Scholar and Astrologian RDPS comparison

[SilentVoice]

Now, i've several posts about SCH being nerfed, and honestly this post isn't about me raging how sad i am about SCH in SB.
So, yesterday we cleared o2s with my group. Since i still did not installed any DPS meters (guess i will have to everntually though), i asked my group mate how did WHM and SCH (me) fared DPS widse. so, WHM hit around 1500 DPS throughout the raid, and i hit around 900.
Clearly i remember, that i been hitting for about 600 (steady) and even 700+ at release of 1st Alexander raid in 3.0. Making such comparison, it made me wonder about overall usefulness and justification of having a SCH in raid group rather that AST. So my question: did any group made any comparison of raid-wide DPS in the same raid in 1 group consisting of SCH\WHM, and another AST\WHM? I want to know if my SCH low DPS is justified by whole group popping out more DPS than if with AST\WHM
thank you

[HyoMinPark]

In terms of healer DPS, right now WHM dominates as having the highest DPS potential.
After WHM, is SCH, and then AST has the lowest DPS of all three healers, if we’re comparing healers of equal skill.
So, WHM > SCH > AST.

Meta is still SCH/AST; WHM is typically used in prog because they have so much healing potential (and Cure III is insanely OP in V4S), but the speed-kill meta is still the same as it was in HW (except tanks are now PLD/WAR instead of DRK/WAR, and MCH is sometimes traded out for SMN since SMN was buffed to the moon—so DPS meta is NIN/DRG/BRD/MCH or SMN).

[SilentVoice]

I am more worried about raid DPS, as it is more important. But i see what you are getting at. AST (as main heal) Balance combined with SCH (off-heal) Chain Stratagem could be the best option for raid DPS.
Still, i wonder if having WHM and AST as healers in raid would make a better raid DPS output with proper healing efficiency (fit for uCoil, O4S) than AST and SCH or WHM and SCH. I know that probably any combination could get clears in hardest raid, but i doubt we'll see our group going higher than MC level, especially as we are not a static, but rather raid community with changing people

[HyoMinPark]

I am more worried about raid DPS, as it is more important. But i see what you are getting at. AST (as main heal) Balance combined with SCH (off-heal) Chain Stratagem could be the best option for raid DPS.
Still, i wonder if having WHM and AST as healers in raid would make a better raid DPS output with proper healing efficiency (fit for uCoil, O4S) than AST and SCH or WHM and SCH. I know that probably any combination could get clears in hardest raid, but i doubt we'll see our group going higher than MC level, especially as we are not a static, but rather raid community with changing people

As it currently stands, while WHM has more personal DPS compared to SCH/AST, they offer no raid utility in form of buffs like Balance, Spear, Arrow, or Chain Strategem. rDPS is always going to outweigh a person’s personal DPS, thus why SCH/AST always pulls out ahead because they buff, not only themselves, but everyone else. WHM cannot offer that, nor do they offer enough personal DPS to offset the buffs SCH/AST give to a raid.

Take a job like MNK or BRD that rely heavily on crit procs for damage (MNK for Chakras, BRD for Repertoire stacks during their songs)—having both an AST’s Balance or Spear and a SCH’s Chain Strategem are invaluable to those jobs (one of which is in the current meta). A BRD or a MNK will always do more damage than a WHM, and, coupled with rBuffs like Balance, Spear or Chain, a WHM just cannot offset the damage potentially lost from not having those buffs with their personal damage.

In short, a WHM cannot offset the rDPS lost from not bringing a SCH’s Chain Strategem or an AST’s cards with their personal DPS, hence why the meta heavily favors SCH/AST. They buff the entire raid, and like you said, rDPS > personal DPS. WHM just cannot make up the difference. Healers, while their DPS is nothing to scoff at, parse lower than tanks, so naturally, they cannot make up the damage lost from excluding raid buffing jobs.

Currently, things are more “fair” than they were in Creator (when Balance was 10% AOE and WHM’s personal DPS was laughable at best compared to the other two), but WHM is still inferior in terms of what it can bring to rDPS.

[SilentVoice]

good arguments, thank you very much. i'll see if our group will be willing to attempt such group combo, at least in terms of healers, and see if numbers going up significally.
just one more thing. my AST is level 30, so i don't know anything about AST, hence the question. is AST+AST, just with different stances, could also be an effective choice, or they still be in each other ways (like WHM+WHM, SCH+SCH)?

[HyoMinPark]

good arguments, thank you very much. i'll see if our group will be willing to attempt such group combo, at least in terms of healers, and see if numbers going up significally.
just one more thing. my AST is level 30, so i don't know anything about AST, hence the question. is AST+AST, just with different stances, could also be an effective choice, or they still be in each other ways (like WHM+WHM, SCH+SCH)?

While there would be potential for things like alternating card buffs with double AST, I personally would not recommend stacking double AST. Yes, they bring a lot of utility, especially if you get lucky enough for back-to-back Balances (though that takes a lot of kissing RNG’s behind for) and have two ASTs that can coordinate card usages extremely well (since the card buffs do not stack), but AST personal DPS is pretty weak right now (so double AST would have lower combined healer DPS), and with doubling up jobs, you also take an LB penalty. Best to go with AST/SCH because then not only is combined healer DPS higher, you have more options for party buffs, in my opinion. After all, card RNG is card RNG, and at least SCH can guarantee Chain every 2 minutes (plus Selene has Fey Wind up every 60 seconds), where as Double AST cannot always guarantee high Balance uptime (not even a single AST can do that, to be frank).

If this were HW (or early SB before some adjustments were made to SCH and Balance), then double AST would probably be a more viable option because Balance was ridiculously OP even though SCH was a DPS God amongst the healers (in HW). But, as it stands now, I would try to get optimal combined healer DPS while also keeping things like rBuffs in mind.

All this being said, the healer meta isn’t incredibly important unless your group is aiming to one day compete for world first, or do speed kills/parse runs. Ultimately, I think you should do whatever healer combination your healers feel comfortable with (WHM/SCH or WHM/AST may not be meta, but if your healers are uncomfortable with the other healing jobs, best they play what’s comfortable for them because being uncomfortable in a role will negatively impact performance and, by proxy, rDPS). If you’re just wanting to mess around and see if you can buff rDPS but not really be competitive about it, go for it, and know it’s okay if it “doesn’t work out” running SCH/AST.

My current static runs WHM/SCH because our WHM is more comfortable on WHM compared to AST, and our SCH doesn’t play AST. We cleared Neo as a group this week (some of us had already cleared weeks ago, but this was our first clear as a static), and while we may be super behind as a group compared to others, we still got the job done, and WHM/SCH works for us.

[Sylvain]

Don't forget your libra. It's not your dps, but it's dps.
If I could add the dps my card brings, I'd be top heal dps without casting a single malefic

[CreinCrein]

SCH has the highest dps in a raid setting without burdening the other healer. They're also close with AST if not exceeding it in rdps contribution because of their high dps/hps carry potential + chain. You can pretty much run any composition barring double ups so just do what you're comfortable with/what you have fun doing.

[Sebazy]

Pretty much as above really. Being able to guarantee Chain aligning with your other raid buffs is absolutely massive, making it punch well above the weight most initially expected it to.

For perspective, on a reasonably clean (or at least, as clean as my group ever gets these days) O2S, I'm 1.7-2k dps with over 2k being a very attainable target with a little practice. By comparison my co healer on SCH is knocking on the door of 3k and again, I suspect that with a little practice and better buff alignment, he could push past 3k consistently. It's also worth noting that he isn't casting a single GCD heal at that stage either tho, a couple of indoms and excogs as well as maximising his fairy's output.

[SilentVoice]

well if not casting any GCD heals (i will assume that adlo+succor included into definition of GCD heals), this will be stressing to a main healer. basically i am not sure if we are ready for such tactics either, as most people barely above i325 and we still can't get a clean kill (takes a couple of wipes sometimes to get our weekly)
then again, myself i would hate end up being healer only for exocgs and indomitability, while mainly focusing on damage at all other times, so normally i'd love my GCD heals and shields to be needed