my White Mage who heals 1.7k to 1.8k HPS (single target with regens on both tanks & occasional assizie). Though Asylum and Assize skew numbers a bit, the reason I'm bringing HPS into this discussion is because of HPS requirements and how WHM heals are far superior. DPS, unfortunately, dropped by 200 to 300 depending on lucky DPS Card Sprees.

But let's look at party setup first before I talk about performance. Party composition is Paladin, Warrior, Monk, Ninja, Bard, Black Mage, Scholar & Astrologian/White Mage.

Raid DPS on SCH & AST was an average of 5600.
Raid DPS on WHM & AST 6000.

<Diurnal AST>
In my Astrologian lockout I have setup either an Expanded Balance and Expanded Arrow; however, there have been times that I've given an Extended/Enhanced Balances (BLM), Arrows (Monk) or Spears (for Bard), which then followed up with Aspected Benefics, and Combust rotation into Malefic II and Combust Refresh before I go back into healing both tanks. Aspected Benefic Regens are always up and Synastry is used at (unfortunately) 4 or 5 stacks on Faust.

Tanks generally burn Hallowed or Holmgang out of panic (which unfortunately wastes my Essential Dignity & Benefic II /w or without Lightspeed), so there is communication and trust that can be worked there; however, other than that, I need to rely on my Scholar to help keep tanks above 50%. During 6 to 7 stacks, I have no time to use weak heals as I need potent heals over supportive sustained healed (Benefic, Aspected Benefic and Aspected Helios) which means I must only use Benefic II and Essential Dignity.

At times I've Bole'd the tank, but the effect is so minuscule that I honestly don't feel like it's provided me enough mitigation to breathe and not feel like I'm constantly playing "catch-up" with healing. Collective Unconscious (once again) sees no play in Faust as HPS requirements are high and channeled regens that exchanged Benefic II spam for a 200 Potency Regen tick is not worth it at all. Celestial Opposition still is used for prolonging DPS buffs and/or my own buffs (I tend to use this to extend duration of multiple buffs instead of just one as you get more from the one CD); however, once again, no breathing space when you use Celestial Opposition. Synastry by the way, is fantastic; however, it has a disgusting long cooldown which means you only really see it being used once during that entire Faust encounter.

>SCHOLAR BUDDY! What are you doing?
During healing on AST, my Scholar is out with Selene and assisting with Fey Wind, (Rouse'd) Embraces while pumping out 500 ~ 600 DPS. Until 4/5 stacks, my raid scholar switches to Eos to assist with healing and does not DPS until enrage.

>AST DPS & Enrage (and scholar o/ )
During enrage or at the wipe (2% to 6% wipes), my end DPS is around 120'ish; however, I am not DPSing after 4/5 stacks, so it's basically my whatever spiked DPS is dropping down as the course of the encounter goes.

Scholar DPS drops to 300'ish.

-------------------------------------

<WHM>
Start the fight with precasted Aero III into Aero II -> Aero -> PoM + Fluid Aura -> Stone III spam until PoM ends and Tetragrammaton into regen onto both tanks, then begin healing & weaving DPS in until 4/5 stacks. I can continue solo healing until 5/6 stacks, which enables the Scholar DPS longer, thus the SCH has more DPS up time while I dump my resources into healing. Holmgang and Hallowed are used more appropriately which allows me to DPS and ignore healing, which adds more DPS in the long run.

Assize being both a heal and DPS skill adds in extra damage (which probably skews DPS slightly, but I only really used it out of Cleric Stance as I was afraid of tanks dipping too low). Tetragrammaton is like my Essential Dignity, but I have more fluff thanks to stronger potent regens. PoM is up around the 6 stack mark, which lets me power through heals and throw in regens that I was not able to do on Astrologian. Asylum is a great throw and forget regen that's similar to Astrologian's Diurnal Unconscious; however, you can just drop it and proceed to spamming potent heals instead of relying on regen ticks.

>SCHOLAR BUDDY! What are you doing?
Similar to AST & SCH combo; however, Scholar can DPS and swap to Eos up to 5/6 stacks.


>WHM DPS & Enrage (and scholar o/ )
During Enrage (clear to 5% wipes), my end DPS is around 252. I can fortunately weave some Fluid Auras within some GCDs unlike AST which may have contributed to a bit more DPS in comparison to AST; however, group DPS was higher with WHM. Like

Scholar DPS around 320'ish.


P.S: I wonder how AST with WHM would fair in Alexander. I don't have the opportunity to do this, but I would think it may be possibly better?
P.P.S: Astrologian in the actual A1 fight (oppressor) is going to be intense if its SCH & AST as SCH will be handling a lot of emergency/burst/AoE/top-off whereas Astrologian will fall back to sustained healing :x. AST & WHM may be possibly way better for A1 since those potent AoE heals are going to be real nice.

[GeekMatt]

D: It's ok Kiki. AST AoE just really isn't there and there's not a viable alternative you can depend on. I'm hoping their fix for this turns out to be more AST-based and creative, rather than strict potency. Seems a few are putting AST on the back-burner for Alex Savage.

[Arragomis]

D: It's ok Kiki. AST AoE just really isn't there and there's not a viable alternative you can depend on. I'm hoping their fix for this turns out to be more AST-based and creative, rather than strict potency. Seems a few are putting AST on the back-burner for Alex Savage.

this saddens me..I lovethe class but my static is asking me to level sch now

[Aurorarose51]

Im thinking tomorrow night trying whm/ast combo out (if my partner is willing, i already felt bad pushing him out of sch when we switched). But a1 reeeaaalllly needs strong aoe heals. Im hoping for more ast changes soon, because so far ast is still at a disadvantage in healing potencies and such. I mean really, sch dps'd entire time on faust whith whm solo heals, no problem... but ast, benefic II spam two tanks, lightspeeding, synastry, etc felt like swimming with my head barely above the water. I dunno, the other ast in my fc made it to 2% on main boss so far, maybe im still doing something wrong, or they have whm... im not sure on that..

[Parawill]

Im thinking tomorrow night trying whm/ast combo out (if my partner is willing, i already felt bad pushing him out of sch when we switched). But a1 reeeaaalllly needs strong aoe heals. Im hoping for more ast changes soon, because so far ast is still at a disadvantage in healing potencies and such. I mean really, sch dps'd entire time on faust whith whm solo heals, no problem... but ast, benefic II spam two tanks, lightspeeding, synastry, etc felt like swimming with my head barely above the water. I dunno, the other ast in my fc made it to 2% on main boss so far, maybe im still doing something wrong, or they have whm... im not sure on that..

Since I really only managed to get to Oppressor on WHM for one lockout (since I did AST for the previous one and was walled by Faust), but I think a lot of it has to do with figuring the downtime for unavoidable raid damage. When I was healing on WHM, I felt like there was some areas where I could've just done a Medica II into a Medica and let Medica & SCH Whispering Dawn & Fairy Heals top people off.

For double preys and hypercharge, I've yet to get past the first jump (since our BLM was having the worst connection issues ever. R.I.P to his DPS) but I think tanks may have to stack mitigation buffs with SCH Adlo and whatnots. I know that you need to keep them above 80% however :/ Double preys though, I think I'm going to talk to my SCH to see if they can help assist me with pre-shielding as even on WHM, I need Cure II and Tetragrammaton/Benediction & Regens on both prey'd players if I'm ever in the situation where I'm solo healing the preys. x_x

[Aurorarose51]

For double preys, both targets got adlo'd and stoneskined, then we each just heal one. Small cures is enough. With ast, most of the time we couldnt get people topped up after raid damage before preys started, and me using SS on ast killed my mp plus aoe heals. The tank busters need to be havily mitigates, e4e and viruses was enough from sch/smn, and whatever the tank cds are (i didint pay attention to my groups discussion about what cds to use, i just heal). But with those, its not so hard to heal them back up. Disable should work here too, too bad i cant e4e........ preys will probably still be more difficult with whm/ast with less shields (assuming stacking regens). Dont try to solo heal those >.< its too much, just communicate who youre focusing and keep and eye on your designsted tank : / working for us like that

[Parawill]

~snip~

Thanks! I only was solo healing since our Scholar processes information differently then I. She focuses on mechanics over healing, but then adjusts once she's more comfortable. I guess what my group needs is more familiarity with the fight and well... head bashing into the wall of progression!

Thanks for the tips, Kiki! Hopefully my raid will be able to get through with SCH & AST. I'm going to push myself to see if it's possible ;D Though, do tell about your AST friend though. Was it AST & WHM or AST & SCH for their party make-up. I'm quite interested ^-^

[CornetEspoir]

That's what my groups is planning on doing Ast/Sch I had a choice between picking Ast/Sch. I decided to stay Ast and I hope I don't end up regretting it but from what I am reading I am in for a hard time x.x