AST's weakness in end game

[Vlady]

With all of this theory crafting going on how come no one attempts to figure up the dps contributed from astrologian through the card buffs. Theory crafting works with dps simcraft but not healing. Se has stated countless times about in house scenarios and dps requirements but never have I seen them talk about healer balance outside of trying to make certain mechanics work to the strengths of certain jobs.

[Ghishlain]

With all of this theory crafting going on how come no one attempts to figure up the dps contributed from astrologian through the card buffs. Theory crafting works with dps simcraft but not healing. Se has stated countless times about in house scenarios and dps requirements but never have I seen them talk about healer balance outside of trying to make certain mechanics work to the strengths of certain jobs.

Theorycrafting exact DPS contribution via cards is very difficult to quantify because of the massive amounts of variables you have to consider when applying cards. Here's the list of things to consider:

1. Determine frequency of specific card combinations from happening
2. Determine frequency of specific buff combinations from happening
3. How specific card combinations affect specific classes
4. Party composition
5. Weighted average of each combination and how they affect each other

Each point on that list also has a specific sub list associated with it too. Just consider the probably of specific card combinations:

1. Balance Drawn
2. Arrow Drawn
3. Extend + Balance Drawn
4. Enhanced + Balance Drawn
5. Expand + Balance Drawn
6. Extend + Arrow Drawn
7. Enhanced + Arrow Drawn
8. Expand + Arrow Drawn
9. Extend + No DPS Card Drawn
10. Enhanced + No DPS Card Drawn
11. Expand + No DPS Card Drawn
12. No DPS Card Drawn

And the above list doesn't even incorporate probability changing based on how often Shuffle and Spread are up. Spear also plays a factor in DPS but it's more difficult to use and quantify because Spear needs to be played at a time where a lot of DPS abilities are coming off cooldown and reducing the cooldown of a DPS enhancing buff like Blood for Blood may not necessarily give a DPS increase because said player may need to hold buff anyway for say, an invulnerability phase or burst phase that's coming up soon.

Then you have to be able to play the card on a DPS and depending on their buff(s) activate could dramatically change their use. Take DRG for example:

1. No Buffs
2. Blood for Blood
3. Internal Release
4. Battle Litany
5. Blood for Blood + Internal Release
6. Blood for Blood + Battle Litany
7. Internal Release + Battle Litany
8. Blood for Blood + Internal Release + Battle Litany

And then each class itself is affected differently by each type of DPS card. Balance is a good all around but should be stacked with someone with a fair amount of buffs active if possible. Arrow is great for NIN, MNK, WAR, and BLM (baring no resource constraints). Spear is generally useful for DRGs, NINs, and MCHs with some usefulness to other DPS classes if their DPS augmenting buffs are coming off CD for a dummy-esque fight. So, your desired buffs and buff priority can change depending on your group composition and there are a ton of different group combinations.

It's... a lot to consider at once. Given how badly I fudged up the MP efficiency theorycraft which has a lot less variables associated with it, probably not something I'll personally try for a while. lol. Though I commend anyone who wants to take a crack at it because it'll be worth the read.

[TatoRazzino]

Theorycrafting exact DPS contribution via cards is very difficult to quantify because of the massive amounts of variables you have to consider when applying cards. Here's the list of things to consider:
[...]
Given how badly I fudged up the MP efficiency theorycraft which has a lot less variables associated with it, probably not something I'll personally try for a while. lol. Though I commend anyone who wants to take a crack at it because it'll be worth the read.

It's impossible, in my opinion, to get satisfactory results by using only theorycraft. What we can do is test DPS output for different jobs in a dummy, to get a "best case scenario" number, and then estimate an average DPS increase by comparing those numbers with what those jobs do in actual fights. We could do some 2 minute simulation runs in a dummy with a MNK, for example; then, run others while throwing a single Balance on him/her and compare the DPS increase. Then take that MNK to a fight like Ravana EX or A1S, set the parsers to give us numbers every 2 minutes (I play on PS4, but I believe this is possible), and see how they do with no cards. We can see the percentage of DPS they "lost" in relation to their dummy numbers and estimate how much more DPS they'd do with a card. It won't give us an exact number, but it's a start.

[NamoNanamo]

Arrow is also great for Dragoon. It's really nice for multiple gk/blood of the dragon buff.
Arrow speed up the rotation and it allows you to do more gk/min.

[NamoNanamo]

Stuff about thordan.
We're not as far behind as some people want us to be.

Yes, the personal dps of Astro is far from Scholar. That's normal. That's ok. We get card to help us.
And your personal example is irrelevant.

I don't know why WHM/SCH players are so afraid of ASTs doing well.

Stop being paranoid. I am myself pro-astro.

[TatoRazzino]

Yes, the personal dps of Astro is far from Scholar. That's normal. That's ok.
And your personal example is irrelevant.

Your remark is also irrelevant. I don't know why WHM/SCH players are so afraid of ASTs doing well.

[Vlady]

Yes, the personal dps of Astro is far from Scholar. That's normal. That's ok.
And your personal example is irrelevant.

Why is the astro dps far from the scholar? Our dps+cards is not bad as people would have you believe. On Burst phases it might be better then scholar since balance stacks retroactively with itleast blood for blood and rage strikes.

[Vlady]

In fact it is impossible. Only se can reliably do it from data gathered to calculate its average means. I did hours of tests worth and without buffs with my brother and get yelled down for supposedly coming up with magic numbers during the time astrologian were wanting buffs. I only reported what were my personal dps gains the two jobs parsed over not having a steady stream of balance/arrow/timed spear cards.

Using math to prove one side of the other works well but only when variables are constantly consistent which is less likely in healing compared to dps checks. 10 pages of theory craft has shown us over the course of a longer fight the white mage comes out ahead but during shorter encounters the astrologian has the advantage which seems a decent trade off. People need to get away with wanting nocturnal stance to let the astrologian be in essence a scholar. I would be for a unique shield mechanic as I have said countless times and or even nocturnal being a weaker offensive version of cleric stance but not suffer the healing penalties of cleric stance as a form of additional dps support. But in order for our utility to be buffed we cannot keep this healing power that we have right now.

[Ghishlain]

I did hours of tests worth and without buffs with my brother and get yelled down for supposedly coming up with magic numbers during the time astrologian were wanting buffs.

Vlady, I hate to beat a dead horse but maybe I can talk some sense now that the animosity has died down and it's easier to read one post then a million at once.

The reason why yourself and your brother was yelled down was because your numbers are magical. Let's take your example stating you increased a DRGs DPS by 800. An 800 DPS increase is rather absurd when you consider Balance adds 10% additional damage to a DPS and in order for a DPS to get this 800 DPS increase, they would need to be doing 8,000 DPS (10% of 8,000 DPS is 800 DPS).

Semantics is important when discussing math and theorycraft. If you told us the DRG in question had an increase of 800 damage (not DPS), it would be more believable. 800 additional damage divided by (pre-AST-buff duration of) 15s of Balance leads to a DPS increase of approximately 53.3. This value feels much more reasonable in a time period when players were still learning their rotations and gearing up for content at the beginning of HW.

Clarity is important when discussing these sort of variables in a theoretical environment. It's also why I take Tato's theorycraft earlier in the thread about increasing BLM GCDs via Arrow with a grain of salt because there's no way to quantify the amount of additional damage they're actually doing despite getting additional GCDs. BLMs are still mostly constrained to how quickly they can regenerate MP which is tied to Umbral Ice which is also tied to server ticks (similar to how DoTs are constrained to server ticks as well). They aren't as limited as SMNs but still have that small gap where they won't be able to make much use of Arrow. Also, Tato was comparing the GCD reduction on a single player versus a GCD reduction to the raid from Selene over the course of the same which again is another variable difficult to quantify because raid composition is different from group to group. It's just important to point out because that BLM w/ Arrow needs to contribute more DPS than the raid DPS added by having that many GCDs go off.

I hope you understand what I'm trying to point out and can see how it might avoid conflicts later down the line.

[TatoRazzino]

Vlady, I hate to beat a dead horse but maybe I can talk some sense now that the animosity has died down and it's easier to read one post then a million at once.

The reason why yourself and your brother was yelled down was because your numbers are magical. Let's take your example stating you increased a DRGs DPS by 800. An 800 DPS increase is rather absurd when you consider Balance adds 10% additional damage to a DPS and in order for a DPS to get this 800 DPS increase, they would need to be doing 8,000 DPS (10% of 8,000 DPS is 800 DPS).

Semantics is important when discussing math and theorycraft. If you told us the DRG in question had an increase of 800 damage (not DPS), it would be more believable. 800 additional damage divided by (pre-AST-buff duration of) 15s of Balance leads to a DPS increase of approximately 53.3. This value feels much more reasonable in a time period when players were still learning their rotations and gearing up for content at the beginning of HW.

Clarity is important when discussing these sort of variables in a theoretical environment. It's also why I take Tato's theorycraft earlier in the thread about increasing BLM GCDs via Arrow with a grain of salt because there's no way to quantify the amount of additional damage they're actually doing despite getting additional GCDs. BLMs are still mostly constrained to how quickly they can regenerate MP which is tied to Umbral Ice which is also tied to server ticks (similar to how DoTs are constrained to server ticks as well). They aren't as limited as SMNs but still have that small gap where they won't be able to make much use of Arrow. Also, Tato was comparing the GCD reduction on a single player versus a GCD reduction to the raid from Selene over the course of the same which again is another variable difficult to quantify because raid composition is different from group to group. It's just important to point out because that BLM w/ Arrow needs to contribute more DPS than the raid DPS added by having that many GCDs go off.

I hope you understand what I'm trying to point out and can see how it might avoid conflicts later down the line.

I'll add to that the fact that having to dodge lowers how effective the Arrow card is. The results of comparing Arrow to Selene were not to be taken as a final argument. I honestly believe that a BLM can add more DPS in that many GCDs than the group wold simply because they're the job that benefits the most from attack speed due to resource refresh. My calculation could have been adjusted in several ways, and I could argue that I could throw those balances around the party and add those GCDs. Anyway, theorycraft is just theory and can only show ideal situations. Fights change that a lot.