[Newbie] AST stat priority and Meld questions

[Cynfael]

I meant that it benefits in the same way that a Fire IV benefits: % reduced from a longer cast (3s vs 2.5) is going to be a larger amount of time saved. I don't really find myself waiting to cast something, even while having to precast. You just broil or ruin II up to the point that it's necessary to heal. O.O

Waiting to cast is a sin :P

What I meant is that you have to chain a lot of casts together to make additional spell speed result in additional casts. Because BLMs are designed to turret and cast nukes for as long as possible with efficient and minimal movement, this works for them.

Healers, on the other hand, rarely get to cast like this if they are actually needing to heal at all, and heals themselves are not chain-cast in this manner, so I don't perceive a significant DPS or healing benefit to stacking spell speed as a healer, which you would have to do to a large degree to see any noticeable (and debatable) benefit.

[Taika]

Here's a Reddit thread about AST stat testing in Diurnal: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/54f2hu/whm_and_diurnal_ast_healing_formulas_and_more

As others have said, for raid healing, go for 592 Acc. Crit gives you the biggest healing and DPS boost, and Spellspeed is slightly better than Determination in longer fights (explained here).

[Cynfael]

Here's a Reddit thread about AST stat testing in Diurnal: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/54f2hu/whm_and_diurnal_ast_healing_formulas_and_more

As others have said, for raid healing, go for 592 Acc. Crit gives you the biggest healing and DPS boost, and Spellspeed is slightly better than Determination in longer fights (explained here).

It's a good read, but I don't quite agree with the "extra" GCD argument of SpS since the smallest delays such as swapping hard targets, repositioning to reach a displaced party member, needing to rez someone, etc. all erode those "extra" casts. This is why I think the data doesn't represent actual gameplay very well in this situation.

If I've missed something, I'd like to hear it, though.

[DeadRiser]

Secondary stats are really ONLY good if you stack them. And even then, they still aren't great.

Determination is really the only stat you won't get much gain from. As for piety, spell speed, and crit, pick two and stack them. Piety you will actually see the most gain.

[Cleftobismal]

A good way to look at it is to meld what you wan't and need.

Needs will be accuracy & sometimes piety if you are having too much MP troubles.

The rest are optional. It's all on how you desire your char to have. Can't go wrong on DERT, SS, or Crit. Any will still get you through the end game raids.

[Tiva]

I respect your opinion, I just disagree because I see SpS as being useful only for DoTs and HoTs while DET at least affects the potency of all spells. ACC and CRT are my primary choices, the latter specifically for SCH and AST shielding.

P.S. Are we sure that Shadowflare benefits from SpS? Seems like it could go either way as a persistent area damage.

The stat weights for DPS on sch and whm are known thanks to dervy. And this is what most raiding healers will be looking for.. how to do the most dps.We aren't really concerned with how to get more healing potency... if we mess up healing it's usually more about mis-managing skills or getting behind on GCDs and timing.. not really about how much potency the heal has.

For dps-
Whm
WD: 9.128
INT: 1.000
DET: 0.159
CRT: 0.182
SS: 0.135
Acc: Cap it

Sch
WD: 9.128
INT: 1.000
DET: 0.190
CRT: 0.266
SS: 0.316 – 0.366
Acc: Cap it

Astrologian hasn't been done, but tbh it is probably similar. Healer stat priority for raiding is: Int > Acc to cap > Crit > SS > Det. I have never seen any raider meld piety. What is on the gear is typically more than enough. If OP is a casual player, melding piety may be viable... but I don't recommend it. If you OOM it is probably much more likely that you are misusing your skills. Especially on astro, thier MP regen buff was ridiculous. If the OP is never ever going to step into a raid, I'd recommend melding crit and SS. But if they are ever going to do EX primals or Savage, just go for acc cap.

[Cynfael]

If the change to SS has made that much of a difference to DoTs, then I'll stop griping when it comes with new gear since I play SCH more than WHM.

[Ghishlain]

If the change to SS has made that much of a difference to DoTs, then I'll stop griping when it comes with new gear since I play SCH more than WHM.

Dervy's analysis for SCH stat weights is also from a purely DPS standpoint, and something like 100% up time in DPS. He also explains the theory why SpS has such a huge benefit to SCH DPS too. To quote his blog directly:

Healer Weights are calculated PURELY for full time DPS. For science only; take these weights with a grain of salt. These weights do not take into account Mana consumption, or ANY form of healing/shielding. If you’re going to be hybrid healing/shielding, I’d recommend prioritising Crit over any of the other secondaries (with the exception of accuracy).

_____________________________________________________

White Mage DPS ONLY:

WD: 9.128
INT: 1.000
DET: 0.159
CRT: 0.182
SS: 0.135
Acc: Cap it

_____________________________________________________

Scholar DPS ONLY:

WD: 9.128
INT: 1.000
DET: 0.190
CRT: 0.266
SS: 0.316 – 0.366
Acc: Cap it

The reason why the Scholars SS weighting is high, is that roughly 51% of its overall DPS is coming from DoTs. So not only is SS buffing your DPS exponentially due to how it affects your GCD/Casts, but its value is being amplified by also increasing directly affecting 50% of your total PPS via DoTs.

Also, the weighting scholar DPS varies a lot depending on the rotation you use for some reason. It could be an error with my model somewhere handling clipped dots though. Letting your DoTs completely drop, rather than clipping them, boosts the SS weight by 0.5. This is something I’ll be looking into and trying to figure out and does look like it to be a DPS gain, over clipping them.

[Cynfael]

I do appreciate that he makes the distinction between full DPS uptime and not. I can't say I would want to stack SS purposefully considering that real gameplay doesn't usually allow for long stretches of non-stop DPS totally uninterrupted by healing and shielding, but it's good to see the situational/hypothetical value.

[Judge_Xero]

I do appreciate that he makes the distinction between full DPS uptime and not. I can't say I would want to stack SS purposefully considering that real gameplay doesn't usually allow for long stretches of non-stop DPS totally uninterrupted by healing and shielding, but it's good to see the situational/hypothetical value.

One thing to consider even on SCH when looking into high amounts of SS is that you will need to compensate with Piety to sustain MP. This means taking Piety over other secondary stats.

Stacking CRT I've been able to comfortably Raid with 12k MP @ 600-700 SS. Hitting 1k SS required a buffer of about 13.5k MP which is a loss of almost 200 Secondaries to Piety.