About AST and why their healing is weaker

[Ghishlain]

Preface: While I understand that HPS or Potency/Min is by no means a measure of a player's skill in the healing art, these two metrics are a good way to gauge a healer's potential output and find comparison between the different healers.

=================

One of the long standing arguments currently going on the healer forum is the fact that AST healing is directly weaker than the output SCH and WHM can output, and I'm here to prove to you this is the case.

Many poster attribute the lesser healer potential of the AST by the fact that they lack any proper cooldown that boosts their healing performance. While this is indeed true, there is a much deeper issue rooted with AST healing as well.

First, let me get a common misconception out of the way.

"AST healing is weaker! Just look at the potency!"

This is mathematically false. Once you adjust the values of AST base toolkit heals by their Sect, they actually come up to be almost perfectly equal.

Cure - 400 Potency / GCD
Physik - 400 Potency / GCD
Diurnal Sect Benefic - 380 Potency @ 2.38 cast = 380 * (2.5/2.38) = 399 Potency / GCD
Nocturnal Sect Benefic - 380 Potency + 5% = 380 *1.05 = 399 Potency / GCD

Cure II - 650 Potency / GCD
Adlo - 600 Potency / GCD when correcting for shields (non crit)
Diurnal Sect Benefic II - 620 Potency @ 2.38 cast = 620 * (2.5/2.38) = 651 Potency / GCD
Nocturnal Sect Benefic - 620 Potency + 5% = 380 *1.05 = 651 Potency / GCD

Medica - 300 Potency / GCD
Succor - 300 Potency / GCD when correcting for shields
Diurnal Sect Helios - 290 Potency @ 2.38 cast = 290 * (2.5/2.38) = 304 Potency / GCD
Nocturnal Sect Benefic - 290 Potency + 5% = 380 *1.05 = 304 Potency / GCD

What do I define as base toolkit for a healer?

1. A low tier single target cure (Cure / Physick / Benefic)
2. A high tier single target cure (Cure II / Adlo / Benefic II)
3. An AoE cure (Medica / Succor / Helios)
4. A means to remove status effects (Esuna / Leeches / Exalted Detriment)
5. A Raise type spell (Raise / Resurrection / Ascend)

The underlying issue with AST heals also lies deeper than the fact they lack any means to boost their healing output.

Consider this data set. What I have compiled here is a full minute of pure single target and "normal" healing. What this entails for each job:

• Diurnal AST - Apply Aspected Benefic at the beginning, casting Benefic until you need to reapply Aspected Benefic, repeat until you reach the 60 second mark.
• Nocturnal AST - Casting Benefic for a full 60 seconds.
• Scholar - Both Scholar and Fairy casting Physick and Embrace repeatedly
• White Mage - Apply Regen at the beginning, casting Cure until you need to reapply Regen, repeat until you reach the 60 second mark.

No potency's were buffed via Divine Seal, Fey Illumination, etc. I assumed Fairy potency to be about 200 as my Embraces currently are 1400 and my Adlo are about 2100 as an i186 (I think) SCH w/ an i180 weapon.

The results:

• Diurnal AST - 10,740 Potency / Min
• Nocturnal AST - 9,576 Potency / Min
• Scholar - 13,600 Potency / Min
• White Mage - 11,400 Potency / Min

So, even without any healing boosters, we can already see ASTs are already weaker. Though the values don't look dramatically different, let's put that into perspective.

For a Diurnal AST's 10,740 Potency to catch up with a WHMs 11,400 potency, they will need to cast Benefic II three times instead of Benefic. With 21 casts of Benefic, that means every seventh Benefic needs to be replaced with Benefic II.

Even with a Time Dilation on Aspected Benefic, you're basically reducing the amount of Aspected Benefic cast in that one minute cycle by one and replacing that cast with a Benefic (+190) for a total of 10,930 and thus will still need to replace two Benefics with Benefic II.

This methodology doesn't even begin to account for the fact that the White Mage has Freecure and should on average get two Freecures outta that chain of Cures.

And... let's not even go into how abysmal Nocturnal AST is compared to any of the above. And also how difficult it would be for AST to catch up with the number SCH can output.

What is (part of) the Real Issue?

The issue stems from the fact that AST lacks the tools to normalize HP damage. Both WHM and SCH get a tool in the sense of Regen and Embrace respectively. While Diurnal AST does get the very same tool, their tool is much weaker (100 potency / tick - 790 Potency Total) and must be applied much more frequently (18s Aspected versus 21s Regen versus Never need to reapply Fairy!). These spells are generally low impact spells overall but do accumulate into something more.

If you look at it from an GCD time frame

• Diurnal AST - 482 Potency / GCD
• Nocturnal AST - 399 Potency / GCD
• Scholar - 566 Potency / GCD
• White Mage - 525 Potency / GCD

In general, Scholar and White Mage output more potency / GCD than ASTs would. And even though AST has lower MP costs on their spells, they also lack the MP tools that SCH and WHM has. If they are forced to use Benefic II more often to stay at the same pace WHM and SCH are (when they aren't even using their own buffs / abilities), they will go OOM much faster than their counter parts.

A Potential Solution

For Dirurnal ASTs, I feel the easiest fix is to boost the potency of their HoT tick, and even perhaps the potency at application. I kinda feel like changing Aspected Benefic to a 205 Potency + 130 tick (total 985) would at least bring the values closer together.

Nocturnal AST is... an entirely different beast. It almost feels like S-E wants you to just heal harder on this Sect. So, with that being said, it almost feels like they should add a MP reduction on healing spells while in this Sect. It might sound a bit absurd, but something in the vein of 10% feels right and promote Nocturnal AST as the "get the most bang for your buck" healer.

============

Thank you for reading through my thoughts. Any thoughts, comments, or criticisms you'd like to add, just reply below

[Edit] Had to adjust Diurnal's sect potency/GCD average due to forgetting to account for the haste factor.

[Edit2] Trying to put a bit more clarity in my thoughts.

[Edit3] Still messing up Diurnal's sect potency/GCD. . . Third time's a charm?