Collective Unconcious

[Parawill]

The reason why Collective Unconscious sucks isn't because it provides 1200 potency for its duration, but it is because it requires you to be locked into place for 18 seconds for 1200 potency, which is 200 potency per tick. There are hardly any instances that you can benefit standing there for its full duration, which makes it a completely lack luster skill.

If you're confused as to why it's a horrible trade off despite it being free healing is the fact that the game isn't turn based. You don't have 18 seconds of free time to heal while you wait for foes to hit your allies. Healing in this game isn't a matter about potency per skill, but rather potency per action versus time. When healing, if you remove MP from the equation, you would choose the highest potency heal to offset the damage that was taken. When you include MP, you choose the best string of heals to offset the amount of damage to survive the next incoming attack within seconds.

Since fights are generally scripted, if damage in your raid was like...

Let's say Diurnal Astro heals are these values:
Benefic: 1.5
Benefic II: 2.5
Aspected Benefic: 1 + 0.33
Helios: 1.33
Aspected Helios: 0.75 + 0.165
Essential Dignity: 4.5 (static for the sake of simplicity)
Collective Unconscious: 0.75

Each cast is locked within a GCD of 2.81 seconds.
HoT Ticks happen once per 3 seconds.


Raid HP
Tank: 10 HP
DPS & Healers: 7 HP

0:00 Tank: 2 Damage
0:03 Raid: 3 Damage
0:06 Tank: 2 Damage
0:09 Tank: 4 Damage + 2 Damage (without CD, 6 Damage + 4 Damage)
0:10 Raid: 3 Damage || Tank: 1.5 Damage (CD damage reduction)
0:12 Raid: 3 Damage || Tank: 1.5 Damage + 2 (CD damage reduction)
0:13 No Damage


An Astro's response to this would be to
0:00 Aspected Benefic: +1 HP (Tank HP 9)
0:03 Benefic: +1.5 + Aspected Benefic HoT Tick 0.33 (Tank HP 7.83)
0:06 Benefic: +1.5 + Aspected Benefic HoT Tick 0.33 (Tank HP 6.66)
0:09 Essential Dignity +4.5 + Aspected Benefic HoT Tick 0.33 (Tank HP: 6.66)
0:10 Aspected Helios: +0.75 AoE (Raid HP 4.75, Tank HP 5.16)
0:12 GCD LOCKDOWN Aspected Helios Tick +0.165 AoE || Aspected Benefic HoT Tick on Tank +0.33 (Raid HP 1.915, Tank HP 2.155)
0:13 Helios: +1.33 AoE (Raid HP: 3.245, Tank HP 3.485

This is a very simplified & condensed version of what you'd expect in A1S (minus mechanics requiring movement and time for DPS), but there's little to no room to use Collective Unconcscious for its full duration, which means it's completely outclassed by Asylum (800 total Potency) AND Sacred Soil (10% mitigation for 15 ~ 18 seconds since Sacred Soil applies a 3 second buff) because its up-time is 100%. Realistically speaking, I can only manage to get around 1 to 3 ticks in AS1, but probably more when there is damage and mechanic downtime for recovery.

At the moment, Collective Unconscious is too situational to be considered a great cooldown. It's just nice to have for when you're fishign for an extra 200 potency tick during a GCD. Besides, if you only need 200 potency ticks to sustain against damage, you might as well be using Benefics and Aspected Benefics WHILE throwing DPS out.