AST's weakness in end game

[AzureFlare]

It's never a waste. NEVER. It could become a problem if you are running low and using every Ewer with Royal road
Of course, it could be better on another things but it will not be a waste.

Again, as I said before, it'll be inferior unsyncing CO and LA just for a 5 second Balance extension if you can get another round of DoTs out which you couldn't before. If you don't need the mana or have the globals to spend, sure, unsyncing will be in your benefit. Including normalised missrates and using the mana on just Malefic/Malefic 2, you'd need like 7425 raidDPS for it to be more mana-efficient than waiting for your first LA cast. In a burst session, sure, that's entirely possible, but I doubt that window lasts longer than 30 seconds which your regular expanded Balance already covers.

If you can fill all your globals without help of a BRD/MCH then of course it goes way deeper than that and using blanket LA will be fine if not better, but in fights like A2S or higher floors where bards/mchs lose DPS on giving mana thanks to large amounts of uptime, I have a hard time seeing that happen as opposed to mechanics-heavy, mana-slumberfest Thordan.

Theorycrafting

It is possible to fit 5 Lightspeed with Diurnal's boost, without it you'll need some spellspeed. Given, that does include Diurnal's speedboost. CU and Disable were mentioned, though I'd only count for Disable on critical moments as normal Virus would be close near a non-burst/buster Disable. Also didn't account for E4E on WHM to balance on that account, so CU would be the most noteworthy.
The 2 ticks from LA + CO are pretty much guaranteed as far as I know. It feels like the ticks are slightly faster than 3 seconds anyway, fast enough to guarantee 7 ticks in 20 seconds even if the first tick comes very late. (Edit: Just checked it. If the natural MP regen tick is 3 seconds, then LA definitely is faster. The first LA tick came after it and near the end, they synced up).
Honestly, we could discuss more points but I feel it becomes too contextual once we go deeper. Nicely done.

[TatoRazzino]

I only use CO to buff just the cards when I do an AoE opener for The Balance or when I have an Enhanced Arrow on my BLM (then I use Time Dilation + CO). I do this because I know I'll have it up for when I use LA + Another card. After that, I line up all my buffs. For A2S I have a rotation to maximize that and I can post it if you guys want it.

[Mutemutt]

We'll have to agree in disagreeing, then. Freecure procs won't be enough to grant better MP management simply because the amoung of MP a WHM saves by getting those procs matches what an AST saves from having spells that cost less MP. For example:

Cure costs 442 at level 60; Cure II costs 884;
Benefic costs 354; Benefic II costs 796;

15% chance to proc Freecure means that one of every 6-7 cures you cast procs. You can get more and you can get less, that's RNG, but you have to be ready to face situations in which you don't get any procs, so it evens out in the chance rate. 7 Cures cost 3094 MP while 7 Benefics cost 2478. A 616 difference. That's what? 3/4 of the cost of a Benefic II? And you save more from the other spells, save more from the fact that Essential Dignity is a very powerful healing spell with a shorter cooldown than Tetragrammaton, saves from Synastry, saves from Lightspeed on intense healing situations, save from the amazing Regen effect from CU, you can also save MP by extending HoTs with Time Dilation. Assize has a long cooldown and is not that reliable as an MP regen tool, specially if you're saving the skill for specific parts of the fight. Also, I line up my LA with cards so I can use CO to buff the party.

I feel that you've left out some things. You didn't count the freecure which would shrink the difference to 263 or, assuming you matched the potency for the heals (would be the case whenever you got the full benefit of that free cure 2) it would be 143 mp in whm's favor. Whm has a similar trait for medica costs as well: whm spends only 266 more for 5 medicas compared to ast and helios. I believe both regen and medica 2 are more efficient at their base than their diurnal counterparts. And, of course, divine seal has shorter cooldown than synastry and handles aoe heals better ( the spendiest of the bunch).

Still, I think it's pretty even till you get to ewer and assize. If you were going out of your way to fish for an ewer draw, you'd get one ewer for every assize (1/6 shot at ewer; using shuffle every time you can nets you 6 draws in 90 secs). From what I understand, one basic ewer gets you roughly the same amount of mp as assize (at the moment at least). The problem is, I don't think people are constantly aiming to draw ewer and that's the only time you could hope to match assize's mp regen and that's ignoring the fact that assize can mean one less medica/helios on top of that instant mp. Of course, this doesn't account for the royal road buffs or spread (3 opportunities to royal road or spread for combos, specifically extended ewer in this case), but the key issue is I don't think the average astrologian is shuffling away something like balance when they get the chance and that means that, generally, assize is gonna outpace ewer.

[TatoRazzino]

@Mutemutt what I meant is that an AST can cast Benefic II after a chain of Benefics and still use the same or even less MP than a WHM doing the same thing while using the proc. The WHM procs only allow the job to match something that an AST can do naturally.
About Assize, you don't need Ewers to match the 10% MP refresh at the moment because lining up your buffs extends LA by 5s. Ewersare only a bonus. If an AST is running low on MP, using an Ewer helps to take some of the refresh burden away from the BRD/MCH; that increases overall DPS, since they don't have to sacrifice DPS to refresh MP.

[Mutemutt]

About Assize, you don't need Ewers to match the 10% MP refresh at the moment because lining up your buffs extends LA by 5s. Ewersare only a bonus. If an AST is running low on MP, using an Ewer helps to take some of the refresh burden away from the BRD/MCH; that increases overall DPS, since they don't have to sacrifice DPS to refresh MP.

I don't think it really stacks up to assize though

edit: I goofed the number

[TatoRazzino]

Well, that's an extra 144 mp every 2 mins I suppose, assuming you didn't already spend it on something else, of course. I don't think it really stacks up to assize though

No, not 144. Adding 5s to LA gives you at least 707; 1014 if the refresh ticks are a little early.

[Mutemutt]

No, not 144. Adding 5s to LA gives you at least 707; 1014 if the refresh ticks are a little early.

Woops, was looking at the wrong number.

But really, what I wanted to say is that, even then, there's a pretty noticeable gap in mp because the meta holds more value for the dps boosting cards rather than any that would help save or restore mp. Assize, on the other hand, always gives back mp. That one or 2 extra ticks just doesn't make up the gap. At least, that's what I feel is the reason.

[Kerrigen]

THe problem isn't using co on a party buff or not, it's how you manage your mana.
I'm not wasting my mana and I know how to optimize co. You need to adapt

Yes. I have to agree there. I've healed through Thordan on AST plenty and I have never felt pressured on mana. The guy probably needed to calm down on B2 (or AB if he was Nocturnal).

In fact I really don't think mana is a problem on AST and for what it's worth this is a common misconception after the changes to Ewer. It's a tiny bit behind WHM all things considered but a Ewer or two during the course of a fight will even things out. I think it's one of the rare instances where the cards tend to nicely balance out one of the job's shortcomings as mana regen is less dependant on timing in normal circumstances (as opposed to CD usage, TP consumption and damage). This is how the cards should work, being synergistic with your kit instead of being a completely separate mechanic. More control would go a long way.

[Misutoraru]

i m fine with AST
but could we have less trolling RNG for card drawn please?
4 TP in a roll with shuffle is a nice troll when i m only fighting a 60 dungeon with all my teammate have their own ability to regen TP
or 4 Ewer in a roll, when other 3 member dont use MP
can we at least change shuffle wont draw the same card again?

[TatoRazzino]

@AzureFlare @Ghishlain

What I think this math shows is that the gap between WHM and AST is minimum in the course of a fight. The extra MP AST spent can be recovered in 15 seconds and is diluted throughout the fight. That, of course, ignoring the fact that the described healing strategy is not ideal for AST (and I'm not even considering the co-healer) and also ignoring other variables that are hard to calculate (mitigation from CU and split single target healing for Synastry, for example). And also: WHM has a natural advantage in high AoE damage fights. The fact that the difference is low shows that the two jobs are pretty much balanced MP-wise.