AST's weakness in end game

[AlphaSonic]

I'm not talking about passive, natural MP regen. I'm talking about MP regen abilities. The only difference between the other two healers and AST is the speed at which Aetherflow and Assize provide MP. They are instant where Ewer/LA is over time.

Shroud/Luminiferous/Ewer/Drain scale with level not with Piety. It doesn't matter if you have 200000000 MP or 1000 MP, all those abilities will restore the same amount of MP no matter how much MP you have.

[AzureFlare]

Also, I line up my LA with cards so I can use CO to buff the party.

For anyone who cares about comparisons on a job's true potentials: always, always, always do this in any fair comparison. Using CO on just a party buff, even if it is AoE Balance, is a huge waste except for a few very niche cases (filled all your globals and mana-sated on the fight). You'll do more with the mana you get from extending LA and tossing out more Combust(2)/Malefic2/Aero.

[TatoRazzino]

For anyone who cares about comparisons on a job's true potentials: always, always, always do this in any fair comparison. Using CO on just a party buff, even if it is AoE Balance, is a huge waste except for a few very niche cases (filled all your globals and mana-sated on the fight). You'll do more with the mana you get from extending LA and tossing out more Combust(2)/Malefic2/Aero.

I didn't think I had to explicit that strategy, but I now realize that people are not lining up their skills. So, yes, always try to hit everything.

[AzureFlare]

I didn't think I had to explicit that strategy, but I now realize that people are not lining up their skills. So, yes, always try to hit everything.

It definitely isn't as straight forward as most people think it is. I just had an AST on Thordan ex who on one attempt was wondering why he didn't have any mana, yet his base pool was 13k and he used CO without LA. Given, he was under the assumption the MCH in our party knew how to use Promoted Bishop, but he was sitting on 1k while I was on 10-12k. Sure, it isn't as fair of a comparison and a lot of other factors apply (11k mana difference after all), but that's like 3k-4.5k mana he missed on unsyncing his CO alone. He monitored his mana more on the attempt after, still didn't sync LA and CO and was behind by 6-7k mana still.

[NamoNanamo]

Using CO on just a party buff, even if it is AoE Balance, is a huge waste except for a few very niche cases

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.

I just had an AST on Thordan ex who on one attempt was wondering why he didn't have any mana,

And ?
I'm playing Astro and I can do all the fight, without Brd. And using Co on a party buff. And still have no mana problem on the end of the fight.

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

[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

[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.