SCH needs some nerfs

[Eloah]

This thread is still alive, who knew. Someone should cast Bio II and Miasma on it, lol

[Exiled_Tonberry]

Actually, weaving solutions would make a difference for White Mage. I mained AST a bit, and I was so happy to move at the end of my Malefic cast, and still be able to Draw, or any oGCD.

I want to agree, but I think doing that would just make WHM feel more like AST and I don't really want that.
Really they just need another instant GCD ability similar to SCHs Miasma II or Ruin II, and I do feel like Fluid Aura would be just the thing here if they put it on the GCD and gave it some damage.

[Mansion]

I want to agree, but I think doing that would just make WHM feel more like AST and I don't really want that.
Really they just need another instant GCD ability similar to SCHs Miasma II or Ruin II, and I do feel like Fluid Aura would be just the thing here if they put it on the GCD and gave it some damage.

I'm really thinking about "band aid" solutions. What should have been done along with AST changes.
Not so relevant in regards to 5.0 rework

[Jerrkazoo]

I want to agree, but I think doing that would just make WHM feel more like AST and I don't really want that.
Really they just need another instant GCD ability similar to SCHs Miasma II or Ruin II, and I do feel like Fluid Aura would be just the thing here if they put it on the GCD and gave it some damage.

First post woot!

I've actually been thinking of an idea like this to help with WHM pDPS. As cool as it would be for Fluid Aura to do Lily-based damage, I think we would also be annoyed because we now have another oGCD to clip with. So my idea is to change Fluid Aura into a 1.5 sec cast time damaging GCD with an initial potency of 150 and inflicting a 6-sec DOT of 75 potency per tick, with the range, MP cost, and recast timer being the same as Stone. This would provide frequent windows to single-weave and still feel different from AST gameplay, since Stone's cast time would be unchanged.

And/or change PoM to a 60-second CD. Maybe that's an option?

[Exiled_Tonberry]

This might be an ugly opinion here, but tbh I feel like AST's original healing strength was fine relative to the utility they brought, it's just that their original card system sucked nuts

This, for real. The card system sucking so bad at first along with needing to heal more really messed things up. AST should have never been doing WHM level (or in the case of CU and Star, higher than WHM) heals.

They really need to step back and look at AST again. There's no downside whatsoever to it's massive amounts of utility it brings. It heals as well as WHM, it does more damage with less effort. It just makes no sense.
WHM isn't allowed utility because of it's supposedly stronger healing power.
SCH is limited by Aetherflow.
AST can just have whatever it wants with no drawbacks, it doesn't make any sense.

[Jinzhu]

This, for real. The card system sucking so bad at first along with needing to heal more really messed things up. AST should have never been doing WHM level (or in the case of CU and Star, higher than WHM) heals.

They really need to step back and look at AST again. There's no downside whatsoever to it's massive amounts of utility it brings. It heals as well as WHM, it does more damage with less effort. It just makes no sense.
AST can just have whatever it wants with no drawbacks, it doesn't make any sense.

I don't necessarily agree with the damage part. There's a lot of things you have to do to optimize damage as an AST. Lining up cards so that it doesn't decrease rDPS but let's you get potential lords under raid buffs like trick, litany, contagion etc takes a bit of thought as well as using sleeve draw optimally so you can potentially get 2/3 lords under raid buffs.

For example 3 Lord trick would be have a held lord and save it for trick > use it > draw > redraw and and minor arcana it (only if its a bad card) > Lord > Sleeve Draw > Lord. That's not even the maximum potential either since there's 4 Lord trick (generally only used prepull) since it takes a bit to pull off.

4 Lord trick: Have Lord held > Use redraw and hold it for 20+ seconds (bad card only) > Use Lord > GCD > MA draw card + Lord > GCD > Draw + Redraw > GCD > Lord + Sleeve > GCD > Lord.

And if you let your Sleeve Draw shift even a little bit you're losing quite a bit of damage so making sure delayed draws don't interfere with SDs CD is pretty crucial.

Where as White Mage is just hit Assize under TA if it doesn't save a heal and holding PoM for 30 seconds so it aligns with 3 minute burst but if you lose a use you just use it on CD. Not thinking too much about what you're doing.

There's also more you have to know and study up on as an AST vs WHM to maximize it's potential. If you draw an Arrow during a point of the fight who does it benefit the most? The NIN will get an extra Spinning Edge but the DRG will gain a Full Thrust but if you don't know that and give it to the NIN it's an easy loss of potency. It's also important to know how giving that Arrow during the point of the fight will affect their rotation at that point i.e giving the DRG an Arrow can make BoTD and oGCD usage a little funky. So you basically have to study everybodys own timings. If the Arrows value wouldn't exceed 230 potency (Broil II) then you're left at 2 options. Either give it to the SCH as they are almost guaranteed to get an extra GCD from that Arrow or gamble it to try and get 300 potency.

It's the same if you pull an extra Balance. You gotta know how much damage each person is doing relative to the timer on the fight. Giving it to the NIN during 2:00 intervals so it catches their full burst. Giving it to the BRD during it's Raging Strikes + Minuet window. Giving it to DRG when they are about to enter Nastrond. The problem with Balance is because it's 30-45 seconds even if it catches their burst it might not be worth it if the seconds after burst is bad i.e MCH where they have a pretty powerful 10 second window but drop afterwards.

That's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of AST optimization, there's a lot more minor stuff but those alone make AST harder to play than WHM. It's why I think AST is the hardest job to play as they have to optimize healing, optimize the raids DPS and optimize their personal DPS. As a SCH with a high end cohealer all I do is fill in the gaps where my ASTs heals dont reach.

It's also pretty interesting to note that AST does about 8-10 more CPM than WHMs do on average. Juggling a lot more actions than WHM has to even if it's because they have a 1.5s cast time.

I agree though that AST damage shouldn't be doing WHM levels of DPS (more after the Minor Arcana change). WHM pDPS should be 15% more damage than AST and SCH (if AST/SCH are doing 4k then WHM is doing 4.6k). That value changes in between patches as Balance and Chain get stronger per patch. I don't like to take Fey Wind into account because on XIVRDPS it's weighted way higher than it should be as it can't properly calculate the amount of extra GCDs you gain from it giving everyone a set value. Even if you don't gain a GCD from it Fey Wind will still have value on it.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

This, for real. The card system sucking so bad at first along with needing to heal more really messed things up. AST should have never been doing WHM level (or in the case of CU and Star, higher than WHM) heals.

They really need to step back and look at AST again. There's no downside whatsoever to it's massive amounts of utility it brings. It heals as well as WHM, it does more damage with less effort. It just makes no sense.
WHM isn't allowed utility because of it's supposedly stronger healing power.
SCH is limited by Aetherflow.
AST can just have whatever it wants with no drawbacks, it doesn't make any sense.

This mentality is what needs to die or WHM will forever suffer. The devs simply have to accept we don't heal the way they intended us to, which is their own damn fault. It baffles me how they reduce the difficulty wholesale in Stormblood yet remain mystified people demanded more DPS from healers than even in Heavensward. Well, duh. You made it easier. They either need to embrace the community's approach and turn WHM into the SAM/BLM of healers, i.e., not only is its healing better it does monstrously high damage. Or they make healing far more demanding and let WHM fill that niche. What they cannot do is maintain the "raw healing!" philosophy for another expansion when they aren't adjusting the content to ever need it. And we haven't even touched on the fact WHM's raw healing isn't actually better.

Perhaps the one saving grace is Yoshida did mention during the Q&A then intend to add another layer to their balancing. One can only hope they start monitoring Savage and Ultimate more. Their focus on casual content for balancing is why so many jobs have struggled. You need to see jobs near their full potential. WHM is going to look fairly impressive in a dungeon setting but Alphascape Savage proves how decidedly out-classed it gets.

[Jinzhu]

This mentality is what needs to die or WHM will forever suffer. The devs simply have to accept we don't heal the way they intended us to, which is their own damn fault. It baffles me how they reduce the difficulty wholesale in Stormblood yet remain mystified people demanded more DPS from healers than even in Heavensward.

This this this. SE gave us more healing tools in Stormblood and REDUCED healing requirements in fights which is just baffling. Because of these new tools Ultimates are a lot easier to heal than they could have been. The only truly healing intensive part of UCoB was Teraflare phase (adds). Golden looked intimidating but there's only a spike of damage every like 40 seconds then no damage aside from auto attacks and tank busters. Same goes for UWU, Garuda and Aetherplasm phase were the only real healing intensive fights. My group got through UWU with 9 Succors during boss uptime. 3 Of those being in Garuda and 6 being after Aetheroplasm. And this was before the Passage and Collective change, I don't wanna think how much easier it is now.

3 Succors, 2 Indoms, 2 Excogs, 1 Soil in Garuda. 1 Adlo Deploy, 1 Indom, 1 Excog in Ifrit. 0 GCDs 1 Indom Titan. 6 Succors, 6 Indoms, 1 Excog. Total of 11 healer GCDs, 10 Indoms, and 4 Excogs over 15 minutes because AST can cover the majority of the damage with Earthly Star, Collective and proper Aspected Helios usage during downtime. And because there's so much time in between each set of damage Star and Collective are nearly up for every big AoE. As I said before this was before the Collective and Passage change so you can probably get rid of soils all together and probably 2 succors and a deploy.

I haven't had the chance to optimize UCoB like I did with UWU but I have a rough mapout of it and there's even less healing than UWU. The majority of healing will come from Add Phase. Even though it's super optimized it's still pretty pathetic that you can get away with doing that amount of heals just because ASTs kit meshes so well with the fight design.

[Ghishlain]

I don't necessarily agree with the damage part. There's a lot of things you have to do to optimize damage as an AST. Lining up cards so that it doesn't decrease rDPS but let's you get potential lords under raid buffs like trick, litany, contagion etc takes a bit of thought as well as using sleeve draw optimally so you can potentially get 2/3 lords under raid buffs.

For example 3 Lord trick would be have a held lord and save it for trick > use it > draw > redraw and and minor arcana it (only if its a bad card) > Lord > Sleeve Draw > Lord. That's not even the maximum potential either since there's 4 Lord trick (generally only used prepull) since it takes a bit to pull off.

4 Lord trick: Have Lord held > Use redraw and hold it for 20+ seconds (bad card only) > Use Lord > GCD > MA draw card + Lord > GCD > Draw + Redraw > GCD > Lord + Sleeve > GCD > Lord.

And if you let your Sleeve Draw shift even a little bit you're losing quite a bit of damage so making sure delayed draws don't interfere with SDs CD is pretty crucial.

Where as White Mage is just hit Assize under TA if it doesn't save a heal and holding PoM for 30 seconds so it aligns with 3 minute burst but if you lose a use you just use it on CD. Not thinking too much about what you're doing.

There's also more you have to know and study up on as an AST vs WHM to maximize it's potential. If you draw an Arrow during a point of the fight who does it benefit the most? The NIN will get an extra Spinning Edge but the DRG will gain a Full Thrust but if you don't know that and give it to the NIN it's an easy loss of potency. It's also important to know how giving that Arrow during the point of the fight will affect their rotation at that point i.e giving the DRG an Arrow can make BoTD and oGCD usage a little funky. So you basically have to study everybodys own timings. If the Arrows value wouldn't exceed 230 potency (Broil II) then you're left at 2 options. Either give it to the SCH as they are almost guaranteed to get an extra GCD from that Arrow or gamble it to try and get 300 potency.

It's the same if you pull an extra Balance. You gotta know how much damage each person is doing relative to the timer on the fight. Giving it to the NIN during 2:00 intervals so it catches their full burst. Giving it to the BRD during it's Raging Strikes + Minuet window. Giving it to DRG when they are about to enter Nastrond. The problem with Balance is because it's 30-45 seconds even if it catches their burst it might not be worth it if the seconds after burst is bad i.e MCH where they have a pretty powerful 10 second window but drop afterwards.

That's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of AST optimization, there's a lot more minor stuff but those alone make AST harder to play than WHM. It's why I think AST is the hardest job to play as they have to optimize healing, optimize the raids DPS and optimize their personal DPS. As a SCH with a high end cohealer all I do is fill in the gaps where my ASTs heals dont reach.

It's also pretty interesting to note that AST does about 8-10 more CPM than WHMs do on average. Juggling a lot more actions than WHM has to even if it's because they have a 1.5s cast time.

I agree though that AST damage shouldn't be doing WHM levels of DPS (more after the Minor Arcana change). WHM pDPS should be 15% more damage than AST and SCH (if AST/SCH are doing 4k then WHM is doing 4.6k). That value changes in between patches as Balance and Chain get stronger per patch. I don't like to take Fey Wind into account because on XIVRDPS it's weighted way higher than it should be as it can't properly calculate the amount of extra GCDs you gain from it giving everyone a set value. Even if you don't gain a GCD from it Fey Wind will still have value on it.

I really like this post just because it gives a lot of insight for card decision making at a very high end level. It doesn't change my opinion that the reward for playing AST as a lower skill level feels far too good for the effort you have to put into it as you can ignore a lot of this optimization and still get good mileage for your buffs as long as you have a general idea of how kits operate and a running gauge of everyone's DPS - but it definitely puts into light the amount of effort one has to put on to the table to reach those top percentiles. And even if you remove the card system entirely from AST they would still do more rDPS than WHM due to their current levels of pDPS.

Give party buffs gain strength as the gear levels increase in an expansion, I almost wonder if the party buffs given by healers could use a minor nerf just to allow WHM to keep up with the power creep for the expansion. Just some food for thought to put on the table.

This this this. SE gave us more healing tools in Stormblood and REDUCED healing requirements in fights which is just baffling. Because of these new tools Ultimates are a lot easier to heal than they could have been. The only truly healing intensive part of UCoB was Teraflare phase (adds). Golden looked intimidating but there's only a spike of damage every like 40 seconds then no damage aside from auto attacks and tank busters. Same goes for UWU, Garuda and Aetherplasm phase were the only real healing intensive fights. My group got through UWU with 9 Succors during boss uptime. 3 Of those being in Garuda and 6 being after Aetheroplasm. And this was before the Passage and Collective change, I don't wanna think how much easier it is now.

3 Succors, 2 Indoms, 2 Excogs, 1 Soil in Garuda. 1 Adlo Deploy, 1 Indom, 1 Excog in Ifrit. 0 GCDs 1 Indom Titan. 6 Succors, 6 Indoms, 1 Excog. Total of 11 healer GCDs, 10 Indoms, and 4 Excogs over 15 minutes because AST can cover the majority of the damage with Earthly Star, Collective and proper Aspected Helios usage during downtime. And because there's so much time in between each set of damage Star and Collective are nearly up for every big AoE. As I said before this was before the Collective and Passage change so you can probably get rid of soils all together and probably 2 succors and a deploy.

I haven't had the chance to optimize UCoB like I did with UWU but I have a rough mapout of it and there's even less healing than UWU. The majority of healing will come from Add Phase. Even though it's super optimized it's still pretty pathetic that you can get away with doing that amount of heals just because ASTs kit meshes so well with the fight design.

I am actually curious. If you look at the percentile logs for UwU, WHM pretty much kills the rest of the competition at almost all percentiles. Is there a reason for that in UwU?

If healing requirements are so low, that would imply a AST/SCH team would be able to handle it easily imply the three healers would have the same DPS heirarchy as Savage yet WHM sits on the healer DPS throne for UwU. I've only seen up to Titan enrage, so I don't have the know how to dissect the fight fully, let alone how to optimize fully for the fight.

[edit] Just going to randomly add that I feel like due to the way the fight was structured, the buff alignments for WHM worked out well as I feel like I had PoM + CS up for every primal transition which coincided with TA applications which may have helped the DPS.

[loreleidiangelo]

I really like this post just because it gives a lot of insight for card decision making at a very high end level. It doesn't change my opinion that the reward for playing AST as a lower skill level feels far too good for the effort you have to put into it as you can ignore a lot of this optimization and still get good mileage for your buffs as long as you have a general idea of how kits operate and a running gauge of everyone's DPS - but it definitely puts into light the amount of effort one has to put on to the table to reach those top percentiles. And even if you remove the card system entirely from AST they would still do more rDPS than WHM due to their current levels of pDPS.

Even then, in the example they listed, fudging up that decision-making is literally no more potency loss than blowing a SCH stack on something that isn't Energy Drain (10 pp loss per second when you do the math on it). And that's on a pretty hypothetical/niche situation to boot (drawing Arrow, not having Shuffle up, not having Royal Road for an AOE effect), and it ALSO assumes equal skill level/skill input on behalf of the players involved (aka, the DRG and NIN are pressing buttons at the same speed and are optimizing buffs exactly as they should), and also that they have the same gear/are doing the same damage output, which is not a given until we're talking absolute BiS. Even then, an RNG crit will still completely put the wash on any calculations you'd made about this one extra GCD you'd get from a raw Arrow card, so...why should this situation even be on the radar for balance discussion? There are too many variables to make it a meaningful bout of decision-making, IMO. Meanwhile, every other AST on the planet just uses their abilities to fish out AOE Spears, Balances, and Arrows and gets insane value out of very little planning, decision-making, or forethought.

Their point about CPM is also pretty moot frankly, because AST toolkit is bloated with a bunch of stuff to try to get favorable situations out of crap RNG. It's easy to do 8-10 more CPM than your co-healer when you have a 1.5 second cast speed on your basic damage nuke, you have two Draw actions every minute, and very likely two Shuffles every minute, a Spread, as well as possibly one Royal Road and/or one Minor Arcana every minute. IIRC Drawing a card and using a card also count as "casts", inflating AST CPM even more (aka Draw Balance, counts as a cast, put it in Spread, counts as a cast, use it from Spread counts as a cast). It's hardly worth discussing. Yes, it's a ton of APM, but so is mashing an Embrace macro on SCH, except that Embrace doesn't get counted as a "SCH ability" so it doesn't get to inflate their CPM because it's the pet move.

EDIT: Since I'm aware I sound a bit like a heel here, I guess the easiest way to state my position is that I think it's better to look at how low the AST skill floor is rather than talk about its skill ceiling, at least when it comes to the measure of their cards. When the difference in "optimal" vs "average" card use is like, 300 potency over 30 seconds in an extremely fringe situation unlikely to crop up with any frequency in the average raid or a 10% DPS increase on a sustained damage dealer vs one about to use their burst vs 5% increased damage for the entire raid or whatever I just don't feel like it's relevant. Most of the time using AOE damage increase cards or a single-target card on your highest damage dealer is going to be more than enough contribution for an AST to shove way beyond the contribution of WHM (and possibly SCH tbh), and that's the point I think SE should address. Ironically, if AST card buffs were STRONGER using one sub-optimally would have pretty devastating results, but I don't think any of us who main healers in this game want AST cards to actually be more valuable than they are now lol.