Raiding as AST

[Watachy]

Story

Thanks ! That's exactly our composition actually, WHM/AST/SMN/BLM/BRD/DRG/PLD/WAR !
To come back to something you said, i do prefer the N.ACT but obviously i will adapt my stance to the fight, i just need some experience and turns to find the best solution !
For example im playing in Diurnal stance in Niddhog', i prefered the regen for all the damages niddhog puts on the whole party !

[FoxyAreku]

I honestly do not know how ASTs deal with main healing without cure III in A6S and A8S. I know it's possible, but it is a lot harder.

AST is fine for A5S and A7S and I play them there, but Cure III is just too good and I have to use white mage on 6 and 8 to eliminate the risk of people randomly dying.

Thanks ! That's exactly our composition actually, WHM/AST/SMN/BLM/BRD/DRG/PLD/WAR !
To come back to something you said, i do prefer the N.ACT but obviously i will adapt my stance to the fight, i just need some experience and turns to find the best solution !
For example im playing in Diurnal stance in Niddhog', i prefered the regen for all the damages niddhog puts on the whole party !

If you already have a white mage, you should be noct in nidhogg. You can do double regen, but the shields help tremendously on tanks in add phase and shielding the group for akh morn.

There is no difficult fight in the game where double regens is viable. It can be done, but I wouldn't.

[Bdyer]

Did the 3.3 buff to noc shields not help enough?

[Maltothoris]

Did the 3.3 buff to noc shields not help enough?

The thing that bandaid did was just made astro better in shields. The sch still is just vastly more flexible than the astro.

That being said,astro isn't bad it's just nocturnal astro/whm is the subpar combo in comparison to whm/sch and di astro/sch. This is mainly because the sch has a lot of versatility compared to the other two .

[_slowpoke_]

Thanks for your reply, i know that just a few people are playing as N.AST and i also know that in potency the N.Ast is inferior to the SCH or the D.Ast, im not much into the fflogs observation, can you give a link that see the downs ?

https://www.fflogs.com/rankings/10#b...ec=Astrologian

These are all ASTs who have cleared A8s in a WHM/AST combo. It's actually up to 8 people now, and I'm too lazy to go through all the logs again to see who mains N.AST and who doesn't, but it's still a very strong indicator of how broken N.AST currently is, especially since D.AST is doing fine in terms of clears (when partnered with a SCH).

The thing that bandaid did was just made astro better in shields.

Even this is debatable because a large reason why SCH is so good at shielding is Deployment Tactics. A N.AST has nothing that can equal even a non-crit, properly deployed Adlo¹, and with most fights being structured the way they are, this makes SCH shielding still vastly superior to N.AST.

¹ "Properly deployed" refers to said Adlo being cast on a WAR in Defiance with Convalescence up. Mantra, Fey Illumination, and/or Dissipation are optional but highly increase the absurdity of the resulting shield.

[technole]

I've done a lot of Nidhogg Ex clears as Noct AST. There was always people in my linkshells that were White Mage only, and I despise the double WHM comp. There isn't any advantage in having to heal more damage. All it takes is a few res sickness and now you have less options to recover because of no mitigation. AB/Adlo laughs in the face of Stoneskin. Maybe you have no Summoner or one that doesn't even Virus. In a less error run it won't matter too much, but not everyone is perfect either.

Having shields up is so good for the towers phase, and before Akh Morn. AB is so good getting on the tether tanks while on the move too, or anyone with sickness to survive heavy damage. Plus you have Disable and CU mitigation options for each one.

I honestly do not know how ASTs deal with main healing without cure III in A6S and A8S. I know it's possible, but it is a lot harder.

AST is fine for A5S and A7S and I play them there, but Cure III is just too good and I have to use white mage on 6 and 8 to eliminate the risk of people randomly dying.

It is not a lot harder on D.AST. Cure III shouldn't be the sole reason to consider otherwise, you just do things differently. AST 20% mitigation with Disable/CU that WHM doesn't have is something to also consider great for Plasmas and J-Kick progression.

CU is good to use when stacking for Jammer or Water. Plus you have Synastry for at-least one rotation to AoE/spot heal targets as-needed and the tank hit.

[Watachy]

Thanks for your replies everyone, going to try running A6S and the others if we clear the A6S and will see if switching to SCH for some fights makes it easier.
Anyway, as some people, i will try as AST cause i do love this gameplay and maybe switch to SCH if needed but .... meh feel i won't be abble to play SCH decently.

[Nekotee]

Diurnal AST+whm is possible on nidhogg but i do agree with Foxy
Having noct ast with shield to soak in some damage is priceless

Becauseit allow squishy dps to survive at least 1 more akh morn by artificially adds some hp while waiting for the cure 3 to happends
After trying both
Shield are easier and allow less stress in battle (but more mana consuming than HoT)

[KarstenS]

It's actually up to 8 people now

Interesting. So if we beat it in our current combination we are in something like a Top 10

[CBellz]

I honestly do not know how ASTs deal with main healing without cure III in A6S and A8S. I know it's possible, but it is a lot harder.

AST is fine for A5S and A7S and I play them there, but Cure III is just too good and I have to use white mage on 6 and 8 to eliminate the risk of people randomly dying
.

C3 is a luxury more than anything in a6. Swindler is the only fight where anything more than medica 2 is needed. Brawler orb phase is another but no one will be stacked enough to make C3 usable. Even on swindler, most 50th percentile + groups skip the last bioarithmeticks if not the entire set altogether. As for the bio before the gunners appear, your SCH is kind of heartless if he doesn't at least chuck you an indom to help. D:

A8 is a different story as early in progression I was crying to heal with a WHM, especially in intermission 1. But after my cohealer sorted out disable and CU timings, suddenly we started only taking 12k dmg from jkicks. Jwaves were still sketchy to heal through, but that was mainly because we didn't optimize mantra, fey illumination usage etc.